We disembarked from the ancient craft and were soon leisurely pursuing
our way toward the enterprising town at the other end of the track. It
seemed that we were met by the entire population; for the arrival of the
steamer with mail and passengers was the exciting event of the month.
The station was near the southwest corner of the plaza, which we crossed
diagonally to the post-office, housed in the building that had been my
father's store until he sold out the year before, when he was elected to
the Assembly. Murdock's Hall was in the second story, and a little way
north stood a zinc house that was to be our home. It had been shipped
first to San Francisco and then to Humboldt. Its plan and architecture
were the acme of simplicity. There were three rooms tandem, each with a
door in the exact middle, so that if all the doors were open a bullet
would be unimpeded in passing through. To add to the social atmosphere,
a front porch, open at both ends, extended across the whole front. A
horseman could, and in fact often did, ride across it. My brother and I
occupied a chamber over the post-office, and he became adept in going to
sleep on the parlor sofa every night and later going to bed in the store
without waking, dodging all obstructing objects and undressing while
sound asleep.

We were quite comfortable in this joke of a house. But we had no pump;
all the water we used I brought from a spring in the edge of the woods,
the one found by the Gregg party on the night of Christmas, 1849. The
first time I visited it and dipped my bucket in the sunken barrel that
protected it I had a shock. Before leaving San Francisco, being a
sentimental youth and knowing little of what Humboldt offered, I bought
two pots of fragrant flowers--heliotrope and a musk-plant--bringing them
on the steamer with no little difficulty. As I dipped into the barrel I
noticed that it was surrounded by a solid mass of musk-plants growing
wild. The misapprehension was at least no greater than that which