CHAPTER 32
Historians
From diary, letter, interview.
If already written, retrace all its courses—
Another's book may not be true.
Historians make distrustful mates
And scarce can trust each other's dates.
Rhymes of Research
Ella Higginson, who during 45 years as a well-known poet has never disclosed her exact age to the public, once remarked in good-natured evasion: "The only dates I know anything about are those wrapped in fondant and those that I faithfully keep—when I can be persuaded to make them." History writing would be shorn of half its drudgery and many of its pitfalls if it could be done with this delightful attitude. But it can't, not wholly. Although too much chronology makes stupid reading, a certain amount of it is indispensable, and in local and regional records it is likely to play a more important part than in wider surveys. Formidable indeed is the calendar of Oregon history, and while many careful historians and the Oregon Historical Society have done much to straighten it out, the forces of confusion are still at work and all their past damage has not been corrected. Such a motto as "Fewer and Better Dates" might be adopted to advantage, or, better still, an official commission might be appointed, with the duty of determining the time of all the events that are woozily flying around in books under two different dates, or four, or maybe a dozen. Any writer caught using a different date and not able to prove it before a jury, would go to jail. The commission would have a hard job, but it would be heaven for the historians, who could then be some-
