The Americans who had been enslaved by the government of Tripoli were to be paid for the labor they had performed. It is evident that the reigning Bashaw was alarmed for his own safety and was glad to compromise.
Father said it always grieved him to think, that the Americans who had been held as slaves at Tripoli never returned to their native home. They were paid for their service during the time they had been enslaved, went on board a ship, sailed for North America and were never heard of again. They slept the sleep of death with the twelve most brave beneath the dark cold waves, never more to see their families or friends.
Father often repeated such stories in our wilderness home in regard to this war, the revolutionary war and the war of 1812. I and the other children always listened to these tales with much attention and interest. It was the way I received most of my knowledge, in regard to such things, in those days. As we lived in the woods of Michigan my means of acquiring book-knowledge were very limited. Now, I believe, if I were to read the sum and substance of the same thing every month in the year, for years; the way he related those old stories would still be the accepted way to my mind. Although they might be clothed in language more precise and far more eloquent it would not appear so to me.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LIGHT BEGINS TO DAWN.
Father's farm improved with astonishing rapidity and became quite a pleasant place. Some of the stumps rotted out, some we tore out and some were burned up. In these ways many had disappeared and it began to look like old land. It was rich and productive and, in truth, it looked as level as a house floor. Some seasons it was rather wet, not being ditched sufficiently to take the water off. Yet father raised large crops of corn, potatoes, oats and wheat. Wheat grew very large but sometimes ran too much to straw; some seasons, rust would strike it and then the grain would shrink, but as that and gets older, and the more the clay is worked up with the soil, the better wheat it raises. In my opinion it will be as good wheat land as the oak openings or prairies of the West for all time to come.
Father built him a good frame barn and was getting along well. He bought him a nice pair of black horses which proved to be very good and serviceable. It began to seem like home to mother. She too possessed very good conversational powers. Her conversation was always accompanied with a style of frankness and goodness, peculiar to herself, which gained many friends, who became warmly attached to her, enjoyed her hospitality, witnessed her good cheer, as they gathered around her board and enjoyed luxuries, which in some of the years past we had not been able to procure. The learned and illiterate, the rich and the poor, shared alike her hospitality. No one ever asked for bread, at her door, who was refused, if she had it, even to the poor Indian. We had many comers and goers, and I think there were but few in the town of Dearborn who had more friends than father and mother.
Several years after we planted the first thirteen apple trees, father set out a little orchard of fifty trees, west of them. Some of these proved to be very good fruit and supplied us with better apples, of our own raising, (and in fact some earlier apples) than we had been used to getting from along the Rouge. Then it could be said of us that we sat under our own vine and apple tree and ate the fruit of our hands, without any one to molest us or make us afraid. And, it could be said of father, that he made the place, where the wilderness stood, to blossom as the rose. Everything seemed to work together for our good and all nature seemed more cheerful.
The evening breeze that kissed the rose and made the morning glory (that grew by our window) unfold its robe, so that it would be ready in the morning to display its beauty, and caused the sunflower, aided by the evening dew, to change its face so that it would be ready to look toward the sun, bore away on its wings, over the fields, the fragrance of the rose and the joyful songs of civilization. In the stillness of the beautiful evenings the air, under the starry canopy of heaven was made vocal with the songs and tunes of other days, which had been learned and sung oftimes before in a native land nearly eight hundred miles away.
Now the pioneer felt himself safe. He could retire to his bed, in his log house, and quietly rest in sleep, without draining any more of the redman's approach, or having by his own strong arm, to defend his family. Now he need have no fear of Mr. Bruin entering his pig pen and carrying off his pig, as he did ours one night some years before. He tore the hog so badly that it died, although it was rescued by father and his dog. The bear escaped to the woods. Now how changed the scene with us. We could retire and sleep soundly; feeling as secure as if we had gone to bed way down in the State of New York. We could leave the leather string of the door latch hanging out for any one to enter, as nearly all the early settlers were friends. The ax was now left stuck in the wood block on the wood pile. The rifle hung in its hooks, not to be disturbed. In other nights, of our first settlement, father did not feel safe; the string of the door latch was taken in, the door was fastened and blockaded on the inside, his ax and rifle were placed with care back of the curtains, at the head of his bed. None of us knew what might happen before the light of another morning, for we were in a wilderness land and neighbors were far apart. How different a few years have made it! Now nature seems to smile upon us and the evening, when it comes in its beauty, seems to offer us quiet and repose, rest and security. Now when nature puts on her sable habiliments of night, the blue canopy was covered with stars, that glistened and shone in their glory, as they looked down upon us and seemed to witness our prosperity. How they illumined our beautiful spring nights! The beautiful feathered songsters, that had returned from the south, warbled their songs in our ears anew and seemed to exert themselves, to make their notes clear, and let us know they had come. The little grey phebe-birds, the robins and the blue birds were the first harbingers of spring. As night put on its shade their little notes were hushed in the darkness, then the whip-poor-will took up the strain. He would come, circle around and over our house and door yard and then light down. He too came to visit us, he had found our place again. In fact, he found us every spring after we settled in Michigan, and cut out a little hole in the woods. At first his song seemed to be "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will;" then, by listening, it could be made out to say, "good-will, good-will." In later years, by the aid of imagination, his notes were interpreted, "peace and plenty, peace and plenty." But, whatever we might imagine him to say, his song was always the same. He was a welcome visitor and songster, and his appearance in spring was always hailed with joy.