Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/220

Rh food, and cared for the comfort of all. That was the domestic hearth; that was the calm haven where all the labourers found rest and refreshment under the protection of Mother Anne. Hence they called the tent Anne's Arbour or Bower, and the city, which by degrees sprung up around it, retained the name. And with its neat houses and gardens upon the green hills and slopes the little city looked indeed like a peaceful retreat from the unquiet life of the world.

We remained over night at Anne Arbour. The following morning we set off by railroad and travelled directly across the State of Michigan. Through the whole distance I saw small farms, with their well-built houses, surrounded by well-cultivated land; fields of wheat and maize, and orchards full of apple and peach trees. In the wilder districts the fields were brilliant with some beautiful kind of violet and blue flowers, which the rapidity of our journey prevented me from examining more closely, and with tall sunflowers, the heads of which were as large as young trees. It was splendid and beautiful. My old pioneer told me that he never had seen anywhere such an affluence of magnificent flowers as in Michigan, especially in the olden times before the wilderness was broken up into fields. Michigan is one of the youngest States of the Union, but has a rich soil, particularly calculated for the growth of wheat, and is greatly on the increase. The legislation is of the most liberal description, and it has abolished capital punishment in its penal code. Nevertheless I heard of crime having been committed in this State, which deserved death, or at least imprisonment for life, if any crime does deserve it. A young man of a respectable family in Detroit, during a hunt, had shot clandestinely and repeatedly at another young man, his best friend, merely to rob him of his pocket-book. He had been condemned, for an attempt to murder, which he acknowledged, only to twenty years' imprisonment. And in