here, and dropped him in the woods; he's been to mill once and to meeting
twice. What does he know?"

When I heard this it amused me very much, although the decision seemed
to be against me. I made no more inquiries about temperance meeting, in
fact, I didn't care to hear any more about it.

Writing my first temperance effort has blown all the wind out of my
sails, and if I were not relating actual occurrences I should certainly
be run ashore. As it is, sleep may invigorate and bring back my memory.
When relating facts it is not necessary to call on any muse, or fast, or
roam into a shady bower, where so many have found their thoughts. When
relating facts, fancy is hot required to soar untrodden heights where
thought has seldom reached; but too freely come back all the weary days,
the toils, fears and vexations of my early life in Michigan, if not
frightened away by the memory of the decision of the old lady and
gentleman, on my temperance speech.

Perhaps I should say, in honor of that old gentleman, Mr. Joseph Pardee,
now deceased, that he was well advanced in years when he came to
Michigan, in the fall of 1833, stuck his stakes and built the first log
house on the Ecorse, west of the French settlement, at its mouth, on
Detroit River. He was a man of a strong-mind and an iron will. He cleared
up his land, made it a beautiful farm, rescued it from the wilderness,
acquired, in fact, a good fortune. When he died, at the good old age of
eighty-one years, he left his family in excellent circumstances. He died
in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.