two territories and opened them for settlement, was passed in May. 1854.
This bill directly opposed the Missouri Compromise, which restricted
slavery to all territory south of 36'0 30" north latitude. A clause in
the new bill provided that the settlers should decide for themselves
whether the new territories were to be free or slave states. Already
hundreds of settlers were camped upon the banks of the Missouri, waiting
the passage of the bill before entering and acquiring possession of
the land. Across the curtain of the night ran a broad ribbon of dancing
camp-fires, stretching for miles along the bank of the river.

None too soon had father fixed upon his claim. The act allowing settlers
to enter was passed in less than a week afterward. Besides the pioneers
intending actual settlement, a great rush was made into the territories
by members of both political parties. These became the gladiators, with
Kansas the arena, for a bitter, bloody contest between those desiring
and those opposing the extension of slave territory.

Having already decided upon his location, father was among the first,
after the bill was passed, to file a claim and procure the necessary
papers, and shortly afterward he had a transient abiding-place prepared
for us. Whatever mother may have thought of the one-roomed cabin, whose
chinks let in the sun by day and the moon and stars by night, and whose
carpet was nature's greenest velvet, life in it was a perennial picnic
for the children. Meantime father was at work on our permanent home,
and before the summer fled we were domiciled in a large double-log
house--rough and primitive, but solid and comfort-breeding.

This same autumn held an episode so deeply graven in my memory that time
has not blurred a dine of it. Jane, our faithful maid of all work, who
went with us to our Western home, had little time to play the governess.