Chapter Eleven
The storm came up in the West and birds flew North
There never had been such a time for cotton. All over the South the cotton foamed in great white flakes under the sun. Black workers staggered beneath its weight. Up and down the roads straining mules pulled wagons loaded with bubbling masses of whiteness. The gins spat flames and smoke; the presses creaked and groaned, as closer and closer they packed the quivering mass until, dead and still, it lay in hard, square bundles on river wharves, beside steel rails and on rotting piers. Shiploads were on their way to the hungry looms of England and the crawling harbors of China. Prosperity lay like a fragrant mist upon the Southland in 1854.
William Freeland rode over his acres with satisfaction. True, they had diminished in number; but if cotton prices continued to rise, the master of Freelands could see years of ease stretching ahead. Since his mother’s death Freeland had left the running of the plantation pretty much to hired overseers. He had not interfered. He spent a lot of time in Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. With his dark brooding face and wavy, gray-streaked hair, the master of Freelands enjoyed much popularity with the ladies. He remained a bachelor.
It was Sunday morning, and the slight chill in the air was stimulating. Dead leaves rustled beneath his horse’s hoofs as he pulled up just inside the wrought-iron gates, where the graveled drive was guarded by the old sycamore. Time was beginning to tell on the big house far up the drive, but it still stood firm and substantial, though the Old Missus no longer tapped her cane through its halls. William Freeland sighed. He wished his mother had lived to see the last two good years at Freelands. For things falling to piece had made her unhappy. “A strong hand was lacking,” she said. The Mistress had grieved when old Caleb died and Aunt Lou, crippled with rheumatismand wheezing with asthma had to be sent away to a cabin at the edge of the fields. Henry had taken Caleb’s place, of course. But in this, she had acknowledged, her son had been right: Henry was stupid and incompetent. It was evident he would never master the job of being a good butler. On the other hand she used to remind William of the “bad-blood rascal” he had brought in to plant wicked seeds of rebellion at Freelands. Grumbling and sullen faces multiplied. In the old days, she had said, Freeland slaves never tried to run away.
The overseers came, had tightened up on things. The last runaway had been a young filly with her baby. The dogs had caught her down by the river and torn her to pieces. Freeland had gone away for a while afterward.
He went on up the drive slowly, chuckling when he spied the queer figure bent double under the hedge, scooping at the dirt with his bare hands. The inevitable butterfly net and mesh bag lay close by on the ground, though everybody knew that fall was no time to chase butterflies. William Freeland shook his head. What some men did to get famous! For that funny little figure under his hedge was Dr. Alexander Ross, entomologist, ornithologist, and ichthyologist, whose discoveries of rare specimen of bugs were spread out on beautifully colored plates in expensive books! He had met the scientist at the home of Colonel Drake in Richmond. The daughter of the house, who had been sent North to school, had simply babbled about him. She had displayed an autographed copy of one of those books, as if it were worth its weight in gold. When the funny little man had murmured he might be able to find aCroton Alabameseson the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the master of Freelands had invited him to his plantation where, he had said with a laugh, there were sure to be some very rare bugs indeed. Later Freeland learned that aCroton Alabameseswas not a bug, but a plant. It was the first evening when they were sitting on the veranda, and Dr. Ross had remarked on the charm of the old garden with its sweeping mosses, overgrown walks and thick hedges.
“It is lovely!” The little man had screwed up his eyes behind his thick glasses and blinked with delight.
After that he had been up before dawn and out all day, net and bag in hand. He tramped great distances through woods and river mud. He talked with the slaves, who, his host was certain, thought the little man was crazy. Freeland thought it well to warn him about lonely, unused lanes and river lowlands.
“Time was,” he added, “when I’d never think of cautioning a visitor at Freelands. Crime used to be unknown in these parts. But now there are many bad blacks about. It’s dangerous!” The little man was not listening. He was measuring the wing spread of a moth. Freeland became more insistent.
“Just a few weeks ago,” he said, “a poor farmer named Covey was found in his own back yard with his head crushed in. Most of the slaves were caught before they got away, but the authorities are still looking for his housekeeper, whom they really suspect of the crime. It’s horrible!”
The scientist was frowning, a puzzled expression on his round face.
“But why—Why should they think his housekeeper did this awful thing?”
William Freeland shrugged his shoulders. “It seems a dealer in the village told how this woman carried on like mad when Covey sold some girl off the place. I don’t know the details. But the man says he heard the woman say she’d kill her master.”
“Tck! Tck!” The little man shook his head.
“So you see, Doctor,” continued his host, judiciously, “that woman is at large andyou’dnever be able to cope with her.”
“Why, is she in the neighborhood?” Now Dr. Ross seemed interested.
“It would be very hard for her to get through the cordon they’ve laid around that neck of land. In your long tramps you might easily wander into the section without knowing it. So I wouldn’t get too far off the place if I were you.”
The little man nodded his head. Next evening, however, he did not return to the house until long after dark. He was bespattered with mud. He said he had stumbled and lost his specimens for the day. The mesh bag hung limp at his side.
But no harm had befallen him. There he was, looking like one of his own bugs, under the hedge. William Freeland swung off his horse and went into the house.
“Tell the Doctor breakfast is ready,” he said to Henry, who came forward.
“Dat dirty old man!” grumbled Henry, as he shuffled away on his errand. The master had to laugh.
No yellow canary sang in the alcove, but breakfast hour in the high-ceiled, paneled room passed very pleasantly. In the rare intervalswhen Dr. Ross was not squinting through his microscope or chasing through the woods, he was an interesting talker. This morning he compared the plant and insect life of this section of the Eastern Shore to a little strip of land in southern France on the Mediterranean.
“Nature has scattered her bounties lavishly here in the South,” he said. And because it was a happy subject William Freeland began to tell the scientist about cotton.
“The new state of Texas added thousands of acres. They’re starting to raise cotton in California, and now,” his voice showed excitement, “they find cotton can be raised in the Nebraska Territory.”
“A marvelous plant!” Dr. Ross was really interested.
A shadow crossed Freeland’s face.
“There is just one drawback. There aren’t enough slaves to raise cotton on all this land. The Yankees fear our cotton. They know that, if they let us alone, cotton will become the deciding factor throughout the country. Because they have no cotton lands, they try to throttle us. They tie our hands by trying to limit slavery. They know that cotton and slavery expand together.”
“But if slavery becomes illegal—as it did in Great Britain—in the West Indies?” The little man leaned forward. William smiled indulgently. He took a long draw on his pipe before answering.
“The United States is only a federation of states—nothing more. Where slavery was not needed it was abolished. But we need slaves here in the South, now more than ever. So”—and he waved his pipe—“we’ll keep them!”
“I’m reversing my schedule today,” Dr. Ross said as they rose from the table. “This afternoon I shall take a nap, because tonight I’m going out afterLepidoptera. I saw signs of him down by the creek yesterday, but they only fly after dark. I may be out all night.”
His host frowned.
“I’d better send one of the boys with you.” The little man shook his head.
“No need at all, sir. I doubt if I go off your grounds. I’ll trap one down in the bottoms below the meadow.”
William Freeland thought about the doctor that night when he went to bed—out chasing moths in the dark. Freeland took another sip of brandy before he put out his light.
Nine young men met Alexander Ross that night in the woods. To all of them, through devious channels, had come the word that “riders” on the Underground Railroad could be accommodated.
Dr. Ross sorted them into three groups and gave each one a set of directions. At such and such a place in the woods, the first trio would find a man waiting. Half a mile up the river bank, the second contingent were to look for an empty skiff tied to a willow: it wasn’t empty. The others had a wagon waiting for them on a nearby back road.
They had come supplied with as much food as they could conveniently carry. Ross handed each slave a few dollars, a pocket compass, a knife and pistol.
Then they scattered. Ross went a few miles with the group heading inland through the woods and then doubled back toward Freelands. He even caught a rare moth, which he carefully placed in his mesh bag.
A few days later the quiet little scientist shook hands with his host and took his departure.
Such was Alexander Ross before he was knighted by several kings for his scientific discoveries and honored by the French Academy. Wherever he went in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi, he talked of birds and plants. Equipped with shotgun and preservatives, he roamed nonchalantly into field and wood. The slave disappearances were never related to him.
Along the Underground Railroad they called him “the Birdman.” Through him, Jeb, the boy Frederick had left behind in Baltimore, got away to freedom. And there were others along the Eastern Shore to whom Frederick had said, “I’ll not be forgetting!” Douglass sent Alexander Ross back along the way he had come and made good his promises.
Cotton and slavery—by 1854 the two words became synonymous. The Cotton Empire was straining its borders. More land was needed for the “silver fleece,” and slaves must break the land and plant the seed and pick the delicate soft pods. There was no other way.
Then a shrewd bidder for the presidency made an offer to the South—western territory for their votes—and they sprang at the bribe. Passage of the Nebraska Bill stacked the ammunition for civil war dangerously high.
This scrapping of the Missouri Compromise struck antislavery men all in a heap. The line against slavery had been so clear—no slaves above the line. It should have run to the Pacific, stretching west with the course of empire. But now, by means of the cleverwording of the Nebraska (Territory) Bill—“to leave the people ... free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way”—a vast tract embracing upward of four hundred thousand square miles was being thrown open to slavery. Stephen Douglas drove the Bill through Congress. It was his moment of triumph.
The North reacted. Harriet Beecher Stowe led eleven hundred women marching through the streets in protest. Great mass meetings assembled. They hanged Stephen Douglas in effigy. State legislatures met in special sessions and sent manifests to Congress. William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Henry Highland Garnet, and Henry Ward Beecher raised their voices like mighty trumpets; they filled the air with oratory.
The five sons of John Brown set out for Kansas.
They were among the less important people who saw that if “the domestic institutions” were to be left to those who lived there to decide, it was going to be necessary for antislavery men to settle on the land. The brothers’ combined property consisted of eleven head of cattle and three horses. Ten of this number were fine breeds. Thinking of their value in a new country, Owen, Frederick and Salmon took them by way of the Lakes to Chicago and thence to Meridosia where they were wintered. When spring came, they drove them into Kansas to a place about eight miles west of the town of Osawatomie, which the brothers had selected as a likely spot to settle.
Seven hundred and fifty men set out that summer under the auspices of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society. Some traveled by wagon over lonely trails. Others sailed down the Ohio River, their farm implements lashed to the decks of the boats.
They found a lovely land—wide open spaces, rolling prairies and wooded streams under a great blue dome. They set up their tents and went about breaking soil. They dreamed of cattle herds, waving fields of corn and wheat, orchards and vineyards. There was so much of the good, rich earth in Kansas.
Election Day—when members for the first territorial legislature were chosen—came on March 30, 1855. Horace Greeley himself went out to Kansas to cover the election for his paper, theNew York Tribune.
Slaveholders poured into the territory from Missouri by the thousands and took over the polls.
“On the evening before and the day of the election,” Greeleywrote, “nearly a thousand Missourians arrived in Lawrence in wagons and on horseback, well armed with rifles, pistols and bowie-knives.” According to his account, they made no pretense of legality, one contingent bringing up two pieces of cannon loaded with musket balls. It was the same everywhere in the territory: the invaders elected all the members of the legislature, with a single exception in either house. These were two Free Soilers from a remote district which the Missourians overlooked. “Although only 831 legal electors in the territory voted, there were no less than 6,320 votes polled.”
The people of Kansas repudiated this election and refused to obey the laws passed. Ruffians were called in “to aid in enforcing laws.” Then it was that the sons of John Brown wrote their father asking him to procure and send them arms and ammunition to defend themselves and their neighbors.
John Brown had given up his store in Springfield, Massachusetts, and moved to a small farm in the hills of North Elba, New York. Just before the trek West, he had written his son John: “If you or any of my family are disposed to go to Kansas or Nebraska with a view to help defeat Satan and his legions in that direction, I have not a word to say; but I feel committed to operate in another part of the field.”[13]
He had not heard from Kansas for many months, when he got the request for arms.
John Brown held his sons’ letter in his hands. He went outside and stood looking up at the Adirondacks, his hacked-out frame and wrinkled, yellow face hard against the sky. Then he strode to the barn and saddled his horse.
“I’m going to Rochester,” he told his wife. “I want to talk this over with Douglass.”
She stood in the narrow door and watched him riding down the trail. He did not look back. John Brown never looked back.
In Rochester people had already begun pointing out Frederick Douglass’ house to strangers. Until Douglass came and moved his family into the unpretentious two-story frame dwelling, Alexander Street had been one of many shady side-streets in a quiet section of the city. The dark-skinned new arrivals caused a lot of talk, but no open antagonism.
Famous folk from Boston and New York and Philadelphia began appearing on Alexander Street. Somebody said he’d recognizedHorace Greeley, editor of a newspaper in New York; and somebody else was sure he saw the great preacher, Wendell Phillips. The neighbors grew accustomed to seeing Mr. Daniel Anthony’s huge carryall drive up of a Sunday afternoon and stop in front of the house, while all the Douglass family piled in. Mr. Anthony’s big place with its rows of fruit trees was several miles out in the country. Evidently that was where they went. Then they talked about Mr. Anthony’s daughter, Susan B. Anthony. She was pretty famous herself—what with going around the country and getting her name in all the papers. Some of the men shook their heads over this. But the women bit off the threads of their sewing cotton with a snap and eyed each other significantly. They reminded their men folks that the Woman’s State Temperance Convention had been a pretty important affair.
“Temperance conventions is one thing,” said the men, “but this talk about women voting is something else!”
Then one lady spoke up and said she’d heard their neighbor Frederick Douglass make a speech about women voting. “And it was wonderful!” she added.
“Seems like he’d have enough on his hands trying to free slaves!” grumbled one man, snapping his suspenders.
Douglass did have a lot on his hands. TheNorth Starwas a large sheet, published weekly, and it cost eighty dollars a week to issue. Everybody rejoiced when the circulation hit three thousand. There were many times when Douglass was hard pressed for money, and the mechanical work of getting out the paper was arduous. The entire family was drafted. Lewis and Frederick learned typesetting, and both boys delivered papers. The two little fellows soon became a familiar sight on Rochester streets, papers under their arms and school books strapped to their backs.
But the paper was only part of Douglass’ work. One whole winter he lectured evenings at Corinthian Hall. Other seasons he would take an evening train to Victor, Farmington, Canandaigua, Geneva, Waterloo, Buffalo, Syracuse or elsewhere. He would speak in some hall or church, returning home the same night. In the morning Martin Delaney would find him at his desk, writing or mailing papers.
Sleep in his house was an irregular business. At any hour of the day or night Underground “passengers” arrived. They came sometimes in carriages, with Quaker capes thrown about their shoulders; or they came under loads of wheat or lumber or sacks of flour. Someof them rode in boldly on the train, and more than once a packing-box arrived, markedOpen with Care.
Every agent of the Underground Railroad risked fine and imprisonment. They realized they were bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon, yet the joy of freeing one more slave was recompense enough. One time Douglass had eleven fugitives under his roof. And there they had to remain until Douglass could collect enough money to send them on to Canada. His wife cooked numerous pots of food which quickly vanished. “Passengers” slept in the attic and barn loft.
Many people in Rochester became involved. One evening after dark a well-dressed, middle-aged man knocked at Douglass’ door and introduced himself as the law partner of the United States commissioner of that city. He would not sit down.
“I have come to tell you,” he said, “that an hour ago the owner of three slaves who have escaped from Maryland was in our office. He says he has traced them to Rochester. He has papers for their arrest, and he is coming to your house!”
Douglass stared at the man in amazement. He had recognized his name as that of a distinguished Democrat, perhaps the last person in Rochester from whom he would have expected assistance. He tried to say something, but the gentleman waved him aside.
“I bid you good evening, Mr. Douglass. There is not a moment to lose!” And he disappeared down Alexander Street.
One of the fugitives was at that moment in the hayloft, the other two were on the farm of Asa Anthony, just outside the city limits. That night two black horses rode swiftly through the night. Then Asa Anthony’s farm wagon rumbled down to the docks, and in the morning the three young men were on the free waves of Lake Ontario, bound for Canada.
Douglass and theNorth Starformed the pivot about which revolved much of the work of other Negro Abolitionists, whom Douglass now met for the first time. Henry Highland Garnet, well-educated grandson of an African chief, had never been closely associated with William Lloyd Garrison. From the first he had gravitated toward political action. There were Dr. James McCune Smith, who had studied medicine at Glasgow; James W. Pennington, with his degree from Heidelberg; Henry Bibb, Charles L. Redmond, and Samuel Ringgold Ward, Garnet’s cousin, who attracted Douglass in a very special manner. Ward was very black and of magnificent physique.They were all older than Douglass. But they strengthened his hand; and he, in his turn, was proud of them.
Then in 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, and no Negro, regardless of his education, ability, or means, was safe anywhere in the United States. Douglass had his manumission papers. His freedom had been bought. But Henry Highland Garnet and Samuel Ringgold Ward knew it was best that they leave the country.
Until Ward died the two men traveled in Europe, where Henry Highland Garnet came to be called the “Negro Tom Paine.” Douglass felt most deeply the loss of Ringgold Ward, whom he considered vastly superior to any of them, both as an orator and a thinker.
“In depth of thought,” he wrote, “fluency of speech, readiness of wit, logical exactness, and general intelligence, Samuel Ringgold Ward has left no successor among colored men amongst us.”
Meanwhile Douglass squared his shoulders and took on more responsibility. He saw former slaves who had lived for years safely and securely in western New York and elsewhere—who had worked hard, saved money and acquired homes—now forced to flee to Canada. Many died during the first harsh winter. Bishop Daniel A. Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church consulted Douglass as to the advisability of both of them fleeing.
“We are whipped, we are whipped,” moaned Payne, “and we might as well retreat in order.”
Douglass shook his head. “We must stand!”
It was the spring of 1855, and never had the huge mills and factories and tanneries of Rochester been busier. Great logs of Allegheny pine rode down the Genesee River and lay in clean, shining tiers of lumber in the yards. Up and down the Erie Canal went the flatboats, mules straining at the heavy loads; and on the docks of Rochester Port the goods lay piled waiting for lake steamers to go westward. Rochester boasted that it was the most important station on the newly completed New York Central Railroad.
The vigorous young city waxed fat. Sleek, trim “city fathers” began considering the “cultural aspects” of their town. Rochester’s Gallery of Fine Arts was established; plans were drawn up for an Academy of Music. “Causes” became less popular than they had been. There were those who gave an embarrassed laugh when Susan B. Anthony’s name came up, and some wondered if so much antislavery agitation was good for their city.
Slaveholders, vacationing in Saratoga Springs, dropped in on Rochester. They admired its wide, clean streets and fine buildings, but they shuddered at the sight of well-dressed Negroes in the streets. The Southerners spent money freely and talked about new cotton mills; and more than one wondered aloud why Frederick Douglass was allowed to remain in such a fine city.
But the hardy, true strain of the people ran deep. When Frederick Douglass was prevented from speaking in nearby Homer by a barrage of missiles, Oren Carvath resigned as deacon of the Congregational Church, sold his farm and moved to Oberlin. His son, Erastus, made Negro education the work of his life and became the first president of Fisk University.
There was scarcely any moon the night Douglass rode his horse homeward along Ridge Road. He had spoken in Genesee on the Nebraska Bill and politics for Abolitionists.
He enjoyed these solitary rides. They cleared his brain. But tonight he kept thinking about an angry letter he had received that day—a letter in which the writer had accused Douglass of having deserted his friend Garrison “in the time of his greatest need.” Douglass loved William Lloyd Garrison and the complete unselfish sincerity of the New Englander’s every utterance.
“If there is agoodman walking on this earth today, that man is Garrison!” Douglass spoke the words aloud and then he sighed.
For he knew that theNorth Starwas diverging more and more from Garrison’sLiberator. Douglass took a different stand on the Constitution of the United States.
Garrison had come to consider the Constitution as a slaveholding instrument. Now as the clashes were becoming more bitter in Boston and New York, he was raising the slogan “No Union with Slaveholders.”
Douglass, with the Abolitionists in western New York, accepted the fact that the Constitution of the United States was inaugurated to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.” They therefore repudiated the idea that it could at the same time support human slavery. Douglass held the Constitution as the surest warrant for the abolition of slavery in every state in the Union. He urged the people to implement the Constitution through political action.
And so the former teacher and pupil were being pushed farther and farther apart. Douglass knew that Garrison’s health was poor. He thought,I must go to Boston, I must see him. And then his mind reverted to the low state of his funds. He rode along sunk in dejection.
He did not heed the horses’ hoofs beating the road until they came close behind him. He looked back—three riders were just topping the hill. They slowed up there and seemed to draw together. And suddenly Douglass felt that familiar stiffening of his spine. At the moment he was in the shadow of a grove; but just ahead the road lifted and he would be completely exposed. He walked his horse. Perhaps he was mistaken. They were coming forward at a slower pace and would most certainly see him any moment now. As he left the shadow of the trees he touched his horse and shot forward. He heard a shout and bent over as a bullet whizzed by!
It was to be a chase, but they were armed and he could not outrun their bullets. The road was a winding ribbon now, and he was gaining. He saw a clump of trees ahead. Yes, there was a little lane. As he turned off sharply, he felt a sear of pain across his head. He leaned forward and let his horse find its own way through the trees. Once a low hanging branch nearly swept him off, and several times the animal stumbled. Then they came out into a field, and ahead on a slight knoll was a big house. He could hear them behind him, and that open field meant more exposure; but the house was his only hope. He thought of the unfinished editorial lying on his desk.
“I’ve got to finish it!” he thought desperately, and gritted his teeth to keep from fainting.
Horse and rider were panting when they pulled up at the steps of the wide porch. No lights showed anywhere. Naturally, Douglass thought, everybody was sound asleep. His head felt very queer. He wanted to giggle—What on earth am I doing pounding at this heavy door in the middle of the night?
Gideon Pitts heard the pounding. He got up and started down in his bare feet.
“You’ll catch your death of cold, Gideon!” his wife called after him. But she herself was fumbling for her wrapper. She lit the lamp and holding it in her hand followed her husband to the head of the stairs. Down below in the dark he was fumbling with the heavy bolt. It shot back at last and the great door swung in. A big man filled the doorway. He was gasping for breath. He took one step inside andsaid, “I’m—I’m Frederick Douglass.” Then he collapsed on the floor at Gideon Pitts’s bare feet.
Gideon stood staring out. Through the open door he was sure he saw a couple of horsemen down at the edge of the field. He slammed the door.
Mrs. Pitts was hurrying down, the lamp casting grotesque shadows on the wall.
“What is it, Gideon? What is it? Did he say—?”
“Hush! It’s Frederick Douglass. He’s been hurt. Somebody’s after him!” Her husband’s words were hurried and low. He was bending over the man on the floor.
“I’ll call—” Mrs. Pitts began. Her husband caught her robe.
“Don’t call anyone. Pray God the servants heard nothing. He’s coming to!”
Mrs. Pitts was suddenly the efficient housewife.
“Some warm water,” she said, setting the lamp down, “and then we’ll get him upstairs.” She disappeared in the shadows of the hall.
There was a patter of feet on the stairway.
“What’s the matter, papa?” a child’s voice asked. “Oh!”
“Go back to bed, Helen! Mr. Douglass, are you all right?” Gideon Pitts bent over his unexpected visitor anxiously. Douglass sat up and put his hand to his head. It came away sticky. He looked around him and knew he was safe.
“I’m fine, thank you!” he smiled.
“Lie quiet, Mr. Douglass. Your head is hurt. My wife’s gone for warm water.”
“You are very kind, sir.” Douglass’ head was clearing now. “I’ve been shot.”
He heard a gasp and both men looked up. The little girl in her trailing white nightgown was leaning over the banister just above them, her blue eyes wide with excitement.
“Helen,” her father spoke sharply. “I told you to go back to bed!”
“Oh, father, can’t I help? The poor man is hurt!”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Douglass smiled up at her.
Now Mrs. Pitts was back with bowl and towels. She wiped away the blood, and Gideon Pitts declared that Douglass’ head had only been grazed. Douglass told what had happened, while they bandaged and fussed over him. Then Mrs. Pitts hurried away to get the guest-room ready.
“We’ll be honored if you’d stay the night!” Pitts said. There wasnothing else to do. “I’ll drive you in town first thing in the morning,” his host assured him, helping him upstairs and into a great four-poster bed.
Everybody got up to see him off. Mrs. Pitts insisted that he have a “bite of breakfast.” The hired man had rubbed down and fed his horse.
Holding the bridle reins in his hand Douglass climbed into the buggy with Mr. Pitts.
“Better that I go in with you,” said his host. “Those ruffians might be lingering somewhere along the road.”
It was a fresh, sweet morning in May. The Pitts’ orchard was in bloom. Everywhere was peace and growing things. Douglass smiled at the little girl standing on the wide porch, and Helen Pitts waved her hand.
“Goodbye, Mr. Douglass. Do come back again!”
She felt important, waving at the great Frederick Douglass.
So it happened that the next day John Brown found Douglass with a bandage fastened about his head.
“It’s Captain John Brown!” called Charles, ushering the visitor in. Anna Douglass came in from the kitchen and greeted him warmly.
“We’re just sitting down to breakfast, Captain Brown. You are just in time.”
Little Annie set another plate, smiling shyly at the old man. His hand smoothed her soft hair.
“We’ll take a ride,” he promised and Annie’s eyes shone.
“They’ve attacked you!” John Brown exclaimed when Douglass came in with the bandage on his head.
“It was nothing, a mere scratch.” Douglass shrugged away the incident. “And how are you, my good friend? Something important brings you here.”
“Let him eat his breakfast first,” begged the wife.
Afterward Douglass read the letter from Kansas.
“Perhaps God directs me to Kansas,” said Brown earnestly. “Perhaps my path to Virginia lies through Kansas. What do you think?” Douglass shook his head.
“I do not know.” He was silent a moment, then his eyes lighted. “I’m leaving tomorrow for our convention in Syracuse. Come with me. Lay this letter from Kansas before all the Abolitionists. You’ll need money. Kansas is our concern.”
A few days later John Brown wrote his wife:
Dear wife and children:I reached here on the first day of the convention, and I have reason to bless God that I came; for I have met with a most warm reception from all, so far as I know, and—except by a few sincere, honest, peace Friends—a most hearty approval of my intention of arming my sons and other friends in Kansas. I received today donations amounting to a little over sixty dollars—twenty from Gerrit Smith, five from an old British officer; others giving smaller sums with such earnest and affectionate expression of their good wishes as did me more good than money even. John’s two letters were introduced, and read with such effect by Gerrit Smith as to draw tears from numerous eyes in the great collection of people present. The convention has been one of the most interesting meetings I ever attended in my life; and I made a great addition to the number of warm-hearted and honest friends.
Dear wife and children:
I reached here on the first day of the convention, and I have reason to bless God that I came; for I have met with a most warm reception from all, so far as I know, and—except by a few sincere, honest, peace Friends—a most hearty approval of my intention of arming my sons and other friends in Kansas. I received today donations amounting to a little over sixty dollars—twenty from Gerrit Smith, five from an old British officer; others giving smaller sums with such earnest and affectionate expression of their good wishes as did me more good than money even. John’s two letters were introduced, and read with such effect by Gerrit Smith as to draw tears from numerous eyes in the great collection of people present. The convention has been one of the most interesting meetings I ever attended in my life; and I made a great addition to the number of warm-hearted and honest friends.
The die was cast: John Brown left for Kansas. Instead of sending the money and arms, says his son John, “he came on with them himself, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Henry Thompson, and my brother Oliver. In Iowa he bought a horse and covered wagon; concealing the arms in this and conspicuously displaying his surveying implements, he crossed into Missouri near Waverly, and at that place disinterred the body of his grandson, and brought all safely through to our settlement, arriving there about the 6th of October, 1855.[14]”