Springfield, Mass., Nov. 28, 1850.
Dear Wife, — . . . Since leaving home I have thought that
under all the circumstances of doubt attending the time of our removal, and the
possibility that we may not remove at all, I had perhaps encouraged the boys to
feed out the potatoes too freely. . . . I want to have them very careful to have no
hay or straw wasted, but I would have them use enough straw for bedding the
cattle to keep them from lying in the mire. I heard from Ohio a few days since;
all were then well. It now seems that the Fugitive Slave Law was to be the
means of making more Abolitionists than all the lectures we have had for years.
It really looks as if God had his hand on this wickedness also. I of course
keep encouraging my colored friends to “trust in God, and keep their powder
dry.” I did so to-day, at Thanksgiving meeting, publicly. . . . While here, and at almost all places where I
stop, I am treated with all kindness and attention; but it does not make home.
I feel lonely and restless, no matter how neat and comfortable my room and bed,
nor how richly loaded may be the table; they have few charms for me, away from
home. I can look back to our log-cabin at the centre of Richfield, with a
supper of porridge and johnny-cake, as a place of far more interest to me than the
“Massasoit”1 of Springfield. But “there's mercy in every place.”
_______________
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of
John Brown, p. 106-7
No comments:
Post a Comment