Peterboro', N. Y., May 15, 1857.
Your most kind letter of the 26th of April I did not get
till within the last two or three days, and then I was on my way West, full of
cares, and in feeble health. I have just written my friend Stearns a letter of
explanation, in which I frankly ask that the one thousand dollars' donation I
was so generously encouraged to expect for the permanent assistance of my wife
and children be, under the circumstances as so explained, promptly raised.
This, I think, much the cheapest and most proper way to provide for them, and
far less humiliating to my wife, who, though not above getting her bread over
the washtub, will never tell her trials or her wants to the world. This I know
by the experience of the past two years, while I was absent; but I would never
utter a syllable in regard to it, were I not conscious that I am performing
that service which is equally the duty of millions, who need not forego a
single hearty dinner by the efforts they are called on to make. I did not mean
to burden my friends Stearns and Lawrence further with the thing. I do not love
to “ride free horses till they fall down dead.”
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of
John Brown, p. 408
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