Now the guests at the hospitable home were a mother and seven
children, from England, who, meeting with disappointments, had become
reduced to poverty. Now it was an escaped slave, who had come from
Richmond, Va., in a dry-goods box, by Adams Express. This poor man,
whose wife and three children had been sold from him, determined to
seek his freedom, even if he died in the effort. Weighing nearly two
hundred pounds, he was encased in a box two feet long, twenty-three
inches wide, and three feet high, in a sitting posture. He was
provided with a few crackers, and a bladder filled with water. With a
small gimlet he bored holes in the box to let in fresh air, and fanned
himself with his hat, to keep the air in motion. The box was covered
with canvas, that no one might suspect its contents. His sufferings
were almost unbearable. As the box was tossed from one place to
another, he was badly bruised, and sometimes he rested for miles
on his head and shoulders, when it seemed as though his veins would
burst. Finally he reached the Mott home, and found shelter and
comfort.

Their large house was always full. Mr. Mott had given up a prosperous
cotton business, because the cotton was the product of slave labor;
but he had been equally successful in the wool trade, so that the days
of privation had passed by long ago. Two of their six children,
with their families, lived at home, and the harmony was remarked by
everybody. Mrs. Mott rose early, and did much housework herself. She
wrote to a friend: "I prepared mince for forty pies, doing every part
myself, even to meat-chopping; picked over lots of apples, stewed a
quantity, chopped some more, and made apple pudding; all of which kept
me on my feet till almost two o'clock, having to come into the parlor
every now and then to receive guests." As a rule, those women are the