"It is," said Samson. "What can I do for you?"

"Mas'r, de good Lord done fotched us here to ask you fo' help," said the
negro. "We be nigh wone out with cold an' hungah, suh, 'deed we be."

Samson asked them in and put wood on the fire, and Sarah got up and made
some hot tea and brought food from the cupboard and gave it to the
strangers, who sat shivering in the firelight. They were a good-looking
pair, the young woman being almost white. They were man and wife. The
latter stopped eating and moaned and shook with emotion as her husband
told their story. Their master had died the year before and they had been
brought to St. Louis to be sold in the slave market. There they had
escaped by night and gone to the house of an old friend of their former
owner who lived north of the city on the river shore. He had taken pity
on them and brought them across the Mississippi and started them on the
north road with a letter to Elijah Lovejoy of Alton and a supply of food.
Since then they had been hiding days in the swamps and thickets and had
traveled by night. Mr. Lovejoy had sent them to Erastus Wright of
Springfield, and Mr. Wright had given them the name of Samson Traylor and
the location of his cabin. From there they were bound for the house of
John Peasley, in Hopedale, Tazewell County.

Lovejoy had asked them to keep the letter with which they had begun their
travels. Under its signature he had written: "I know the writer and know
that the above was written with his own hand. His word can be relied
upon. To all who follow or respect the example of Jesus Christ I commend
this man and woman."

The letter stated that their late master had often expressed his purpose