instinctively scampers off to rub the black from his face.
Returning, he watches his mother giving them supper. Presently
father's extraordinarily quick ear detects the sound of
horsehoofs half a mile away; weapons are thrust into the hands of
the terrified pair, and they are taken out to the woody swamps
behind the house to lie in hiding. Father then returns, only to
discover that it is a false alarm, whereupon he sallies forth to
bring them into shelter and warmth once more, and tells the
assembled family on their arrival how he had difficulty in the
dark in recognizing the hiding-place and really discovered them
at length by hearing the beating of their frightened hearts. No
wonder. Quick as any faculty he had was that of hearing a
slave's heart beat. Had it not been for that keen instinct there
would have been no tale to tell of John Brown.

The daughter says her earliest memory is of her father's great
arms about her as he sang to her his favourite hymn:

Blow ye the trumpet, blow
The gladly solemn sound:
Let all the nations know
To earth's remotest bound.
The year of Jubilee is come,
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

Then, ceasing, he would tell her with heart brimming with
tenderness of poor little black children who were slaves. What
were slaves? she wanted to know. And he was ready enough to
tell her of those who were riven from father and mother and sold
for base coin, whom in some States it was illegal to teach their