worn and sick, with a fugitive slave as a kind of trophy hidden
in his wagon. Before long he found security and peace for a
while at North Elba, New York, at the house of Gerrit Smith.



CHAPTER VI

THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

We now find John Brown busy for a while in the Northern States
addressing Abolitionist meetings, collecting funds for the cause,
and co-operating with the Anti-slavery Committees, of which there
were several thousands. In many homes where the friends of
freedom lived he was a welcome guest, not least welcomed by the
children, who always seemed to refresh his weary heart. 'Out of
the mouths of children,' as the psalmist says (according to one
version), 'God gives strength to true men.' You might often have
seen him holding up a little two-year-old child, saying, 'When
John Brown is hanged as a traitor she can say she used to stand
on John Brown's hand.' He was no false prophet!

Now also he was able to revisit, after two years' absence, the
old homestead where his wife and children were awaiting him, down
to the little one whom he had left an infant in the cradle.
'Come,' says the strange father to the little prattler, 'I have
sung it to all of them; I must sing it to you.'

Blow ye the trumpet, blow
The gladly solemn sound: