Cape Cod Bay. The stream of ill results from that first landing
and the stream of Puritan blood, generous in its passion for
liberty, that flowed unimpoverished from Peter Brown through
generations of sturdy ancestors--these are the streams destined
to meet turbulently and to supply us with our story. Owen Brown,
the father of John, thus testifies to his own fidelity to the
tradition of liberty. 'I am an Abolitionist. I know we are not
loved by many. I wish to tell how I became one. Our neighbour
lent my mother a slave for a few days. I used to go out into the
field with him, and he used to carry me on his back, and I fell
in love with him.' There we have the clue to the history of the
household of the Browns for the next two generations. They FELL
IN LOVE With the despised negro, and this glorious trait passed
like an heritage from generation to generation.

There is a letter extant which supplies us with the best
information on John Brown's own boyhood. It was written for a
lad in a wealthy home where he stayed in later days, who had
asked him many questions about his experiences in early life. He
humorously calls it a 'short story of a certain boy of my
acquaintance I will call John.' A few extracts will reveal his
character in the forming. Here, for instance, you may trace the
conscientiousness (often morbid) which was so marked a feature in
his later days. 'I cannot tell you of anything in the first four
years of John's life worth mentioning save that at that early age
he was tempted by three large brass pins belonging to a girl who
lived in the family, and stole them. In this he was detected by
his mother; and after having a full day to think of the wrong,
received from her a thorough whipping.' He adds, 'I must not
neglect to tell you of a very foolish and bad habit to which John