JOHN BROWN.—page [32].
Little boys who live in cities, and wear velvet coats, and hats with plumes in them, and have long, silky curls, just like a little girl’s, hanging over their shoulders to their belts, and drag along through the streets holding on to a nurse’s hand, when they are seven or eight years old, and are more afraid of a little mud on their boots or on their velvet coats than anything else; who have more rocking horses, and whips, and humming tops, and velocipedes, and guns, and swords, and marbles, and Noah’s arks, and bat and balls, than they know what to do with, can hardly imagine how a little boy in the country, with none of these things, and with nobody to amuse him, or to tell him how to amuse himself, could possibly be happy or contented. I am going to tell you about John Brown, who was another kind of boy. He had never seen a city, or wore a hat on his head. He jumped out of bed himself without any nurse, and ran out of doors barefoot into the grass, eating a bit of bread for breakfast, or anything that came handy. There were no houses about, for he lived in a little hut, in the wilderness, with nothing but trees, and wild beasts, and Indians. He was only five years old when his father took him and his mother in an old ox cart, and went ’way off in the forest to live. As I told you, he had no toys; and he used, though such a little fellow, to help drive the cows home; and now and then he would ride a horse, without any saddle, to water. Sometimes he would watch his father kill rattlesnakes—great big fellows, too, such as you have shuddered to look at, even through a glass case in the Museum; and he learned not to be afraid of them, too. At first he trembled a little at a live Indian, when he met him in the woods, and was more afraid still of his rifle; but very soon he became used to them, and liked to hang about and see what they did; and after a while he learned some of their queer talk himself, so that they could understand each other very well. I suppose he got along with the Indians much better than his father, who stammered very badly, and is said never to have spoken plain at all, except when he was praying. Wasn’t that very strange? Johnny’s father used to dress deerskins; and Johnny learned it so well by watching him, that he could at any time dress the skin of a squirrel, or a raccoon, or a cat, or a dog. He learned, too, to make whiplashes of leather, and sometimes he would manage to get pennies for them, which made him feel very grand, just as if he kept shop. When he was about six years old, a poor Indian boy gave him a marble—the first he had ever seen. It was bright yellow, and Johnny thought it was splendid, and kept it carefully a long while, turning it over, and holding it up to the light, and rolling it on the floor of his father’s hut. One unlucky day, Johnny lost the yellow marble. I dare say you will laugh when I tell you that it took years to cure him of mourning for that marble; and that he used to have long fits of crying about it. But you must remember that it was the only toy he ever had, and that there were no shops about there where he could get more. One day, after the loss of the marble, he caught a little squirrel. It bit Johnny badly while he was catching it. However, Johnny held on to him, for he was not a kind of boy to let a thing go, after he had once made up his mind to have it; and so the squirrel made the best of it, particularly when he found he had lost his bushy tail in the fight, and he let Johnny tame him, and feed him, and he would climb up on Johnny’s shoulder, and look at him with his little bright eye, and then scamper down again over the grass, and then back again, and perch on Johnny’s hand, so that he was just as dear to him as your little brother is to you; or the good little boy next door, who plays with you in your father’s yard, and never once vexes you. One day Johnny and his squirrel went into the woods to play; and while Johnny was busy picking up sticks, the squirrel wandered away and got lost; and for a year or two after that, the poor boy mourned for his little pet, looking at all the squirrels he could see, for his own little bob-tailed squirrel, because no other squirrel would do but that one he had tamed and loved. But he never found him; and, between you and me, perhaps it was just as well for the squirrel. I dare say he is cracking nuts quite happily in some snug tree, and scampering about with his little baby squirrels, and has quite forgot Johnny and his lost tail.
What Johnny liked above all things, was to be sent off by his father a great way though the wilderness, with droves of cattle; and when he was only twelve years old, he used to go with them more than a hundred miles. What do you think of that? He was quite proud of it himself, and nobody could have affronted him more than to offer to help him at such times. He was more like a little Indian than anything else; he could hear so quickly any sound a long way off; and he declared that he had often smelled the frying of doughnuts at five miles’ distance. Pretty good nose, hadn’t he?
When Johnny was eight years old, his mother died. Ah! you may be sure that the loss of the yellow marble, and the bob-tailed squirrel, was nothing to this. He cried and mourned for her, as he wandered through the woods, or drove cattle for his father, and I suppose sometimes, though he loved his father, that when he came within sight of the little hut, he would rather have lain on the ground all night, than to have gone into it, and missed her pleasant “Well, Johnny, is that you, dear?” Well, he got along as well as he could, and grew a hardy, tough lad in the open-air work his father gave him to do.
Some time after this, when away some hundred miles from home with a drove of cattle, he stopped at an inn with a landlord who had a very bright little slave boy, just Johnny’s age. This little slave boy’s master made a great pet of Johnny, and brought him to the table with his best company, and repeated all his smart sayings, and asked them if they did not think it wonderful, that a boy of his age could drive so many cattle safely one hundred miles from home? And, of course, they petted Johnny too, and praised him, and thought he was quite a wonder. I suppose Johnny would have felt very nice about it, had it not been that the little slave boy, who was just his age, and as bright a little boy as Johnny, was beaten before his very eyes by his master, with an iron shovel, or anything that came handy; and while Johnny was fed with everything good, this little fellow was half starved, and half frozen with cold, on account of his thin clothing. Johnny could not forget that; he had never seen anything like it before; when he went to his comfortable bed, it troubled him; when he ate good food, it seemed to choke him; when he put on warm clothes, he felt ashamed to be warm, while the little slave boy was shivering; and Johnny felt worse, because he was only about ten years old, and couldn’t do anything to help him; but as he was going home through the woods, he said, aloud, as if he were telling it to “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” “When I grow bigger, I’ll fight for the slaves; and I’ll fight for the slaves wherever I see them, so long as I live.” For all this, Johnny was such a bashful boy, that about this time, when a lady to whom he was sent on an errand gave him a piece of bread and butter, he did not dare to tell her he didn’t eat butter, but as soon as he got out of the house he ran for a long distance, till he was out of sight, and then threw it away.
About this time a friend of Johnny’s, who owned some good books, offered to lend him some to read, for he knew how to read, although he had been to school but little. He liked history very much, and became so interested in these books, that he wanted to know all the people who had studied and read books too, and who could tell him about the world, and things which had happened in it, and how everything came about; and this desire for learning gave him a dislike to foolish talk and foolish people; and whenever he heard any sensible talk go on, as he traveled off with his cattle, he just pricked up his ears, and stored it away in his little head, to think of when he got home. You have no idea how much he picked up and how much he educated himself in that way. It would shame many boys who go to good schools, only to turn out lazy, stupid dunces.
When Johnny was fifteen, his father put him at the head of his currier and tanner establishment. Here Johnny had a large company of men and boys to look after. Now, men don’t like much to have a boy order them to do this or that, even though they are working for that boy’s father; but Johnny was so bright and knowing, and pleasant, that you will not be surprised to hear that they got along nicely together. Instead of quarreling with him, the men used to praise him for being so smart; so that, though he was very bashful when he began business, by the time he was twenty, he began to think he really was a smart fellow, sure enough. But that was natural, you know; and I only think it was a wonder he was not quite spoiled by so much praise, and so much power, when he was so young. His young brother used to make fun of him and call him “King Johnny,” because he spoke in such a decided way to the workmen, when he wanted anything done; but Johnny went about his business and let him talk. He had his hands full cooking his own dinners, and learning arithmetic, and surveying, and I don’t know what else besides; for he was not a fellow who could even be idle a minute, you may be sure of that. The world was too full of things he wanted to know, and he was in too great a hurry to get at them.
All the time John was a young man, he never wanted, or wore, fine clothes, although he was neat and tidy. He ate plain food, and never touched tobacco, or spirits, or tea, or coffee. He drank milk, or only water. So, you see, he had a clear head for study and business, and I don’t think he ever knew the meaning of the word “dyspepsia.” When John got a letter, he always wrote on the back of it the name of the person who wrote it, and either “Not answered,” or “Not time to read,” or “No answer needed.” I tell you this to show you how thoroughly he did everything he undertook; and so honest was John, that he refused to sell his customers any leather, until every drop of moisture had been dried out of it, because the water would make it weigh more, you know, and, of course, he would get money that did not really belong to him. I think, had John lived in New York, some of the business men here would have thought him crazy, or he would have thought them crazy; but, you see, John couldn’t cheat; not even though he should never be found out in it. Most young men, when they are of John’s age, think more about their own affairs than anything else—their own business, their own pleasures, etc.; whether they will ever be rich men, how rich they will be, and all that. It was not so with John. He wanted money, ’tis true, but all this time he had not forgotten the little slave boy, and others like him, and it was for such as he that he wanted money, that he might help them away from their masters, and help them to be free by and by. He married, and had many children of his own, and when these children grew up, they all felt just as their father did about the slaves. After a time, John helped eleven slaves to get away to Canada, where they were quite safe. How glad they must have been! and how they must have loved John! Somebody asked John how he felt when he got them there? he said that he was so happy about it, that he was quite ready to die then. But there was other work for John and his boys to do. There was a place called Kansas, where John’s boys went to live; but as soon as the people there found out that John’s boys and himself loved the slaves, they began to steal their cattle, and burn their fences, and try, in every possible way, to trouble and bother them. So John’s boys wrote home to the old man about it, and told him that he must send them some guns and muskets, to defend their property and their lives with. Well, the old man didn’t have to stop to think long about that. He told his other boys, who were living at home with him, about it, and they agreed to start right off for Kansas, with as many guns and muskets as they could get. John had no idea of his boys out there being murdered and robbed, without fighting for them, especially when they were treated so merely for pitying the poor slaves. When they reached there, John and his four boys, they each had a short, heavy broadsword strapped to their sides. Each one had a quantity of firearms and revolvers, and there were poles standing endwise round the wagon box, with fixed bayonets, pointing upward. Oh! I can tell you, he was in real earnest about it! Well, they suffered great hardships there, while fighting for their rights: one of John’s boys was taken by the enemy, and driven with chains on him, so far in a hot sun to prison, that he became a maniac; another of his sons was so injured, that he became a cripple for life; another son was murdered while quietly walking along the road, and as he lay a corpse on the ground, one of his brutal enemies discharged a loaded pistol in his mouth. All this John had to bear, but he only said, “It is very hard; but my sons have died in a good cause—died for the poor slaves.” Most people thought, “John has had enough of it now; he will fight no more about slavery; he has taken the rest of his boys back to his old home in the mountains, and he will not be in a hurry to have them killed.”
They were mistaken. John was only waiting to whet his sword. He knew how to wait. One day, the whole country about Harper’s Ferry was in a state of distraction. The women and children were frightened to death, for John Brown was down there; and it was said he was going to help all the slaves he could to get away from their masters; and that his boys were there to help him, and a great many other men; and that they had guns, and swords, and pistols in plenty, and meant to fight fiercely, if anybody tried to hinder them. John chose Harper’s Ferry, because there were mountains all about it, and he had known every turn in them, and all their valleys, too, for seventeen years, and in case they were beaten, he thought it would be a good place for himself and the slaves to hide in, as well as a good place to fight from. The first night of John’s attack on the town, he and his men put out all the lights in the street, and took possession of the armory, where the firearms, you know, are kept. Then they took three watchmen, and locked them up in the guardhouse. There must have been friendly black people in the town who helped them do all this. Some of them cut down the telegraph wires, and others tore up the railroad track after the train had passed. When it came daylight, John and his men took prisoner every person who came out into the streets, and when people said, “Why do you do this? What do you mean?” John and his men said, “We mean to free the slaves!” One of the workmen employed at the armory, when he came to work that morning, and saw an armed guard at the gate, asked of John’s guard, “By what authority have you taken possession of this building?” “By the authority of God Almighty!” said he.
Well, one after another, the workmen who came to their work in the armory that day, were taken prisoners. There was a terrible panic, I can tell you. John and his five sons were inside the armory grounds, while others were stationed outside the walls, to hold the town—some at the bridges, some at one place, some another. When the workmen whom John took prisoners told him how troubled their wives and children would be about them, John kindly allowed them to go home, under a guard of his soldiers, to tell them not to be frightened. John wanted, in doing this, to make the people understand that the prisoners in his hands should not be hurt; a brave man, you know, is always a tender-hearted man. Poor John! he lingered too long about these things. The people whom he allowed to go in the cars, before he tore up the railroad track, wrote on little slips of paper terrible accounts of him, and scattered them through the country as the cars went flying through; so the first thing he knew, one hundred soldiers came to Harper’s Ferry from Charlestown. Now, indeed, they had bloody work. John’s men began to get killed, but not one of them but sold his life as dearly as he could, fighting fiercely till he could fight no longer. Some lay dying in the street, some of the corpses floated down the river, some were taken, bleeding and gasping, to prison. Even after John’s men were dead, his enemies continued to kick and beat their insensible bodies, and many ran sticks into their wounds. And now John knew that all that was left him, was to sell his life as dearly as he could. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying boy with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and told his few men about him to be firm and calm. He said that his boys came with him to fight of their own accord, and that they had died in a good cause. Well, the soldiers soon battered down the building, and got in where John and his men were. An officer, as soon as he saw John, although he and his men had then done firing, struck him in the face, and knocked him down. The same officer repeated the blow several times, and then, when John was lying on the ground, helpless, another soldier ran his bayonet twice into the old man’s body, whose face and hair were clotted with blood. Then they searched his pockets, and took what they wanted, and then carried him, bleeding, to the guard house, and laid him on the bare floor, without anything under him. Then the governor hurried down to see him, with several of his friends, and though the poor old man was writhing in agony with his wounds, and the blood and the smoke were not yet washed from his face, for thirty hours they let him lie upon the floor, with his head propped up on a chair, while they questioned him, and while the mob insulted him. After that, John was carried off to Charlestown jail, under a guard of soldiers. The body of John’s son was carried off for the doctors to cut up. Seven days after this John was dragged from his bed, and being unable to stand, was supported on each side by an officer into court, and there laid on a bed, to be tried by the laws of Virginia, for what he had done. Well, John had a “Virginia trial.”