"Mother, I would shoot the villain that did that as quick as I could get sight at him."
"But, Levi," I replied, "he is not fit to die."
"No, and he never will be; and the quicker he goes to the place where he belongs the better. Indeed, I would shoot him as quick as I would a squirrel if I could see him."
Joseph, my son, responded:
"I think Levi is about right, mother; the quicker such a demon is out of the world the better."
"I know this is a sad sight for us to look upon; but I did not call you in to set you to fighting."
Many of my friends, and my son-in-law Levi, had thought me rather severe in judging the mass of slaveholders by the few unprincipled men who had fallen under my special notice; but I never heard of any remark whatever from my son-in-law or neighbors, after this incident, that charged me with being too severe in judging slaveholders. I furnished the poor man with healing salve, and tried to persuade him to rest a few days until he would be able to work; but no, he must see Canada before he could feel safe. He was very loath to sleep in any bed, and urged me to allow him to lie on the floor in the kitchen, but I insisted on his occupying the bed over the kitchen. I gave him a note of introduction to the next station agent, with a little change; and a few weeks after I heard from my friend, whose name was George Wilson. The reporter said: "The first two weeks he seemed to have no energy for any thing. But then he went to work, and quite disappointed us. He is getting to be one of the best hands to hire in Windsor."
This was the second fugitive from slavery who slept in my home—mine being the first house they had dared to sleep in since leaving their old home. A few days later another fugitive came from Louisiana. He was a black-smith. I wrote to a wealthy farmer in Napoleon, Michigan, to learn whether he could not furnish business for one or the other of two new arrivals from slavery. To show the feelings of thousands of our citizens at this date, I will extract a portion of his letter:
"There are constantly in our moral horizon threatenings of strife, discontent, and outbreaks between liberty and slavery. The martyrdom of John Brown only whets the appetite of the monster for greater sacrifice of life. The continued imprisonment of Calvin Fairbanks and others are not satisfying portions. I read your letter to our Arkansas friend, and we are glad to learn that another has escaped from the land of bondage, whips, and chains. In view of the wrongs and cruelty of slavery, how truly may it be said:
'There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart;
It does not feel for man.'