"Let us love one another as long as we stay
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way."
NEAR JOHN BROWN'S ADIRONDACK HOME, 1911.
AFTER THE MIST HAD CLEARED AWAY
Forty-six years have passed since the sixteen year old Vida played her part so well in the strange drama of freedom's birth, and now, in an automobile tour to the coast of Maine with my wife, Mary Prickett, and our sixteen year old Vida, who to me, is a veritable imprint of the afore-characterized Vida Thompson. I again travel the winding roads of the old Adirondack Mountains.
We visit the John Brown farm, sit in his easy chair, and climb the great rock which silently stands sentinel where, in turn, the cold winter's blasts in their wild midnight ride howl weirdly, and the sweet spring mornings awaken the forest song birds who shy their nests among the wild flowers near the grace of the old Hero—John Brown.
The Browns are gone from North Elba. New York State has secured possession of the farm and erected a fitting monument to the memory of John Brown. When the old home is gone, and the monument has been replaced, the great rock will stand there just as Brown found it, seeming to say, "I alone will stay and guard his long repose."