Suddenly stopping us under the dark shadowy trees, and laying one hand on Oliver's shoulder and the other on mine, he said low and earnestly: "I do not know where I shall be when that beautiful moon has made its journey around this world once more, but one thing I do know and that is this: through my ceaseless efforts I have corralled the slave holders until now I have them in a trap. If my efforts are not impeded the slave will eventually free himself. If they are, and I am destroyed, the North, through sympathy for me and justice to the slave, will continue my cause until the bondmen are free. So you see I have them in a trap, but my aim is to avoid a bloody war, for the families in the South are as dear to me as those in the North, but slavery is a sin and must cease. Soon this generation will be passed, other men our lands will till and other men our streets will fill. When we are all gone the South as well as the North will speak kindly of him who dared to oppose his country's unjust laws." All of Brown's men as well as myself considered the Harper's Ferry raid an unwise move, but to Brown, human life seemed a secondary matter, as compared to the continuation of national sin. The last evening I stayed at the Kennedy Farm. After a supper of corn cake and molasses, Stephens and Tidd, who had melodious voices, sang "All the Dear Folks at Home Have Gone" and "Faded Flowers." Their voices echoing softly down the glens where the tree of freedom was about to appear rooted and nourished in the blood of those brave helpless invaders. Oliver Brown, noticing my emotion, gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder, saying, "Now we will all join in with father, 'Nearer my God to Thee,'" which we did before kneeling together for the last time at that strange family altar. When I left for the North next day, the understanding was that the raid would not take place until about November 1st, but condition made it expedient for them to move at once, which they did. I arrived home the 17th of October, and after supper I saddled the horses, when my wife, Vida and myself ran up the mountains at a spirited canter, arriving at the Brown Farm in the dark. In the small frame house we found his wife, Mary, and three of his daughters, Anna, Sarah and Ellen; Mary, the wife of Oliver; Henry and Ruth Thompson and several neighbors. All listened in silence, while I related the incidents of my visit at the Kennedy Farm, but, of course, none of us knew that Brown had already taken possession of Harper's Ferry, that Oliver and Watson had been killed, and that the old man was holding out so grimly in the engine house.