“Say nothing about the shoes. We’ll surprise him,” she had cautioned. _A joke on Pa!_ They hugged their secret gleefully, as children will. At last the house was still and she lay down beside him. “Everything’s gone fine, hasn’t it, dear?” He spoke with deep contentment. “The children are well. The house looks better than it did when I went away. How did you do it?” Her body touched his in the old bed. “I managed,” she murmured. The shoes had made her hands rough and hard. His skin was warm and smooth. “Have you missed me?” he asked. Her sigh of response came from a heart at peace. * * * * * Washington read of Frederick Douglass’ return in the _National Era_. Gamaliel Bailey had been printing short accounts of his activities in Great Britain. Many of the Abolitionists had protested against Douglass’ purchase by English friends. They declared it a violation of antislavery principles and a wasteful expenditure of money. The _National Era_ took up the issue. “Our English friends are wise,” Bailey’s editorial commented. “Maryland’s slave laws still stand. Frederick Douglass is now free anywhere in the United States, only because he carries manumission papers on his person. The Eastern Shore can no longer claim him.” The slaveholding power, it seemed, was stronger than ever. Texas with its millions of acres had been admitted to the Union, and President Polk was negotiating a treaty that favored the slave oligarchy. Abolitionists had split over political matters and had weakened themselves. But the sparks had fallen and were lighting fires in unexpected places. Charles Sumner, emerging from the State Legislature in Massachusetts, was moving toward the United States Senate. From Pennsylvania came David Wilmot with his amendment of the proposed treaty saying “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part” of the territory acquired as a result of the Mexican War. Longfellow, most popular author in America, was writing thunderously on slavery; _The Biglow Papers_ were circulating, and petitions, signed by tens of thousands, were gathered and delivered in Washington by Henry Wilson and John Greenleaf Whittier. Inside Congress, the aged John Quincy Adams laid the petitions before the House. The House tabled them--but the sparks continued to fly. On an evening late in May a group of people responded to invitations sent out by the Reverend Theodore Parker and gathered at his house in Boston. He had called them together to discuss further strategy. Among those present were Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing,[9] Walter Channing,[9] Wendell Phillips, James Russell Lowell, James and Lucretia Mott, Charles Sumner, Joshua Blanchard, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.