“And to this cause we solemnly dedicate our strength, our minds, our spirits and our lives!” As long as they lived men and women talked about that August afternoon on Nantucket Island. John A. Collins, general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, was at Frederick’s elbow when the meeting let out. “We want you as an agent,” he was saying. “Come, Mr. Garrison told me to bring you to him.” While the crowd surged about them, the great man once more held Frederick’s hand, but now he gazed searchingly at the brown face. “Will you join us, Frederick Douglass?” he asked. “Oh, sir, I am a member of the Society in New Bedford,” Frederick answered quickly and proudly. Garrison smiled. “Of course. But I mean more than that--a lot more. I’m asking you to leave whatever job you have and work with me. The pay is--well--uncertain. They tell me you have a family. I too have a family.” “Yes, sir. I know,” Frederick said, his eyes like an adoring child’s. “I am asking you to leave your own family and work for the larger family of God.” “Yes, sir, I understand. I want to help. But I am ignorant. I was planning to go to school.” “You will learn as you walk, Frederick Douglass. Your people need your strength now. We all need you.” So Frederick left his job at the foundry and, as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, began active work to outlaw slavery in the nation. CHAPTER SEVEN _Jobs in Washington and voting in Rhode Island_ Amelia Kemp stood at her attic window. The waters of Chesapeake Bay tossed green and white and set the thick mass of trees on distant Poplar Island in motion. A boat rounded Keat Point. For a few moments Amelia could see the tips of the masts and a bit of white sail against the sky. Then it all disappeared. But the sight of a boat sailing away over the waters, of a ship going out to sea, was not at this moment depressing. She too was going away. Lucy was dead. That morning they had laid her worn body in a grave at the edge of the pines. Covey, his Sunday suit sagging, stared stupidly while they shoveled in the hard lumps of clay. The preacher had wrung the widower’s hand, reminding him that “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”; and they had returned to the unpainted, sagging house. Now there was nothing further to do. She could go. Amelia had tried to persuade her sister to leave with her before it was too late. She had dared to read her portions of Jack’s letters--“Come along, there are jobs in Washington--even for women.” But Lucy would have none of it. Her duty was clear. There were moments when she urged Amelia to go, others when she clung to her weakly. So the months had stretched into six years, and Amelia had stayed on.