Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/69

 life and work is a proof that his idealism was perfect. He marched straight on with his simple purpose, arguing no more, but living out his frank acceptance of his own doctrine. Events soon made a veritable scourge, a man of weapons and bloodshed, out of this peaceable shepherd, this thrifty buyer and expert sorter of fleeces.

His sons John, Jason, Owen, Frederick, and Salmon went to Kansas, as settlers in good faith, in 1854 and 1855. Their emigration was hard, painful, full of privations. Jason's boy, four years old, died on the way. They took with them almost no weapons, but as many tools, fruit-trees, and grape-vines as they could carry. There seems to have been in the removal no prompting of their father nor any distinctly warlike intention on their own part. Brown had written to his son John, when the boys were talking of going: "If you or any of my family are disposed to go to