Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/128

120 him, though the women folks had resorted to hot water. Father at this time said, 'Their cup of iniquity is almost full.' One evening as I was singing, 'The Slave Father Mourning for his Children,' containing these words,—

father got up and walked the floor, and before I could finish the song, he said, 'O Ruth! Don't sing any more; it is too sad!

At the same time his thrifty careful attention to minutiae did not desert him. He keeps his eye on North Elba even after his wife and part of the family returned to Akron and writes: "The colored families appear to be doing well, and to feel encouraged. They all send much love to you. They have constant preaching on the Sabbath; and intelligence, morality and religion appear to be all on the advance." His daughter says: "He did not lose interest in the colored people of North Elba, and grieved over the sad fate of one of them. Mr. Henderson, who was lost in the woods in the winter of 1852 and perished with the cold. Mr. Henderson was an