Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/154

146 free land. In Missouri they met hatred and inhospitality, and in Kansas sickness and freezing weather. Nevertheless they were stout-hearted and hopeful, and went bravely to work until the political storm broke, when they wrote home hastily for arms to defend themselves. John Brown, as we have seen, brought the arms himself, taking his son Oliver and his son-in-law Henry with him. "We reached the place where the boys are located one week ago, late at night." he wrote October 13, 1855. "We had between us all, sixty cents in cash when we arrived. We found our folks in a most uncomfortable situation, with no houses to shelter one of them, no hay or corn fodder of any account secured, shivering over their little fires, all exposed to the dreadful cutting winds, morning, evening and stormy days." All went to work to build cabins and secure fodder, keeping at the same time a careful eye on the political developments. On free state election day, October 9th, "hearing that there was a prospect of difficulty, we all turned out most thoroughly armed," but "no enemy appeared" and Brown was encouraged to think that the prospect of Kansas becoming free "is brightening every day."

By November the settlers, he wrote, "have made but little progress, but we have made a little. We have got a shanty three logs high, chinked and mudded, and roofed with our tent, and a chimney so far advanced that we can keep a fire in it for Jason. John has his shanty a little better fixed