Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/302

292 was established as general agent to forward men, mail and freight. Then passing through Hagerstown, they appeared at Harper's Ferry on July 4th. Here they met Cook, who had been selling maps, keeping the canal-lock near the arsenal, and sending regular information to Brown. Brown and his sons wandered about at first, and a local farmer greeted them cheerily: "Good-morning, gentlemen, how do you do?" They returned the greeting pleasantly. The conversation is recounted as follows:

"I said, 'Well, gentlemen,' after saluting them in that form, 'I suppose you are out hunting minerals, gold, and silver?' His answer was, 'No, we are not, we are out looking for land; we want to buy land; we have a little money, but we want to make it go as far as we can.' He asked me the price of the land. I told him that it ranged from fifteen dollars to thirty dollars in the neighborhood. He remarked, 'That is high; I thought I could buy land here for about a dollar or two dollars per acre.' I remarked to him, 'No, sir; if you expect to get land for that price, you will have to go further west, to Kansas, or some of those Territories where there is government land.' . . . I then asked him where they came from. His answer was, 'From the northern part of the state of New York.' I asked him what he followed there. He said farming, and the frost had been so heavy lately, that it cut off their crops there; that he could not make anything, and sold out, and