Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/39

Rh was a disappointment to John Brown one is not able to say with certainty. It looks, however, as if his attempts at higher training were rather the obedient following of the conventional path, by a spirit which would never have found in those fields congenial pasture. One suspects that the final decision that college was impossible came to this strong free spirit with a certain sense of relief—a relief marred only by the perplexity of knowing what ought to be the path for his feet, if the traditional way to accomplishment and distinction was closed.

That he meant to be not simply a tanner was disclosed in all his doing and thinking. He undertook to study by himself, mastering common arithmetic and becoming in time an expert surveyor. He "early in life began to discover a great liking to fine cattle, horses, sheep and swine." Meantime, however, the practical economic sense of his day and occupation pointed first of all to marriage, as his father, who had had three wives and sixteen or more children, was at pains to impress upon him. Nor was John Brown himself disinclined. He was he himself quaintly says, "naturally fond of females, and withal extremely diffident." One can easily imagine the deep disappointment of this grave young man in his first unfortunate love affair, when he felt with many another unloved heart, this old world through, "a steady, strong desire to die."

But youth is stronger even than a first love, and the widow who came to keep house for him had