Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/41

Rh of the house was then a wood, now gone, on a knoll leading down to the brook which supplied the tan-pits."

"Father used to hold all his children while they were little at night and sing his favorite songs," says the eldest daughter. "The first recollection I have of father was being carried through a piece of woods on Sunday to attend a meeting held at a neighbor's house. After we had been at the house a little while, father and mother stood up and held us, while the minister put water on our faces. After we sat down father wiped my face with a brown silk handkerchief with yellow spots on it in diamond shape. It seemed beautiful to me and I thought how good he was to wipe my face with that pretty handkerchief. He showed a great deal of tenderness in that and other ways. He sometimes seemed very stern and strict with me, yet his tenderness made me forget he was stern.

"When he would come home at night tired out with labor, he would before going to bed, ask some of the family to read chapters (as was his usual course night and morning); and would almost always say: 'Read one of David's Psalms.' "Whenever he and I were alone, he never failed to give me the best of advice, just such as a true and anxious mother would give a daughter. He always seemed interested in my work, and would come around and look at it when I was sewing or knitting; and when I was learning to spin he always