Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/81

Rh "The morning after the news of the Burns affair reached here, Brown went at his work immediately after breakfast; but in a few minutes started up from his chair, walked rapidly across the room several times, then suddenly turned to his counsel, and said, 'I am going to Boston.' 'Going to Boston!' said the astonished lawyer. 'Why do you want to go to Boston?' Old Brown continued walking vigorously, and replied, 'Anthony Burns must be released, or I will die in the attempt.' The counsel dropped his pen in consternation. Then he began to remonstrate; told him the suit had been in progress a long time, and a verdict just gained. It was appealed from, and that appeal must be answered in so many days, or the whole labor would be lost; and no one was sufficiently familiar with the whole case except himself. It took a long earnest talk with old Brown to persuade him to remain. His memory and acuteness in that long and tedious lawsuit—not yet ended, I am told—often astonished his counsel. While here he wore an entire suit of snuff-colored cloth, the coat of a decidedly Quakerish cut in collar and skirt. He wore no beard, and was a clean-shaven, scrupulously neat, well-dressed, quiet old gentleman. He was, however, notably resolute in all that he did."

He spent the time not taken up by his lawsuits at Akron, and in the manner of a patriarch of old, temporarily brought his family back to Ohio. "I wrote you last week that the family is on the road: