Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/82

74 the boys are driving on the cattle, and my wife and little girls are at Oneida depot waiting for me to go on with them." He returned to farming again with interest, taking prizes for his stock at state fairs and raising many sheep. He had 350 lambs in 1858 and Perkins is urging him to continue with him, but things changed and on January 25, 1854, he writes: "This world is not yet freed from real malice and envy. It appears to be well settled now that we go back to North Elba in the spring. I have had a good-natured talk with Mr. Perkins about going away and both families are now preparing to carry out that plan." His departure was delayed a year, but he was finally able to remove with a little surplus on hand.

Back then to the crests and forests of the Alleghanies came John Brown at the age of fifty-four. "A tall, gaunt, dark-complexioned man . . . a grave, serious man . . . with a marked countenance and a natural dignity of manner,—that dignity which is unconscious, and comes from a superior habit of mind."