Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/120

116 self-gratulation, not to say pharasaical pride, takes out thousands to send to the sick at Norfolk, who are surrounded with cities rolling in wealth, where a sacrifice of any trifling pleasure would supply many such sorely tried and afflicted cities with any amount of assistance. Lawrence lifts his eyes from the cotton-board floor, with a new light in them. He thinks of all his suffering brothers and sisters, from this to the Rocky Mountains, sick and in want of all things, no nurses, no water, no comfortable shelter, no pleasant sounds of church-bells, or busy marts of thrifty trade, to bring back receding life, and, more than all, no ever-returning word of cheer and remembrance from the home that was first and most dear; and, as he reflects, Lawrence is startled by the sound of violence within his own precincts. He sat down a homesick, disheartened youth. He had asked help from the agent of his great uncle at Washington, without success. Now the hour for action has come, and he rises, passes out of his cabin, armed like a man, ready to defend his rights like a man, and may Heaven speed the RIGHT!

My dear mother, this is Saturday evening.