Page:The life and letters of John Brown (Sanborn).djvu/38

18 him. The next Sunday, the first in January, 1857, Brown went to the Boston Music Hall to hear Theodore Parker preach, and there met Mrs. Stearns (a niece of Mrs. Child, the graceful author of "Philothea"), who invited him to her house in Medford. He spent there the second Sunday in January, 1857, and made a deep impression on the oldest son of the family, then in his thirteenth year, by the stories he told of the sufferings of the pioneer families in Kansas. Running to the next room, and bringing forth his hoard of pocket-money, the boy thrust it into John Brown's hand, saying, "Will you buy something,—a pair of shoes, or something,—for one of those little Kansas children?" and then adding, as the old man thanked him, "Captain Brown, will you not write me, sometime, what sort of a little boy you were?" Brown looked at him with surprise and pleasure, and promised him to do so. In due time this long letter reached Medford, addressed to Harry, but with a short note to Mr. Stearns at the end of it. Mrs. Stearns, who at once saw its value, treasured it carefully; and after Brown's death she requested her friend Mr. Emerson to make this autobiography part of a sketch of the hero which he was urged to write. Mr. Emerson admired and praised it, but was compelled to decline the task of writing Brown's Life, as also did Henry Thoreau (who knew Brown well) and Mrs. Child. Then Mrs. Stearns permitted Mr. Redpath to print it in his biography, for the sake of bringing money to supply the needs of the widow and children of Brown. It has been since reprinted again and again from Mr. Redpath's book. I have made my copy from the original letter, and thus corrected some variations in the punctuation and spelling, which had crept into the published copies. Brown's writing was peculiar in these respects, and by no means uniform; but his style everywhere shows the same vigor and simplicity, and he had the art of Homer and Herodotus to mingle the colloquial with the serious, without any loss of dignity or effect. He thought humbly of his own composition, and would sometimes say, "I know no more of grammar than one of that farmer's calves;" but he had what is essential in all grammars,—the power to make himself understood.