Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

202 ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
I remember she once sketched a picture of the road from
Uncle Spencer's up to the village of Red Lion, and had the
little Johns girl and me pose for her. We walked down the
road with baskets in our hands to add a touch of Hfe to the
scene, and so we too became a part of Miss Abbie's crayon
work. She studied art in Cincinnati about the time I knew
her, and later established a studio. We read yesterday that
she left many portraits and landscapes in oil; I wonder if anywhere
among the works she left is a crayon of that road up
grade to Red Lion bordered with dog fennel, and if still there
remain to view the figures of a young woman and a little girl
of fifty years ago. I like to think of this cultured friend of
other days, and it is sweet to know that her lovely life shone
on undimmed for eighty-five years, and that always she
attracted young people to her just as she did me more than
half a century ago.
Uncle John was a man of pronounced views on both politics
and religion, but especially pohtics, as at that time the question
of American slavery was agitating the country to an alarming
degree. It was the central thought, and was discussed on all
occasions and at all times. Wherever you met a company of
men at a tavern or sale, travehng by land or water, that was
the one absorbing question: "What do you think of the
peculiar institution of American slavery.?" Oftentimes this
question was discussed from a religious standpoint, many
claiming for it divine sanction. While I was at Uncle Spencer
Hunt's came that day, December 2, 1859, when John Brown
suffered death for his principles. I remember on the day
appointed for his death Uncle John sat with watch in hand
and noted the time of his execution, telHng us how many
minutes were left John Brown to live. When he closed his
watch we knew that it was all over, the one of many impending
tragedies. The day was dark, as though the very sun had
refused to shine on the day John Brown suffered for love of
justice to the bondsman.
At stated periods Uncle Spencer would bring out his large
express and take the women folks over to Franklin to do the
family shopping. In the evening they would return with a