John Brown's Women Quotes

“wildflower pressed into the page reading “Tintern Abbey.” Jerry had marked a passage: If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“which is that it is better to bind a child by love than by fear.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“here?” “John says that all things work for the best,” Wealthy said with a faint smile. It was something she had forgotten lately. “I do hope he’s right.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Sit,” Mrs. Adair said gently. “Both of you, rest. The Lord knows what happened and why. And soon, I trust, so shall”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“He threatened you, Mary? And your mother?” “It was just the liquor talking, I’m sure, Fred. Even that Sherman lot wouldn’t harm a woman.” “For his sake, I’d better not see any of them try. Or even speak of it.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Dutch Bill took politeness on my part for something else and asked to marry”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“No, indeed. I wasn’t expecting it at all, so all I could do was stammer that I had no plans of marrying so young and that I was quite happy in my present state of life. He stomped off, but that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, he came back in a drunken rage and threatened to drink my heart’s blood—charming image, isn’t it?—and my mother’s too. I have no idea what made him drag her into it.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“country drenched with blood than pay taxes to support the government foisted upon us by the Bogus Legislature. I thought White was going to burst a blood vessel there and then, but instead he just stomped away.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Father spoke up and said that he was an abolitionist of the old stock, that the blacks were his brothers and his equals, and that he would rather see the union dissolved and the”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Martin White, who stood up and said his piece. Claimed that he was a good Free-State man, but a free white state man, and he intended to obey the laws, and the rest of us should as well.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Well, if I had had the drafting of it, it would have,” John said. “But that might be a bit too radical, even for the radicals.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Rumor had it that Judge Cato would enforce the territorial laws, at least against the Free-Staters, a group of whom called a settlers’ meeting in Osawatomie—a male settlers’ meeting, Wealthy noted crossly when the men told her about it. “Why can’t we attend? Perhaps the Topeka Constitution should have given us ladies the right to vote.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“federal judge with the splendid name of Sterling Cato was to hold a territorial court nearby—not at a courthouse, for no such edifice existed, but at a tavern kept by a pro-slavery”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Father’s favorite saying goes, trust in God and keep our powder dry.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Blow ye the trumpet, blow The gladly solemn sound: Let all the nations know, To earth’s remotest bound, The year of jubilee is come; Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“Despite the friendliness of the congregation and knowing so many there, she felt rather awkward in the midst of so many dark faces. Yet her unease was as nothing compared to what a black person must feel every day, she reminded herself.”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women

“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,”
― Susan Higginbotham, John Brown's Women