“I asked him what I should do if he went away and left me like that.

“‘Oh, I’ll come right back,’ he said, ’and maybe I’ll see Heaven way up in the clouds.  If I do I’ll stop there in a tavern over night and buy something for you.’

“In a minute a new idea came to him and he said: 

“‘I guess Abe would make a pair of wings for you if you’d ask him.’

“Often I wish for wings, and always when I think of those who are dear to me and so far away.  You said you would come out next spring to look about.  Please don’t disappoint us.  I think it would almost break my heart.  I am counting the days.  Some time ago I put down 142 straight marks on my old slate, that being the number of days before May 1.  Every night I rub off one of them and thank God that you are one day nearer.  Don’t be afraid of fever and ague.  Sapington’s pills cure it in three or four days.  I would take the steamboat at Pittsburg, the roads in Ohio and Indiana are so bad.  You can get a steamer up the Illinois River at Alton and get off at Beardstown and drive across country.  If we knew when you were coming Samson or Abe would meet you.  Give our love to all the folks and friends.

“Yours affectionately,

“Sarah and Samson.”

* * * * *

It had been a cold winter and not easy to keep comfortable in the little house.  In the worst weather Samson used to get up at night to keep the fire going.  Late in January a wind from the southeast melted the snow and warmed the air of the midlands so that, for a week or so, it seemed as if spring were come.  One night of this week Sambo awoke the family with his barking.  A strong wind was rushing across the plains and roaring over the cabin and wailing in its chimney.  Suddenly there was a rap on its door.  When Samson opened it he saw in the moonlight a young colored man and woman standing near the door-step.

“Is dis Mistah Traylor?” the young man asked.

“It is,” said Samson.  “What can I do for you?”

“Mas’r, de good Lord done fotched us here to ask you fo’ help,” said the negro.  “We be nigh wone out with cold an’ hungah, suh, ’deed we be.”

Samson asked them in and put wood on the fire, and Sarah got up and made some hot tea and brought food from the cupboard and gave it to the strangers, who sat shivering in the firelight.  They were a good-looking pair, the young woman being almost white.  They were man and wife.  The latter stopped eating and moaned and shook with emotion as her husband told their story.  Their master had died the year before and they had been brought to St. Louis to be sold in the slave market.  There they had escaped by night and gone to the house of an old friend of their former owner who lived north of the city on the river shore.  He had taken pity on them and brought them across the Mississippi and started them on the north road with a letter to Elijah Lovejoy of Alton and a supply of food.  Since then they had been hiding days in the swamps and thickets and had traveled by night.  Mr. Lovejoy had sent them to Erastus Wright of Springfield, and Mr. Wright had given them the name of Samson Traylor and the location of his cabin.  From there they were bound for the house of John Peasley, in Hopedale, Tazewell County.