March. Geraldine Brooks

another who had welcomed Brown as a guest in Concord, came up to us, all grave looks, with the news of Brown’s attempted insurrection, and his capture. He wrung his hands as he described Brown’s saber wounds and the young followers shot dead. I told Higginson then and there that I thought the deed would give impulse to freedom, no matter what became of its instigator and no matter how the states howled over it. But I hurried my youngest ones home, with my heart pounding, and made a fire in my study grate. I fed to it all the papers that documented my dealings with Brown, even though most of them had only to do with land surveys.

      Some weeks later, on a mild winter’s day, it seemed that all Concord came out to mark the hour of Brown’s execution. There were no bells, no speeches; only readings. Emerson read, as did Thoreau. Sanborn, the schoolmaster, had composed a dirge and the assembled sang it. I read from the Song of Solomon, and a passage from Plato. And now? What would Brown say now, I wondered, of this guilty land