In another letter, she suggests the idea of getting up a committee of
women to provide clothing for fugitive females; on this point she wrote
thus:
"SALEM, 8th mo., 1st.
"Would it not be well to get up a committee of women, to provide
clothes for fugitive females--a dozen women sewing a day, or
even half a day of each week, might keep a supply always ready,
they might, I should think, get the merchants or some of them,
to give cheap materials--mention it to thy wife, and see if she
cannot get up a society. I will do what I can here for it. I
enclose five dollars for the use of fugitives. It was a good
while that I heard nothing of your rail road concerns; I
expected thee had gone to Canada, or has the journey not been
made, or is it yet to be accomplished, or given up? I was in
hopes thee would go and see with thy own eyes, how things go on
in that region of fugitives, and if it's a goodly land to live
in.
"This is the first of August, and I suppose you are celebrating
it in Philadelphia, or some of you are, though I believe you are
not quite as zealous as the Bostonians are in doing it. When
will our first of August come? oh, that it might be soon, very
soon! ... It's high time the 'reign of oppression was over.'"
Ever alive to the work, she would appeal to such as were able among her
friends, to take stock in the Underground Rail Road, and would sometimes
succeed. In a letter dated July 30, 1856, she thus alludes to her
efforts:
"I have tried to beg something for them, but have not got much;
one of our neighbors, S.W. Acton, gave me three dollars for
them; I added enough to make ten, which thee will find inside. I
shall owe three more, to make my ten. I presume they are still
coming every day almost, and I fear it comes rather hard on thee
and wife to do for so many; but you no doubt feel it a
satisfaction to do all you can for the poor sufferers."
February 10, 1858, she forwarded her willing contribution, with the
following interesting remarks:
SALEM, February 10, 1858.
DEAR FRIEND:--Thee will find enclosed, five dollars for the
fugitives, a little for so many to share it, but better than
nothing; oh, that people, rich people, would remember them
instead of spending so much on themselves; and those too, who
are not called rich, might, if there was only a willing mind,
give too of their abundance; how can they forbear to sympathize
with those poor destitute ones--but so it is--there is not half
the feeling for them there ought to be, indeed scarcely anybody
seems to think about them. "Inasmuch as ye have _not_ done it
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it
unto me."
Thy friend,