My mother I think during her life had not
missed a half dozen meetings at the little stone church. Twice a week,
and once each Sunday, and once each month, and four times each year, and
also annually, the Society of Friends met there at Wallingford, and have
done so for over one hundred and thirty-five years. Thither went my
mother, quiet, brown-haired, gentle, as good a soul as ever lived, and
with her my father, tall, strong as a tree, keeping his promise until at
length by sheer force of this kept promise, he himself became half
Quaker and all gentle, since he saw what it meant to her.
As I have paused in my horsemanship to speak thus of my father, I ought
also to speak of my mother. It was she who in those troublous times just
before the Civil War was the first to raise the voice in the Quaker
Meeting which said that the Friends ought to free their slaves, law or
no law; and so started what was called later the Unionist sentiment in
that part of old Virginia. It was my mother did that. Then she asked my
father to manumit all his slaves; and he thought for an hour, and then
raised his head and said it should be done; after which the servants
lived on as before, and gave less in return, at which my father made wry
faces, but said nothing in regret.
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