Beaching New York she made her way to
Mr. Beecher's house, where she was so fortunate as to find Mrs. Stowe.
Now her troubles were at an end, for this champion of the oppressed at
once made the slave woman's cause her own and promised that her
children should be redeemed. She at once set herself to the task of
raising the purchase-money, not only for Milly's children, but for
giving freedom to the old slave woman herself. On May 29, she writes
to her husband in Brunswick:--
"The mother of the Edmondson girls, now aged and feeble, is in the
city. I did not actually know when I wrote 'Uncle Tom' of a living
example in which Christianity had reached its fullest development
under the crushing wrongs of slavery, but in this woman I see it. I
never knew before what I could feel till, with her sorrowful, patient
eyes upon me, she told me her history and begged my aid. The
expression of her face as she spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow
in her eyes, was beyond anything I ever saw.
"'Well,' said I, when she had finished, 'set your heart at rest; you
and your children shall be redeemed. If I can't raise the money
otherwise, I will pay it myself.' You should have seen the wonderfully
sweet, solemn look she gave me as she said, 'The Lord bless you, my
child!'
"Well, I have received a sweet note from Jenny Lind, with her name
and her husband's with which to head my subscription list.
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