Boston
1856
It was such a heavy burden and it was hard not to feel hopeless. The others joined her then. They called for the carriage and when they were seated, Harriet spoke to William again. “Will you, will your people be able to forget?”
William nodded. “When a woman is raped I have heard it said that she may forgive but the memory lasts her lifetime. When a nation is raped, when a people are raped, I think it is the same.”
It was dark now. Not even the gaslights or the stars, not even the moon could stop its coming. Harriet looked across the carriage at Frederick Douglass and at her brother Henry. They would return to Brooklyn soon, and then she would depart for Andover. She needed her husband now. She needed the comfort of Calvin’s arms.
William Love’s hand rested on the window opening.
“I am not sure what I will write,” Harriet said to him.
“A tree is judged by its fruit,” he replied. “Don’t judge him by what others have said—many of them were liars. Instead, use your heart. You have a good one. Judge the man by his fruit.” There was a sudden twinkle in William’s eye. “That is how I have judged you.”
Harriet smiled. She looked across the coach at her brother and then back at William. “There were so many deaths and weapons.”
“That is war. We celebrate our warriors and paint pictures of them with weapons in their hands. Can a Negro not be a hero, even a tragic one, because he bears a weapon?”
“We must away now,” Henry said to her.
She looked at William. “Do you think there is hope? Are we doomed?”
“So much harm has been done,” William said. “But I have faith that we can be healed, though we may always walk with a limp. And if we die,” he added, “there is always resurrection.”