d tasks of their after-life; and if there were danger that
such a strain upon their sympathies, as they often underwent, might
prove unhealthful, it was fully counteracted by ball-playing, and all
kinds of active out-door amusements of childhood, so that it was never
known to result in harm.

As time passed on, their home, always open to fugitives, became an
important centre of Underground Rail Road operations for the region
extending from Wilmington, Del., into Adams county, Pa.; and they, grown
to womanhood, had glided into the management of its very considerable
business. They received passengers from Thomas Garrett, and sometimes
others, perhaps, of Wilmington, when it was thought unsafe to send them
thence directly through Philadelphia; from Wm. and Phebe Wright, in
Adams county, and from friends, more than we have room to name, in York,
Columbia, and the southern parts of Lancaster and Chester counties; the
several lines, from Adams county to Wilmington, converging upon the
house of John Vickers, of Lionville, whose wagon, laden apparently with
innocent-looking earthen ware from his pottery, sometimes conveyed,
unseen beneath the visible load, a precious burden of Southern chattels,
on their way to manhood.

[At a later period, the trains from Adams county generally took another
course, going to Harrisburg, and on to Canada, by way of the Susquehanna
Valley; though still, when pursuit that way was apprehended, the former
course was taken.]

These passengers, the Lewises forwarded in diverse ways; usually, in the
earlier times, by wagon or carriage, to Richard Moore, of Quakertown, in
Bucks county, about thirty miles distant; but later, when abolitionists
were more numerous, and easier stages could be safely made, either
directly to the writer, or to one or other of ten or twelve stations
which had become established at places less remote, in the counties of
Chester and Montgomery. During portions of the time, their married
sister Rebecca, and her husband, Edwin Fussell, and their uncle, Dr. B.
Fussell, and, after him, his brother William, lived on farms adjoining
theirs, and were their active helpers in this work.

The receiving and passing on of fugitives, was not all they had to do.
Often it was necessary to fit out whole families with clothing suitable
for the journey. In cases of emergency they would sometimes gather a
sewing-circle from such neighboring families as could be trusted; and,
with its help, ac