"
Nimbus found men even more ready to assist than he and his fellows
were to be aided. He himself gave the land and the timbers; the
benevolent association to whom he had appealed furnished the other
materials required; the colored men gave the major part of the labor,
and, in less than a year from the time the purchase was made, the
house was ready for the school, and the old hostelry prepared for
the teachers that had been promised.
So it was that, when Nimbus came to the officer in charge at
Boyleston and begged that a teacher might be sent to Red Wing, and
met the reply that because of the great demand they had none to
send, Mollie Ainslie, hearing of the request, with her load of sorrow
yet heavy on her lonely heart, said, "Here am I; take me." She
thought it a holy work. It was, to her simple heart, a love-offering
to the memory of him who had given his life to secure the freedom
of the race she was asked to aid in lifting up. The gentle child
felt called of God to do missionary work for a weak and struggling
people. She thought she felt the divine commandment which rested
on the Nazarene. She did not stop to consider of the "impropriety"
of her course. She did not even know that there was any impropriety
in it. She thought her heart had heard the trumpet-call of duty,
and, like Joan of Arc, though it took her among camps and dangers,
she would not flinch.
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