The purpose of writing a story that should make the the whole nation feel that slavery was an accursed thing was not immediately carried out. In December, 1850, Mrs. Stowe writes:
Tell sister Katy I thank her for her letter and will answer it. As long as the baby sleeps with me nights I can't do much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will write that thing if I live.
What are folks in general saying about the slave law, and the stand taken by Boston ministers universally, except Edward?
To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as if I should be willing to sink with it, were all this sin and misery to sink in the sea. ... I wish father would come on to Boston, and preach on the Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this community right.
December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in Cincinnati:
The piece for the “Era” was a humorous article called “A scholar's adventures in the country,” being, in fact, a picture drawn from life and embodyingChristmas has passed, not without many thoughts of our absent one. If you want a description of the scenes in our family preceding it, vide a “New year's story,” which I have sent to the “ New York Evangelist.” I am sorry that in the hurry of getting off this piece and one for the “ Era” you were neglected.
