ny Cape Cod fishermen had made such riotous demonstrations that all
the speakers announced, except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone, had fled
from an open-air platform. "You had better run, Stephen," said she,
"they are coming." "But who will take care of you?" asked Foster.
"This gentleman will take care of me," she replied, calmly laying her
hand within the arm of a burly rioter with a club, who had just sprung
upon the platform. "Wh--what did you say?" stammered the astonished
rowdy, as he looked at the little woman; "yes, I'll take care of you,
and no one shall touch a hair of your head." With this he forced a way
for her through the crowd, and, at her earnest request, placed her upon
a stump and stood guard with his club while she delivered an address so
effective that the audience offered no further violence, and even took
up a collection of twenty dollars to repay Mr. Foster for the damage
his clothes had received when the riot was at its height.

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till
it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer," said Harriet
Beecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and time
that the tide'll turn."

Charles Sumner said, "Three things are necessary: first, backbone;
second, backbone; third, backbone."

While digging among the ruins of Pompeii, which was buried by the dust
and ashes from an eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79, the workmen found the
skeleton of a Roman soldier in the sentry-box at one of the city's
gates. He might have found safety under sheltering rocks close by;
but, in the face of certain death, he had remained at his post, a mute
witness to the thorough discipline, the ceaseless vigilance and
fidelity which made the Roman legionaries masters of the known world.
Bulwer, describing the flight of a party amid the dust, and ashes, and
streams of boiling water, and huge hurtling fragments of scoria, and
gusty winds, and lurid lightnings, continues: "The air was now still
for a few minutes; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear;
the fugitives hurried on. They gained the gate. They passed by the
Roman sentry. The lightning flashed over his livid face and polished
helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He
remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not
animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning
and self-acting man. There he stood amids