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Authors: Vivian Vande Velde
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understand, and we knew Jacob would tell our new visitors about the black-skinned visitor who was also here today. Fortunately, Jacob was eager to help Rebekka.
The men who came were the slave owner and two professional slave catchers. The owner said he was looking for his runaway Nigroâthat was how he said it, "Nigro." "A prime field slave," he said, "but ungrateful and uppity." I thought of the quiet dignity of the Negro man compared to the red-faced bluster of these three. It was easy to lie to them, to say we had seen nothing of any Negroes. They didn't demand to search the house and left shortly after arriving.
After supper we loaded the former slave onto our cart and covered him with old flour sacks. By that time we had given him two of Theodore's shirts, a blanket, a new pair of shoes, and all the food that would fit into his pockets.
I worried and worried while Theodore took him to the Stearnses' farm. It seemed he was gone forever, but when he came back, he said everything had gone smoothly. He had seen no one on the way and had tapped quietly on the door only after making sure there
was no sign of the slave catchers. He said Thomas Stearns seemed surprised at the late-evening visit, but once Theodore told him we'd had a surprise visitor in our barn, he grasped the situation immediately. "Let him come in," Theodore said he said, "and God be with thee for thy kindness.
"
It was a foolish risk, we both agreed, but the matter that most tugs at my conscience is, I never thought to ask the Negro man his name.
CHAPTER 12
A Friend, with Friends
I REALIZED I'D BEEN reading all in a rush. My heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty.
Sentimental jerk,
I told myself,
to get so caught up in things that happened a hundred and fifty years ago. Everybody
involved was long dead. The passage had explained a lotâsuch as that Grandma's secret room must have been added later or they wouldn't have needed to hide the runaway in the root cellar. But the passage did not explain what I needed to know.
I flipped through the next pages, looking for something that would help me, but all the while I was wondering,
Did he make it to Canada? He must have,
I thought; he was so close. It takes us a little more than an hour's drive (two, if Dad's behind the wheel rather than Mom), heading west toward Buffalo, then over one of the three or four bridges at Niagara Falls.
If those bridges were up in the 1800s.
And, of course, it would be slower without cars and expressways.
Not to mention with slave catchers breathing down your neck.
I looked for more, for an acknowledgment from their Quaker neighbors that they'd safely delivered the man to Canada or had received word that he'd arrived safely.
But there was nothing more about him.
Except, maybe, that in a couple of placesâbefore an entry, or after one and having nothing to do with anythingâWinifred wrote things like:
All worrying does is pass the time.
Then, on June 23, in the middle of complaining that it had rained every day for the past two weeks and talking about a shopping trip, Winifred mentioned the neighbors again:
I saw Naomi Stearns at the notions counter, where I was looking for new brass buttons for Jacob's jacket. Naomi smiled and nodded but had not a word for me until I was leaving, having found nothing to my liking. Then, just as I passed her, she turned and, doing so, knocked over with her elbow a display of lace and ribbons from the counter. "Oh my, how clumsy!" she said, and putting her bag on the counter so that she could more easily pick up the
spools of ribbon, she knocked a box containing packages of pins and needles off the opposite side of the counter.
Never having seen Naomi Stearns be anything less than graceful, I estimated all of this was intentional, so I stooped down to help her fetch up the rolling spools, leaving Mr. Willoughby on the far side of the counter to scramble after the pins.
Naomi whispered to me, "Federal marshals are watching
The men who came were the slave owner and two professional slave catchers. The owner said he was looking for his runaway Nigroâthat was how he said it, "Nigro." "A prime field slave," he said, "but ungrateful and uppity." I thought of the quiet dignity of the Negro man compared to the red-faced bluster of these three. It was easy to lie to them, to say we had seen nothing of any Negroes. They didn't demand to search the house and left shortly after arriving.
After supper we loaded the former slave onto our cart and covered him with old flour sacks. By that time we had given him two of Theodore's shirts, a blanket, a new pair of shoes, and all the food that would fit into his pockets.
I worried and worried while Theodore took him to the Stearnses' farm. It seemed he was gone forever, but when he came back, he said everything had gone smoothly. He had seen no one on the way and had tapped quietly on the door only after making sure there
was no sign of the slave catchers. He said Thomas Stearns seemed surprised at the late-evening visit, but once Theodore told him we'd had a surprise visitor in our barn, he grasped the situation immediately. "Let him come in," Theodore said he said, "and God be with thee for thy kindness.
"
It was a foolish risk, we both agreed, but the matter that most tugs at my conscience is, I never thought to ask the Negro man his name.
CHAPTER 12
A Friend, with Friends
I REALIZED I'D BEEN reading all in a rush. My heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty.
Sentimental jerk,
I told myself,
to get so caught up in things that happened a hundred and fifty years ago. Everybody
involved was long dead. The passage had explained a lotâsuch as that Grandma's secret room must have been added later or they wouldn't have needed to hide the runaway in the root cellar. But the passage did not explain what I needed to know.
I flipped through the next pages, looking for something that would help me, but all the while I was wondering,
Did he make it to Canada? He must have,
I thought; he was so close. It takes us a little more than an hour's drive (two, if Dad's behind the wheel rather than Mom), heading west toward Buffalo, then over one of the three or four bridges at Niagara Falls.
If those bridges were up in the 1800s.
And, of course, it would be slower without cars and expressways.
Not to mention with slave catchers breathing down your neck.
I looked for more, for an acknowledgment from their Quaker neighbors that they'd safely delivered the man to Canada or had received word that he'd arrived safely.
But there was nothing more about him.
Except, maybe, that in a couple of placesâbefore an entry, or after one and having nothing to do with anythingâWinifred wrote things like:
All worrying does is pass the time.
Then, on June 23, in the middle of complaining that it had rained every day for the past two weeks and talking about a shopping trip, Winifred mentioned the neighbors again:
I saw Naomi Stearns at the notions counter, where I was looking for new brass buttons for Jacob's jacket. Naomi smiled and nodded but had not a word for me until I was leaving, having found nothing to my liking. Then, just as I passed her, she turned and, doing so, knocked over with her elbow a display of lace and ribbons from the counter. "Oh my, how clumsy!" she said, and putting her bag on the counter so that she could more easily pick up the
spools of ribbon, she knocked a box containing packages of pins and needles off the opposite side of the counter.
Never having seen Naomi Stearns be anything less than graceful, I estimated all of this was intentional, so I stooped down to help her fetch up the rolling spools, leaving Mr. Willoughby on the far side of the counter to scramble after the pins.
Naomi whispered to me, "Federal marshals are watching
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