Underground to Canada (10 page)

“German?” they repeated after him. The word had no meaning at all for Liza and Julilly, but they followed her. They walked into one of the bright new cabins. Turned inside out, it wouldn't matter, Julilly decided: all sides were scrubbed and polished.

In the kitchen, the biggest kettle the girls had ever seen sat on the floor steaming with warm, clean water.

The woman smiled. “Girls?” she said, and pointed to their ragged pants and shirts. The boys' clothes hadn't fooled her.

“You wash in tub.” The English words came slowly for her. “You give old clothes to me.” She handed them a square of soap and two white towels.

She waited. The girls peeled off their ragged, mud-soaked garments. They dipped their hands carefully into the water. The woman laughed.

“You get in there all the way and scrub. Hair too.” She picked up their clothes with a stick and left the room.

Liza and Julilly looked at one another.

“You is the dirtiest girl I ever seen.” Liza leaned toward Julilly. “You scrub me and I'll scrub you.”

Julilly saw the scars from whippings crisscross over Liza's back. She quickly looked away and climbed slowly over the side of the tub. “I never put myself into no wash-tub before, but it feels mighty pleasant.” She sank slowly into the water.

“I feels like a skinned catfish.” Liza grinned and splashed down beside her friend.

The girls scrubbed their faces, their hair, their legs. Soapsuds hid the water. First it was white, then grey, then brown.

“Turnin' into the ol' Mississippi River,” Julilly giggled.

They stepped outside the tub and dried themselves soft and smooth. Different women entered the kitchen. Two of them carried the tub outside to empty the water. Another slipped long, clean shirts over the girls. Another put food on the table—glasses of milk, thick bread, rich butter, slices of venison. Liza and Julilly sat on the benches and ate.

The women chatted in low voices—always in the strange German.

Then the first woman came in—the one who had taken their clothes. She shook a scolding finger at them.

“Eat slow,” she said. “Some now—some after sleep.”

She spread clean mats on the floor. They had the sweet smell of grass, from the meadows where the cows ate. There were no buzzing flies—no sick whine from mosquitoes—no need to hide in this clean, scrubbed cabin.

“My skin feel so clean, I think it must be shinin'.” Julilly yawned.

Liza smoothed the white shirt over her knees, and slowly rubbed her hands together, turning them back and forth to view their cleanness. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks onto her lap. She wiped them away roughly.

“It's just that I've never been clean all over before,” she tried to explain.

The woman who spoke a little English smiled. She took Julilly's hand and then Liza's hand and led them to the mats.

“Sleep,” she said and walked away.

The gold sunlight, filtering through the open door, faded and faded and faded, until it was the half-light time before dark. The girls moved their mats close together and slept at once.

It was a long sleep for Julilly and Liza. Several times they jumped when early morning noises woke them. But they stretched their feet over the clean mats. They felt the safety of the farm cabin and slept some more.

“My tired bones are layin' here side by side feelin' good and happy,” Liza smiled.

“I'm gonna sing,” announced Julilly. At first it was a hum:

I am bound for the promised land

I am bound for the promised land

Then the song burst into full-throated singing in a voice so like Mammy Sally's that Julilly wondered if it were hers.

Oh, who will come and go with me.

I am bound for the promised land The women and children from the row of cabins came to the door and listened. They smiled. One of them shook her head and wept.

Two of the women came into the room, chattering German. More food was placed on the table and the girls ate. It wasn't until the woman who spoke English walked through the door carrying their washed and mended pants and shirts that Julilly and Liza knew their visit had ended.

The woman handed them the clothes and two bundles of food.

“You change clothes now and then go.” She said the words slowly and with difficulty. “Slave hunters in the valley. Go high to the mountains—then north.”

The girls scrambled into their clothes. They hooked the bundles of food over their arms.

“You Abolitionists?” Julilly asked, stumbling through the long word with great difficulty.

“No,
Mennonites
,” the woman said. “This place we built away from people. It is Felsheim, Tennessee.”

“It must be like a church,” Liza explained to Julilly as they started toward a thickly wooded area on the mountainside. “My daddy is a
Baptist
.”

“God bless you,” the woman called from the row of clean cabins in the green valley.

Julilly and Liza didn't know how to express their gratitude to this kind lady. They couldn't even talk about it to each other. Human kindness from the villagers of Felsheim had negated a little of the human cruelty that had made them slaves. It was hard to know how to accept these offerings from white folks.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THERE WASN'T MUCH DANGER from slave catchers on the high mountain paths at night. But even without them, this wild place was terrifying and strange for Julilly and Liza. High-pitched animal cries that they had never heard before echoed in and out of the tall black mountain peaks. Their path sometimes became “slim as the string bindin' a cotton bale,” as Liza exclaimed.

The girls held onto one another and once Julilly had to grab a swaying tree limb to keep from slipping down the mountain's side. Liza fell against her, hanging to her waist. They climbed up again on their hands and knees.

“If that North Star wasn't up there steady, beckonin' to us,” Julilly shuddered, “I couldn't go on.”

Before long, a strange, nervous wind began to blow. It skittered about—twirling up the stones along the path—then jumping into the trees and making ugly, swaying brushes of the giant pines.

A cloud smashed across the moon and erased their path. It was dark now, as dark as the deep end of a cave. The air began to chill. Julilly and Liza stopped climbing and held onto the trunk of the nearest tree. The wind lashed around them like a slave owner's whip.

Someplace near by there was a long, cracking noise and then a thud. When the flashes of lightning came, Julilly and Liza could see a giant tree, torn from the earth with its raw, useless roots exposed to the storm. Thunder pounded in the sky, and then rain swept down like moving, walls of water. Another flash of lightning. This time the girls saw a flat place close at hand, shielded by an overhanging rock.

“Get all the tree limbs you can find, Liza, and pile them under that rock,” Julilly screamed above the wind.

The pile grew high. They dragged heavy limbs that could not blow away.

“Now we'll dig a place under this rock,” Julilly screamed again.

They scraped and grovelled. Their hands bled; but a small shelter did take shape, big enough for the two of them to squeeze inside. They shoved their bundles ahead of them.

“It's dry in here.” Liza rubbed her hands over the ground.

But their newly-patched clothes dripped with water, and they chilled each time the wind blew through their makeshift
hovel
. There was nothing to do but take their clothes off, wring the water from them as best they could, and hang them over branches that were still dry. They covered themselves with pine needles and bunches of dried leaves and dug deeper with sticks into the dry earth.

They lay down close to each other for warmth. Somehow they slept, and when they woke the wind had stopped blowing.

Mountain birds chirped their early morning songs and a faintly pink sun spread shyly across the sky. The girls peered through their shelter of branches. Fallen limbs and scattered leaves crisscrossed over the ground.

“Looks like somebody stirred the whole place up with a big wooden spoon.” Julilly pushed her head clear of the branch above her.

“Nobody is gonna come lookin' for run-away slaves in this mess.” Liza shook the still damp clothes and hung them carefully over a limb in the warming air.

The sun rose. It was humid and hot. The damp clothes steamed, and then blew stiff and dry. Gratefully the girls dressed and ate a small amount of the food packed for them by the good women of Felsheim.

“We'd best walk in the daylight,” Julilly said. “There's no paths left and no signs of people.”

“Tryin' to step over all these sticks and stones when nighttime comes is more than my two legs can manage,” Liza agreed.

They decided to stay near the covering trees at all times and take cover at once if any stir of life was heard around them. They trudged along whatever trails they could find. Sometimes furry little animals jumped across their path, but the wild beasts that howled in the night seemed to take cover for the day. The girls climbed on and on, only stopping for drinks from the flooded mountain streams. Their guide was the needle of the compass which never left Julilly's hand.

The land was getting flatter and flatter, and the protecting mountain peaks were behind them. That night they rested uneasily in a cornfield near a road.

In the very early morning, Julilly saw an old coloured man hobbling along the road, pulling a cart behind him. She crawled quickly from their hideout and walked up to him. She had no fear of this ancient white-haired, black-faced man.

“Can you tell me what town I'm comin' to next?” she asked.

The old man jumped a little. Julilly startled him. It seemed as if he had trudged this road a thousand times and never had a black girl bound out right in front of him before. He stopped his cart and looked at her carefully.

“Lexington, Kentucky,” he answered kindly. Then he whispered, “You a slave? You runnin' away?”

Julilly didn't have to answer. The old man knew. He looked cautiously down the road behind him as though expecting someone. Then he pulled his cart to the side of the road and lowered the handles to the ground. He reached inside his loose jacket and drew out a half loaf of bread.

“This is for you, child,” he said softly. His wise old eyes lighted on her briefly, then focused far away with tired patience.

“If I was a young man, I'd go 'long,” he said. He peered again down the road. “Hide in those bushes, boy. When night comes follow the railroad tracks to Coving-ton. There's a free coloured man named Jeb Brown lives there. He'll get you 'cross the
Ohio River
in his little boat. You've got to cross the Ohio to get to Canada.”

Julilly was startled when she heard “Canada.” How did the old man know? But she didn't question him. She held his hand instead and thanked him from her heart.

The old man's back was more bent than Liza's, she noticed. His shabby clothes barely covered it. But he had strong arms and steady feet and he had a pleased look on his face since giving Julilly the bread. He started toward his cart, when a man on horseback swerved around the corner of the road and stopped beside him.

Julilly ran quickly to the shelter of the corn-field.

The man on horseback pulled in the reins of his horse and glared down at the old man.

“What you mean, Joe,” he cried out, “restin' by the road so early in the morning? Get along there.” He twirled a whip in the air.

The old man leaned down and picked up the handles of his cart and plodded on down the road.

Julilly and Liza held each other and sobbed.

“He's a slave too,” Julilly cried. “He'll be hungry today. He gave us all his food.”

She held the bread gently in both her hands.

THE GIRLS HID FAR AWAY from the road during the long, hot day. Twice a train passed near by, clanging its bell and hissing its steam. The little compass always pointed north toward the sound. It wouldn't be hard to find the tracks when night came.

They nibbled on the old man's bread and tried some ears of uncooked corn, but there was no water and the food was hard and dry. Late in the afternoon some men came walking through the fields. Liza and Julilly lay flat on the ground. The men passed them by, walked toward the road, and disappeared.

“They gave me a good fright.” Liza's hands shook as she lifted herself from the ground.

“I'd say we is havin' more good luck than bad on this day,” Julilly answered grate-fully.

Night came early, for clouds collected overhead and changed the sky into a slate-grey lid. The girls crept carefully toward the road and discovered that the silver tracks ran right along the side of it. Tonight it was good that the moon was covered; for there was nothing to hide behind on the open tracks.

The girls walked on the ties facing the north wind. The tracks cut through fields and forests and it seemed almost that they were silver ropes pulling them on and on and on to Canada.

Once during the darkest part of night, a train roared and chugged and hissed behind them. They stumbled off the tracks into an empty barn as the earth started to shake. There was hardly time for the girls to see the train before it passed—screeching far ahead of them.

Julilly felt its speed and thought how fast it could take them north—faster than a bird could fly or a horse run.

THE TRACKS WERE THEIR GUIDE on a second night. This time the North Star shone steadily above them, but Julilly and Liza were frightened and ill at ease. It was light as day. Anyone could see them striding thong the uncovered tracks. They crept down into a grove of trees, feeling hungry and tired: there had been nothing to eat since they finished the old man's bread. A field of corn waved in the night wind, its ears hung heavy with grain.

“We'll start us a fire and roast some of those ears,” Julilly decided.