Underground to Canada (3 page)

The tall man shook his head.

“You need water,” he said simply. He turned to the small black boy. “James, fill the large pail with water and bring the
drinking gourds
.”

Within minutes the pail appeared on the road. Gourds were dipped into it, and one by one the men drank. The young boy came toward Julilly and handed her a dripping gourd. He held it for her while she swallowed twice, greedily. Then she stopped, took the gourd from his hands and carefully held it to the lips of each small child.

Julilly wanted to thank him, but she didn't know how.

“Are you the slave of that tall man?” she asked instead.

“No,” the boy said quickly, “I'm free. Mr. Fox pays me for stackin' his wood.”

Before Julilly could say any more, the fat man came bouncing up the road on the back of his horse. He slapped his whip against the naked backs of the chained men and shouted in anger, “Don't you listen to that
Quaker
Abolitionist
and that free nigger boy. They got evil in their words and destruction in their ways.”

The wagon driver shook himself awake and jumped onto his seat. The wagon began to jog and bump. The chains clanked and scraped.

Julilly looked again at the free black boy. He stood by the tall man and clasped his hands tight in front of him. Tears fell down his cheeks.

A little of the fear and a little of the ache lifted from Julilly. She began repeating the strange words which the fat man had used—“Quaker Abolitionist, free nigger boy … Quaker Abolitionist, free nigger boy …”—and found herself wondering if the words might have something to do with Canada.

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE DAY was swallowed by the next and then the next. The swaying, jogging wagon became a home for Julilly and the little children. Its scraping, clattering noise was a wall closing out the fat man's shouts and the clanging of the torturing chains. Sometimes it was cold when the night came and the wagon stopped on a tall hill with black trees and silver stars and a biting wind that never stopped. The children clung to Julilly and she warmed them as best she could in her thin, strong arms.

When the day came with white-hot sun that baked the road into stifling dust, Julilly cooled the children's mouths with water from the drinking gourd that the free black boy had given her.

She always filled it now when the wagon stopped beside a stream and the fat man threw each of them a cold
hoecake
with a sop of grease on top. She used the gourd, too, for pouring water over the swollen, bleeding ankles of Lester, Adam, and Ben when the white men left them to fish along a river bank.

Julilly seldom spoke. There was nothing to say. But she shared the others' silent fear and anger. Sometimes when the red-necked driver slept, and the fat man strolled off to fish, Julilly thought of jumping from the wagon and running into the woods. But if she did, who would care for the babies in the wagon? Who would pour water over the torn ankles of Lester, Adam, and Ben? She was the only one strong and free enough to help them. She was held, too, by Lester's sullen, glinting hatred and lifted head. His pride brought swish after swish of the fat man's whip across his back. The children cried and the whip poised high above their heads with a threat.

“You shut your little black mouths or this whip comes down on you,” the fat man cried.

In response Julilly would sing, slow and soft and deep, and the children listened and remembered their mammies and their cabins at Massa Hensen's.

Julilly yearned for Mammy Sally and she sang the songs that she had heard Mammy sing:

I am bound for the promised land
.

I am bound for the promised land.

Oh, who will come and go with me?

I am bound for the promised land.

Julilly didn't know why, but somehow she drew strength from Lester's high-held head and angry eyes. When she woke up cold and frightened during the night on the rough floor of the wagon, she felt better knowing that Lester was close by. He helped her to remember the free black boy and the tall, gentle man who paid him for his work. Most of all, he helped her remember Canada.

One day the wagon slushed through a
cypress swamp
. The muddy water lay as quiet as a flat, smooth mirror. The trees rose out of it straight and tall and their soft green needles strained the sun like spreading sieves. Flicks and specks of sunlight sparkled on the water. A heavenly sight, Julilly thought, and held her breath with wonder.

But the wet swamp mud sucked down the heavy chains and pulled at the legs of Sam and Adam. They fell splashing and gasping into the water.

Lester tugged at their arms, biting his lips against the pain in his own bruised legs. He pulled them out with the bulge of his great muscles. The fat man's whip slapped through the water and onto the wet, muddy backs of the slaves.

A sudden shower of rain splashed through the needled trees. The driver of the wagon hunched his shoulders up to the rim of his wide hat until it made an umbrella over him. The fat man urged his horse ahead of the wagon and huddled under a low branched tree. There was no protection for Julilly and the children or for the struggling men trying to pull themselves from the sucking swamp mud.

With the same suddenness as the onset of the rain, Julilly lost her fear. She had to help the men in the water. Maybe it was like Mammy Sally use to say, “The Lord has made you strong and tall for a good reason.” She slid to the end of the wagon and began climbing over the side when she saw Lester standing still and staring at her. His head shook slightly—a warning for her not to come. But his face shifted from anger to a quick smile and his eyes held hers with a look of pride and approval. Lester was proud of her!

Julilly waded into the swamp and pulled up the mud-covered chain. Without its heavy weight the men could lift their legs. The horse tugged at the wagon until it rolled out onto firm, dry ground, and Julilly returned to the little children.

The rain stopped and a gold sun poured a warm circle of light over all of them. Julilly began to sing:

Jenny crack corn and I don't care, Jenny crack corn and I don't care, Jenny crack corn and I don't care, My massa's gone away!

The children smiled and asked her to sing it again.

CHAPTER FIVE

ONE DAY the land became flat again and on either side of the wagon, green fields dotted with cotton plants appeared. Up and down the rows, lines of slaves chopped the rich, black soil with their long-handled hoes.

“Looks like we've made it to ol' Mississippi,” the fat man called out to the driver who jolted about on the wagon seat.

“Won't be long now.” This was one of the few sentences the driver had spoken on the long trip.

Julilly felt both relief and uneasiness. This must be the dreaded “deep South” that Massa Hensen's slaves had all talked about. But it did mean that the wagon would finally stop. Might it even be that Mammy Sally was here?

At a jog in the road, the wagon turned into a lane that seemed to lead straight into a field. The driver and the fat man appeared tense and nervous. They smoothed their hair and tidied their rumpled shirts and stained trousers as best they could.

Then the wagon stopped bumping, as the road became smooth and hard. Instead of brambles and shaggy bushes on either side, there were rows and rows of tall, wrinkle-barked
oak trees
. Julilly's eyes widened, for hanging from the branches and floating back and forth in the summer breeze, were silent cloud-like drapes of swaying grey moss. It was cool and soft and beautiful and Julilly wanted to catch it in her arms. But the row of trees ended in a stretch of thick green grass. Shading it from every ray of sun were three wide-spreading magnolia trees. Fresh, white blossoms sprang from the heavy waxed leaves. To Julilly they looked like the white linen napkins from Missy Hensen's Big House hanging up to dry. A gentle fragrance filled the air.

Then, Julilly saw the Big House. She stared. It was not at all like Massa Hensen's. Clean, white pillars rose in front of the largest house she had ever seen. They looked as though they sprouted from the earth. And between them, in glistening white, were rows of steps fanned out like a peacock's plume. Two white folks sat on the green lawn in wide frame chairs. The man was tall and thin. Julilly especially noticed that his hair was copper red and that his sharp, trimmed beard matched it exactly. His knees were crossed and his high riding boots shone like pools of muddy water. He flicked a riding whip and laughed at a row of white geese parading over the lawn. The woman was frail and sank back in her chair into the fluffy billows of a pink dress. Neither of them looked in the direction of Julilly's wagon. They barely noticed the fat man who walked toward them until he said, “Mornin' sir.” The fat man bowed slightly and waited.

“I see, Sims,” drawled the man in the chair, “you've bought us a sorry lookin' parcel of slaves.” He glanced briefly at the chained Adam, Ben, and Lester.

“Get them back to the nigger quarters and see that they're ready for work in the mornin'.”

“Yes sir.” Sims bowed again. “Good day to ya'all, Miss Riley—Master Riley.”

The fat man backed away toward the slave wagon.

“So,” Julilly thought to herself, “this is the Riley plantation and he's the Massa same as Massa Hensen.” Then with a shock she realized that the fat man, Sims, was the overseer. He was boss of all the slaves.

The wagon pulled back to a thin road behind the Big House. Weeds and tangled brambles took over between the trees. There was a wide space at the end of the road, but no grass grew on it. The stomping bare feet of hundreds of black folks had packed the earth into a hard, bare floor.

It must be Sunday, Julilly decided, for all the slaves were at home. She wondered if Sunday here would be the same as at Massa Hensen's, a
banjo
would be scrounged up and washing, cooking, and visiting were done. And maybe, as at Massa Hensen's, a banjo would be scrounged up and dancing and singing would start.

The little children in the cart leaned eagerly over the sides, perhaps expecting to find home and their mammies.

But Julilly drew back into a corner. This wasn't like Massa Hensen's slave quarters. There was no laughter and almost no talk. The old folks leaned idle against the doors of two long rows of tattered huts. The children, with legs scrawny as chicken legs, sat scratching in the dust with sticks and feathers. They had caved-in cheeks that sucked the smiles off their tiny faces. At Massa Hensen's there had been gardens around the huts and a hen scratching here and there. But here the huts were low and ugly. The doors sagged on broken hinges and the walls of logs spread wide where the mud chinking had fallen out.

There was fear and a set, unspoken hatred in the eyes of the slaves when fat, red-faced Sims strode near them. He stopped between the cabin rows and ran the pudginess of his hand over his oily-wet hair.

His jay-bird voice screeched. “Some of you lazy niggers take these boys to the tool house and unloose their chains. See that they're ready for work in the mornin'.” He kicked his heavy foot in the direction of Adam, Ben, and Lester.

Julilly's wagon stopped before a low building. It was longer than the other huts.

“Take these babies, Grannie,” he sneered at a sullen old woman—dried up like a crinkly brown leaf. She sucked at an empty pipe. A younger woman came forward and carried them one by one into the low house. They whimpered, and reached after Julilly but the woman closed their mouths with her wide, black hand and hurried them through the sagging door.

Julilly began climbing off the wagon to follow them. They were almost like her babies now. Little Willie Brown broke loose from the wrinkled old grannie and grabbed Julilly's skirt. “Julilly,” he screamed.

Sims scowled at the two of them with sudden anger.

“Shut that baby's mouth, Grannie,” he shouted at the old lady.

She grabbed Willie with one claw-like hand and shut his mouth with the other.

Sims' small eyes appraised Julilly.

“She's big for her age and strong. Put her with the field niggers that ain't got families.”

He stretched his whip in the direction of another long cabin. Julilly walked away from the children toward an ugly, long shack and went inside. There was light and air only from the open door and the cracks in the wall. The small space of hard dirt floor seemed packed with girls, each one clinging to a pile of filthy rags. Julilly didn't look for Mammy Sally. She didn't want to find her here.

There was an empty space beside a sullen, hunch-backed girl. Even in the dim light, Julilly could see ugly scars running down her legs and across her cheeks.

“I'm Liza.” A soft voice spoke from the deep shadow against the wall.

Julilly sat down beside her.

CHAPTER SIX

LIZA WAS THE ONLY ONE in the long room of slave girls who offered Julilly any kind of welcome. There was a listlessness about the others that was like sickness.

Liza reached up and touched Julilly's hand. She pulled her down beside her.

“You been snatched from your Mammy?” she asked.

Julilly nodded. Then, for the first time since leaving the Hensen plantation she began to cry. Fat Sims couldn't watch her here. The others in the cabin didn't care.

Liza sat quietly. Julilly's sobs were the only sound in the dark room. The hunch-backed girl drew closer to her and waited. It seemed a long time before Julilly wiped her eyes and was still.

“This is a no-good place,” Liza muttered.

Julilly agreed. “You been here a long time?” she asked. It was good talking to someone. In the jogging wagon, she mainly sang to the little children. Fat Sims didn't mind this, but he had scowled when she tried talking with Lester or Adam.

Liza looked at Julilly closely before she answered.

“I came at cotton pickin' time last summer,” she said, “sold and bought and throwed in here to live like a pig.” Her words were low and soft. Julilly had to strain forward to hear.