Dr. Ware noiselessly closed the door of his wife’s bedroom and walked
softly downstairs. “Can we have supper at once, Rhoda?” he inquired of
his daughter at the door of the dining-room. “Good! I’m called over to
the other side of town and I want to get away as quickly as possible.
It’s likely I’ll have to stay most of the night--maybe until morning.
Are you intending to go to the party to-night?”
“I was, father, but if you’re going to be away I’d better stay with
mother. How is she to-night?”
“It’s the worst attack of sick headache she’s had in a long time. But I
hope she will soon be able to go to sleep, and if she sleeps well all
night she will be much better to-morrow. She doesn’t want anything now,
but you might look in very quietly after a little and see if she is
asleep. Do you mind missing the party?”
“No, not at all, father. But Charlotte--” she looked uncertainly across
the table at her sister. “Do you think Charlotte better go without me?”
“Of course you do, don’t you, father?” Charlotte promptly interrupted,
with a coquettish look at Dr. Ware, to which he responded with a fond
smile. “Isn’t Horace Hardaker a good enough chaperon for anybody?” she
went on.
“Horace Hardaker!” her father exclaimed in surprise. “What’s become of
Billy Saunders? Have you quarreled?”
“No--he hasn’t. He was impertinent this afternoon--wanted to kiss me,
and I told him he shouldn’t speak to me for a month. So I asked Rhoda
if I couldn’t go with her and Horace.”
Dr. Ware laughed indulgently. “Horace will take good care of her,
Rhoda. It’s all right for her to go with him. But I’m surprised,
Charlotte,” he went on, frowning at her with mock seriousness, “that a
young lady of your convictions should be willing to go to a party with
a Black Abolitionist!”
“Aren’t you afraid to let him go with me, father?” she mocked in reply,
her eyes dancing. “Suppose I should convert him to slavery before we
get back, and make him promise to vote for Buchanan!”
“You minx!” he said fondly, as he stopped to give her hair a rumpling
caress. Then with altered manner he turned to Rhoda with some
directions for her mother’s comfort and messages for certain patients
if they should call during the evening.
The making of Charlotte’s toilette, at which Rhoda assisted, was
enlivened by much gaiety of spirit on the part of the younger sister.
Charlotte had put aside the teasing humor in which she so often
indulged and was more affectionate than usual. Rhoda warmed to her
in response and was delightedly absorbed in helping to deck her for
the evening’s merrymaking. They laughed softly together at her little
flashes of fun, which were so frequent that finally Rhoda exclaimed,
smiling down upon her fondly: “You’re hatching up some mischief,
sister, aren’t you?”
Charlotte giggled. “Oh, I’m just thinking how I’ll punish Billy
Saunders!”
“And make him want to kiss you more than ever!” warned Rhoda gaily.
“He shan’t, all the same!” Charlotte laughed over her shoulder as she
tilted out of the room.
From the veranda steps Rhoda bade Charlotte and Horace Hardaker
good-night, and as they passed down the broad front walk between the
lilac hedges called out gay nothings after them and laughed at her
sister’s saucy rejoinders. When they disappeared down the street
she went back into the house, softly humming to herself, for the
merriment still stirred in her heart. She peeped into her mother’s
bedroom and smiled with gratification as she saw that the invalid was
at last sleeping soundly. Then she made a trip to the kitchen to give
Lizzie directions concerning breakfast and afterward sat down in the
living-room for a quiet hour or two of reading.
It was in the early days of October, and the presidential campaign
of 1856 was at its height. Mighty waves of political enthusiasm
were sweeping the country and stirring it to its depths, as it had
never before been stirred. The youthful Republican party was already
showing a marvelous growth. From the South were coming open threats of
secession in case Frémont should be elected.
Rhoda was intensely interested and under the guidance of her father was
eagerly following the progress of the campaign. She sat down now with a
little pile of its literature on the table beside her and took up first
a pamphlet containing George William Curtis’s oration on “The Duty of
the American Scholar to Politics and the Times.” The quiet, intense
conviction which glowed through its polished phrases set her pulses to
throbbing. She read it through rapidly once, then went back and studied
carefully the arguments, breathing high aspirations and noble ideals,
by which he advanced to the conclusion that the prime duty of the
scholar in that crisis was to work to his utmost for the election of
Frémont.
She knew that the oration was being read by scores upon scores of
thousands, for her father had told her of its enormous circulation
and of its effect upon thinking people throughout the North. Her hand
trembled as she laid it down and went out upon the veranda. She tried
to form in her mind some idea of all those masses of people moved as
she was feeling herself moved at that moment by the orator’s inspiring
sentences and stirred as she was stirred by the desire to go forth as
to a crusade and with mind and heart and hand work for the success of
the party that would put an end to the extension of slavery.
“Oh, he will surely be elected--he must be elected!” she whispered,
nervously clasping her hands. Then she wondered, if Frémont should be
successful, would there follow secession and war--the war which her
father believed to be the only means for the cutting of the Gordian
knot into which North and South had tangled themselves. And then came
quickly apprehensive thought of that ardent and determined lover, on
the other side of the fateful river. She shivered a little and told
herself that the nights were already growing much cooler. Presently she
would go upstairs, she thought, and, perhaps, she would read again the
letter that had come two days before from Jefferson Delavan.
She went back to her reading and looked through some recent newspapers.
In the New York “Times” she read an account of a great meeting in Wall
Street, where, from the steps of the Merchants’ Exchange, Speaker
Banks, of the House of Representatives, had addressed a mighty
assemblage of twenty thousand earnest men. In Pittsburg had been held a
monster mass-meeting of a hundred thousand. Everywhere there had been
meetings, speeches, torchlight processions, bands, cheers, enthusiasm.
Rhoda had herself joined in that staccato cry of the campaign, “Free
speech, free soil and Frémont!” only a few nights before when she
and Marcia Kimball and Mrs. Hardaker and others of her friends had
leaned from the windows of Horace Hardaker’s office and with waving
handkerchiefs and responding cheers had added to the enthusiasm of the
Republican procession sweeping down the street. Her father, heading
one division and Horace leading another, had saluted them with waving
torches and louder cheers. Her mother and sister had stayed at home
that night and neither of them, by word or look, had shown afterwards
that they knew a torchlight procession had taken place. But when the
Democrats had had their meeting and procession a week earlier Mrs. Ware
and Charlotte had gone under the escort of Billy Saunders.
With close attention she read too of the great meetings that were being
held all over the North, and the money that was being donated by rich
and poor alike in aid of the free-soil settlers in Kansas. Recently she
had had a long letter from Julia Hammerton, Horace’s sister, giving
intimate account of the perilous times through which they were passing
and of the riot and pillage and bloodshed which ravished the border.
Her anxiety for her friend doubled the interest with which she perused
the reports from Lawrence and Topeka. She exclaimed with horror every
now and then, and at last with head bowed upon her clasped hands she
whispered: “Oh, God in heaven, grant the election of Frémont, and stop
all this, I pray, I pray!”
[Illustration: “Inside were a withered rose and a letter.”]
She sat musing for a while upon what she had read, but her thoughts
would wander to the grapevine arbor, and again and again across the
ardent longings for the success of the Republican cause which filled
her mind would come the image of Jefferson Delavan as he held her hand
to his heart and declared, “I shall win you yet, Rhoda Ware!”
A deep flush dyed her cheeks and muttering, “Dear God, forgive me, that
I cannot help thinking of him even at such a time!” she rose and folded
the papers. Then she carefully put them away in her father’s office;
for Charlotte did not hesitate, if she came across such publications in
any other part of the house and happened to be in an audacious mood, to
put them with laughing defiance into the fire.
In her room she moved about restlessly, going now and again toward her
bureau, then turning away. At last she opened one of the drawers and
from one corner hidden away under ribbons and handkerchiefs, took a
small box tied with a white ribbon. For some moments she clasped it
tenderly in both hands, her eyes fixed on the floor. Then, as she sank
into a chair, the barriers of her will gave way and with trembling
fingers she took off the cover.
Inside were a withered rose and a letter. She kissed the rose and
caressed it in her palm and held it against her cheek--had not he
held it to his lips that day in the arbor when she told him she would
not marry him? Then she unfolded the letter and read again its brief
sentences. Already she knew them, every word, for in the two days since
she received it her traitor heart had sent her, against her will, to
read it many times. It was dated in Cincinnati, where, he said, he
was likely to remain several days more, but before returning home he
intended to go on up the river to Hillside, where he hoped to have the
pleasure of calling again upon Mrs. Ware and herself. It was written in
courteous, formal phrase, and Rhoda’s eyes studied the lines as though
searching for some hidden expression of the love that she knew was
behind them.
“Ought I to write and tell him he’d better not come?” she asked
herself, as she had done a dozen times already, but still unable to
decide that she would request him not to make the visit. Her heart was
longing to see him again, but what she said to herself was, “It would
be a disappointment to mother if he should not come.”
Oh, traitor heart, that with its insidious desires undermines the
defenses of the will and levels to the dust the walls of human
determination! If wishfulness stand within the gate when temptation
knocks outside it is only the sternest “no,” to both of them, over
and over again, resolute and unchanging and giving way not so much
as a hair’s breadth, that can save the day. If man’s desires always
squared with his knowledge of the right perhaps the world would be a
cleaner and a sweeter place to live in. But it would lack the inspiring
savor of that grim struggle between them, as old as the race, by which
humankind has mounted a few of the steps toward heaven. Man’s inability
to say “no” to himself, stoutly and often, is responsible for more
of his ills than is all “man’s inhumanity to man.” And to dally with
desire, to argue with the traitor within the gates, to listen for a
moment to his specious pleading, is to make it ever harder and harder
to utter the one blunt word that alone brings peace.
Doubtless Rhoda did not know, for she was not much given to
introspection, that if she did not come to quick and sharp conclusions
with the insurgent within her own breast she was but lengthening the
conflict and making it the more difficult to stand to the line she had
set. She was quite sure of her determination that she would not marry
Jefferson Delavan and she would have been amazed and incredulous had
any one told her that even by this yielding to her love in the privacy
of her own room and debating with herself as to whether or not she
should see him again she was throwing doubt upon the issue.
So she sat there fondling the withered rose, which his lips had
touched, and the letter, which his hand had written, and thinking
that it would do no harm if he should come again, for they would meet
hereafter merely as friends. Surely they were both strong enough to
be just good friends, and to keep hidden whatever might be in their
hearts. They were so congenial, they enjoyed each other’s society so
much, why shouldn’t they have the pleasure of meeting now and then?
And her mother was so fond of him, it really would not be fair to
her to tell him that he must not visit them. Yes, it would surely be
for the best, and to-morrow she would ask her mother to write and
say they would be glad to see him whenever he should come. Her heart
gave a little bound at this victory and her lips unconsciously formed
themselves into the tenderest of smiling curves as she pressed them
upon the withered rose. Then she put the box carefully away, blew out
her candle and knelt beside the open window.
Her room was in the southeast corner of the house, and the moon,
dwindling past its half, bounded up from behind the wooded hills and
saw upon her face the same tender look of smiling happiness. Presently,
upon the still night air came the faint sound of cautious footsteps.
She turned her eyes, that had been brooding upon the star-filled sky
while her spirit wandered in dream-filled Elysian fields, downward to
the earth. She could dimly make out a woman’s figure coming up the
middle of the street.
A lantern hung on one of the posts of the east gate, beside her
father’s sign. But it had now a double purpose. Rhoda watched as the
figure came slowly on, stopped at the gate, glanced warily about, and
seemed to read the sign, “Dr. Amos M. Ware.” By the dim light she
could see that the woman’s face was dark and that she held a child by
the hand. Instantly the girl’s spirit was upon the earth again. With
noiseless feet she rushed downstairs, through her father’s office, and
out upon the veranda. The wanderer was climbing the steps and looking
doubtfully about, as if uncertain what she ought to do next.
“You’re in the right place,” said Rhoda assuringly, speaking barely
above a whisper. “I am your friend--come in.”
She hurried the woman into the office, pulled down the shades and
lighted a candle. Then she saw that the fugitive, besides the child,
perhaps four or five years old, which she led by the hand, carried a
baby underneath her shawl. The girl drew a swift breath that was almost
a sob.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, running to the woman and putting her two hands
gently upon her shoulders, “Oh, you poor thing! You poor thing!”
The room occupied by Jim and Lizzie, the two colored servants, was
next to the office, at the northeast corner of the house. Darting out
on the veranda again, Rhoda ran to their window and rapped gently four
times. In a few moments Jim opened the door.
“Tell Lizzie to get up,” she whispered. “A poor woman with two children
is here. I’ve got them in the office now, but you’d better let me bring
them into your room as quickly as possible. They must have some supper
and a little rest, and then we’ll decide what’s best to do.”
Lizzie’s face appeared above Jim’s shoulder. “All right, Miss Rhoda,”
she was saying in subdued but hearty accents, “you all kin come right
in--in two minutes.”
The runaways were soon eating a supper of cold meat and bread and milk,
which Lizzie hurried into the room. Rhoda nodded and smiled at her and
her husband.
“Now,” she said coaxingly, “you and Jim will let them have your bed a
little while, won’t you? Jim can go in the office and lie down on the
lounge. They must have some rest, for they ought to go on to-night.
It wouldn’t be safe to try to keep them here to-morrow, for Charlotte
would be sure to discover the children. Father is not likely to get
back before morning--so I’ll drive them on to Gilbertson’s. No, it’s
all right”--as Jim made a movement of protest. “Dolly is in the
stable--you can hitch her to the two-seated carriage. I’m not the
least bit afraid, and it will be much safer for me than you. Charlotte
will be home soon. We’d better not do anything more until after she
gets in and goes to sleep. But we ought to start in about three hours.
Have the carriage ready, Jim, and I’ll be down. Now, you poor thing,
you and these babies must lie down and get some sleep.”
When they were ready to start, Rhoda put the child, still asleep, into
a nest of rugs on the carriage floor. The woman, with the baby hugged
to her breast, she took on the front seat. “If we should happen to
meet any one,” she said, “they’d take less notice if we were sitting
together sociably like this. If you see father when he comes home, Jim,
tell him where I’ve gone. And, Lizzie, you’ll be sure to look out for
mother as soon as she wakens in the morning, won’t you? If she asks for
me tell her I’ve gone on an errand for father.”
The street, going on northward, passed a few more houses and then
became a country road. The Ware house stood on the top of a long,
gentle rise from the river. From the summit the road dipped down into a
shallow valley, then mounted another longer and steeper ascent, whence
it passed into a region partly wooded and partly filled with farms.
They drove on without speaking until they had passed the last of
the houses. Rhoda’s thoughts were busy with the woman beside her,
wondering what awful pressure of desperation had sent her, with these
little ones clinging to her hands, upon the perilous road toward
freedom. The fugitive was a good-looking young mulatto, not much older
than herself. In her speech and manner Rhoda had already noted the
lack of a certain suppressed fire which she had seen in some of the
refugees, and especially in the slave whose emancipation papers she had
won from Jefferson Delavan. In this one there was instead a patient,
pleading resignation which seemed to her eloquent of the wrongs of the
helpless race. It appealed to her from the big, mournful eyes of the
child when, mutely trustful, he let her take him from his mother’s arm
and lay him upon the bed. It was tugging mightily at her heartstrings
as they drove down the dim road, her eyes on the faint track that
gradually opened out of the darkness. Her heart was all one sweet
compassion and brooding tenderness. But she did not speak until they
were well past the last house of the town and beyond chance of any
wakeful ear.
“Have you come very far? Has it been hard?” she asked in subdued tones.
“Yes, miss, it’s seemed a long way.” The woman used good English, and
her gentle manner showed that she must have been well trained. “But I
reckon it wasn’t really so far. It’s just a week ago to-night that I
took out. We’ve had to hide in the daytime and walk at night, mostly.
Once a man met us and hid us in a wagon under some hay and took us
right far. Sometimes I had to carry both the children and then I
couldn’t come so fast. Andy was right good for such a little fellow.
He’d run most all the time. I told him we were going to see his pappy
and he’s been expecting to find him every time we stop.”
“Your husband has got away, then? Is he in Canada?”
“Yes, miss. He took out last June.”
“Did they follow you? Were you afraid of being caught and taken back?”
“Eleven of us left at the same time, from three plantations. We kept
together the first night, and then we divided. I wanted to come the
same way my husband had. The man who came down there and told us how to
go and what to do said it would be safer for us to divide, and he said
that if I thought I could make the trip alone it would be better for
me, because they wouldn’t think I’d leave the others. He told me not to
be afraid, so I wasn’t.”
The quick tears sprang to Rhoda’s eyes at thought of this childlike
trust and simple steadfastness. “Do you know who the man was?” she
asked.
“No, miss, I don’t know his name. He was a young man and so kind
looking you knew right away that you could trust him. He came out from
Lexington about two weeks ago and we all thought he was just after
birds. He wanted to get bird skins and he paid some of the children who
could catch birds in snares, so the skins would be whole. But after a
day or two word was whispered round that he wanted to see the slaves
who would like to be free.”
Rhoda nodded. “Yes, I know him! He was here only a month ago, getting
names of people who would help the runaway slaves and what they would
do for them. He was at our house and went right on down into Kentucky
to let the slaves know how they can escape from slavery. His name is
Alexander Wilson.”
“Yes, miss. I didn’t hear his name. I’d been powerful anxious to get
away ever since my husband took out, so I went to the meeting, in our
preacher’s house. The man had seen Andrew, my husband, in Canada, and
he had sent me some money and word to follow him as soon as I could.
Oh, miss, he’s free now, and he’s earning money, his own money, and
making a home for us!”
For the first time in the woman’s simple narrative the note of deep
feeling broke through her tone and manner of settled, mournful
resignation. The childlike wonder in her voice as she uttered her last
sentence touched her listener deeply.
“There are no slaves in Canada,” Rhoda said gently. “You’ll be free too
and perfectly safe when you get there. What made you and your husband
dissatisfied in the first place?” she continued. “Did you have a hard
master?”
“No, miss, he’s a right kind man to his slaves, better than his sister.
She’ll be married some day, and we all thought the slaves might be
divided then and maybe some of us sold down south.” She was silent for
a moment, a suspended accent in her voice, and Rhoda waited. “Master
was always right good to Andrew. There was a reason--” She checked
herself, as if some innate delicacy prevented her from saying more, and
went on: “But Miss Emily would have sold him if she could. She didn’t
like him.”
“Miss Emily!” Rhoda exclaimed, a catch in her breath.
“Yes, miss, master’s sister, who has a share in the slaves and
everything. But Andrew’s free now! He can’t be sold now!” Her voice was
full of happy satisfaction.
“But you’ll soon be in Canada, and then you’ll be free too, just as
free as he is,” Rhoda told her assuringly, thinking that the slave
woman had not yet realized the freedom to which she was fleeing. The
girl spoke calmly and compassionately, but at her heart there was a
quick throbbing.
“I mean he’s surely free, miss! He’s got his free papers! Master
followed him and most caught him, the man told me, and a young lady hid
him in a cave. Master Jeff came and she persuaded him to give Andrew
his free papers. Oh, miss! I wish I could see that young lady!” At
last the refugee’s feeling had broken through her manner of subdued and
patient resignation. Her voice was trembling with eagerness and in the
moonlight Rhoda could see the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’d do
anything for her, anything!”
A lump swelled in Rhoda’s throat. She leaned forward to tap her horse
to a faster pace along a level stretch of road, then lifted her eyes to
the sky and whispered, “O God, I thank thee!”
“What is your name?” she queried as she leaned back again.
“My name is Lina, miss,--Carolina, but I’m always called just Lina. My
husband’s name is Andrew Delavan. We took master’s name.”
“Andrew is doing well in Canada, I think you said?”
“Yes, miss. He’s got some land and he’s building a log house for us. It
will be our own!”
“Well, Lina, I want you--can you write?--after you get there I want
you to write a letter to me--I’ll write down my name and address for
you--and tell me about your home and whether or not you and Andrew like
being free. I think perhaps I know that young lady you spoke of and
I’ll show her your letter. It will give her more pleasure than anything
else you could do.”