Charlotte ran upstairs from the veranda and dashed into her sister’s
room. “Do look out, Rhoda,” she called. “It’s that crazy peddler,
Chad Wallace. He’s asking father if he can keep his wagon in our barn
to-night. Now there’ll be some fun this evening--he’s so comical, with
his songs and dances!”
Rhoda moved to the window and saw a little, wiry-looking man talking
with Dr. Ware beside the east gate. A short, sparse growth of graying
whiskers covered his face to the middle of his cheeks, and pale-colored
hair curled around his neck below his shabby, bell-crowned hat. His
wagon, with side curtains rolled up displaying boxes piled inside, was
at the hitching post.
“He looks just the same as ever, doesn’t he,” she said calmly, as they
stood beside the window with their arms about each other’s waists. But
her heart was beating faster, for she knew what his coming meant. She
knew that in his dingy old wagon he was accustomed to make long trips
on the Kentucky side of the river, ostensibly selling his wares in
villages and at farms, but picking up, whenever opportunity offered,
some fugitive slave and concealing him in a vacant space in the
center, around which the boxes and packages were carefully arranged.
Then he would cross the river at the nearest ferry and put the runaway
into the charge of an Underground “station.” Or, sometimes, he would
remain for months at a time in the neighborhood of one or another of
the Underground routes through Ohio, apparently selling his stock of
notions, but really conveying the fleeing slaves from one station to
another.
Rhoda knew from her father that the people engaged in the Underground
work considered him one of the safest of the “conductors.” The
commonplace character of his occupation and his eccentricities, which
Dr. Ware told her were mainly assumed in order that he might appear all
the more innocent, had proved so efficient a disguise as to prevent,
even in pro-slavery communities, the least suspicion of his real
business.
Word had come that afternoon that the expected half-dozen fugitives
had safely reached the Kentucky shore and would cross the river in a
rowboat after dark. Chad Wallace ate supper with the Ware household and
entertained them with stories of his travels told with so many touches
of eccentric humor that he kept the table in a breeze of laughter. Jeff
Delavan, who was to leave for his home the next day, enjoyed them so
much that he invited the peddler if he ever journeyed as far south as
Lexington to drive on to Fairmount, where he would be glad to see him
and listen to more of his amusing stories.
On the veranda after supper Charlotte begged Wallace for some of
his funny dances, and he did negro shuffles and antics and sang
negro melodies down the front walk to the gate. There he kept up the
entertainment, interspersing the negro songs with doggerel of his own
composition, until a delighted audience of children, young people and a
few of their elders had gathered. Finally, waving his old hat at them,
he walked away, breaking into a song that was much heard in those days
at anti-slavery meetings:
“Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave,
Its branded palm shall prophesy ‘Salvation to the Slave!’”
Jeff Delavan, listening on the veranda, started angrily, the amused
smile died from his face and his brows knit in a frown. The tenor
voice, still surprisingly good, though somewhat cracked by age, rang
back from down the street as the slender, wiry figure disappeared in
the dusk:
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Is he that sort of a crank?” Jeff exclaimed in a low voice to Mrs.
Ware, who sat beside him. “If he is, I don’t care about his coming to
Fairmount.”
“There’s no harm in Chaddle Wallace,” she responded assuringly. “He
isn’t much more than half-witted, and nobody ever takes seriously
anything he says or does. But he has this quaint vein of humor, so that
people are always glad to see him and hear him talk. He loves music,
too, but I don’t suppose he cares at all about the meaning of the
words. As for that abolition thing, why, he’s just as likely to break
into ‘Dixie’ and sing it with just as much gusto. Oh, no, Jeff, Chad
Wallace is a harmless creature!”
It was some hours later and the house was dark, save for a light in Dr.
Ware’s office, when Rhoda, watching at her bedroom window, discerned
some shapes in the darkness hurrying up the hill. As they emerged into
the dim circle of light from the lantern at their east gate, she saw
that it was Chad Wallace and his little band of runaway slaves. Softly
she ran downstairs to admit them into the office. Her father was there,
but asleep on the lounge. With the utmost caution, walking on tiptoe
and speaking only in whispers, she and Lizzie brought into the office
their supper of bread and meat and hot coffee and in half an hour they
were ready to start again upon their way. As they stole silently out
of the house Dr. Ware bundled three of them into his carriage, which
Jim had ready at the gate, and the other three were quickly concealed
in the peddler’s wagon. With even less of noise than was usually
occasioned by the physician’s response to a night call, the party set
forth on its journey to the next station.
Hurriedly extinguishing the lights and locking the doors, Rhoda stole
back to her room and leaning from her window listened to the distant
sound of wheels for assurance that, so far, all was well. Her heart
beat high, as it always did after they had passed successfully through
one of these night episodes. For she knew the never-ceasing danger
that the fugitive might have been followed and trailed to their house.
All along the southern border of the state there were numbers of men,
from both sides of the river, who spent most of their time hunting
runaway slaves, for the sake of the rewards for their capture. She and
her father were well aware that their succoring of fugitives might
be interrupted at any moment by the entrance of the United States
marshal and his band of armed men, with consequent arrest, trial, and
imprisonment.
The words that the peddler had sung were running insistently through
her brain and as she lighted her candle she softly hummed:
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Yes, that’s just it,” she nodded to her reflection in the mirror, as
she placed her hand against her heart. “That’s just how it makes me
feel whenever I think of any of the horrible things that slavery means.”
She knew the history of the incident that had given to the Quaker poet
inspiration for the lines--the branding by a southern court with the
letters “S. S.”--“slave stealer”--of the captain of a little coastwise
vessel for attempting to carry some slaves from Florida to the Bahamas
and freedom under English law. Holding up her own long, slender hand
with knitted brows and lips compressed she gazed at the palm, as if
trying to imagine how it would seem to feel the red-hot iron searing
her own flesh. Then with a disdainful gesture she threw out her arm,
her head high and eyes shining. “They may brand me on my palms and my
cheeks and my forehead too if they like--what would that be beside this
work!”
Counting on her fingers she murmured, “This makes twenty-five we’ve
sent on to liberty--and in such a little time! Oh, we’re helping the
slaves, and oh, please God”--she dropped on her knees beside her bed
with her face in her hands, “please God, we’re doing something to help
kill slavery!”
At the breakfast-table the next morning Delavan asked concerning the
entertaining peddler and was told that he must have made an early
start, as Jim on his first errand to the stables had reported his wagon
already gone.
“Does he travel at night?” the young man asked. “Sometime in the night,
when I wakened after my first sleep, I thought I heard his wagon
leaving the barn.”
Rhoda hastened to say that perhaps it was her father’s carriage he
had heard, as he had had to make a night trip. Charlotte, chancing to
look at her sister as Delavan asked his question, thought that Rhoda
started and changed color ever so little. Immediately her alert mind
began to wonder why, and she fixed her eyes sharply upon her sister’s
face. Rhoda felt her gaze and endeavored to change the subject quickly
in order to ward off the insistent questions which it would be like
Charlotte to begin to ask. But at that moment Bully Brooks came
unexpectedly to her assistance. Passing under her chair he emerged from
beneath her skirt and playfully leaped at a bit of string on the floor.
Charlotte saw him and, remembering certain kittenish tricks which he
had not yet grown too old to play beneath her own hoopskirts, she
smiled knowingly at her sister and dropped the subject from her thought.
Later in the day Jefferson Delavan took his departure, and under his
escort Mrs. Ware and Charlotte went down the river to Cincinnati. Since
their argument on election day Rhoda had given him no opportunity to
renew his love siege. Nevertheless, her heart was like lead in her
breast, now that he was really going, and she was afraid to trust
herself alone with him lest she would find herself saying, “Stay, oh,
stay a little longer!” And yet she felt relief at the thought that the
dear torment would now be lessened, glad that she might rest from the
keener strife within herself that his presence provoked.
When he bade her good-by he held her hand closely and said, “We’ve
not spoken the last word yet, Rhoda Ware! I’m coming again some
day,--though I hope I won’t be exploded into your house the next time!”
Her eyes were serious upon his face, but she felt her cheeks growing
warmer with the pressure of his hand. She told herself that she ought
to withdraw her own, but afterwards she knew that she had not even
tried to take it out of his clasp. “You’d better not come,” she said
gravely. “What is the use?”
“But at least I may come--to see your mother!” he exclaimed, smiling,
and an answering ripple of mirth drove the gravity from her countenance.
It was nearly a week after the state elections before it was known
certainly that the Democratic ticket in Pennsylvania had won, by a
narrow margin, over the candidates upon whom the three other parties
had united. Rhoda listened as her father, Hardaker, and the two
Kimballs discussed the result. They were gathered around a cheerful
blaze in the sitting-room fireplace, for the evenings had grown chill.
Her mother and Charlotte had not yet returned.
“Oh, we’ve lost,” said Dr. Ware calmly, “and among ourselves we may as
well admit it, though of course we’ll keep up a hopeful appearance in
public.”
But Hardaker was more buoyant. “There’s hope yet,” he insisted.
“Pennsylvania has always reversed her state victory at a following
presidential election. And there’s no reason to suppose that she’ll do
otherwise this time. I still believe we’re going to win.”
Rhoda saw her father suddenly compress his lips and throw a quick
glance around their little circle. “To tell the truth,” he said slowly
in a low tone, “just here among ourselves, though I wouldn’t admit it
outside, I hope we are defeated this time.”
The rest started with surprise and Walter Kimball exclaimed, “For God’s
sake, Dr. Ware! What do you mean?”
“Frémont is not the man we need. He hasn’t the capacity, he hasn’t
the strength of character to meet the crisis the country would have
to face if he should be elected. He’s served a good purpose in this
campaign--he’s created enthusiasm and stimulated the growth of
Republican sentiment. But that’s all he’s good for.”
“Well, we’ve made a marvelous showing, anyway,” said Hardaker in a
triumphant tone, “and we’ve got the South scared and their northern
allies shaking in their boots over the safety of their pet institution.
In another four years,” he straightened up, his eyes glowing, and went
on in a voice of jubilant prophecy, “we’ll sweep the country and show
the South that there’s got to be an end of slavery!”
“Yes, we’ll do it next time, if we haven’t this!” exclaimed Lewis
Kimball with enthusiasm. “But, as Dr. Ware says, we’ll have to have the
best man possible to lead the procession. Who’ll it be? Frémont again?
Seward? Governor Chase? What do you think, doctor?”
Rhoda watched her father anxiously as he gazed into the fire. “No,
not Frémont--heaven forbid!” he began slowly. “He has revealed his
weakness. Governor Chase is with us, heart and soul, but I’m afraid
he isn’t quite big enough. Seward?--Perhaps, if he hasn’t proved too
conservative by that time. Well, we’ll have to work with all our might
during the next four years and trust to God to raise up some man as a
leader who’ll have the wisdom of Solomon and the backbone of a granite
mountain!”