The House Girl (27 page)

May 2, 1848

Dearest Kate,

There is some shocking news. Pastor Shaw is gone, run out in the night. When first I heard, I could not help but connect his departure to the last sermon he delivered with such passion. Yesterday I questioned Father about it & he seemed most discomfited. Father told me that three field hands have been whipped to death in recent weeks, two by the Price foreman & one by Mr. Stanmore himself, & it was these events that had so aggrieved Pastor Shaw. Father believes the Pastor spoke of equality of life as pertaining to slaves & that others in the congregation saw this as blasphemous. It is a debasement to a man’s character to behave so brutally, Father said. Long have I known Father’s views on the institution, but I had not heard him speak so openly before. Slavery breeds nothing but sloth & degradation among the landowners, he told me, & it is the greatest hypocrisy that extends it still within our national borders
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Father said that many of the slave holders amongst our neighbors had long believed the Pastor’s views too liberal for our congregation, that he should have followed the Presbyterian New School to the North. Eventually Father broke off speaking & apologized, saying that such topics are outside a woman’s sphere. But Kate, I wanted most desperately for him to continue. Such questions affect us all, do you not think?

Perhaps Pastor Shaw was asked to leave, perhaps he has moved on. But I fear for him. And are we too at risk of incurring our neighbors’ approbation, given Father’s friendship with the Pastor? Might it damage Father’s business reputation & relations? Father continues on publicly as though nothing has happened. This morning in town he said loudly to Mr. Stanmore that he looks forward to the arrival of our new minister. Though when this will be, no one knows
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I hope that Pastor Shaw will soon send word. A simple note to assure us of his good health would put us all at ease
.

Yours,

Dot    

May 15, 1848

My dearest sister,

Something has happened but words fail me to explain. My hand is shaking as I write these words, shaking still from what I witnessed in the barn tonight, after our evening meal, after Mother & I read to little Samuel & tucked him to bed. I will try to tell the tale as I witnessed it, leaving nothing out
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To begin: Samuel was sleeping peacefully downstairs, Father was working in the barn outside, Mother had retired to her bed. I remained at the kitchen table, reading the new Godey’s when I heard a scream. I raised my head & heard another. The sound was muffled but it seemed to come from our very barn. I stepped outside & saw the light from Father’s lantern burning in the barn window. I hurried across the yard and, as my feet sank into the soft mud of the garden, I heard yet another scream. I shouted for Father and, receiving no reply, swung open the door to the workshop. What met my eyes shocked me to the very core. There stood our Father with hammer in hand. A recently finished casket rested on splints, the wood still yellow & raw. Its lid lay half askew, the bottom half covered but the top half open to reveal a man inside, a living man. His head & torso rose up from the coffin & his mouth opened & emitted another scream, this one directed at myself, as his eyes met mine, which I have no doubt were wide with horror. Father turned then to see me standing in the doorway. “You fool,” he said to the man in the casket. He spat the words with a tone of disappointment & regret that I never before had heard from him. “Close the door, Dot,” he said to me. “Please, Dot, come in & close the door.”

I did as he told with shaking legs. The man in the casket remained silent but staring at me & truthfully dear Sister, I could not help but stare back at him unabashed. He was a Negro man, his skin black as the night, his hair shorn to his scalp, his torso covered with the most pitiful of rags. His eyes remained on me, suspicious & fearful, as I approached. “Who is this man?” I whispered to Father. He shook his head. “It is best if you return to the house. Forget what you have seen. And do not speak a word of this to your Mother.” I did not answer. How could I forget this scene, forget the terror in this man’s eyes, his arms that, now I stood closer to the casket, were marked with scars & scabbing? And our Father, was he this man’s protector or his tormentor?

“Dorothea,” Father said. “Go inside, go to bed.” His voice soothed in the way that always calms me, when I am upset or missing you or cross with Mother. I do love him, & I looked at him then, at the worry darkening his eyes, his mouth pursed straight, the deep lines across his forehead. How could I disobey him? I returned to the house, climbed the steps & sit now in my nightclothes at the small desk you fashioned so long ago from the crate & stool, pen & ink before me, blotter to the side. I have just heard Father return to the house, the barn now is dark & silent. I know not what has become of that man, but I cannot shake his face from my mind. The line of his jaw, the set of his eyes. His was a face unaccustomed to kindness. What does Father do alone at night, with Mother, Samuel & I asleep, innocent & dreaming?

There is still no word from Pastor Shaw
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Yours,     

Dorothea

May 17, 1848

Dearest Kate,

Last night I approached Father. I waited until Mother & Samuel were sleeping contentedly. I did not wish one of them to intrude for I knew not the matters that may be the subject of our discourse. My stomach churned as I approached him, sitting by the fire in his reading chair. (Father still reads his Thoreau daily—I believe he feels closer to you by doing so.) He raised his head & the light of the fire cast shadows upon his face & made him look most fearful. I almost stopped then & bade him good night, but I pushed my feet forward & knelt before him, one hand on his knee just as I used to crouch whilst a child listening to a story. I asked, “Please, Father, tell me.” Immediately he knew what I asked. He answered softly, but his voice was solemn & firm. “Dorothea,” he began, “what I am about to say must stay between you & I alone. This is of grave importance. Our livelihood & safety rests upon your secrecy & discretion.” I agreed of course, and my dear Kate, I need not say that you too must breathe not a word of this to anyone. I have sealed this letter with wax, & will do so from this day forward
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And so: Father told me then of the Negro man in the barn, that he was a runaway escaped from the Monroes some 30 miles to the south of us. Do you remember Miss Janet Monroe whose lovely blond hair you so admired? It was on her father’s farm that the Negro had met the cruelest of treatment until finally his suffering was so great that he chose the uncertainty & risk of escape. Father acts, & has acted for many months now, in the service of the Underground Railroad. Surely you have heard of such a thing, Kate? I had heard whispers of it, though in truth I had always believed it to be a story told by the abolitionists to lend some hint of success to their efforts. How wrong I was. The Railroad is real, it operates here in Charlotte County, Augusta, Franklin, & Bournemouth Counties too, stretching northward to Philadelphia, New York, & far Canada. It is like a flower with roots stretching beneath the surface of the earth, pushing its blooms up into the crisp northern air. Pastor Shaw too acted as a conductor on the Railroad, & it is Father’s grave worry that he was discovered, & this prompted his hasty departure from Lynnhurst
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It is late now, Kate. I will write more tomorrow, I promise you. You might already guess at the method employed by Father to assist the escape of the runaways. It is quite ingenious & has so far proven universally successful. I will attempt to give you full particulars in my next letter
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Your faithful & adoring sister,

Dot                                         

May 18, 1848

Darling Kate,

I sit tonight again with pen in hand & candle flickering to continue my tale. All day I have brooded on the stories Father told me, of the 34 Negro slaves he has assisted to date, all escaped from horrors that I can scarcely imagine, sent northwards towards freedom & kindness. I have wondered at the lives they are now living, the joys they may now experience. Father says there are hundreds of others, if not thousands, acting as conductors along these routes. Most are free blacks living north of the Ohio, themselves having escaped but who now venture back to lead others northwards. They are assisted by station houses such as ours, places of safety where the fugitives might find food, clothing, a kind word and assistance to pass further along the road. Father knows no names, only codes & a few addresses of others like-minded, most small farmers like himself
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It is quite amazing, Kate, the method that Father employs. The reason he stood before that man with a hammer, the reason the man seemed to rise like some apparition from the finished casket, is that Father hides the runaways inside the casket shipments he sends to northern buyers. The journey is three days, first by wagon & then by train, & there is a man who meets them at the station in Philadelphia & brings the delivery to a place of safety where the caskets are unloaded & the Negroes returned to the world. It is a daring ruse. And yet who would suspect Father, he who already has been sending wares to northern buyers for years? Mr. Taylor still ships dried beans inside the caskets, but Father now fills an extra one or two with the escaped runaways & the weight is scarcely distinguishable
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Father says that not one of his escapees has been intercepted, as far as is known. He assisted even the fugitive escaped from Widow Price! And to think of those search parties passing by our door, & Father knowing all the while that the Negro in question had already gone, safe within the confines of his casket. And how do they survive those 3 days’ passage? I can hear your reasoned voice inquire. Father gives them a bit of oatcake, but no more, & he drills small holes along the casket sides to ensure proper ventilation. Can you imagine it, Kate, a hammer nailing a wooden top across your face, insufficient space even to turn from back to side? Darkness, stale air, no water, only the barest of provisions to keep your hunger at bay. This the fugitives endure for a chance at freedom
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I wonder now about our neighbors, the Birches & Stanmores especially, as to what transpires in their houses & barns, out in their fields & meadows where the slaves crouch dawn to nightfall. I have always shied away from political talk—I suppose my interests have lain elsewhere, in childish things. But now I feel the first stirring of political belief within me. I know not where it will lead but it is a bit like waking from a dream, or seeing the world through spectacles for the first time. Everything is sharper, but unfamiliar. I am alert to the details & complexities of this new world
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Your most loving & affectionate sister,

Dot