Read Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad Online
Authors: Judith Redline Coopey
Tags: #Brothers and Sisters, #Action & Adventure, #Underground Railroad, #Slavery, #General, #Fugitive Slaves, #Historical, #Quaker Abolitionists, #Fiction
Dinner was passed with minimal conversation, and as soon as the dishes were done, I excused myself to go upstairs and nurse Sam. I laid him to sleep in a cradle Rachel had borrowed from a neighbor, hoping desperately that he would be a good quiet baby through the night and not give Jacob further reason to berate him.
Mary and Noah stayed downstairs with Rachel, talking quietly in the parlor until bedtime, but I stayed with Sam, afraid of another scene. I picked the sleeping baby out of the cradle and rocked him, long into the night, wishing I could spare him such insults for all of his days.
In the morning, I waited until I heard Jacob leave for work before I carried Sam down to breakfast. I was relieved at Jacob’s absence and sensed that the rest were, too.
“I’m sorry about Jacob,” Rachel told me. “He has some strange ways.”
“Mean ways, I’d say,” Mary chided.
“He’s good to me,” Rachel defended. “But sometimes, when he’s drunk liquor, he doesn’t care what he says.”
“Does he drink liquor often?” Noah asked.
Rachel looked down. “Not that often,” she said softly.
“Never mind, Rachel,” I told her, trying to hide the anger and bitterness inside me. Jacob Schilling and I would never be friends. I would avoid him when I could and keep our interactions brief when I couldn’t. My resentment went deep, and I struggled not to extend it to my sister.
We drove back to Osterburg with little talk. Noah was concerned for Mary, who, given her kind nature, would worry over the hurtful events and over my poor baby. Mary was concerned for both Rachel and me, one married to a hateful drunkard and the other struggling to raise a mixed race child in a white world. Holding Sam close, I marveled that anyone could look with malice upon one so innocent and beautiful as he.
When we arrived at the Poole farm, Mary invited me to stay on for a few days to give my hurts some time to heal. I sent word to Jesse to pick us up on the following Second Day.
“Don’t worry, Ann. God will punish a man like Jacob Schilling,” Mary told me, trying to sooth my feelings and brighten my spirits.
“I hope He doesn’t include Rachel in that,” I replied. “I fear for her. I wouldn’t have taken Jacob for so mean a person. He surprised me.”
“And me. Rachel didn’t indicate any unkindness to her, though she did seem uncomfortable with his drinking.”
“As anyone would. I wish for a husband, but not one that drinks. There are worse things than being unmarried.”
I picked up the chubby, wriggling Sam, who was cooing and gurgling to the delight of Mary’s two daughters. Overwhelmed by a need to protect him, I was anxious to get back to the safe familiarity of home. Travel wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped. This first foray out into the wider world had been hurtful for me, if not for Sam.
“I worry for this little one, Mary. If one man can say such mean things, what might others say and do? I wonder at what point in his life he will realize that, to some people at least, he is a lesser human being. What a sad day for a child.”
“I know, Ann,” Mary responded, struggling for comforting words. “Maybe things will change someday.”
“No, they won’t. The mean-spirited won’t go away. There will always be those whose charity and compassion extend only to the end of their noses. All we can do is try to cope and be a comfort to those they oppress,” I sighed.
Jesse’s arrival on Second Day was a relief for me.
“Aunt Alice Grainger died on Sixth Day,” he told me gently. “The funeral was yesterday.”
“Oh, Jesse, no!” Tears welled up in my eyes. “She was my favorite aunt -- The only one to visit when Sam was born.”
He nodded and laid an awkward hand on my shoulder. “I know. Amos’ll miss her, too. She was his favorite sister.” He sat down at the table as Mary set a plate of chicken and noodles in front of him. “Abbott Conway’s wife had a baby. A boy.”
“Another boy. How many is that, now? Five?”
Jesse nodded between bites of chicken and noodles. “The Lester sisters are back from Menallen. Elias’ little brother, James, is goin’ west as soon as the weather breaks.” Jesse told this in a wistful voice that reminded me of his lifelong dream of doing the same. I wondered if he ever would.
“Ready, Ann?” he asked, pushing back his empty plate. “I want to get started as soon as we can. It’s clouding up; looks like a big storm coming.”
“I’ve been up and packed since dawn, Brother,” I replied, indicating my bags by the door.
Jesse loaded the sleigh, helped me in, and handed baby Sam to me. Wrapped snugly in heavy quilts, we bid Mary, Noah, and the children goodbye and set out for home.
It felt good to be back with Jesse. He soon had me laughing over Amos’ latest bout of consternation with the Democrats. “Papa heard they were probably going to nominate James Buchanan for president. You know how he feels about anyone who placates the South. I thought he’d burst a blood vessel, he was so mad!” Amos took his politics seriously and expected others to do the same.
“How’s Rachel?” Jesse asked, carefully giving the horses their head in picking their way up an icy slope.
“She’s well. Her baby is due in Fifth Month. They have a nice house in Altoona, but I don’t think city life would be for me. It seems to suit Rachel.”
We left it at that. The conversation moved on, as I was determined to leave the sadness behind and not spread it to Jesse, for whom Sam was a special angel.
A
fter I chased her out with the broom, I didn’t see much of Pru Hartley that winter
,
but I knew times were hard for her.
Jesse saw her over at Alum Bank looking for handouts almost every time he went to the Post Office. I couldn’t help but have hard feelings for her, even though my Quaker upbringing stressed charity for all. But I pitied her poor children, and it was for them that I decided to pay a visit.
The Hartleys never had much, but things looked worse than ever when I walked down there one March afternoon with a basket of food over my arm. The snow had melted, but the wind was fearsome enough to cut through all but the warmest clothes. No one was about when I approached, but two skinny dogs set up a chorus of barking. I wasn’t sure they would let me get up to the house, so I stood outside and called.
“Pru! Pru Hartley!”
Pru stepped out on the porch and yelled at the dogs. Her dirty blond hair hung below her breasts, but didn’t cover the ragged dress hanging beneath. She wore a pair of men’s boots, probably left over from her father, and her three scrawny, big-eyed children stood silent behind her.
“Whatcha want?”
“I came to pay a call. Thought I’d bring you some goodies.” I referred to the heavy basket over my arm, which I was more than anxious to let down.
“We don’t need none of yer charity!” she replied defiantly.
I’d already planned to leave the basket and go on home if it came to that. “Got some bread in here, and some jam. Some pickles and a little jerked beef.”
The children looked up at her, their faces white with hope. They were hungry. Pru looked from them to me. “Jest leave it.”
“All right. I did want to talk to you, though.”
“What you wanna talk to me fer? Ya run me off with the broom last time.”
I moved toward the porch. “I shouldn’t have done that, but you were insulting my baby.”
“Warn’t no insult. A nigger’s a nigger. I jest called him what he was.”
Her words cut me again and I was tempted to turn around and leave, but a look at the faces of the children stopped me.
“Let’s leave it, Pru. Do you want this food or not?”
“These here young’uns could use it,” she allowed.
I stepped toward the porch, but Pru took a position between me and the door. “That’s far enough,” she said.
I set the basket down on the edge of the porch, and the children immediately descended upon it. They tore the bread apart and crammed it into their mouths without even opening the jam. Pru stood back for a short while but soon reached in to grab her share.
The children looked like lost waifs. Two boys and a girl, obviously from different fathers, little resemblance among them. They were dirty and almost naked, so ragged were their clothes. I thought of Sam, warm and cozy in his cradle while such as these starved and froze. My anger toward Pru melted some. She’d had a hard life. In my heart I’d thought she deserved it, but no. Not even she deserved this.
“You got enough wood to burn?” I asked, looking for smoke from the chimney.
“Ain’t got none less I get it, an’ I can’t haul much. These here ain’t got no shoes.” She indicated the children.
I could see that. “Where are your brothers these days? I haven’t seen them around in ages.”
“Sawyer’s gone off to be a peddler, carryin’ a pack. Ain’t heard from him since last summer. Cooper comes around sometime, but he’s got him a woman down to Cessna, so he don’t care about us.”
There it was. A woman alone, with no one to plant, hunt or haul wood, No income. One could condemn or one could help. It wasn’t a choice. For whatever reason, Pru needed help. I watched them eat until the basket was empty.
“I’d best be going now, but if you’ll come up our way later today, I’ll find some more for you.”
I’d known Pru Hartley all my life, but that was the first time I ever saw even an inkling of warmth or kindness about her. She smiled—through broken teeth.
Ï
I kept count of fugitives passing through each month, and by the third week of Seventh Month in 1856 there had already been sixteen. Jesse and I were hard pressed. Once or twice we had to call on other Friends for help. Slave catchers roamed the roads and hills. Every farm was suspect, especially a Quaker farm. We moved carefully because we never knew who might be watching.
On the 25th day of Seventh Month, a group of nine arrived from Schellsburg around 11 p.m., rousing Jesse out of bed. He settled them in the barn and promised to move them along the next night. Before first light, my father and brothers went to the barn, each carrying a ‘toolbox’ or a bucket containing breakfast for our guests. After sun-up, Jesse rode out to consult with others about where he could send so large a group. He returned home perplexed.
“The route’s clogged,” he told me. “No place to send so many at once. I’ll break ’em up and send ’em on a few at a time. Hope we don’t get such a large group again for a while.”
Abby and I stood ready to help. “Isn’t there a conductor in Claysburg?” I asked.
“Yes. Joseph Dickerson takes them from time to time. Puts ’em on the Clearfield route.”
“Abby and I could take two or so to him today, in the wagon, and bring back a load of peaches from the Pavia orchards.”
Jesse considered the possibility. “I guess we could hide ’em under hay and gunny sacks, as usual,” he said. “Let me talk to ’em about splitting up and see who’s willing to go.”
He was back from the barn within ten minutes. “Two are husband and wife. They’re willing to split off from the rest if they can stay together.”
“All right,” I agreed. “If we leave right after noon, we can be back before dark.”
Abby and I were getting to be old hands at this, but Sam created a problem. At nine months, he was too active for a long wagon ride, so I went out to the barn to pick a babysitter.
“Please, Ma’am, I can do that,” one of the remaining three women volunteered. She was a tall dark-skinned beauty, a little younger than I. Her movements were graceful and assured, unlike so many whose backs were bent by overwork.
The problem was how to get her from the barn to the house unnoticed. She was almost as tall as Nathaniel, so I carried out a suit of his clothes and a broad brimmed hat in a gunny sack. I told her to put them on and walk with long strides, head down, hands in pockets, to the house.
Once inside, she shed her disguise, and I told her the plan for transporting the couple and explained her role in it. Then Abby brought Sam to meet his ‘nurse’.
The black woman’s eyes widened when she saw him. She looked questioningly from me to Abby and back at Sam. Disinclined to explain, I hurried on with preparations to move man and wife. Jesse loaded the wagon with empty baskets covered with burlap bags. The couple lay curled up among the baskets, hay scattered over them, covered by the burlap in a carefully arranged helter-skelter. Abby and I packed food, instructed the black woman on Sam’s care, and drove off toward Claysburg. The men stayed to tend the farm and prepare for Jesse’s nighttime trip.
We presented a pleasant picture of farm women on an errand, bumping down the road to Claysburg. Outwardly calm, inwardly tense, we were keenly aware of how completely our charges depended on us. When we arrived, around four o’clock, I was relieved to hand the couple over to Joseph Dickerson in the shelter of his orchard.
“We’re going back through Pavia to get some peaches,” I told him.
“I’ve got peaches right here,” he replied, indicating his heavy trees.
“To sell?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“What a piece of luck!” I told Abby, reaching for the empty baskets.
The wagon was soon loaded with succulent, ripe peaches, courtesy of Joseph Dickerson and his four strapping sons. I noticed Abby watching the boys and realized, with a tinge of sadness, that she was growing up.