Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad (6 page)

“Late July. Saturday night. Wouldn’t be missed ‘til Monday mornin’.” The effort to speak was already taking its toll. He lay back down. Then, feebly, “You Friends?”

“Yes, Josiah. We’re Friends.”

He closed his eyes and almost immediately went back to sleep. He slept more than he was awake for the next week, and I was gratified to get nourishment into him. His strength slowly returned to where he could stand on his own.

The sickness was diphtheria, I learned when I described it to Aunt Alice Grainger at Meeting. Both men were lucky to have survived. I guessed we’d stopped its spread by staying home. Amos wasn’t affected by it. Nathaniel struggled through a mild case, and, if I got it at all, I could barely distinguish it from fatigue.

When Amos brought Betsy back in mid-October, I was hard pressed to hide my relief. “I’ve been starved for someone to talk to,” I told her, “and for help with the work.”

Betsy had to be let in on the ‘secret’ because the ‘secret’ was still there roaming the house by day and under the eaves in Jesse’s room by night.

Her reaction was complete surprise. “You mean we’re part of the Underground Railroad? I knew some Friends did it, but I’d no idea my own family . . . Ann! How long have you known about this?” She looked from Jesse to me in disbelief.

“Sorry, Betsy, but the fewer people who know, the better. And the less
you
know, the better.” He ducked through the doorway and up the stairs to the loft. That was all he would say.

Betsy, sensible and reliable, took his answer to heart and left the matter at that. Then she took my hand and whispered a new secret to me.

“That means you’ll be marrying soon.” I picked up a ball of yarn and my knitting needles. I couldn’t believe my baby sister was talking about marrying.

“By spring, I hope.”

Happy for Betsy, I decided to share as well. “I’ve a secret, too. Elias has gone to Chambersburg to learn breeding and buy some stock. When he comes home, I’m hoping he’ll ask Papa to court, too!”

“Oh, Ann! We could be getting married at the same time!” Betsy laughed. “Whatever will Papa and the boys do? Who will take care of these three helpless men?”

W
inter came early that year.
Strong winds from the northwest blew the leaves off the trees by the end of October. In early November, an unseasonable cold settled in, accompanied by gray skies and daily snow flurries. Jesse came in with an all-black wooly-bear caterpillar crawling slowly up his sleeve, signaling a long hard winter.

Work about the farm continued as usual, but with four men to care for and only Betsy to help, some things went wanting. Skutching flax and spinning happened only after the baking, cooking and washing were done. Cleaning was catch as catch can. Betsy was a help, but I didn’t blame her if her hands followed her heart and led her to fine stitching pillow cases and linens for her trunk when there was other work to be done. I tried to find time to help her, but short days and little light left sparse time for sewing.

One morning Betsy voiced her regrets. “I’m sorry, Ann. I don’t mean to leave it all to you, but my heart isn’t in it anymore. All I can think of is making a home for Will.” She sat on the floor by her open trunk, fingering a set of fine linen pillow slips she’d made.

I touched her shoulder. “It’s all right, Sister. I’d feel the same if it were me.” Leaving her there, I stepped into my room, straightened the bed and hustled downstairs to the parlor. A quick survey there added more chores to my list: clean out the stove, trim the wicks, wash the lamp chimneys, sweep the carpet. I sighed. The work was endless.

In the kitchen, Jesse sat in a chair, feet up, comfortable as a count. “Annie, when you’re sitting around here with nothing to do, could you mend my saddle for me?”

I laughed, glad to have the old tease back to himself. “Surely, Brother. I’ll put that on my list—just after I build a new pig sty. Don’t you have aught to do but torment me today?”

“Thought I’d go visiting. Go see Ike Miller—find out what they’ve heard from Simon. Maybe stop by Mrs. Downing’s and praise her pies,” he said with a wink.

“You, Jesse! Left up to you, I‘d never have to bake another pie!”

He plopped his hat on his head. “I do what I can!”

I shook my head, recognizing the truth in what he said. Jesse was a favorite in the Quaker settlement. A gadabout in winter, hardly a day went by that he didn’t saddle up a horse or hitch up the sleigh to go visiting. First Day after Meeting, people were drawn to him. Those who weren’t talking to him talked to me or Amos about him.

“He’s a handsome one! Be bedding someone soon, I’ll warrant!” one old lady whispered to me, as though I were a fellow conspirator.

“A man of principle, not a reed swaying in the wind,” was John Barrister’s assessment of him.

When Jesse rose to speak at Meeting, the congregation fell silent. He spoke his mind with urgency and a sense of duty that inspired. He could harangue the lot of them and make them like it, because he matched his conviction with action.

After Meeting he was just Jesse, smiling and teasing the girls, bouncing a baby on his knee, wide and generous with his compliments. At least a half dozen young hearts fluttered when he entered a room, and he took care to provide each with a bit of conversation to be taken home, savored and remembered. That Jesse!

Ever the serious Redfield, I envied the ease and lightness with which he moved among the Friends. Strange it wasn’t a sister I was closest to, but this brother. While I envied his charm, I knew it hid conviction as hard as Pennsylvania limestone. I wondered if his desire to go west would win out, or would his dedication to the work keep him until it was too late?

I knew what he meant. Nathaniel was meticulous by nature, given to keeping records and trying new ways to make the farm profitable.

He cut a generous piece of pie and sat down with his hat on to watch me work. Seeing he was in no hurry, I stopped sweeping to bring up what was on my mind. “What about Josiah?”

“What about him?”

“He’s about as happy as a crated rooster. I wish we could move him on. Somebody’s bound to find out. Loose tongues, you know.” I watched Jesse’s face. “And with the Hartleys always snooping around. Fine end to things if
they
catch wind of it.”

“I think he may be almost whole, but we can’t chance sending him on with this weather and the possibility of getting caught,” he replied between bites of pie. “The roads are full of slave catchers who’d sell their firstborn for a few dollars. We’re breaking the law, Ann, and there are many, including some of our neighbors, who’d be glad of a chance to enforce it.”

I shuddered, remembering Charlie Marsh and Rad Hartley promising to help those two poor slaves and then turning them over to the slave catcher for a paltry twenty dollars. The act had brought scorn upon them, and nobody mourned when Charlie was shot a few years later in a fight over a woman. Rad was still around, drunk most of the time and disrespected to the point of poverty. Much good his twenty dollars had done him.

“But Jesse, we can’t keep him here all winter!”

“We can if we have to. To send him out now would be murder. We’ll hide him as long as we must.”

I fretted over keeping Josiah a secret. He hid under the eaves when anyone came, but had the freedom of the house the rest of the time, as long as he stayed away from the windows. Still, it was uncomfortable for me.

“What if someone comes along suddenly? Someone on foot?”

“He can stay close to the stairs and a make quick getaway. It isn’t fun, but it’s safe enough. Just watch what you say. Don’t let anything slip.” Jesse took it all in stride. Nothing bothered him.

The Quaker settlement was close-knit, especially in winter. People visited almost daily, often staying the night if the weather got bad. On those nights, Josiah was confined to his tiny hideout. We kept to our routines, so not even best friends knew the workings of the Railroad, but it troubled me. I ducked inside when I saw anyone coming and longed for a return to normal when I could visit with a neighbor without a care.

In spite of this tension, Josiah proved amiable company. He took his meals with us, sitting at the end of the table nearest the stairs, always ready for a quick escape. I even mentally practiced removing the extra plate before opening the door when someone knocked. Josiah tried to help with whatever work there was, inside or out. Of course, he couldn’t help outside during the day, but after dark he often went to the barn to help Jesse and Nathaniel milk, feed and bed down the animals. He was generally cheerful, though not much given to idle talk.

His curiosity about Pennsylvania and Quaker beliefs led to a lot of questions. I think he found us a little strange but was too polite to say so.

“Ma’am?” he asked one morning as he dried the breakfast dishes. “Could you teach me to read?”

“Why, yes. I’m sure I could, and it’ll help you pass the time. We can start right away.” I paused. “Please don’t call me ‘ma’am’. My name is Ann, and I’m younger than you.”

He smiled and nodded. “Miss Ann.”

“No. Just Ann.”

We started daily lessons on a roof slate with a slate shard for a pen. Josiah carefully formed his letters, biting his tongue as he painstakingly followed my models. Busy though I was, I was glad to encourage his desire to learn.

“Nobody I knew could read and write, ’cept white folks,” he observed, his brow furrowing as he put a flourish on the last of a line of ‘L’s.

“No. They wouldn’t want to know that their slaves might be more capable even than they,” I said, with an edge to my voice. “That would make it hard to perpetuate the myth of the Negro as a simple child in need of a white man’s care.”

Josiah nodded. “You the only white woman I ever met who talk so plain. You different from other white women,” he remarked.

“Not so different from other
Quaker
women, Josiah. We believe in educating everybody. It makes us better people.” I handed him a cloth to erase his ‘L’s.

“You strong an’ tough. You knows more’n some white men, sure’ nough.” He wiped the slate and handed it to me for a new model. “Where you keep your fine clothes, ma’am?”

“No, Josiah, I’m not poor. Friends don’t believe in fancy clothes. We’re plain people. No frills or laces or bright colors.” I handed the slate back to him with a line of ‘M’s for him to copy.

“Why, ma’am? . . . I mean Ann.”

“We think it’s a way people try to put themselves above others. We really do
believe
all people are equal. Quakers aren’t opposed to wealth, but we think it should be used to do good, not feed vanity.”

“Who vanity?”

I smiled. “Vanity’s not a person. It’s an attitude. A pre-occupation with self and appearances. Quakers think being vain about who you are, what you have or how you look is wrong. It leads to all sorts of bad things.”

Josiah studied my face, trying to grasp all this, so foreign to him.

“You don’t be like no other white woman I ever met,” he repeated, shaking his head. “All I knew was Massa’s wife and daughters. Massa’s wife, she mean to me ’cause I’m Massa’s son, my momma said.” He paused to watch my reaction. “She made Massa sell my momma away, but he refuse to sell me. Don’t say I’se his son. Don’t say nothin’. But he treat me well. Give me a job workin’ horses. Say I the best horse trainer he ever seen.