Underground to Canada (14 page)

“I know ye are
lassies
,” the Captain laughed again, “but for this trip ye will be laddies to me and me mates.”

He showed the girls how to lock their door and warned them to open it only when they heard three knocks and then the words “a friend with friends.” He would bring them food and water ast once. Then they were to crawl into their beds and sleep with all their clothing on.

“If all goes well”—the Captain smiled broadly beneath his thick black moustache—“we will reach the banks of Canada in the early morning light.” The r's in his speech trilled together like the song of a bird, Julilly thought. She would have no trouble recognizing his voice behind a door that was closed.

The Captain bent down and walked out of the little door. The girls locked it behind them.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THERE WAS BARELY TIME for Julilly and Liza to look about the cabin, when three raps were heard on the door, and the Captain's voice whispered, “A friend with friends. Open the door, lassies, there's trouble aboard.”

Julilly turned the lock. The Captain's face puffed with anger.

“I've had word there's a slave hunter and sheriff coming aboard, with a warrant to search the schooner before we set sail.” He peered closely at the girls.

“I've a notion that ye're the lassies they're making all the stir about.”

He picked up their bundles and hurried them out of the door. They ran down the narrow corridor and up the winding stairs. It was nearly dark on the open deck. Firefly-looking lanterns bobbed here and there. The wind was full of the smell of fish, and it was cold.

The girls ran with the Captain across the deck to the far side of the schooner where a little life-boat, covered with canvas, hung against the side. The Captain pulled back the canvas and helped Julilly and Liza inside.

“Ye'll find blankets, water, and a bite of food in there. Take care and pray that the Good Lord will protect ye.” He pulled down the canvas and left them alone.

The girls shivered. They felt about for the blankets and crawled under them, partly for warmth and partly for protection.

“We're gonna jump into the water,” Julilly said solemnly, “if that sheriff comes near this little boat and takes the canvas off the top.”

Liza clutched Julilly's shoulder.

“We're never goin' back to bein' slaves again.”

It was a pledge between them. They were near the end of their journey. Massa Ross had said that Canada and freedom were on the other side of Lake Erie. There was no more walking through the woods, or climbing mountains, or hiding in wet swamp water.

“After all our trials, Liza,” Julilly said slowly, “anythin' is better than goin' back to slavery.”

There was a small opening between the canvas and the top of their little boat, and the girls found that by looking through it they could see onto the deck.

People walked aboard with baskets and bundles in their arms. Sailors pulled at ropes and lifted rolls of heavy white cloth. Near the plank where the people came on board, the Captain stood scowling—his cap still pulled down over one eye and his moustache looking stiff and forbidding.

The girls kept their eyes on him. Two large men shoved their way up the plank and approached him. They could be the sheriff and the slave hunter. Julilly and Liza didn't know. They had never seen them before. The men spoke to the Captain, waving their arms in his face and pacing impatiently up and down beside him. They seemed like horses pawing the ground, wanting some kind of action. But the words they spoke were lost to Liza and Julilly in the wind and the splashing noise of lapping water.

The Captain shook his head. He threw his arms into the air as though in despair. He walked toward the thin stairway. The big men followed.

“They are going to search the cabins, Liza!” Julilly gasped, realizing just how lucky their escape had been. “We're gonna get to Canada, if we've got to hang onto the bottom of this boat and get pulled across Lake Erie.” Julilly was angry now. What right had these men to keep chasing them right up to the border, as if they were two runaway dogs? She and Liza were not going to be slaves no more.

It was night now. The grey fringes of day-light had slipped from the sky. Dark clouds foamed and raced above the
Mayflower.
Then they parted and a half-moon dazzled the schooner with yellow light. The North Star shone above with radiant steadiness. A bell clanged and the boat swayed impatiently as though eager to break away from the shore.

The Captain and the two large men popped out of the stairway. They heaved and puffed and ran to the entrance plank. They shook their fists in the Captain's face, but he shoved them onto the plank and waved good-bye.

The
Mayflower
turned. It swung around into the wind. The sails high above began cutting through the water.

“I feel that I'm flyin' through the sky just like those sails.” Liza hugged Julilly as they both pushed a wider opening in the canvas so they could see more of the outside.

The joy that Julilly felt was so intense that there was pain around her heart.

“Liza,” Julilly said finally, “Mammy Sally is watchin' that same North Star. I've got to keep myself from hopin' too much, but I'm hopin' that it's led her to freedom, too.”

Liza began feeling about for the bundle of food and the flask of water. The girls ate and drank all of it. They drew the blankets close around them and watched the billowing sails catch the rushing wind.

Without wanting to, they slept in the hollow shelter of the small life-boat. When the Captain found them later, peaceful and warm, he left them to rock through the night and be refreshed for the morning.

A CRISP, BRIGHT MORNING came quickly with thin, white frost powdering the deck. The air was strong with fresh fish smells. They mixed with the land smells of pine and
pungent
walnut bark
and fertile earth still warm from summer. The waves on Lake Erie lapsed into gentle ripples. Sails were pulled in and the
Mayflower
drifted ashore.

Julilly and Liza woke with the sudden stillness of the schooner's landing. They grasped each other's hand for comfort, at once remembering the
Mayflower
, Lake Erie, and their nearness to Canada.

They pushed up the canvas on their little boat and the bright sun showered over them. The Captain ran toward them shouting with his trilling r's and upturned sentences.

“
Ahoy
.” He waved for the girls to join him. “All passengers ashore.”

He grabbed the girls by their arms and ushered them down the plank to the shoreline. He pointed to rows of tall, silent trees and the long, bleak shore.

“See those trees,” he shouted. “They grow on free soil.”

Julilly and Liza ran down the plank and jumped to the ground.

“Canada?” they cried together.

The Captain nodded.

Liza dropped to her knees. She spread out her arms and kissed the ground. “Bless the Lord, I'm free!” she cried.

Julilly stood as tall and straight as she could. She pulled the cap from her head and held her head high. There was no longer any need to hide her black skin. She was Julilly, a free person. She was not a slave.

“Thank you, Lord,” she said aloud. She filled her lungs as full as she could with the air of this new free land. No one else was near them except the Captain, who was wiping tears from his eyes and blowing his nose. But he seemed nervous and jumpy and kept watching each passenger who walked from the schooner.

“Ye are safe now,” he said warmly to the girls, “and it does me heart good to have brought ye here.” Then he lowered his voice. “But ye must remember that I must go back to Ohio this very day. I can't be getting myself arrested for helping slaves escape to freedom, and I can't be revealing that I'm a ‘conductor' on the Underground Railway, even though my part of the train goes on top of the water.” He laughed suddenly.

Julilly looked at the Captain with new admiration. In her great joy to be standing on the soil of Canada, she had forgotten how this man was risking his job and maybe his life to bring them across Lake Erie on the
Mayflower.

“Liza and I will never forget how you and all the people of the Underground Railway helped us, Captain,” Julilly said. She wanted to give him something, but her bundle was limp and empty.

Liza seemed not to hear them. She was still kneeling on the ground praying.

“I'm giving ye a little money from Mr. Ross,” said the Captain, awkwardly shoving some paper bills into Julilly's hand. “Far down the shore there is a coloured man with a cart waiting to take ye and your friend to the town of St. Catharines. Mr. Ross arranged it. Your cousin Lester has a job in that town and he'll take care of ye for a bit.”

Julilly looked quickly down the long stretch of rocks and sand that ran beside the lapping blue water of the great Lake Erie, and, sure enough, there
was
a man with a cart waiting beside one of the roads.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE CAPTAIN TURNED SWIFTLY and ran back to his schooner.

Small clusters of people gathered here and there along the quiet shore. But Julilly felt no need to be greeted by anyone. She began to hum softly as the words rang in her head,
Swing low, sweet chariot
.

Coming for to carry me home…

Julilly walked toward Liza and shook her gently on the shoulder.

“You can't just sit here prayin' for the rest of your life, Liza,” Julilly laughed with a full, strong voice. “We've a ways to go yet and there's a man right up there waitin' to take us there.”

Liza seemed dazed. But she stood without help from Julilly and the two of them walked silently round the shoreline toward the coloured man, whose wagon was hitched to an aged brown horse.

As they neared him, he seemed to recognize them as his passengers, and stood waving them toward him.

Liza drew back. “We'd best hide in those bushes, Julilly, until it's dark. What's he mean, lettin' everyone see him wavin' at us.”

“Liza.” Julilly shook her friend again. “We are in Canada, and we are free, and free means not havin' to hide no more.”

Liza stopped in shocked amazement as though this new idea struck her like a bolt of lightning.

“You is right, Julilly,” Liza said and her back seemed to straighten a little with almost no expression of pain on her face. “We can walk right up to that cart and climb on board and lift up our heads, just like the white people always do.”

The kindly brown-skinned driver climbed down and held out both his hands. He was tall and strong and his hair bushed out from his head like a grey and black speckled frame.

“I'm Ezra Wilson,” he said, smiling as though the sun had lighted his face with a spark. “Massa Ross sent word you were comin' and Lester said I was to bring you right to him in St. Catharines.” He reached for Julilly's hand and then Liza's and held them tight.

The girls were speechless, until Liza's sullen eyes suddenly sparkled.

“I was sort of expectin' that Queen Victoria herself might be marchin' up and down this shore when we arrived,” she said, “but I think, Ezra Wilson, that you look just as good.”

Ezra Wilson chuckled, but continued to hold their hands.

“I know how you feel,” he nodded quietly. “I came here last year, just like you, at the time of the harvest.”

“We'd best not talk now.” The tall, strong man turned from them and began to busy himself with the fresh straw and blankets in the back of the cart. “It's a two-day trip to St. Catharines. We'll have plenty of time to say a good many things by then.”

The girls climbed into the cart and settled themselves on the straw. It was too warm for the blankets now. The morning sun had a soothing warmth. There was a burnished glow about it, like the ripened skin of a red apple.

Ezra Wilson sat above them and flicked the reins for the horse to go. The cart began to jog up a steep road, lined on either side by tall, green pines.

The two days of travel along the country roads of Upper Canada with kindly Ezra Wilson were a time of peace and quiet joy for Julilly and Liza.

At first they covered themselves with the blankets when other people came their way. But no one stopped them, and no one shouted, and when they came to the small towns and were hungry, they walked into the stores and bought food with the money Massa Ross had given them. At night, when the sun disappeared, they felt the hard cold of this new north country. Then the blankets warmed them and they were never afraid.

On the second morning the leaves on the trees beside their jogging cart were yellow-gold. Ezra Wilson stopped and spread a blanket beneath them and they ate their lunch.

“It's like heaven here,” Liza murmured softly.

Ezra Wilson stood up abruptly.

“No, it isn't heaven,” he said curtly, “and I've got to tell you how it is.” He looked at the girls a long time and then continued. “We coloured folks in St. Catharines work hard, very hard. But we've got food to eat and most of us have a warm, dry place to live.”

Julilly looked at him with apprehension. What else did he have to tell them to let them know that Canada wasn't just a place with yellow-gold leaves?

Ezra continued to stand. His face was stern but he didn't raise his voice.

“We've found jobs,” he said, “but none of us can read, and all the white folks can.”

“Read?” Julilly asked, never having thought in all her life that she might ever learn to read.

“It seems, Liza and Julilly, that the white folks don't want us in their schools.” Ezra's face grew sad. There's a St. Paul's Ward School in St. Catharines for the coloured and a St. Paul's Ward School for the whites; and the white school's got more books and more paper and more desks, and a good strong building.”