Secret Way to the Heart
Page 3
“Almost a family,” Jayne mumbled as she sat back down.
“You are right, my dear,” her father agreed. “And we explained our hesitation on including you. But today you truly proved that your assistance was needed. I never saw a more relaxed person talking to that stranger—well, until you announced your religious affiliation, that is. But he left without any knowledge of what was going on. I am proud of you.”
Jayne's mother began clearing away the table as soon as the men rose to leave. Pete and George would return to the banging on the anvil as they kept a sharp eye out for visitors, and Hannah returned to bed to rest her bones. Mary put together the meal for those waiting below before she went off to work, leaving Jayne and Jesse to serve them. Jayne's mother would begin preparing another meal by herself as was her custom on wash day. If on the off chance someone got by the many eyes keeping a lookout, any noise heard from below the kitchen could be blamed on Jayne and Jesse retrieving food from the root cellar.
Eventually, night fell, and the time for resting was over. The freed women tried to repay them for their kindness by giving them their cherished “Crazy” quilts, but the offer was declined. These sometimes threadbare pieces of brightly colored material would be all these women would have to keep them warm in the cold northern climate. The women once again went into hiding, this time by slipping themselves under the wide planks of a false-bottomed wagon Pete had rigged. Once they were under concealment, the top was covered with sacks, giving the appearance of a wagon heavily laden down with various goods. Hannah’s wobbly voice lifted up a short prayer while Mary slipped in a small jug of water along with bread and jerky. The twin boys tightly secured the wagon sides while Jayne's father informed the drivers of the route north they should pursue and who to leave the wagon with. A shipping bill was given to them in case they were stopped, but all knew that paper may cause more problems than solutions.
As the wagon faded into the dusty shadows of the night, Hannah shivered. George wrapped his arms around his wife, his lips close to her ear, comforting her. Jayne's father softly prayed the instructions given would be followed and the runaways would eventually make it to Canada or at least the next “depot” stop. Jayne let out a deep sigh of relief now that she knew her participation helped with the latest “shipment.” Life would never return to what she’d thought was normal.
Chapter 3
“Someone’s a comin’!”
“Again?” Jayne glanced out the tiny kitchen window and gasped in dismay. She turned and looked at her parents with distress. “Why is it that preacher arrives soon after we get our secret visitors?”
It had been two weeks of almost nightly passages. Some dripping wet slaves had come by way of the canal, and some came through the woods by foot. All had been greeted with a warm meal, clean clothes, and directions to the next place of sanctuary. Jayne could see the exhaustion on her family and friends’ faces, but no one complained and none were turned away. How could they do otherwise? Jayne silently wondered as she struggled not to cry at the escapees’ desperation to escape. She had been thankful that no neighbors had come by to visit during that time. It hadn’t been until the latest slaves arrived in crates that someone did come calling. Jayne did not believe in coincidences. That the Right Reverend Jeremiah Bronson was once again riding up their road had some sort of meaning. What it was, she wasn’t sure, but a quiver of something—fear? excitement?—ran through her as she grabbed her shawl and headed outside.
“Hello! May I help you?” Jayne called out as the man slid off of the old swayback horse. Clearly, the rumors Jayne had heard were true that the preacher had bought the pitiful creature from the horse dealer. Shaking her head in confusion, she looked into his intelligent eyes and blurted, “Couldn’t you have gotten yourself a better ride?”
“And good day to you!” His greeting was jovial, but heat rose up Jayne’s face. Before she could apologize for her rudeness, the man turned his attention to the horse. “This old fellow will have a much better life with me.” Jeremiah smiled as he patted the animal’s neck. “He is groomed every day, has a new blanket and saddle, and eats very well, don’t you, Buddy?”
The animal gave a slight nicker as he turned his massive head and nuzzled the preacher’s coat pocket. Laughing, Jeremiah pulled an apple out. “See that? He even knows where to find his midday snack.”
Jayne hung her head in shame, hearing the affection in the man’s voice for the animal. Glancing down, Jayne grimaced as she realized not only had she been rude but was once again in her worse attire. What does it matter anyway? He thinks you are a servant. Anger suddenly flared in her as she straightened her shoulders and forced herself to look him in the eye. Exactly why she felt angry, she couldn't explain, except possibly because it felt like he didn't see her. “If you’ve come to see Mr. van Hoyton, you have come at an inopportune time.”
“I am sorry. Is he still not feeling well?”
“I never said he was unwell.” Jayne tried to remember exactly what she had said at their prior meeting but drew a blank. “In case you haven’t noticed, both the Mondays you have come here have been washday. As a rule, laundry day is always on Mondays. That means the household is preoccupied and not available for frivolous conversations.”
“Are you saying . . .” The man grinned, and his eyes twinkled. “Mr. van Hoyton can’t have visitors due to his lack of clean breeches?”
“Oh, that is not what I meant at all!” Jayne gasped and spun away from his ruggedly handsome face. “You may laugh at me, but I suggest you get a letter of introduction from my . . . Mr. James McTierney and send a request for an appointed time of visitation with him as well as Mr. van Hoyton . Now, I will say good bye to you, sir.”
She smiled, proud of herself and her exit lines. Until, she tripped over her own feet and tumbled to the ground. With her face in the dirt, Jayne groaned in disgust. Could this day get any worse? Before she could move, two large hands spanned her waist and lifted her up.
“Are you all right?” His grin was gone, and his eyes were filled with concern when he turned her around to face him. When he reached up to brush away some leaves that were in her hair, Jayne trembled as her breath caught in her throat. She felt light headed, and her spiraling emotions confused her. Jeremiah Bronson was too close . . . At the same time, he was not close enough.
The golden flecks in his eyes darkened as he looked down at her, and Jayne trembled again as she instinctively recognized his awareness of her. Jayne raised her hands and pushed free of his grasp, trying to ignore the flash of disappointment at his equally quick release.
Jayne turned away, not wanting this stranger to see her confusion. Her glance fell onto the quilt that was stretched out on the fence. She gasped. It was the signal quilt. Snatching it up, Jayne began to fold it quickly as she tried to distract the man beside her. “Umm, it might be wiser to tell me exactly which day you will come by so the family can be ready to receive you.”
“Here, let me assist you with that.” Jeremiah grabbed an end and stepped back, stretching the quilt out. “It is always easier with two people. This way the quilt will be smoother with no chance of it falling in the dirt.”
“T-thank you,” Jayne mumbled as she stepped forward to join her end to the one he held, trying to ignore the sensation of his fingertips touching hers. The motion of stepping back and forth as they folded the quilt felt to her as if they were dancing, and Jayne wished it could continue forever until he spoke again.
“Has your hearth fire gone out?” He chuckled as he tapped a long finger on the one different colored square in the quilt’s log cabin pattern. “In all the other squares, the hearth is a deep red, but right in the center here, the hearth is black. Do you think it means something?”
“It means the quilters ran out of red cloth,” Jayne said, repeating the same reply she had been given years before when she had questioned Hannah
about it. She didn’t find out until recently—and she hoped Jeremiah Bronson never found out—that the one off-colored square was a signal for runaways to know they were at a safe house. With the unexpected crate delivery right after two young black women had shown up at their door, no one had remembered to remove the secret signal from the fence. Jayne grabbed the folded blanket and hugged it to herself. “Besides, one doesn’t want their quilts to look like everyone else’s, you know.”
“No, of course not.” The preacher’s small smile playing on his lips made Jayne uneasy. Did he know that square’s significance or not?
“I must return to my work, sir.” Jayne, once again, turned her back to the man and walked toward the house. “Thank you for your help.”
“Please inform Mr. van Hoyton I will return next week on Tuesday afternoon to see him, and we may be properly introduced.”
Jayne bobbed her head in acknowledgment before rushing inside.
Once in the sanctuary of the kitchen, Jayne collapsed onto a chair and looked up at Jesse. “I thought he would never leave.”
“Well, I am happy you finally finished falling for the man.” Jesse chuckled as she loaded bowls and utensils onto a tray.
“What?” Jayne stared at Jesse for a moment before chuckling and shaking her head, remembering her fall. “Oh yes, I do walk gracefully, don’t I?”
Looking around the otherwise empty room, Jayne stood up and began filling the bowls from the soup kettle on the stove as Jesse sliced bread and put the pieces on a large plate. “Has everyone else eaten?”
“Yes, your mother asked if we could feed our guests as your father was in need of a nap.”
“Of course, he must be exhausted.” Jayne picked up the tray as Jesse went over and removed the rug before lifting the heavy cellar door. Carefully, Jayne descended the stairs and smiled reassuringly at the women huddled below. The lamplight was dim, but the fear on the women’s faces was quite visible. It was only when Jesse began handing out the bowls, that the women relaxed and began to speak.
After serving the food to the freed slaves, the two young women sat and listened, horrified at the tales of woe but mesmerized at the women’s determination to escape. The hollow, sunken eyes and crisscrossing of scars on their backs spoke of the years of abuse they’d endured. The women told of the songs of despair their families sang as sons were torn from their momma’s arms and daughters were taken into the home “to serve.” Considered nothing more than pieces of property, many girls served masters who saw them as a “cash crop.” The more children the women produced, the more money the owner received from renting or selling them.
“I heard of ways to escape,” one woman told them, “but I never was quite sure if a white man would actually help me. Then one day a white man looked me straight in the eye and nodded at me as we passed each other in the street. Returning from the fields and the overseer’s whip, I just turned and followed him into an alleyway. I could have been walking into a heap of trouble, but God was good. Shortly afterwards, I was on my way north, destination Canada.”
For all the women shared, they never said their names or from which Southern state they originally came from. “Best you don’ know. That way if the hunters come this way and ask, ‘You see a runaway slave from such and such?’ you can honestly say, ‘Don’ know.’”
The women told of the many ways of communication the slaves used for gatherings and possible escape. They spoke of turning the big kettle drum pot over before they spoke because they believed it hushed the sounds of their voices.
“We’d tell each other stories of a woman called ‘Moses,’ for she kept coming back to get more of us slaves out. Me and her over there.” She pointed toward a tall, thin woman, scarred with whip marks on her legs. “We decided we couldn’t wait, and we started walking.”
Another woman tried to tell more as she stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth, but the garbled sounds made no sense. The thin woman playfully slapped her arm and continued the conversation for her.
“There be signs to look for and catch phrases to listen for, too. There be the quilts that were used and the songs we sang to prepare ourselves for flight. The quilts would be found on clotheslines, fences like yours, or on bushes while songs would be sung or hummed or even whistled—sometimes by total strangers—but it was the sign us runaways were looking for.”
“There’s the quilt called ‘Monkey Wrench’ that was used to tell that it was time to begin preparin’,” the first woman interjected. “The ‘Wagon Wheel’ pattern and the song, ‘Steal Away to Jesus’ meant it was time to go.”
“And then there was the ‘Flying Geese’ or the ‘Bear’s Paw’ quilt, which told us to head north in the spring,” another woman commented.
The last woman spoke up, and all eyes turned to her. Older in age but stronger in body, this woman looked Jayne right in the eyes as she spoke. Clearly, the other women held this one in high regard as they all fell silent. Jayne wished she could find out their names, but such knowledge could be dangerous for all of them. “To keep heading in the right direction, we was to recognize the ‘North Star’ by the quilt pattern and by singing the song ‘Follow the Drinking Gourd.’”
“The drinking gourd?” Jayne asked.
“Go look up on a clear night and see what that there North Star be connected to,” the woman replied. “So them songs and quilts told us what to look for in the night sky to guide us to freedom.”
“There was warning quilts to keep an eye out for as well.” The other women all nodded solemnly. ‘The Drunkard’s Path’ quilt told us we needed to alter our course and the song ‘Wade in the Water’ told us the bloodhounds be coming and how to keep them hounds at bay.”
Jayne’s cheeks burned as she remembered the many quilts she had innocently placed out “to air.” How many times was I kept in the dark by my family and friends through the years? Would they ever consider me an adult? She was no longer a child, and it hurt that she had not be trusted until now.
“Each step toward freedom seemed filled with danger, but we be told that the farther north we got, the kinder the people were. No one ever came back to tell us otherwise. We didn’t know if they be dead or alive, but we held on to hope. God bless Southern men like Master Jim, who sped the process up while taking great risks so that we can be free,” one of the women who arrived in the crates said.
“M-Master Jim?” Jayne sputtered in surprise. The woman’s words reminded Jayne of the truth. She had been too young and possibly could have jeopardized these women’s escape as well as her brother’s life.
“Yes’m,” The woman replied, lifting twisted crippled fingers to point at Jayne. “I escaped last spring and got caught and whipped last summer. I worked the fields through harvest because the missa’s found my hands monstrous, even though it was from spinning thread for her clothes that caused them to look that way. The master didn’t want to feed me until next planting time, so I was put on the block. But I thank my Savior Jesus that I got bought one day and offered freedom that very night.”
“By this Master Jim?”
“Yes’m. I was barely off the block when he whispered a question I never thought I’d hear. ‘Do you want to be free?’” The woman shook her head as if still mystified at that inquiry. “My old master had bragged after the auction that he was free from the most rebellious of slaves and he pitied the man that bought me! But Master Jim just smiled as he led me away and arranged for my transport.”
“We all . . .”—the woman nodded at the others who’d arrived by crate—“we all were gathered in a little shed in the woods. Not sure where it was or who the place belonged to, but Master Jim brought us food and cleaned out our slop buckets! Imagine that!”
“Yeah, that was a sight to be seen!” another one spoke up and quietly chuckled. “But when he told us how we be heading north, I was right scared.”
“But how did you survive?” Jayne asked.
“Every night, a funnel was put in one of the air holes and we filled our water bottles. A stick of beef jerky then come through another hole. One of us took care of the water, the other the jerky, and we took turns bagging up the mess so nothing leaked out of the box.”
“But it sure was smelly!” laughed one of the women.
“How did you know when you were safe?” Jesse, silent until now, blurted out.
“Master Jim done told me not to say anything until I was let out of the box and saw white folk and black folk working side by side. I figure I’m at that place.”
Jayne’s heart swelled with pride at Jim’s actions, but she kept silent about Jim’s relationship to herself and her own mixed-up crazy family. her father had warned her that there was always a chance a runaway was really an informer, and secrecy was still important. In fact, Jayne knew these women had no idea what state they were in or how much longer the journey was to be. She just prayed they would all make it.
Chapter 4
Dear loved ones,