Rosemary looked puzzled. “Why not? I gathered that everyone knew about my great-grandparents’ activities.”
“Well . . .” Sylvia hesitated. “I don’t believe that was so. Gerda only stumbled upon the truth about your great-grandparents by chance, and she mentioned several times that both stations were run with the utmost secrecy.”
“But then . . .” Rosemary looked to her daughter for help. “How did everyone know about it?”
Kathleen shrugged. “Maybe the truth came out after the war started.”
“No, no.” Rosemary shook her head firmly. “That’s not it. This was before the war, when they stopped running their station. I know it was before the war.”
Surprised, Sylvia and Summer exchanged a look. “The Emancipation Proclamation and the war changed the way the Underground Railroad operated, but it was still needed until then,” said Summer. “Your great-grandparents were devoted Abolitionists. Why would they stop running their station early?”
“Well—well, I must say I don’t know.” Rosemary gave her daughter a pleading look. “Do you remember, dear?”
“Did they close their station because they were discovered?” asked Sylvia.
“I—I suppose that could be how it happened,” said Rosemary, distressed. “I’m not sure. I know I heard something about it somewhere, maybe in those letters. Or maybe my grandmother told me. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”
Sylvia could see that Rosemary had become troubled and anxious, so she was relieved when Kathleen rose, signaling an end to the interview. “It’s all right, Mother. Maybe it will come to you later, but if not, that’s fine.”
“What really counts is that we were able to meet you,” said Summer, rising. She reached over and took the older woman’s hand. “I really enjoyed hearing your stories. Thanks for sharing them with us.”
“It was my pleasure, dear,” said Rosemary, but she seemed fatigued.
Sylvia thanked her as well, and she and Summer left. They drove back to Elm Creek Manor in silence, both mulling over Rosemary’s words. Sylvia puzzled over the new details about the Nelson family as well as Rosemary’s strange insistence that their Underground Railroad station had ceased operation while it was very likely still needed, wondering what it all meant.
Suddenly Sylvia’s thoughts returned to another part of Rosemary’s story. “Summer, do you suppose Margaret Alden’s Elm Creek Quilt could have a history similar to Rosemary’s Dove in the Window?”
“How do you mean?”
“Perhaps Anneke made the Elm Creek Quilt for Hans to take into battle—I don’t know if he fought in the Civil War, but let’s say for the sake of argument that he did. Maybe she quilted those scenes of Elm Creek Farm into the cloth, to remind him of his home. Perhaps he lost the quilt, or traded it for a pair of boots or some other necessity, and eventually it fell into the hands of Margaret Alden’s ancestor.”
Summer was silent for a long moment. “It’s as logical as any other explanation we’ve thought of.”
“Hmph,” said Sylvia. Summer meant well, but Sylvia recognized faint praise when she heard it.
12
June 1859—
in which we are undone
A chill descended upon our household, but since I was certain it would eventually lift, I paid it less attention than I should have. To be sure, with two young babies in the house, we adults had no time to idly ponder one another’s moods and tempers. Sometimes I felt as if I spent all day on the run, racing from one chore to the next, from wiping one infant’s face to changing the other’s diaper, from singing to one while Anneke rested to rocking the other so Joanna could sleep. It occurred to me once, when I was feeling overtired and self-pitying, that I had inherited all of the drudgery of motherhood but none of the joys.
I knew Anneke resented Hans’s decision to forbid her from working for Mrs. Engle so long as we remained stationmasters. I could see it in the set of her jaw, in the abruptness of her conversation, in the way she brooded in her chair after her son had fallen asleep in her arms. The warmth that had entered her behavior toward Joanna cooled again, surprising me, for I had expected their shared experiences to draw them together.
I also knew Anneke was angry, but I did not know how angry until the storm that had been gathering on the horizon finally crashed down upon us, like a cloudburst from a clear blue sky.
I remember that it was a Friday, for the next day I had planned to attend a quilting bee at Dorothea’s. Though I looked forward to the event with pleasure, all that week my heart had been filled with wistful anticipation, for Joanna and I had been planning her continuing journey north. She insisted she felt well enough to go, and her baby certainly seemed healthy and strong; in fact, though nearly a month younger than Anneke’s son, he was nearly as big and at least as alert.
We planned her route carefully, knowing she would be carrying a precious burden, and would need certain shelter whereas other runaways could endure a night or two sleeping under the stars. For that reason—and because she had become so dear to us, and because her particular appearance encouraged us to believe our scheme could succeed—we devised an unusual means for her to journey on.
Anneke gave her two dresses, a hat, and a pair of gloves. I gave her forged documents identifying her as Caroline Smith, a widow from Michigan. Hans gave her the best present of all: a one-horse carriage and a Bergstrom Thoroughbred to pull it. Joanna and her son would travel in fine style indeed, and seeing her, not only would people assume she was a lady, but they would also take for granted that she and her child were white.
Joanna was the only one who doubted she could pull it off. “Soon as I talk, they know what I be.”
“Then pretend you have an affliction of the throat,” said I. “Pretend that the same accident that scarred your face robbed you of your voice, and that you must communicate through writing. You can do that.”
“Yes, I can,” said she. “Thanks to you.”
I was so moved by her plainspoken gratitude that I embraced her. As thrilled as I was that Joanna would soon make a new life for herself and her son in freedom, I would miss her, for we had grown close over our lessons and chores. She promised to send word once she was settled, but I feared that I would never hear from her again, and would forever wonder what had become of her.
Those worries had settled into the back of my mind that Friday morning as Joanna and I took stock of her son’s layette and made plans to sew more clothes for him before they set off on their journey. I was holding the baby, and we were laughing over something I can no longer recall when I heard the door burst open downstairs. “There’s trouble coming,” shouted Hans.
There was a terrible note in his voice that filled me with dread. Without a moment to lose, Joanna scrambled into the hidden alcove, and I replaced the false door and the sewing machine behind her. Then, just as I spun around and discovered to my horror the baby still on the bed where I had left him while assisting his mother, I heard the baying of dogs, the pounding of horses’ hooves, then boots on our front porch and fists on the door.
“Bergstrom, open up,” shouted a man, and then came a crash as the door burst open beneath the weight of many arms.
Without thinking, I snatched up the baby and fled to my room. He looked up at me, solemn and uncomprehending, as I wrapped him in a quilt and set him on the floor of my closet, praying he would not cry out for his mother. I pulled dresses down from their hooks and flung them upon him, then tore back the quilt from my bed. In the moments it took to make my room seem carelessly untidy so no one would think to poke through quilts on the floor of my closet, I heard an exchange of angry voices from below, and Anneke’s scream. My heart quaked with panic as I shut the closet door and fled from the room to help her and Hans.
I made it only as far as the top of the stairs; from there I spied Hans sprawled unconscious on the floor, and Anneke kneeling by his side, weeping. Led by their dogs, the two slave catchers who had plagued us in the past were running up the st
airs toward me, followed closely by two men from town I recognized but did not know by name.
I tried to block their way, but they easily shoved me aside and ran past me, down the hall and into the sewing room. I heard the sewing machine moved aside, then the cracking of plaster, and then the shout of triumph: “We’ve got ourselves a n——, boys!”
White-hot fury burned away my fear. I did not think; I ran into the sewing room and found those hateful men with their hands upon Joanna, and I lashed out at them with all the strength in my body. I do not know how I managed it, but somehow I freed her. “Run, Joanna,” I screamed, but then a fist swung out and struck me hard in the face, and I collapsed.
Groggy, I watched as the men dragged Joanna from the room. Even now, when I close my eyes against my tears, I hear her low moan of despair, and my heart is rent once more, always in the same place, so no scar will ever form.
I gasped in pain as a boot connected with my side. “Got any more n——s here?” demanded the second slave catcher. I said nothing and rolled over to get away from him. “You answer me when I ask you a question, b——!” He kicked me again, harder, and I heard a rib crack.
I watched as he hastily searched the room, then stormed out. I heard him enter the vacant room next door and ransack it; by the time I stumbled into the hallway, he had moved on to the room Anneke and Hans shared. My instinct was to snatch Joanna’s baby from his hiding place and flee into the woods, but I knew I would never make it. Instead, gasping from pain, I descended the staircase, praying that the little boy would be as still and silent as stone. My only hope came from knowing that the slave catchers’ dogs could not have been given the baby’s scent.
Behind me, the slave catcher entered my room with his dog at the ready, but I refused to watch, lest he become suspicious and search it more thoroughly. I forced myself to continue taking each stair one painful step at a time, until I reached the first floor. Dazed, I watched Anneke cradling Hans’s head in her lap. Through the front door, I saw the other slave catcher bind Joanna’s wrists and lash the other end of the rope to the pommel of his saddle.
He dug his heels into the horse’s side, and as he pulled Joanna into a stumbling run, her head flung back and her eyes met mine. A desperate, silent plea passed between us, and then she was gone, yanked out of sight by the trotting horse.
Hans groaned and sat up, and the two men from town immediately dragged him to his feet. At that moment, the second slave catcher came downstairs, muttering curses. “That’s the only one here now, but I swear they had others,” he told his companions.
“One is enough to break the law,” said one of the townsmen. With that, he declared that my brother was under arrest. As he took Hans’s arm to lead him away, the other man placed his hands upon me.
Anneke followed us outside as my brother and I were taken into custody. “You were only supposed to take the runaway,” said she, weeping. “Mr. Pearson promised me they would not be punished.”
My captor made some retort about how Anneke ought to be grateful she was allowed to remain free, and if not for their kind hearts and her infant son, they might have acted otherwise. But I hardly heard him for the ringing in my ears.
Anneke had betrayed us.
Hans stared bleakly at her as we were forced onto the men’s wagon and taken away.
They took us to the city courthouse, where, to my amazement, Dorothea and Thomas Nelson were already imprisoned. Dorothea’s face was ashen, and Thomas’s face was bruised and bleeding. A second posse of slave catchers and local lawmen had descended upon them at the same time we were assaulted; two runaways, a husband and wife, had been discovered hiding in their cellar. Not long after our arrival, another wagon brought Mr. Abel Wright—the colored farmer who had warned us about the Underground Railroad quilt pattern—his wife, Constance, and their two sons. The younger clutched his arm to his side, gritting his teeth from the pain. Later we learned it had been broken in two places.
They left us in a cell for hours with no food or water, and not a word about the charges against us. Perhaps they thought our crime so evident that the normal rules of law need not be followed. We spoke in hushed voices about what we ought to do when they finally did address us; Dorothea led us in prayer. And still we waited.
We slept as best we could on the cold stone floor and were awakened before dawn by a constable offering us water and bread. Later that morning, the chief of police arrived in an indignant fury, having heard of our arrests only upon his arrival. He had us brought a decent meal and separated Dorothea, Constance, and me from the men, thinking this nod to our modesty another act of kindness, though we would have preferred to remain with the others.
As afternoon turned into evening, Dorothea urged us to take courage. Her friends in the Abolitionist movement would see to it that we had the best lawyers to plead our case, and surely no jury would punish us harshly for disobeying the Fugitive Slave Law so reviled in the Northern states. “The worst they can do to us is break our spirits,” said she. “And we will not allow that.”
I nodded, but at that moment I believed my spirit had already been shattered. In my mind’s eye I saw Joanna, her hands bound, being pulled behind the slave catcher’s horse. I thought I heard her baby’s muffled cries as he lay hidden in my closet beneath the quilt and my scattered dresses. Surely Anneke would have searched for him, knowing that he had not departed with his mother—but what would she have done upon finding him? Anneke, who would betray her own husband—what would she do with Joanna’s child?
What, I wondered, would become of Joanna now?
My heart was filled with despair, despite Dorothea’s attempts to comfort me.
In the evening, Jonathan was finally permitted to see us. Never had I seen him so angry, though outwardly he remained calm and promised us that everything possible was being done to arrange our release. It was through Jonathan we learned that Mr. Pearson had arranged the raids on all our homes, having enlisted the aid of powerful friends in the local government sympathetic to the Southern cause. But they were in the minority, Jonathan assured us; our allies included most of Creek’s Crossing, including the chief of police and the judge who would most likely preside over our arraignment, should one occur. Even now the Nelsons’ solicitor, a friend of Jonathan’s from university, was demanding we be charged or released immediately, and he promised to bring to justice all who had violated our rights.
Dorothea seemed greatly reassured, and she asked about the men. Jonathan hesitated before responding. Thomas was fine, though angry and worried about his wife. Jonathan had set the youngest Wright son’s broken arm and had persuaded the chief to release him into Jonathan’s custody so that he might recuperate in better surroundings, but he might yet be compelled to return to prison. Jonathan paused and gave his sister a look that she immediately understood, for she put an arm around Constance to lend her friend strength.
Only then did Jonathan tell us worse news than we could have imagined: One of the slave catchers had declared that the Wright men were runaway slaves recently escaped from his employer’s plantation.
“But Abel has been free all his life,” cried Constance. “Both of my sons were born right here in Pennsylvania.”
We knew, of course, that the Fugitive Slave Law rendered the truth irrelevant. The slave catcher’s sworn testimony alone was sufficient to detain the Wright men, and once his employer corroborated the lie, the Wright men would be condemned to slavery.
“We cannot allow Abel and his sons to be put in chains,” said Dorothea. “We cannot.”
“We won’t,” said Jonathan. “They aren’t allowed to testify for themselves, but there are people enough in this town who will speak up for them.”
“People enough?” echoed Constance bitterly. “What people? My people? Since when does the law listen to my people? Or do you mean white people? Which white people do you mean? Which white people in this town are going to risk themselves for my family?”
Dorothea and Jonathan e
xchanged a glance, and Dorothea said, “You do have friends, Constance. White as well as colored.”
“You will also have documented evidence even Cyrus Pearson cannot refute,” said Jonathan. “I will have certified birth records at hand before the week is out, as well as an affidavit from the doctor who delivered your sons. Do not fear, Constance. They can threaten you all they want, but their lie will not persist.”
Constance seemed little reassured by their words, perhaps because history had taught her to put more faith in actions, but there was a glint of resolve in her eye that told me the slave catchers would not take the Wright family without a fight.
We comforted Constance as best we could, then I remembered my brother and asked Jonathan how he fared. Hans had asked about me and about Anneke, Jonathan said, but otherwise he sat apart from the others, brooding in silence, his disbelief and shock impossible to conceal.
“I promised to send him word about you,” said Jonathan to me. “What should I tell him?”
“Tell him I am fine.” I was not about to give Hans reason to worry about me; he had enough to occupy his thoughts with Anneke.
“Gerda would not complain, but she is injured,” said Dorothea.
I demurred, but Jonathan insisted upon examining my injuries through the bars separating us, whereupon he discovered my broken rib. If I had thought him angry when he arrived, he was truly furious now. He stormed off down the hallway from whence he had come, and I do not know what he said to the chief of police, but in a few minutes Jonathan returned with a constable, who meekly unlocked the cell and told me I was free to go.
I hardly knew what to think, but when Jonathan put his arm about me, protecting my injured side, I allowed him to lead me away. The constable swung the door shut again with a loud clanging of metal—and Dorothea and Constance still trapped inside. I stopped short. “What about my friends?”
Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt Page 25
