A Family Apart

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “No,” Jake answered.

  “All right, then.” The marshal again reached up and touched the brim of his hat. “Mrs. Cummings, Mrs. Mueller.”

  “Just a minute!” snapped one of the men. “You’re going to take his word for it?”

  “No reason to doubt Jake’s word,” Marshal Dawson said.

  “Well, I don’t trust a one of these New Englander settlers.” He twisted in his saddle to spit on the ground, wiped his mouth on his jacket sleeve, and stared hard at the group on the porch. His glance finally came to rest on Frances.

  “How about you, boy?” he asked. “What do you know about these runaway slaves?”

  “I don’t know anything.” Frances stared back at him, unblinking, until the man finally looked away.

  The other bounty hunter leaned forward and made an effort to appear friendly. “Maybe you folks haven’t heard there’s a reward offered on the slaves.”

  No one answered.

  He sat upright again and shrugged. “It’s going to get worse around here for anybody who’s helpin’ slaves to escape.” As though to prove his point, he pulled his rifle from its sling and held it ready, resting the stock against his right boot

  Marshal Dawson pulled on the reins, tugging his horse toward the left. “Sorry to have bothered you folks,” he said. “You understand, the law’s the law, and seeing that it’s carried out is my job.”

  The men rode grudgingly with him. As soon as the marshal and the bounty hunters reached the road, Mr. Mueller glanced up at the sky. “We’ve overstayed our welcome. Well help you with the chores.”

  “No need,” Jake said. “You’ve got a long ride. Better get on your way.”

  Mr. Mueller gripped Jake’s hand. “I know I’ll be seeing you soon,” he said.

  The Muellers’ horses were hitched to their wagon, and a covered basket of food was handed up.

  The Cummingses waved good-bye until the Muellers’ wagon had reached the road. Then Jake turned to Frances and Petey. “We’re a little late in getting to the morning chores,” he said. “Margaret and I have given thought to what you boys can do, and we worked out a list that shouldn’t be too difficult to handle.”

  “I’ll ride the horses,” Petey offered.

  “Not just yet.” Jake smiled. “But Margaret will teach you to feed the chickens and gather the eggs, and you can help pull weeds in the vegetable garden.”

  Petey jumped up and down with excitement.

  “But right now,” Margaret said, “you can help me clean up the kitchen.”

  Frances quickly offered, “I can do that.”

  “I’ve got other chores for you,” Jake told her. “The cows badly need milking, and then they must be taken out to pasture. You’ll help care for the horses, feed the animals, and lend me a hand in the fields.”

  Frances grinned. Milk a cow? She would love to!

  The two milk cows were bawling by the time Jake and Frances entered the barn. Jake pulled a stool next to the brown-and-white cow and placed a pail under her. “Over here, Frankie. Get close, where you can watch what I do.”

  Frances sidled up to the cow, who turned her head and stared. The cow was much larger than Frances had thought she’d be, and when she opened her mouth and bawled again, Frances jumped back.

  “She won’t hurt you,” Jake said. He demonstrated to Frances what to do, and twin streams of milk shot into the pail. “It’s easy,” he said. “Hold your hands like this.”

  Frances took Jake’s place on the stool and tried to copy Jake, squeezing hard.

  But the cow stepped sideways in protest and knocked Frances off the stool. Frances’s feet hit the pail, which toppled over. “Oh, no!” Frances cried.

  Jake just laughed and helped Frances to her feet. He set the stool and pail back in place and said, “Try it again, and this time make your hands both firm and gentle.”

  Shaking, Frances sat on the stool. She kept a wary eye on the cow.

  “Lean your head against her,” Jake said. “It makes it easier for you, and old Clover likes it.”

  “That’s her name?” Frances asked. “Clover?”

  “That’s it. Now give it a try.”

  Frances took a deep breath and stared back at the cow, who had turned to study her again. “Settle down, Clover,” she ordered. “Sure and this time I’ll be doing it right.” Frances pressed her cheek against the cow’s warm body and began milking again. She tried to follow Jake’s instructions and was delighted finally to hear the hiss and slap of milk into the pail. If only Da could have seen her. If only Ma could have tasted this warm, sweet milk. Stop it! Frances scolded herself. Thoughts like that won’t make it easier to get along here.

  “Good work,” Jake said, and in a moment Frances heard him begin to milk the other cow. Soon there were two buckets of foamy milk to carry to the kitchen.

  Frances worked hard, sweating in spite of the cool weather, as Jake taught her—with Barker’s help—how to drive the cows into the meadow, chop wood, carry water, and clean the bam. He led her over a rise to a field rippling with yellow-green grasses.

  “I’m experimenting with a patch of winter wheat,” he said. “Not many have tried it yet, but those who have claim that it’s more hardy than spring wheat.”

  “What’s spring wheat?” Frances asked.

  “It’s wheat we’ll plant in the spring along with oats and barley,” Jake replied. “We’ll harvest it in July. The winter wheat will be ready to cut in just a few weeks. One more job for you to learn to do.”

  “I can do it,” Frances said.

  Jake smiled. “It’s easy to see that you’re not afraid of hard work.”

  “I’m used to hard work,” Frances said. She smiled as she realized those daily hours of scrubbing floors had built up muscles she was now very glad to have.

  Margaret called to them from the house. Jake, resting a hand on Frances’s shoulder, said, “Our midday meal will be ready, son.”

  Frances was no longer surprised to be called “son.” But she was surprised at how hungrily she wolfed down her food. It felt good to have a full stomach all the time. Ma had been telling the truth about that. But what was a full stomach compared with the emptiness left in her heart by the thought that she might never again see her family all together? She would never believe that Ma had done the right thing.

  Frances Mary Kelly, stop it right now, she told herself. She had to keep busy, so busy that she didn’t have time to think of such things. “What jobs do you have for me now?” she asked Jake.

  Her eyes twinkling, Margaret put an arm around Frances’s shoulders. “Jake can spare you for a little while,” she said. “It’s time for lessons.”

  “Lessons? You mean schooling?”

  “That’s right. We have no schoolhouse in the area yet, so I’ll be your teacher, and we’ll have daily lessons. I want my sons to be educated.”

  Real schooling! Frances could hardly believe her good luck. This was something that had always been so far beyond her reach that Frances had never dared to dream that she might someday go to school.

  Margaret asked, “Can you read, Frankie?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Frances said, proud that Da had taught her.

  Margaret threw open one of the doors of the cupboard, where Frances could see at least a dozen books. She selected one, opened it, and brought it to Frances. “Let me hear you read this page.”

  Frances glanced at the cover of the book. The School Reader, Third Book. Then she looked at the page to which Margaret had opened the book and began easily to read aloud: “Lesson One, The Boy Rebuked by His Dog.”

  It was a funny story about a dog who willingly carried his mistress’s basket when the lazy boy in the family did not hurry to obey his mother’s command. Frances giggled as she reached the ending.

  Frances put down the book and looked up at Margaret, who smiled with pleasure. Petey laughed at the story and shouted, “I’m going to teach Barker to carry a basket!” He dove under the table and
tried to tug Barker into the room.

  “Why, Frankie!” Margaret said. “You read very well! Then you have been to school.”

  “No, ma’am,” Frances said. “Da taught me.”

  “He did a good job,” Margaret said. “Did your parents teach you penmanship, spelling, and geography, too?”

  “I can write some,” Frances said. “But they didn’t have time to teach us the rest.”

  Margaret beamed. “Then I’m going to have two pupils again.” She pulled some paper from a drawer and put it on the table.

  Frances touched the paper greedily. “Ma’am, could I use some of this to write to my brothers and sisters?”

  “Of course!” Margaret said. “And to your mother, too.”

  Frances didn’t answer. No one needed to know that she was still too angry to think of writing to her mother.

  Jake turned at the door. “Once a week the postmaster in town sends the mail out. Your letters can be picked up then.”

  Later in the day the animals had to be cared for again. By the time supper was over Frances was tired, but she joined Jake in the parlor, sitting on a stool near his chair.

  “Tell me about the Underground Railroad,” she begged.

  “It isn’t underground, and it isn’t a railroad,” Jake explained. “And it isn’t something to be discussed with anyone else. It’s a series of homes, known only by word of mouth to those involved, where escaping slaves are sheltered and cared for until it’s safe to send them to the next home in the chain. When these people finally reach Canada, they have also reached freedom,” Jake added.

  “Do you work with the Underground Railroad? Is this house part of the chain?”

  Jake paused a moment, then smiled. “There are things you don’t need to know, son.”

  “I want to help, too,” Frances said. “From the window of the train I saw a black man who had metal cuffs and chains around his wrists, and he was being led by two men who must have been bounty hunters. I’m sure he was a slave who’d been caught, and I felt so sorry for him. It wasn’t fair!” Frances thought of the man who told her she couldn’t read, the woman who spoke about her as if she weren’t there. “We were never slaves, but I know how it is to be treated as if you had no feelings.”

  “We share the same opinions, Frankie,” Jake said, and his pride in her shone in his eyes. “But helping escaping slaves is a dangerous job. It’s not something in which a young boy should be involved.”

  Margaret came into the parlor, her sleeves rolled high on her arms. “I’ve just given Petey a bath, and now it’s your turn, Frankie.”

  Frances gasped, and Margaret laughed. “I didn’t mean that you’d need me to help you. If you need anything, just call on Jake.”

  “I won’t need help!” Frances protested.

  Petey ran in, wearing his nightshirt, his face rosy and scrubbed. “Come with me, Frankie,” he said. “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep. It’s in a room with me, but you have a bed all to yourself!”

  Both Jake and Margaret looked chagrined. “We forgot to show you your room!” Margaret said. “With all the commotion, and the guests—oh, Frankie, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Frances said, her mind still on the bath. She allowed herself to be led away by Petey.

  The room where she and Petey would sleep was large enough for two beds and a small chest. Both beds had been layered with multicolored quilts, and the nightshirt the society had packed for Frances lay on one of the beds. There were a colorful rag rug on the wooden floor and cotton print curtains at the window, which overlooked the back of the house and the barn.

  Frances stroked the top quilt, and Petey, his eyes shining with delight, whispered, “It’s so soft!”

  Frances grabbed the nightshirt and bolted down the stairs. “Please don’t wait for me,” she said to the Cummingses. “I’ll take my bath and go right up to bed, soon as I bail the water out of the tub.”

  “Just throw the water out the back door onto the vegetable garden,” Margaret said. “Soapy water drives away the bugs.”

  A steaming kettle was still hanging over the banked fire. Frances added it to the tub in which Petey had already taken his bath, quickly stripped off her clothes, and stepped in, scrunching down in the warm water with a sigh of delight. Finally she drained the tub a bucket at a time, mopped up the water she had spilled, went upstairs, and fell into bed, exhausted.

  During the night Frances was awakened by the low murmur of voices, a door shutting, and the whinny of one of the horses.

  She crept to the window, careful not to wake Petey. The moonlit yard was empty, the barn door shut. She waited silently, not moving, not breathing. The sounds did not return.

  Frances quietly opened her bedroom door and slipped into the hall. The other bedroom door stood open, and in the dim light she could see that Margaret was asleep, but Jake’s side of the bed was empty.

  Someone is outside. Jake is with them. Who would arrive in the dark, as silent as the shadows, afraid to be seen or heard?

  12

  DURING THE NIGHT a fierce wind that Margaret called a norther blew down from Canada, icing the sky to a frosty blue. In the morning Frances bundled up in one of Jake’s old coats. Margaret handed her a pair of woolen gloves and wrapped a scarf around her neck. “As soon as we can, we’ll drive into town and get you boys some proper clothes,” she said. “I should have thought of it while we were in St. Joe. It’s been a long time since we lost—” For an instant Margaret’s eyes looked at something only she could see, but she took a deep breath and said matter-of-factly, “… since we had children in the house.”

  Frances was so curious that she spoke without thinking. “You had children?”

  “Yes,” Margaret said. “Two boys. Eight years ago they died from diphtheria.”

  “I’m sorry,” Frances murmured, miserable that she had intruded on Margaret’s pain.

  But Petey blurted out, “Is that why you took us? So you’d have children again?”

  “Petey!” Frances scolded, but Margaret graciously smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, and two finer boys couldn’t be found anywhere. Now get along with you, Frankie. Petey, where are the mittens I gave you?”

  Frances ran to the barn, the chill air stinging her cheeks. The barn was warm with heat from the animals and the pungent, earthy smells of their bodies and breath, hay, and droppings. She glanced into the shadows at the back of the barn, but there was no sign that anyone had been there.

  Jake was already at work milking Duly, the other cow, so Frances pulled off her gloves and set to milking Clover as though she had done it all her life, warming her cheek against Clover’s body.

  After the cows had been turned out and the pasture gate locked, Jake led Frances back to the bam and to a wall on which the horses’ equipment hung. He pointed out and named the harness, bits, reins, and all that was needed to hitch the horses to the wagon.

  “Think you can do it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Frances said.

  “Then let’s give it a try.”

  “Now?” Frances gulped as she looked at the pair of tall, strong horses, and she stepped backward.

  Jake laughed. “They’re gentle enough, and they’ll trust you once they get to know you.” He entered the first stall, threw a bridle over Sal’s head, and led her to Frances. “Here. Hang on with one hand and stroke her nose with the other. Just keep talking to her. She likes that.”

  The horses snorted air and stamped around a lot, but Frances kept her hands firm and her voice gentle.

  “Hop up on the seat,” Jake said, once the horses had been hitched to the wagon. “You’ll be driving the wagon at times. Best you learn right now how to go about it.”

  Her hands trembling with excitement, Frances took the reins and repeated all Jake’s instructions as they drove the horses and wagon down the road a short way and back to the barn.

  Jake smiled at her. “You have an uncommonly gentle way with animals. They’ll like
working with you.”

  By the time the wagon was unhitched and the horses turned out to pasture, Frances was so proud of herself she couldn’t stop grinning. And she couldn’t wait to tell Petey about what she had done. Mike and Danny would love to hear about it, too. Maybe they were driving their own horses right now. She wished for a way to know at this very moment what they were doing.

  When Margaret called them to the noon meal, she announced that Petey was in bed with a cough and a light fever. By suppertime Margaret had caught the fever herself. Her face was flushed as she steadied herself against the back of a kitchen chair.

  “You go to bed,” Frances told her. “I can do what needs to be done.”

  “There’s a pot of beef and barley soup on the stove,” Margaret told her. “It just needs stirring now and then. It should be ready soon. Taste it and see if it needs salt or maybe another onion or …”

  Jake took Margaret’s hand. “Get to bed,” he said. “Frankie and I can take care of everything.”

  “There’s plenty of soup. I made more than enough.” Margaret’s glance flicked toward the barn.

  “Fine,” Jake said. “Now come with me.”

  As they left the kitchen, Frances pressed her nose against the window that overlooked the barn. She couldn’t have missed Margaret’s meaning. There was someone in the barn! Someone she needed to feed in addition to her family. Slaves on the route to freedom? Frances was determined to find out.

  As soon as she heard Margaret and Jake’s bedroom door close, Frances grabbed her coat from the hook near the back door and ran toward the barn. She lifted the bar that held the door closed for the night and squeezed inside. Shadows were dark and long, but there was still enough daylight for her to see. The cows turned their big-eyed, curious stare on her, and the horses lifted their heads, blowing through their nostrils and deliberately bumping the sides of their stalls.