Race for Freedom

by Lois Walfrid Johnson

  Heavyset and of medium height, the man wore a rumpled brown suit and a beaver hat. His small, round glasses had settled halfway down his nose.

  “First-class passengers register in the office,” Martin told him.

  Bending down, the man picked up a black leather bag and a carpetbag—a cloth suitcase with handles. As he started up the gangplank, Martin called after him. “Are you a doctor, by any chance?”

  When the man nodded, Martin spoke again. “The captain will be glad to know we have a medical man on board. If there’s an emergency, can we call on you?”

  “Certainly, certainly. My name’s Hutton. I’d be glad to help.” With a tip of his hat, the doctor passed up the gangplank.

  In that moment Libby felt a hand drop on her shoulder.

  CHAPTER 5

  Scary Thoughts

  It looks like you two have done a good job,” Captain Norstad said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Caleb answered respectfully.

  Just then Libby noticed a man and a woman wearing the warm, heavy clothing of immigrants heading toward the Christina. A girl about Libby’s age trailed behind.

  Not far from the steamboat, the man stopped to stare at the letters on the large wooden box surrounding the paddle wheel. “Yah. The Christina. That is what the man said.”

  In front of young Martin, the immigrant set down his trunk. “Good day,” he told the clerk. “You go to Minnesota Territory?”

  “We leave at four o’clock,” Martin answered.

  Digging deep beneath layers of clothing, the man pulled out a money holder. “Franz Meyer,” he said as the clerk started to write. Mr. Meyer nodded toward his wife, then the girl with white-blond hair. “Frau Meyer. Our daughter Elsa.”

  Before Mr. Meyer could pay his fare, Libby’s father stepped over to him. “I’m the captain,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we are full.”

  “Please, Herr Captain,” Mr. Meyer answered. “Someone told me that you are an honorable man. That the Christina is good for—” He waved a hand toward his wife and daughter.

  “We try to be good for families,” Captain Norstad answered.

  “He said that if I took my family with you, we would be safe from the—” Mr. Meyer paused. As though struggling for the word, he held up his money holder.

  Captain Norstad understood. “From the pickpockets and thieves who want to steal everything you have. If we know who they are, we keep them off the Christina.”

  “Yah.” Mr. Meyer looked pleased that the captain understood. “We need to go to Minnesota Territory. To Red Wing we need to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” Captain Norstad answered. “Every room is taken.”

  “We want to be on deck,” Mr. Meyer answered. “In any small place we stay. Please, Herr Captain, I need to find good land before it is all gone.”

  Captain Norstad sighed. “I want to help you, but we are already crowded.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Meyer stepped forward. “Please, Herr Captain. We are not much room. Me.” She pointed to herself, then to the girl Libby’s age. “Elsa.”

  Elsa looked thin enough to vanish at any moment. Beneath her blue eyes were light gray shadows, as if charcoal had smudged her pale skin. As Libby stared at the girl, their gaze met. When Elsa smiled, her face lit up.

  “I don’t want to load the boat so it isn’t safe,” Captain Norstad said.

  “We have not much luggage.” Mr. Meyer looked toward the trunk on the ground. His wife held out a large cloth suitcase with handles, and Elsa showed a smaller carpetbag.

  Oh, take them, Pa! Libby wanted to say. Just looking at Elsa, she felt sure they could be friends. But Libby knew better than to interfere with her father’s business.

  For a moment Captain Norstad thought about it. Finally he nodded. “Welcome aboard, Herr Meyer. Frau Meyer. Elsa. We trust you will have a good trip with us.”

  A grateful smile crossed Mr. Meyer’s face. As if to add his welcome, Samson edged forward. Palm up, Elsa held out her hand, and Samson sniffed it.

  Afraid that he would jump up, Libby laid her hand on his neck and twisted her fingers in his long hair.

  “He is your hound?” Elsa asked.

  “My dog,” Libby answered. “His name is Samson.”

  “Samson,” Elsa repeated, her accent strong. “Good dog.”

  As Samson edged closer, Elsa petted his head. Samson’s great open mouth seemed to grin his approval.

  Elsa laughed. “You want to be friends, yah?”

  Samson’s soft woof seemed like a yes, and Elsa laughed again.

  “I want to work for our passage,” Mr. Meyer told Captain Norstad.

  Libby’s father nodded, and the clerk entered the names of the family on his list. When money changed hands, Libby knew it was less than the usual fare because Mr. Meyer would help with carrying wood whenever the steamboat took on fuel.

  “Danke,” he said at last. His “thank you” sounded like dunk-uh. After shaking the captain’s hand, Mr. Meyer once more balanced his trunk on his shoulder.

  As the Meyer family walked up the gangplank, Samson started after them. When Libby called to him, Samson stopped. Yet he followed them with his eyes until they disappeared around the cargo on deck.

  “No more passengers,” the captain told the mud clerk. “Not another person. Not one more piece of freight.”

  “There are still a few open spaces on deck, sir,” Martin answered. “Most captains take on everyone they can get.”

  “And the immigrant families are so crowded that they lose their children overboard.”

  “Not if their parents watch them, sir. If they—”

  The captain’s look stopped him midsentence. “I’ve given my orders,” he said to the clerk. “Do you question them?”

  “Yes, sir,” Martin said quickly. “I mean, no, sir.”

  “Then we understand each other.” When Captain Norstad started up the gangplank, even Libby stepped out of his way.

  As though trying to make amends, the young clerk bowed toward Libby. Caleb stepped between them.

  “I need to check the passenger list.” Reaching out, Caleb took the list as if there could be no doubt about his authority to see it. Quickly he turned the pages, scanning the long list of deck passengers.

  If Riggs had come on board, Caleb gave no hint that he knew. Finally he returned the list. As he and Libby walked up the gangplank, Caleb spoke low in her ear. “I’ll take a look at the first-class passenger list too.”

  “Then I’ll find Elsa.” Libby was eager to make friends.

  The main deck was crowded with freight and the stacks of wood that fueled the steamboat. Deckhands had kept open a path for first-class passengers to reach the stairway to the deck above. Except for that path, there were only narrow spaces for moving around. As Libby searched out walkways, Samson followed close behind.

  Suddenly one of the deckhands bumped into Libby. “Watch where you’re going!” he said roughly, then stopped. “Sorry, Miss,” he mumbled quickly, as if realizing she was the captain’s daughter.

  Just then Samson passed Libby and squeezed through narrow places she barely saw. Following the dog, she watched for Elsa and her family.

  Deck passengers had chosen their own living areas, settling down wherever they could find a few feet between barrels and crates. On most steamboats, deckers slept wherever they could. Wanting to provide a better place for them, Captain Norstad had taken the unusual step of building bunks in a small room on the main deck.

  When Libby checked there, she found that all of the bunks had been taken by the first deckers on the Christina. Before long, Samson brought Libby to the Meyer family. Along one side, near the engine room and close to the edge of the deck, Mr. Meyer had made a place for his family.

  Mrs. Meyer sat on top of the trunk with the frightened cow owned by another passenger directly behind her. As Libby watched, the cow swished her tail in Mrs. Meyer’s face.

  Mr. Meyer had climbed onto a nearby pile of wood. Careful not to bump hi
s head, he lay in the narrow space between the top of the wood and the underside of the deck above. As soon as the paddle wheels started, he would feel the vibration in every bone of his body.

  Even worse, the family was close to the noise and danger of the steam engines and boilers. If the boilers exploded, it was usually the deckers who received terrible injuries or died.

  But it was Elsa who worried Libby most. Sitting on the carpetbags, she was only a few feet from the edge of the deck and a foot or two above the river. No railing protected her.

  Seeing Elsa, Libby gulped. It was exactly what Pa didn’t want. It would take only one jolt of the steamboat, and Elsa would tumble into the cold water, never to be seen again.

  What if the Christina strikes a sand bar or hits a stump? Libby didn’t want to think about it. Yet there was something she knew. If Pa hadn’t let them on, they would have found an even more crowded boat.

  Libby tried to push aside her scared feelings. “Please,” she said to Elsa. “When we start, come away from the edge.”

  “The edge?” Clearly the other girl did not know what that meant.

  “The water,” Libby said. She pointed down. “You fall in.”

  This time Elsa understood. Picking up the carpetbags, she pointed to a narrow place on the trunk next to her mother.

  “There it is safe?” she asked.

  Libby nodded.

  “Then you sit there,” Elsa said. “And I sit on the trunk when you go.”

  As Libby squeezed onto the trunk, Elsa again sat down next to the water.

  “Where are you from?” Libby asked, though she thought she knew.

  Elsa smiled shyly, as if wanting Libby to become a friend. “My family and I, we come from Germany.”

  “You speak English well,” Libby said.

  Elsa nodded. “Before we come, we practice. Every day we have lessons on ship.”

  As the girls talked together, Mrs. Meyer stood up. When she motioned to her, Libby also stood up.

  Opening the trunk, Mrs. Meyer took out a plate, then a jar of herring. Like other families who were deckers, the Meyers had brought along their own food. Watching them, Libby wondered how they would make their food last long enough for the journey.

  Using the trunk as a table, Mrs. Meyer forked four small pieces of herring onto the plate. When she and Libby took their places on the trunk again, Mr. Meyer slid down from the woodpile and stood next to Libby.

  “We celebrate,” he said. “We are on the boat to Minnesota Territory. God has brought us this far.”

  When he bowed his head to pray, the others did also. After blessing the food, Mr. Meyer offered the plate to Libby. “You like herring too?”

  “Yes, I do,” Libby said. Then she drew back. I can’t take what little food they have.

  “Thank you,” she answered quickly. “You are very kind, but I just ate my dinner.” Instead of taking a piece, she passed the plate to Mrs. Meyer.

  As if enjoying every bite, each member of the family ate slowly. When they finished, the one small piece of herring that Libby did not eat remained on the plate. Carefully Mrs. Meyer forked it back into the jar.

  Not long after, Caleb joined them. He grinned at Elsa, then spoke to Libby. “Your pa wants us to do our lesson before we leave St. Louis. He said we should visit the courtroom where Dred Scott made his first appeal for freedom.”

  “What did you find out about Riggs?” Libby asked as she and Caleb left the Christina.

  “There isn’t a Riggs on either the first-class or decker list,” Caleb told her. “But I’m not surprised. It doesn’t seem likely that he would use his own name.”

  A scared feeling tightened Libby’s throat. “What should we try next?”

  “We have to search until we find him. Or at least till we’re sure he’s not with us.”

  Again Libby thought about the three hundred people on board. “That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “I know,” Caleb answered. “But we can try. The best place to look is in the main cabin at mealtimes.”

  Libby agreed, but she was the only one who could do it. Both Jordan and Caleb ate elsewhere. Yet there was a problem, even for her. There were two serving times for every meal. “If Riggs eats at a different time, I won’t see him.”

  “That might be exactly what he does,” Caleb answered as they crossed the cobblestone levee. “Or Riggs might change times, just to throw us off. He has to know we’ll be looking for him.”

  A short distance beyond a row of proud new buildings lay the St. Louis County Courthouse. As Libby and Caleb drew close to the steps, she looked around.

  Today no one had gathered to auction slaves, but Libby remembered their last visit. Here she and Caleb had seen Jordan the first time. Tall and proud, he had stood at the top of the steps. In that terrible moment of being sold as a slave, Jordan had reminded Libby of royalty.

  “Where is he?” she asked, and Caleb knew who she meant.

  “Still hiding,” he answered. “Jordan won’t show his face till we’re far from here.”

  “Did he want to come with us?”

  “He said, ‘Caleb, you look inside that courthouse real good. I wants to see it through your eyes.’”

  “Where’s he hiding?” Libby asked.

  Caleb brushed her question aside. “You know I can’t tell you.”

  But Libby couldn’t shake off her wondering about Jordan. “Is there some way you could get a message to his mother?” she asked. “Could you possibly tell her that Jordan is free and planning to come after her?”

  “It would be awfully dangerous,” Caleb answered. “But there are a lot of free blacks who help runaways. Maybe Jordan knows of someone who can get a message through.”

  As Caleb pulled open the large door of the courthouse, he seemed deep in thought. Since the age of nine, Caleb had worked on the Underground Railroad. Now Libby wondered, How many fugitives has he helped?

  In a long hallway, Caleb asked directions to the place where the first two Dred Scott trials were held. He and Libby learned that the large courtroom had taken up the entire west wing. Because the ceiling needed more support, that part of the building had been divided into a corridor and two smaller courtrooms.

  “Dred Scott is a small man,” Caleb told Libby. “Less than five feet tall, from what people say. But he’s taken on a big fight.”

  In one of the courtrooms, Libby tried to imagine what it had been like for Dred Scott. For almost nine years, he had lived in a free state and a free territory. How did it feel to be a slave and stand before the high, long desk where the judge sat? What was Dred Scott thinking about as he asked for the freedom he so strongly believed should be his?

  As Libby and Caleb went back outside, Caleb was silent, as though not wanting to talk. It surprised Libby, for usually Caleb took little time to think things through. Then he acted quickly.

  When at last he spoke, Caleb spit out his words. “A person like Dred Scott—a person like Jordan to be called property! How could the Supreme Court of the United States make such a decision?”

  Sparks of anger lit Caleb’s eyes. “If the federal Supreme Court had made a different decision, they could have changed history. They could have said, ‘Our country believes in freedom for everyone!’ Instead, their decision is driving slavery and antislavery people farther apart!”

  Caleb isn’t afraid to think things through, Libby decided. Her discovery came as a surprise, and she liked him better for it. More than once, Libby had called Caleb the strangest boy she knew because he was unlike anyone else she had met. Then his grandmother told her, “To understand Caleb, you have to understand what he believes in.”

  Now his beliefs made Libby uneasy. Where will his thinking lead Caleb? What might it cause him to do?

  When they returned to the Christina, Caleb left Libby without a word. Later she searched for him because there was something that still bothered her. She found him nailing the cover on a large box. “Caleb?” she asked. “I
need to talk to you.”

  When he drove the last nail into the box, Caleb dropped down on a keg. Libby found a nearby crate. Her scared feelings tightened her throat as she asked, “What would be worse than Pa going to jail?”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Secret Hideaway

  Caleb stared at her. “Don’t you know, Libby? Don’t you have any idea?”

  Libby shook her head. “No, Caleb,” she said softly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then I’ll tell you. It would be far worse if your Pa gave in.”

  “Gave in?” Libby asked, not sure what Caleb was talking about.

  “Your pa stands for something,” Caleb said. “He stands for good things—the right things. If he gave in on what he believes, a lot of other people might do the same thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Libby asked.

  “Your pa believes that every person should be free.”

  Libby nodded. She knew that.

  “But he doesn’t believe it just with his head,” Caleb went on. “He believes it with his heart. Your pa believes in helping runaway slaves, even though it costs him something.”

  “Costs him something!” Libby exclaimed. “It could cost him a lot!”

  “Yup!” Caleb agreed with her. “It could cost him everything.”

  “Everything?” Libby whispered. Her tongue frozen by fear, she stumbled over the words. “Do I understand what you’re saying?”

  “Maybe.” Caleb’s blue eyes met hers, and he did not look away.

  “Are you saying that Pa could give his life for what he believes?”

  “Some people have.”

  “Elijah Lovejoy,” Libby answered. “That newspaper editor from Alton, Illinois.”

  Caleb nodded. Elijah Lovejoy was Caleb’s hero, a newspaperman who stood up for what he believed.

  To Libby there could not possibly be anything worse than having something happen to Pa. He’s my whole life!

  As tears welled up in Libby’s eyes, she turned away, not wanting Caleb to see. Instead, he surprised her. “Libby,” he said softly, “I love your father too.”