Underground to Canada

by Barbara Smucker

  PUFFIN CANADA

  UNDERGROUND TO CANADA

  BARBARA SMUCKER

  Underground to Canada

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born and raised in Kansas, BARBARA SMUCKER (1915–2003) worked as both a researcher and journalist before marrying Donovan Smucker and moving to Chicago, where they raised their three children. In 1969 they moved to Waterloo, Ontario, where Barbara became a children’s librarian and went on to write most of her books.

  Ms. Smucker’s many stories for children have won her several awards, including a Canada Council Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and the Brotherhood Award for the U.S. National Conference of Christians and Jews.

  Also available by Barbara Smucker

  Amish Adventure Days of Terror

  Garth and the Mermaid Incredible

  Jumbo Jacob’s Little Giant

  White Mist

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, Toronto/Vancouver, 1977 Published in Puffin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1978

  Published in this edition, 2008

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

  Copyright © Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited,

  Toronto/Vancouver, 1977 Interior illustrations copyright © Vincent McIndoe, 2008

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the U.S.A.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request to the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-14-317802-6.

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  NOTE TO THE READER

  The escape from Mississippi to Canada by two fictitious characters, Julilly and Liza, could have happened. It is based on first-hand experiences found in the narratives of fugitive slaves: on a careful study of the Underground Railroad routes; and on the activities of two Abolitionists: Alexander M. Ross of Canada and Levi Coffin of Ohio.

  I have avoided too much dialect. It is difficult for many readers to understand.

  Barbara Smucker

  By Martin Luther King Jr. from the Massey Lectures Toronto, 1967

  It is a deep personal privilege to address a nationwide Canadian audience. Over and above any kinship of U.S. citizens and Canadians as North Americans, there is a singular historical relationship between American Negroes and Canadians.

  Canada is not merely a neighbour to Negroes. Deep in our history of struggle for freedom Canada was the North Star. The Negro slave, denied education, dehumanized, imprisoned on cruel plantations, knew that far to the north a land existed where a fugitive slave, if he survived the horrors of the journey, could find freedom. The legendary underground railroad started in the south and ended in Canada. The freedom road links us together. Our spirituals, now so widely admired around the world, were often codes. We sang of “heaven” that awaited us, and the slave masters listened in innocence, not realizing that we were not speaking of the hereafter. Heaven was the word for Canada and the Negro sang of the hope that his escape on the underground railroad would carry him there. One of our spirituals, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” in its disguised lyrics contained directions for escape. The gourd was the big dipper, and the North Star to which its handle pointed gave the celestial map that directed the flight to the Canadian border.

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the acknowledgement of copyright material and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

  CHAPTER ONE

  NIGHT MUSIC DRONED through the slave quarters of Jeb Hensen’s Virginia plantation. The words couldn’t be heard but they were there beneath the rise and fall of the melody.

  Julilly hummed them as she sat in the doorway of her cabin, waiting for Mammy Sally to come home from cooking in the Big House kitchen. She was as still and as black as the night. The words of the song beat in her head.

  When Israel was in Egypt’s land

  Let my people go

  Oppressed so hard, they could not stand Let my people go.

  Old Massa Hensen didn’t like this song. He said it came when there were whisperings and trouble around. There were whisperings tonight. They murmured beneath the chirping of the crickets. They crept from ear to ear as soundless as the flickering of the fireflies.

  Even though June was just beginning and there was summer heat mixed with honeysuckle sweetness in the air, Julilly shivered. She tried pulling her coarse tow shirt about her knees, but it had long since grown too short. It wasn’t that Massa Hensen didn’t give her clothes. He was good to his slaves. It was just that she grew faster than any other twelve-year-old on the plantation.

  “She’s tall enough to work beside the grown women in the cotton fields,” Massa Hensen said.

  Mammy Sally scolded about this.

  “My June Lilly is just a girl that’s grown too fast,” she pleaded. Grown women had to pick more cotton and they worked longer hours.

  It was because Julilly was born in June and Mammy Sally liked lilies that she got her name. Most folk slurred the words together and they came out Julilly. But they didn’t for Mammy Sally.

  There were no ring games tonight in the dusty yard before the cabin doors. The children whimpered—fretful and uneasy.

  Julilly went inside the cabin where she lived alone with Mammy Sally. The flickering pine knot in the corner fireplace held blue flames. They had no warmth. There was loneliness and emptiness inside. When Mammy Sally came, the warmth would spark out in the fire, and the sh
adows would bring sleep.

  The little slave cabin was tight-roofed and plank-floored, as were all the other slave cabins at Massa Hensen’s.

  “Better than any other slave cabin in all of Virginia,” Mammy Sally declared. She liked the Big House, too, where it was cool and wide and the logs were hewn smooth against the walls, and the plank floors were shined and polished.

  THE WHISPERINGS that hung in the night-time air had started this morning when Old John, the coachman, drove Missy Hensen into town. Julilly and the other slaves heard about it later.

  Missy Hensen sat uneasy and restless in the carriage seat. She talked to Old John of moving North and of selling things. She talked of how her husband, Jeb Hensen, was old and sick and had to go to the hospital in Richmond. She said they had no kin to leave things to.

  The land’s used up, Old John,” she mourned. “It just has no more life to raise tobacco, or cotton, or any other crops.”

  Old John agreed. He knew that the Masters in Virginia had used the land until it bled and died.

  They had no crops for sale these days; so they were beginning to raise and sell slaves instead. There was fertile land in the deep, deep South. The Masters there needed slaves to work their fields.

  When Missy Hensen and Old John drove into town, there was excitement on the Court House lawn. Missy Hensen pretended not to see. Old John, who couldn’t read, heard the white folks speak of handbills plastered on the Court House door: “WILL PAY TOP PRICES TOMORROW FOR PRIME FIELD HANDS,” they read.

  Old John’s hands trembled on the horses’ reins. A slave trader from the deep South was coming to their town to buy tomorrow! Jeb Hensen was making plans to move!

  Old John and the other slaves at the Hensen plantation knew about the buying of Virginia slaves. Word of it spread like a wind-whipped flame to one plantation and then another. Rumours spread. Some said the buyer lined the slaves up one by one like cows and pigs. They’d sell a mother to one man and all her children to another.

  “In the deep South,” folks said, “even the little children tote hoes bigger than themselves, to chop the cotton. Then they get whipped ’cause they don’t finish the work the overseer set out for them.”

  Massa Hensen didn’t whip much on his plantation.

  “Too soft-hearted,” some of the slave owners said.

  THIS AFTERNOON when Old John came home from his trip to town, he hobbled straight to the stable boys.

  “A slave trader from the deep South is comin’ tomorrow.” His voice trembled.

  The stable boys ran like hopping toads to the children who carried water to the field hands in the cotton rows.

  “A slave trader from the deep South is comin’,” they whispered.

  Up and down the cotton rows the message spread, faster than a winging bird.

  Julilly heard, chopping, chopping cotton in the blistering sun. When lunch time came she ran to the Big House to tell Mammy Sally. For one instant Mammy Sally straightened her tall body and lifted her proud head.

  “Oh Lord,” she said, “we is needin’ your protection now.”

  Then Mammy Sally drew her lips together and was peaceful. Fears, that had flapped around Julilly’s head like blackbird wings, flew away. Mammy Sally would take care of her. She was Mammy’s only child.

  Now the night had come. Julilly huddled shivering near the cabin door. The plank floor of the cabin was warm and dry. The whippoorwill called its evening song and the round, orange moon spread its gentle light. But her feet were cold. Her hands were icy. A strangeness spread about like an uneasy quiet before a storm.

  Then Mammy Sally came, her bare feet silent on the soundless dust. She clasped Julilly’s hand, but the coldness and the strangeness didn’t go away. She pulled Julilly close, bending toward the small blue flame. The light showed indigo across her strong, lined face. It glistened in her troubled eyes.

  “June Lilly, child.” She spoke softly, rocking slowly back and forth. “You know the slave trader’s in our town. Some of the slaves is to be sold.”

  “Who, Mammy?” Julilly was cold again and shivered.

  “There’s no way of knowin’.” Mammy shook her head. “Massa Hensen’s sick and gone away and Missy Hensen says there’s no way to keep us all together.”

  “Most of us have known no other home.” Mammy rubbed her hand across the comfort of the floor. “This is where you were born, June Lilly.”

  Julilly knew all this—how Massa Hensen was better to his slaves than most—how her Daddy died the day that she’d been born from being bitten by a snake—all those things from long ago—safe things that tied together with planting time and harvest time.

  Then Mammy stood. She lifted her head high and the white head-rag that covered her greying hair showed soft and a little golden in the firelight. She straightened her shoulders, almost reaching to the top of the cabin door. Her lips drew firm and her eyes pierced deep into Julilly’s. In them was the sting that a bull whip makes and the hurt of a wounded possum.

  “We’ve got to pray hard, June Lilly, and if the good Lord can’t help us now, we’ve got to believe He’s goin’ to help us soon.”

  “Yes Mammy.” Julilly felt pride in this tall, handsome woman.

  “There’s three things I want to say to you, child.” Mammy drew Julilly close again. “Pray to the good Lord. Remember to be proud that you had a strong, fine Daddy and a Mammy that loves you.”

  Mammy Sally paused. She pressed her mouth against Julilly’s ear. “This is secret talk I’m tellin’ you now. Hold it quiet in your head and never let it out your mouth.

  There’s a place the slaves been whisperin’ around called Canada. The law don’t allow no slavery there. They say you travel north and follow the North Star, and when you step onto this land you are free.”

  Rustling footsteps outside the cabin caused Mammy’s arms to stiffen. She pushed Julilly gently away and, lifting her voice, spoke crossly.

  “Now, June Lilly, you crawl down on that blanket in the corner and go to sleep. Before you know it, four o’clock will be around and the morning bell will be ringin’ for another day’s work.”

  Talking for those who might be listening from the outside was always different from talking inside to those around you. Julilly knew this and smiled. She lay down on the hard floor beside the fireplace and wrapped a thin blanket around her. “Canada.” She thought the name again and again inside her head.

  The slave trader meant some kind of trouble. But there had never been trouble on the Hensen plantation. She and Mammy Sally wouldn’t be sold.

  Julilly yawned and hummed a quiet tune and the unsung words made her smile and forget the trouble-filled day.

  Massa sleep in the feather bed, Nigger sleep on the floor; When we get to heaven There’ll be no slave no more.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MORNING CAME to the slave quarters of Master Hensen’s plantation before there was light in the heavy, black sky. It was four o’clock and Master Hensen’s old ram horn bellowed and tooted until nobody slept. Frying sowbelly smells from the cabin cooking fires helped wake the children. Julilly reached for a hoecake and a tin cup of buttermilk that Mammy Sally poured. From the barnyard the roosters crowed sharp and clear.

  As on every other morning, Julilly smoothed down her crinkly hair and twisted it tight in a knot at the back of her head. But Mammy Sally, who always wore a clean, white head-rag neatly tied, this morning put on a black one in its place. There was no laughter in her full, strong voice as she called to one slave and then another who passed by their door. A worried frown stitched lines across her forehead.

  “Child,” she said to Julilly in a yearning, mournful way, “there’s trouble ahead for us nigger folk today.”

  Her lips pinched firm and her eyes flamed with angry courage, but her voice stayed quiet. She gathered Julilly’s hands into the strength of her long, black, calloused fingers.

  “Lord help us,” she said. “The field hands are gonna be sold today. You are one of them, Jun
e Lilly. You and I could be pulled apart.”

  Julilly couldn’t understand. Mammy Sally couldn’t let this happen.

  Mammy shook Julilly into listening. “If we are sold apart, June Lilly, and the Lord forbid, don’t forget that freedom land I told you about. You and I are strong. We’ll get there with the guidance of that star, and the good Lord’s help.”

  A jay-bird voice screeched suddenly outside their door.

  “You field-hand niggers. Line yourselves up along this path and don’t you loiter.” The sound of a zinging whip cut the air. “Some of you ain’t gonna chop no cotton today.”

  Mammy Sally held Julilly close as they walked outside and joined the field-hand line. The man with the jay-bird voice strode back and forth in front of them. He was a big man with a short, thick neck. His cheeks puffed and jiggled as he walked. Julilly noticed that his fingers puffed, too, over the whip that he flicked in his hand. He had a toothpick in his mouth that stuck between two yellow teeth. Julilly didn’t like his oily skin. His faded brown hair was tangled and dirty, his baggy pants were streaked with drippings and his little eyes were green and sly.

  He strode toward Lily Brown, a shy young mother barely sixteen. She clutched her two-year-old Willie in her arms.

  The fat man paused briefly beside her. His tiny eyes narrowed and he rubbed his oily hand down Willie’s bare back.

  “This is a fat, strong nigger baby,” he called to a younger white man behind him. “Put him in the wagon.”

  Willie was ripped from his mother’s arms without a comment.

  Lily screamed and fell to the ground.

  Julilly started to run toward her, but the firm hand of Mammy Sally grasped her shoulder.

  The fat man was stopping in front of them, clamping the toothpick hard between his lips.

  He stuck a fat finger into her mouth and squinted at her teeth. Satisfied, he pushed back her eyelids.

  “Looking at me like Old John does his horse,” Julilly thought and flamed with anger.