CHAPTER XIII
Charlotte ran upstairs from the veranda and dashed into her sister’s room. “Do look out, Rhoda,” she called. “It’s that crazy peddler, Chad Wallace. He’s asking father if he can keep his wagon in our barn to-night. Now there’ll be some fun this evening—he’s so comical, with his songs and dances!”
Rhoda moved to the window and saw a little, wiry-looking man talking with Dr. Ware beside the east gate. A short, sparse growth of graying whiskers covered his face to the middle of his cheeks, and pale-colored hair curled around his neck below his shabby, bell-crowned hat. His wagon, with side curtains rolled up displaying boxes piled inside, was at the hitching post.
“He looks just the same as ever, doesn’t he,” she said calmly, as they stood beside the window with their arms about each other’s waists. But her heart was beating faster, for she knew what his coming meant. She knew that in his dingy old wagon he was accustomed to make long trips on the Kentucky side of the river, ostensibly selling his wares in villages and at farms, but picking up, whenever opportunity offered, some fugitive slave and concealing him in a vacant space in the center,around which the boxes and packages were carefully arranged. Then he would cross the river at the nearest ferry and put the runaway into the charge of an Underground “station.” Or, sometimes, he would remain for months at a time in the neighborhood of one or another of the Underground routes through Ohio, apparently selling his stock of notions, but really conveying the fleeing slaves from one station to another.
Rhoda knew from her father that the people engaged in the Underground work considered him one of the safest of the “conductors.” The commonplace character of his occupation and his eccentricities, which Dr. Ware told her were mainly assumed in order that he might appear all the more innocent, had proved so efficient a disguise as to prevent, even in pro-slavery communities, the least suspicion of his real business.
Word had come that afternoon that the expected half-dozen fugitives had safely reached the Kentucky shore and would cross the river in a rowboat after dark. Chad Wallace ate supper with the Ware household and entertained them with stories of his travels told with so many touches of eccentric humor that he kept the table in a breeze of laughter. Jeff Delavan, who was to leave for his home the next day, enjoyed them so much that he invited the peddler if he ever journeyed as far south as Lexington to drive on to Fairmount,where he would be glad to see him and listen to more of his amusing stories.
On the veranda after supper Charlotte begged Wallace for some of his funny dances, and he did negro shuffles and antics and sang negro melodies down the front walk to the gate. There he kept up the entertainment, interspersing the negro songs with doggerel of his own composition, until a delighted audience of children, young people and a few of their elders had gathered. Finally, waving his old hat at them, he walked away, breaking into a song that was much heard in those days at anti-slavery meetings:
“Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave,Its branded palm shall prophesy ‘Salvation to the Slave!’”
“Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave,Its branded palm shall prophesy ‘Salvation to the Slave!’”
“Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave,
Its branded palm shall prophesy ‘Salvation to the Slave!’”
Jeff Delavan, listening on the veranda, started angrily, the amused smile died from his face and his brows knit in a frown. The tenor voice, still surprisingly good, though somewhat cracked by age, rang back from down the street as the slender, wiry figure disappeared in the dusk:
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Is he that sort of a crank?” Jeff exclaimed in a low voice to Mrs. Ware, who sat beside him. “If he is, I don’t care about his coming to Fairmount.”
“There’s no harm in Chaddle Wallace,” she responded assuringly. “He isn’t much more thanhalf-witted, and nobody ever takes seriously anything he says or does. But he has this quaint vein of humor, so that people are always glad to see him and hear him talk. He loves music, too, but I don’t suppose he cares at all about the meaning of the words. As for that abolition thing, why, he’s just as likely to break into ‘Dixie’ and sing it with just as much gusto. Oh, no, Jeff, Chad Wallace is a harmless creature!”
It was some hours later and the house was dark, save for a light in Dr. Ware’s office, when Rhoda, watching at her bedroom window, discerned some shapes in the darkness hurrying up the hill. As they emerged into the dim circle of light from the lantern at their east gate, she saw that it was Chad Wallace and his little band of runaway slaves. Softly she ran downstairs to admit them into the office. Her father was there, but asleep on the lounge. With the utmost caution, walking on tiptoe and speaking only in whispers, she and Lizzie brought into the office their supper of bread and meat and hot coffee and in half an hour they were ready to start again upon their way. As they stole silently out of the house Dr. Ware bundled three of them into his carriage, which Jim had ready at the gate, and the other three were quickly concealed in the peddler’s wagon. With even less of noise than was usually occasioned by the physician’s response to a night call, the party set forth on its journey to the next station.
Hurriedly extinguishing the lights and locking the doors, Rhoda stole back to her room and leaning from her window listened to the distant sound of wheels for assurance that, so far, all was well. Her heart beat high, as it always did after they had passed successfully through one of these night episodes. For she knew the never-ceasing danger that the fugitive might have been followed and trailed to their house. All along the southern border of the state there were numbers of men, from both sides of the river, who spent most of their time hunting runaway slaves, for the sake of the rewards for their capture. She and her father were well aware that their succoring of fugitives might be interrupted at any moment by the entrance of the United States marshal and his band of armed men, with consequent arrest, trial, and imprisonment.
The words that the peddler had sung were running insistently through her brain and as she lighted her candle she softly hummed:
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.”
“Yes, that’s just it,” she nodded to her reflection in the mirror, as she placed her hand against her heart. “That’s just how it makes me feel whenever I think of any of the horrible things that slavery means.”
She knew the history of the incident that hadgiven to the Quaker poet inspiration for the lines—the branding by a southern court with the letters “S. S.”—“slave stealer”—of the captain of a little coastwise vessel for attempting to carry some slaves from Florida to the Bahamas and freedom under English law. Holding up her own long, slender hand with knitted brows and lips compressed she gazed at the palm, as if trying to imagine how it would seem to feel the red-hot iron searing her own flesh. Then with a disdainful gesture she threw out her arm, her head high and eyes shining. “They may brand me on my palms and my cheeks and my forehead too if they like—what would that be beside this work!”
Counting on her fingers she murmured, “This makes twenty-five we’ve sent on to liberty—and in such a little time! Oh, we’re helping the slaves, and oh, please God”—she dropped on her knees beside her bed with her face in her hands, “please God, we’re doing something to help kill slavery!”
At the breakfast-table the next morning Delavan asked concerning the entertaining peddler and was told that he must have made an early start, as Jim on his first errand to the stables had reported his wagon already gone.
“Does he travel at night?” the young man asked. “Sometime in the night, when I wakened after my first sleep, I thought I heard his wagon leaving the barn.”
Rhoda hastened to say that perhaps it was herfather’s carriage he had heard, as he had had to make a night trip. Charlotte, chancing to look at her sister as Delavan asked his question, thought that Rhoda started and changed color ever so little. Immediately her alert mind began to wonder why, and she fixed her eyes sharply upon her sister’s face. Rhoda felt her gaze and endeavored to change the subject quickly in order to ward off the insistent questions which it would be like Charlotte to begin to ask. But at that moment Bully Brooks came unexpectedly to her assistance. Passing under her chair he emerged from beneath her skirt and playfully leaped at a bit of string on the floor. Charlotte saw him and, remembering certain kittenish tricks which he had not yet grown too old to play beneath her own hoopskirts, she smiled knowingly at her sister and dropped the subject from her thought.
Later in the day Jefferson Delavan took his departure, and under his escort Mrs. Ware and Charlotte went down the river to Cincinnati. Since their argument on election day Rhoda had given him no opportunity to renew his love siege. Nevertheless, her heart was like lead in her breast, now that he was really going, and she was afraid to trust herself alone with him lest she would find herself saying, “Stay, oh, stay a little longer!” And yet she felt relief at the thought that the dear torment would now be lessened, glad that shemight rest from the keener strife within herself that his presence provoked.
When he bade her good-by he held her hand closely and said, “We’ve not spoken the last word yet, Rhoda Ware! I’m coming again some day,—though I hope I won’t be exploded into your house the next time!”
Her eyes were serious upon his face, but she felt her cheeks growing warmer with the pressure of his hand. She told herself that she ought to withdraw her own, but afterwards she knew that she had not even tried to take it out of his clasp. “You’d better not come,” she said gravely. “What is the use?”
“But at least I may come—to see your mother!” he exclaimed, smiling, and an answering ripple of mirth drove the gravity from her countenance.
It was nearly a week after the state elections before it was known certainly that the Democratic ticket in Pennsylvania had won, by a narrow margin, over the candidates upon whom the three other parties had united. Rhoda listened as her father, Hardaker, and the two Kimballs discussed the result. They were gathered around a cheerful blaze in the sitting-room fireplace, for the evenings had grown chill. Her mother and Charlotte had not yet returned.
“Oh, we’ve lost,” said Dr. Ware calmly, “and among ourselves we may as well admit it, thoughof course we’ll keep up a hopeful appearance in public.”
But Hardaker was more buoyant. “There’s hope yet,” he insisted. “Pennsylvania has always reversed her state victory at a following presidential election. And there’s no reason to suppose that she’ll do otherwise this time. I still believe we’re going to win.”
Rhoda saw her father suddenly compress his lips and throw a quick glance around their little circle. “To tell the truth,” he said slowly in a low tone, “just here among ourselves, though I wouldn’t admit it outside, I hope we are defeated this time.”
The rest started with surprise and Walter Kimball exclaimed, “For God’s sake, Dr. Ware! What do you mean?”
“Frémont is not the man we need. He hasn’t the capacity, he hasn’t the strength of character to meet the crisis the country would have to face if he should be elected. He’s served a good purpose in this campaign—he’s created enthusiasm and stimulated the growth of Republican sentiment. But that’s all he’s good for.”
“Well, we’ve made a marvelous showing, anyway,” said Hardaker in a triumphant tone, “and we’ve got the South scared and their northern allies shaking in their boots over the safety of their pet institution. In another four years,” he straightened up, his eyes glowing, and went on in a voice of jubilant prophecy, “we’ll sweep the countryand show the South that there’s got to be an end of slavery!”
“Yes, we’ll do it next time, if we haven’t this!” exclaimed Lewis Kimball with enthusiasm. “But, as Dr. Ware says, we’ll have to have the best man possible to lead the procession. Who’ll it be? Frémont again? Seward? Governor Chase? What do you think, doctor?”
Rhoda watched her father anxiously as he gazed into the fire. “No, not Frémont—heaven forbid!” he began slowly. “He has revealed his weakness. Governor Chase is with us, heart and soul, but I’m afraid he isn’t quite big enough. Seward?—Perhaps, if he hasn’t proved too conservative by that time. Well, we’ll have to work with all our might during the next four years and trust to God to raise up some man as a leader who’ll have the wisdom of Solomon and the backbone of a granite mountain!”