William Henry is a Fine Name

by Cathy Gohlke

  William Henry

  IS A FINE NAME

  CATHY GOHLKE

  MOODY PUBLISHERS

  CHICAGO

  © 2006 by

  CATHY GOHLKE

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.

  Editor: Cheryl Dunlop

  Cover Design: Chris Gilbert, Studio Gearbox

  Cover Images: Pixelworks Studio, Steve Gardner

  Interior Design: The Design Works Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 0-8024-9973-2

  ISBN 13: 978-0-8024-9973-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gohlke, Cathy.

  William Henry is a fine name / by Cathy Gohlke.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-9973-8

  ISBN-10: 0-8024-9973-2

  1. Underground railroad—Fiction. 2. Maryland—History—1775-1865—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.O3448W55 2006

  813’.6—dc22

  2006021081

  We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

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  Printed in the United States of America

  For my husband, Dan,

  my daughter, Elisabeth, and my son, Daniel—

  You are my shining stars.

  For my mother, Bernice, and all of my amazing family,

  those who walk beside me and those who have gone before—

  You are my deep roots.

  FROM THE MOMENT IN CHILDHOOD that I learned of the Underground Railroad I have been fascinated by that daring race to freedom and inspired by the courageous stories of its runners, conductors, and stationmasters. Because of the danger and secrecy surrounding those journeys and safe houses, little information was documented at the time. But I am grateful for the oral stories and snatches of stories that abound in areas where the Underground Railroad was known to be active.

  For believing in this book from the start, for walking with me every step of the way—freely sharing writing and marketing expertise—I thank my dear friend and writing colleague, Tracy Leinberger-Leonardi. It would not have happened without you.

  For choosing my book from the hundreds of books you read, and for working diligently with me to make it the best it can be, I thank my editor at Moody, Andrew McGuire.

  For challenging me with questions, ironing out details, and fine-tuning, I thank Cheryl Dunlop, my copy editor.

  For all manner of valuable contributions, from good advice and the careful critiquing of early drafts to the cheerful exploration of old churches, older cemeteries, and dilapidated houses, I am most grateful to my mother, Gloria Bernice Goforth Lemons; my sister, Gloria Delk; my brother, Dan Lounsbury; my sister-in-law, Randi Eaton; my daughter, Elisabeth Gohlke, my husband, Dan Gohlke, my pastor, Rev. Karen Bunnell; my writing teacher and mentor, Joan Hiatt Harlow, who pulled the title of this book from its manuscript, my friends and colleagues, experts in their fields, Kathy Chamberlin, Miriam and George Ackerman, Patricia Valdata, Nancy Jennings, and Joan Wilcox.

  For help in researching historical details that brought this novel to life, I am indebted to the late Eva Muse, for first placing in my hands an original slave ledger for Cecil County, Maryland, and for introducing me to William Still’s book The Underground Railroad, Michael Dixon and the dedicated volunteers of the Cecil County Historical Society, who guided me through old census records, maps, and original copies of newspapers; enthusiastic volunteers of the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and the New Castle County Historical Society in New Castle, Delaware, wonderfully helpful librarians of the Cecil County Public Library in Elkton, Maryland, and of the North Carolina Room of the Forsyth County Public Library in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; the Forsyth County Agricultural Center, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, gracious tour guides at Mendenhall Plantation, Jamestown, North Carolina, at Mount Harmon Plantation, Earleville, Maryland, and at the Hermitage, near Nashville, Tennessee, and Mount Pleasant Methodist Church in Tanglewood Park, Forsyth County, North Carolina.

  Many thanks to my church, Elkton United Methodist, in Elkton, Maryland. You daily inspire me by your commitment to sharing God’s love through welcoming arms, mission, and social justice. Working on this book while in your fellowship has been a perfect fit.

  Very special thanks to my uncle, Wilbur Goforth, for reminding me that a sure way to know if I’m working in the will of God is to ask, “Do I have joy? Is this yoke easy? Is this burden light?”

  Last but never least, I thank Dan, Elisabeth, and Daniel, my beloved family, for your love, support, and patience with my passion.

  THE YEAR BEFORE I WAS BORN, our neighbor and my father’s employer, Mr. Isaac Heath, took up some of the notions of Quakers and freed all his sixty-two slaves, gave them fifty dollars apiece, and provided all that wanted safe passage into Pennsylvania or farther north, into Canada, if they were so disposed. Those who wanted to stay, he gave two acres and a two-bedroom frame house with plank floors and glass windows, ten chickens, one hog, a year’s worth of clothes, and hired them on at fifty cents a day. Mr. Heath built them a meetinghouse right on Laurelea so they could walk to church and never leave home. So it’s no wonder I grew up not knowing much about the meanness of slavery or the orneriness of greed until the summer I turned thirteen.

  June 1859

  THE JUNE SUN SMOLDERED uncommonly hot, so hot that William Henry and I chose to forget our chores, borrow hot cornbread and cold cider from Aunt Sassy’s kitchen, and take off for Tulley’s Pond, home of the best smallmouth bass this end of Cecil County. By late afternoon we’d swatted a million mosquitoes, snagged somebody’s old wagon wheel, and hooked a few sunnies not worth the fat to fry. It was getting late and we were about to give it up and go on home to chores and supper when Jake Tulley showed up on the opposite bank. William Henry elbowed me in the side.

  “You boys be trespassing.” Jake knew our names as well as he knew his mama’s, but Jake was a year older and calling us “you boys” made him feel smug.

  “Trespassing?” William Henry’s eyes opened wide, showing all their white in his black face. He turned to me and in a voice that held all the shock of a September snowstorm, said, “Robert Leslie Glover? Is we trespassing? Is that what we’re doing here?”

  “I thought we was fishing.” I kept my face straight.

  Jake pushed a greasy hank of hair off his forehead and hitched up his pants. “I guess whipping your pa for trespassing last week wasn’t enough, William Henry. We’ll see who thinks he’s funny when I tell my pa that darkies and white trash is stealing our fish.”

  I felt William Henry’s muscles tense beside me, but his mouth never twitched. “Why, Mr. Jake, we meant no harm! We was just passing the time with these fishing poles while we waited for a fresh crop of ivy poison!” William Henry could talk himself out of a whipping or work, but even I looked at him like he was crazy when he said that.

  Jake lifted his chin. “What are you talkin’ about, William Henry?”

  “I’m talking ’bout ivy poison, Mr. Jake. Last summer when you caught that fearful rash I felt so bad I figured I just had to help find a cure.”


  Jake eyed him suspiciously. I still kept my face straight, wondering what William Henry was up to now.

  “Well, I took myself on down to Granny Struthers. She don’t usually get mixed up in white folks’ ailments and cures, but she told me that all a body need do not to ever get the ivy poison rash again is to eat a whole handful of fresh young ivy poison sprouts. Mind you, Mr. Jake, that only works if you ever had it real bad—at least once. Like you, sir.” The “sir” and “Mr.” and the know-nothing smile on William Henry’s face reeled Jake right in like he was aching to bite bait.

  “You sure about this?” Jake winced into the sun. Everybody knew Granny Struthers had the gift for all kinds of outlandish cures that mostly had to do with plants and mostly worked. Maybe Jake thought he was onto something big—him being white and all. “You sure you’re not making this up to get out of being whipped for trespassing?” I felt William Henry’s muscles tense again and I knew he was thinking of his pa, who’d only taken a shortcut across Tulley’s fallow field.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Jake. I mean, no sir, I’m not tryin’ to spoof you. What would I be doin’ sittin’ in this bed of ivy poison myself if it hadn’t worked for me? But I wouldn’t want you to try it, Mr. Jake. No sir, I wouldn’t.” William Henry solemnly shook his head. Jake frowned and strained his eyes toward us. He was squint-eyed and couldn’t have spotted ivy poison if he was half as close.

  Jake pressed his fists into his hips. “And just why not? I’ll be bound it’s good enough for me if it’s good enough for you!”

  “Oh, it ain’t that, Mr. Jake. No, sir. It’s just that this is a highly scientific experiment and Granny wants to make sure it works on poor folks of color like me before she’d ever try it out on you fine white folks. After a time I reckon she’ll take the cure on up to those Philadelphia lawyers, then they’ll confer with them kings of England and it’ll get to be known all over. Then’ll be the time for you to try it, Mr. Jake.” William Henry nodded, looking as wise as Judge Mason up in Elkton, and went back to his fishing.

  Jake stood, undecided. He shifted his weight from one dusty bare foot to the other. Finally he said, “If it’s good enough for Philadelphia lawyers it’s good enough for me.” He yanked up the nearest handful of ivy poison leaves and stuffed them into his greasy mouth. William Henry feigned horror and I didn’t need to pretend at all. I knew we were in for it now. But William Henry shook his head slowly and whispered, just loud enough to carry across the pond, “That Mr. Jake is bound to go down in scientific history.”

  Jake hitched his britches as he gulped the last mouthful of sticky leaves, then slurped a handful of pond water to aid the process. He swiped his sleeve across his mouth and stood tall. “You boys go on home, now. I won’t tell on you fishin’ this time. But mind you don’t come back here again!”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Jake,” William Henry said. “Thank you, sir.” We scooped up our string of sunnies and stick poles to head home. William Henry stopped in his tracks and turned. “Mr. Jake? Would you like these fish? It would be our honor for you to have them—you a gentleman of learnin’ and all. Nobody need know we caught them. They can be yours.”

  Jake’s mouth watered. His ma dearly loved fresh fish and Jake was no good at fishing. He didn’t know how to sit still and never used good bait. “Why, I expect so. I guess it’s fittin’ since they be from my pa’s pond. You don’t tell my ma you caught ’em.”

  “I’d not think on it.” William Henry waded straight across, and from waist-deep water handed up the catch of sunnies, pulling us off the hook.

  Jake strutted off in his most kingly strut. William Henry kept a solemn face till we’d walked a quarter mile down the road, then we both broke out in rip-roaring, doubled-over laughter.

  We whooped and hollered, tripping over each other as we tore through the woods. “That’ll teach those Tulleys to mess with Joseph Henry!” William Henry’s laugh cut the edge of reason.

  “You don’t reckon it’ll kill him, do you?” I didn’t want to be run in for murder.

  “No, I’m half sorry to say. I’ll go by Granny Struthers later and tell her the Tulleys be needin’ her help.” He shrugged. “It’ll keep him miserable for a time, but Granny’ll fix him up.” That eased my mind, and we took off running again.

  By the time we dropped on the banks of the Laurel Run, tears ran and our sides ached. But ours was minor suffering, all things considered. We knew we’d be late for evening chores and in trouble, but the moss bed under the beech tree called our names. Besides, this was the first time in forever that William Henry and I had escaped our mothers and outwitted Jake Tulley all in one fine day.

  William Henry was my best friend. His ma and pa, Aunt Sassy and Joseph Henry, worked for Mr. and Miz Heath, same as my pa, only my pa was foreman of Laurelea. I taught William Henry to read when we were little. Everything my ma and Miz Laura Heath taught me I practiced on William Henry by scratching it in the dirt behind the barn. Pretty soon he could outread and outwrite me and liked it better. So when Mr. Heath loaned me a book I just passed it on to William Henry, who inhaled it by candlelight. He’d return it a few days later, giving me the gist and a few particulars. Then, when Miz Laura or Mr. Heath questioned me, I could reel off the facts and figures enough to make them believe I was up and coming. I felt a little squeamish about deceiving those I loved, but figured it was the lesser of two evils and that I’d get around to being a genuine scholar someday.

  William Henry and I talked about anything and everything. That day I asked a question I’d puzzled over for some time. William Henry might not know the answer, but there was no one else I dared ask. “What do you reckon ladies wear under those hoopskirts?”

  “Don’t suppose they wear nothin’,” William Henry replied. “Why would they?”

  “Oh, I think they must wear something. I’ve seen lots of white things hanging on Ma’s wash line that I’ve never seen her wear on the outside. I reckon they’re down underneath, but I can’t think why she’d bother.”

  “My mama don’t wear nothin’ under her dress. She says that old kitchen’s hot enough. I guess white folks wears extra things. Maybe that pale skin keeps them cold.”

  I knew William Henry was messing with me. “Well, I’m white and I don’t wear nothing extra. If I had my way I wouldn’t be wearing nothing at all right now, it’s so all-fired hot.”

  “Well, you’re different, Robert. I’d say you’re pretty nearly colored in your druthers.” William Henry lay back against the creek bank, sucked the juice from a reed, and chuckled to himself.

  I turned my back on him. He ought not get so uppity and fresh.

  “Last one in chops wood!” William Henry screeched. Quicker than a firefly flickers, he stripped down to his sleek black skin and dove headfirst into the run. I was still vexed, and then more so because I had to chop wood. But that was fair and it was hot, and I’d have done it to him if I’d thought about it first. So I stripped down, took a running start, grabbed the rope hanging off the big beech tree, and swung out over the middle of the run. For one glorious moment I stopped dead, straddled the air bowlegged, then dropped straight down into the cold June water. We whooped and hollered and nearly drowned each other before the quitting bell rang outside the Heaths’ house. We hadn’t finished our chores and now we’d be late for supper, too. William Henry could talk his way out of anything, but my tongue failed me whenever I lied, and I could feel my face heat up like a smithy’s fire.

  William Henry flew over the ridge, pulling his pants up with one hand while shoving the other through a damp blue shirt.

  By the time I reached my back porch stoop, I’d straightened most of my buttons, slicked my hair with my fingers, and was as sweated as if I’d never cooled myself in Laurel Run. I shoved two crusted feet in my shoes and held my breath as I creaked open the back porch door. If there’s a way for a half starved boy to slide unnoticed to a table loaded with steaming cornbread, ham, fried potatoes, and cold canned peaches, I didn’t know it.


  I slid in and bowed my head to pray. That might soften Ma and give me a minute to catch my breath. The Lord might also appreciate being noticed.

  I raised my head to find Pa surveying my shirt collar. His mouth drew a line, but the blue lights in his eyes caught mine. I knew then that I wouldn’t get licked and that Pa knew exactly where I’d been. It was lucky Pa remembered being a boy.

  “Robert Leslie Glover.” Ma used my full name whenever I stepped out of line. “Yes, Ma?”

  “Supper was served at six o’clock.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where are your socks, Robert?” How she knew I didn’t have socks on when my feet sat under the table, I didn’t know.

  “Right here, Ma.” I pulled two powerfully dirty socks from my back pocket and held them out for her over the ham platter, thankful I hadn’t left them down at the run.

  “Robert! Not at the table!” Ma’s mouth turned down and her brow wrinkled. It was a shame, for Ma was young and pretty, but frowning aged her.

  “Sorry, Ma. I thought you wanted to see them.” I stuffed my soggy socks down the insides of my shoes.

  “‘Mother,’ Robert. Not ‘Ma.’ And I prefer to see socks on your feet, where they belong. Why ever did you take them off?”

  “Well, Ma—Mother—you know how Miz Laura likes her flower beds weeded. Well, me and William Henry—William Henry and I—”

  “William Henry, again!” Ma was fit to be tied.

  “Caroline,” Pa cautioned her, but cocked his eyebrows toward me. He’d understand swimming at the run with William Henry anytime, but he’d not tolerate a lie. Ma, on the other hand, wouldn’t understand swimming, especially skinny-dipping in broad daylight. She didn’t like me larking with William Henry, and she believed that sticking bare feet in cold spring-water before the middle of July was next to taking your life from God’s hands into your own, and that was surely a sin and tempting the Lord ever so severely all at once. I swallowed, felt my face heat up, and started again.