Elm Creek Quilts [07] The Sugar Camp Quilt

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “You have already done a great deal to ease the suffering of slaves.”

  He shot her a sharp, curious glance before uttering a brittle laugh. “You sound like my father. I made my contribution and now must let others carry on the fight. I tell you, Miss Granger, that resolution suits me very ill indeed.”

  There are other ways to fight, she almost told him. Two Bears Farm had been a haven for fugitives once and could be again. Then she remembered the promise his father had exacted from him and what would befall him should he break the law again. She thought of Cyrus and how she had once imagined, wrongly, so much goodness in him because that was what she wanted to see. What if she had confided in Cyrus as she now wanted to with Mr. Nelson?

  The risk was too great. Instead she said, “That law, if it should come to pass, does not bind your hands entirely.”

  “And what am I to do from Creek’s Crossing, Pennsylvania?”

  “You can vote,” she said sharply. That was more than she could do. “You can put that university education of yours to good use by writing letters, newspaper articles, books—You could write about your prison experiences, how your sacrifice was worthwhile because you brought others to freedom. If that is what you believe, because frankly, your true feelings on the subject are difficult to discern through all this self-pity.”

  His gaze bored into her. “Is that how you regard me?”

  “Mr. Nelson, I confess that self-pity is one of the lesser faults I have accused you of possessing since first we met.”

  He paused. “I am quite sure I deserved your censure.”

  “You did, indeed.”

  His laugh echoed hollowly in the empty classroom. “At last, Miss Granger, a point on which we agree.”

  She managed a smile in return. She did not share with him her disconcerting observation that they had, in fact, disagreed very little recently, and that they had more in common than she would have imagined possible a few months before.

  As the week passed, Mr. Nelson made an effort to moderate his ill humor, but he was not entirely successful. While he was no longer unduly stern toward his students, several times Dorothea caught him in a brood, gazing out the window or paging through a book without seeing what lay before him. She was struck by the similarity of his expression to what she herself had felt on many occasions—when her brother wrote of his studies or when Lorena reminisced about her childhood in Boston.

  Mr. Nelson had never been what she would call cheerful, but she could not bear to stand by and watch him sink deeper into gloom. On Friday morning—after asking Lorena to be sure she no longer needed them—she collected older issues of abolitionist newspaper the Daily Advocate and presented them to Mr. Nelson at lunchtime. He was immediately absorbed, and at the end of the day, he was so greatly encouraged that he walked her to the ferry so he could share his ideas about forming a local abolitionist group modeled after the Anti Slavery Society of Pittsburgh. She offered to assist him, but as soon as she spoke, she realized that this was precisely the sort of activity Uncle Jacob would have condemned for drawing unwanted attention to their other activities. She could hardly rescind her offer so soon after making it, however, nor did she wish to. The Grangers’ views on slavery were already common knowledge. Helping Mr. Nelson form an antislavery society would not create any new risks for their station’s passengers.

  On Saturday, Lorena and Dorothea rode into Creek’s Crossing to meet Constance in front of the dry-goods store to exchange Lorena’s sweet potato seedlings for several wheels of Abel Wright’s cheese. Constance also had unexpected news: Two nights before, a conductor had guided a party of six runaways to the Wright farm. Among their number were an elderly man, two men of middle years, a younger woman, and two children. Their astounding means of escape had been nearly two years in the planning. The two younger men, grooms on the plantation, had stolen horses and a carriage from their master, while the woman had taken from her mistress clothing, a trunk, and other accoutrements of southern womanhood. They had fled under the cover of darkness, but once far enough away so their master’s horses and carriage would not be recognized, they kept the children out of sight and passed themselves off as a shy southern belle traveling with her servants. The ruse served them well until they reached Maryland, where by a stroke of good fortune the eldest man spotted a posted handbill describing their disguise and offering a substantial reward for the return of the slaves and stolen property. They immediately abandoned their disguises, and ever since they had traveled on foot led by a conductor, a former runaway who had reached Canada but who had chosen to return time and time again to guide others to freedom. He usually traveled along a westerly route through Uniontown and Pittsburgh, but this time he had been diverted into the Elm Creek Valley by slavecatchers hired by the fugitives’ determined and vengeful master. The slavecatchers and their pack of hounds evidently had traveled through the Elm Creek Valley before, given their swift progress through what was to the conductor unknown terrain.

  Abel Wright and the conductor had made the difficult decision to divide the group in two, send them north along different routes, and reunite them in Canada. The woman would not be parted from the children, nor could the elderly man keep pace with the two younger men, so the groups were determined by practicality. The two younger men would travel to the Granger farm that night.They were in good health and would not need to rest more than a day before continuing northward.

  The other four presented a problem. Of necessity their master’s horses and carriage had been abandoned in Maryland, and the children and elderly man could not travel swiftly on foot. More troubling, their conductor did not know the routes through the Elm Creek Valley as well as the Wrights and the Grangers, who knew only the stations directly before and after their own.

  After much deliberation, the Wrights and the conductor had concluded that their greatest chance lay in another disguise. The handbills warned to search for a colored slave posing as a white woman with her servants, but they said nothing of a freed black woman traveling with her aged father and two children.

  If the Grangers could provide one horse, Abel Wright would offer a second as well as his wagon. With false baptismal certificates and a bill of sale for a fictitious plot of land in New York, the fugitives could pass themselves off as free coloreds from New York returning home from a visit with family. If they traveled lesser-known routes, they might avoid confrontation altogether. Enough colored families lived in the Elm Creek Valley that if they acted with assurance, it was possible no one would suspect them of being runaways.

  Constance, Dorothea, and Lorena had strolled down the block from the dry-goods store while Constance spoke, but Lorena still glanced over her shoulder before shaking her head and saying, “They ought to conceal themselves and follow the tried and true routes through the valley. I have grave doubts this ruse will be any more successful than their first.”

  “Their first disguise was successful,” replied Dorothea. “They made it all the way to Maryland in perfect safety. If their pursuers had not sent word ahead of them, they would be using it still.”

  “I thought like you did, at first,” said Constance to Lorena. “But if Liza can fool folks into thinking she’s a pampered white girl too shy to leave her carriage, she can surely make them believe she’s a free colored.”

  Eventually Lorena agreed that they had little alternative. If the four runaways relied on speed and stealth, the slavecatchers would surely overtake them.

  A soft rap on the door shortly after midnight signaled the arrival of the two men. Robert led them to Uncle Jacob’s old room and showed them the hiding place in the wardrobe in case of unexpected visitors. Lorena quickly brought them food and drink, and while they rested, Dorothea used the Sugar Camp Quilt to teach them the route to the Brauns’ mill. It seemed ages ago that she had pieced the unusual blocks under her uncle’s stern and watchful gaze, unaware of their significance. Since then dozens of fugitives had journeyed closer to freedom following its secret symb
ols.

  Robert checked the locks on the doors twice before turning in for the night. In her attic bedroom, Dorothea slept lightly as she did whenever passengers rested at their station, her ears tuned to the familiar noises of the house, listening for the creak of a window or the baying of a dog. Whenever an unexpected sound jolted her awake, her first thoughts were of Mr. Liggett. Strangely, though she knew him to be a coward, she was more wary of him than of the anonymous slavecatchers she had never seen. She wished that he would grow bored of watching her family and leave them in peace, but Mr. Liggett’s anger at Uncle Jacob ran too deeply for that, and some debts could not be paid in coin.

  The next morning, the Grangers treaded softly as they moved about the house so that their weary guests could sleep. The two men emerged from Uncle Jacob’s bedroom at midmorning and gratefully ate second and third helpings of breakfast. After racing through her morning chores, Dorothea worked at Uncle Jacob’s desk on the counterfeit documents the other four fugitives would need to make their disguises complete. As she added an official-looking scroll to a piece of parchment, Dorothea overheard the two men conversing in hushed voices, anguishing over the decision to go on without the others. One of the men, Liza’s husband and the father of her two children left behind at the Wrights, was especially troubled. “Won’t mean nothing to me to be free if they get sent back,” he told his companion, who tried to reassure him.

  “They won’t be sent back,” said Dorothea. The two men regarded her dubiously. “You will all be together again in Canada. You will see.”

  “That’s right kind of you, miss,” said the man, “but those slavecatchers are close behind. They got a good look at Liza and Old Dan outside of Harrisburg. Pretending to be some freeborn family won’t fool them.”

  “They didn’t get such a good look,” the other man contradicted. “It was dark, they were thirty yards away, and they didn’t know it was Liza and Old Dan they was looking at. And they never saw the children.”

  Dorothea forced confidence into her voice. “You’ve made it this far. You will make it the rest of the way. You’ll see.”

  “We have a long way yet to go,” the father said, but he did look less anxious. It struck Dorothea then that the hope and reassurance the Grangers provided did as much as food, clothing, and directions to enable their passengers to journey on. Of course, the fugitives had no choice. They could not stay, and they could not return, having come so far. Slavecatchers and masters liked to make examples of recaptured runaways.

  The two men left after dusk—reluctantly, or so it seemed to Dorothea. She prayed that they would reach the Brauns’ mill safely and that they would endure the separation from their loved ones. The rest of the party would be traveling only a few days behind the men, but they would not see one another again for many weeks. Dorothea could not ignore the fact that their reunion was by no means certain.

  The next three days passed in a blur of activity—spring planting, teaching, and laboring painstakingly over the documents. Dorothea had apparently inherited her uncle’s talent for drawing, for the false papers she created were virtually identical to the real documents she had copied. In addition to the papers affirming Liza and Old Dan’s false identities and the bill of sale, she also wrote a letter purportedly from Liza’s sister-in-law in Gettysburg imploring her to come visit her ailing brother. Dorothea also contrived a receipt from an undertaker dated several weeks later for the funeral of Liza’s fictitious brother. It was a long journey from New York to central Pennsylvania for a social visit, Dorothea thought, but a dutiful sister would willingly travel that distance to bring her father to visit his dying son.

  She admired her handiwork, but hoped that Liza and her companions would not be called upon to present the papers to anyone once Dorothea and Constance bid them farewell and they rode off on their own. Then she folded and creased the letter, spilled a bit of tea upon it, and dog-eared the corners. The bill of sale and other papers she crumpled and soiled with ashes from the fireplace, thinking of Uncle Jacob wiping the mud from his boots on the Sugar Camp Quilt. When the papers were suitably aged, she put them in an old leather pocketbook of Lorena’s to await the trip to fetch the runaways.

  On Tuesday morning, Dorothea rode her uncle’s horse to school and boarded him in Mr. Engle’s livery stable just as she had in the winter. All day long her thoughts were on the task ahead, bringing the four fugitives across the ferry to the safety of the Granger farm. She was so distracted that once Mr. Nelson asked her sharply if she were ill and needed to go home. She assured him she was fine and endeavored to give him no more reason to be suspicious, but it was a relief when the school day ended and she could quickly tidy the choir loft and hurry on her way, ignoring Mr. Nelson’s questioning glance. Usually she stayed to help him straighten up the main classroom, but since his farm lay along the same road as the Wrights, she must hasten to get enough of a head start so that he would not see her and wonder why she was traveling in the opposite direction of her home.

  As she drove up to the Wrights’ barn, Constance met her and helped her tend to her horse. While they worked, she assured Dorothea that Liza, Old Dan, and the children were prepared for their journey. The adults had rehearsed the children over and over until they knew their roles perfectly.

  “Do you think the children will be able to stick to their story even if challenged?” asked Dorothea.

  Constance shrugged. “They’re fast learners. They’ve had to be all their lives. They know how to lie to save their skins. Besides, slavecatchers will most likely talk to the grown-ups and ignore the children. If the children break down and cry because they’re scared, that won’t surprise nobody none.”

  They went inside the house. Constance told her that the runaways were upstairs, sleeping in a hidden room in the attic, gathering their strength for the long journey ahead. “Paul was their leader,” said Constance, referring to one of the younger men, as Dorothea helped her prepare supper. “He was the courage of this group. Liza tries her best to keep everyone’s spirits up now that he’s gone on ahead, but it’s only worked with the children. Something’s gone out of the old man like an old tree hollowed out.”

  Dorothea felt a quiver of nervousness. “You don’t suppose he’ll put the others in danger?”

  Constance glanced darkly to the ceiling as a floorboard creaked overhead. “You’re worried about the children spilling the truth? I’m more worried about the old man.”

  Night was falling as the four runaways crept quietly downstairs and seated themselves around the table. The two children, girls who looked to be about six and eight, stared at Dorothea with wide eyes as Constance made introductions. Dorothea noted that the four wore the sturdy work clothes of a moderately prosperous farm family, not the garb of slaves. Liza gave Dorothea a polite nod, but Old Dan kept his eyes cast down and did not seem to notice her.

  Abel Wright urged them all to eat heartily, but only the children willingly obeyed; Liza choked down her food as if it were the bitterest medicine and Old Dan barely took a bite. After they cleared away the dishes, Constance privately told Dorothea to wrap up as much food as she could. The fugitives, though too nervous to eat now, would be hungry later.

  Then it was time to depart.

  Liza embraced Constance and thanked her for her goodness. Even Old Dan came to himself enough to shake Abel’s hand and murmur that he wished he could repay the Wrights someday. Abel went outside to load his wagon with hay and hitch up the team while the runaways soberly put on their wraps and gathered their few belongings, small bundles that, Dorothea guessed, contained more clothes Constance had sewn for them and food for the journey. They could not rely upon reaching a station every night.

  Outside, the stars shone in a clear sky just cool enough to make Dorothea grateful for her shawl. The runaways climbed aboard the wagon and concealed themselves in the hay, with only the smallest mew of complaint from the youngest girl, whom Liza quickly soothed. Dorothea took up the reins as Constance swung up to th
e seat beside her, chirruped to the horses, and set out for the Creek’s Crossing road.

  Dorothea and Constance rode without speaking. Dorothea’s mouth was dry, her stomach a knot of worry. For all the fugitives who had passed through the Grangers’ station, she had never felt so solely responsible for any runaway’s fate as she did at that moment, driving to the ferry. As they passed the entrance to the road that led through the woods to Mr. Liggett’s farm, the knot in her stomach tightened, but the only sounds were the clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves on the hard-packed dirt road. Constance breathed a sigh as they left Mr. Liggett’s land behind and approached Two Bears Farm. Dorothea studied the tall, white-boarded house as they rode by; two lights were burning, one upstairs and one below. She wondered what Mr. Nelson was doing at that moment.

  They reached the outskirts of Creek’s Crossing without encountering another wagon or rider. Dorothea turned east on a back road to avoid the noise and lights of the taverns and inns on the main streets. It was too much to hope that they could pass through the town entirely unobserved, but she would avoid as many eyes as possible.

  The few townspeople they passed did not seem to give the wagon a second glance. The tightness in Dorothea’s stomach began to ease as they crossed the last few blocks to the ferry. If they could reach the northern shore of Elm Creek unchallenged—

  “What’s that?” said Constance, nodding toward the ferry dock. A cluster of men stood by the boathouse, horses tied up nearby. Two carried torches. One loosely held the reins of a pack of hounds, sitting lazily at his feet.