Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana

by Melanie Dobson

  He stood slowly. He wished he could talk to his sister about slavery, but every time he broached the subject, she would pat him on the shoulder and ask him if he preferred plum cake or chocolate soufflé, like dessert would distract him from the horrors of slavery.

  “We’re having cream toast with peach compote for breakfast,” Esther announced, like she was introducing breakfast for the president himself.

  He followed her through the front door, into the warmth of the house. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  Her hand rolled over her belly. “She kicked me all night long.”

  “Or he...”

  “Oh, it’s a girl, Daniel.” Esther kissed his cheek and tugged him toward the kitchen. “A boy would stop and take a rest.”

  He tried to smile at his sister. Even as frail and simple as she was, he loved her. And he tried to forgive her fascination with worldly things.

  “Is Joseph down yet?”

  She motioned toward the dining room. “He already drank two cups of coffee.”

  “If there’s any left...”

  Esther scooted away. “I’ll pour you a cup right now.”

  Walking by the kitchen doorway, Daniel peeked his head into the room. “Morning, Greta.”

  The housekeeper turned from the blazing fire and waved at Daniel. “Mornin’, Mr. Stanton.”

  Greta Lawson was a pretty woman, her skin the color of creamed coffee. She was almost thirty and among the privileged colored people who had been born free.

  “You know I don’t call anyone by ‘Mister’ or ‘Missus,’ Greta, and I don’t answer to it.”

  “Then I guess you won’t be answering to me.”

  Esther laughed at the woman, and Daniel brushed off his sleeves like he was sweeping off her comment. “Is Ralph coming to the debate today?”

  She grinned. “Depends who’s debatin’.”

  “No one of consequence, I’m sure.”

  Esther hung the coffeepot on the crane by the fire, and Greta swung it over the flames. She wiped her hands on a cloth and turned back to Daniel. “He wouldn’t miss it.”

  “You married a fine man, Greta.”

  “Lord knows I did!”

  “How does he put up with you?”

  She snapped the cloth at him. “You get out of my kitchen!”

  He laughed. “Gladly.”

  “I’ll bring your coffee out in a few minutes....” Esther’s voice trailed off as he rounded the corner to the dining room.

  Joseph Cooley sat at the head of the long table, his china cup pushed to the side as he scoured the Union County News.

  Daniel tossed his paper onto the table. “You reading about the fugitive slave law?”

  Joseph nodded. “Congress is going to pass it.”

  “It’s unconstitutional.”

  “Now, Daniel...”

  “You can’t tell me that God meant for any of His children to live as slaves, especially in a free country like ours.”

  “It’s a fallen world, Daniel, and not even you can change that.” Joseph took a sip of coffee. “I don’t believe that God meant anyone to live as slaves either, but I do believe that those who are already slaves should be subject to their masters.”

  “Even if it means being beaten or killed...”

  “I am responsible for what God has entrusted to my household, Daniel. Slave owners are responsible to what God has entrusted to them. Yes, they should treat their slaves like family, but none of us have a right to interfere if they don’t.”

  Daniel remembered the despair in Bradley’s eyes, utterly broken in bitter disappointment and anguish, as the master who should be treating him like a son or brother fitted him with a collar and chained him to the wagon.

  He had tried to talk Bradley’s owner out of abusing the man, but anger and humiliation had overtaken any reason in the man’s actions. Instead of rescuing Bradley, all Daniel could do was write his story, and he determined to write about every abused runaway that crossed his path.

  Daniel stared at the paper on the table, the black print blurring into gray.

  He wished he were better with his pen. He wished he could convince people like Joseph that slavery in every form was evil. If he could convince respected men and women to take a stand on this issue, others would follow.

  Yet in spite of his words, his own brother-in-law still had more compassion for the slave owners than their slaves—while Daniel had no compassion for someone who would offer a thousand dollars for the return of a slave girl and her child.

  “I’ve never met a slave who felt like he was part of the family,” Daniel said.

  Joseph sighed. “That’s because you’ve only met the ones running away.”

  Daniel looked up from the paper into Joseph’s face. “Have you ever talked to a slave?”

  Joseph met his stare. “Have you ever talked to a slave owner?”

  Esther slipped a china cup filled with coffee onto his place mat. Steam billowed up to his face, and he reached for the cup and took a long sip of the hot barley before he spoke again. “It doesn’t matter if Fillmore and the others pass this law. I won’t stop fighting for the slaves.”

  Esther sat down beside him. “You need to leave the fighting to someone else, Daniel.”

  He glanced back at his sister. “Surely you don’t think we should ignore the runaways.”

  “Mrs. Gunther said that you and your paper are upsetting the whole town.” She leaned toward him. “You have got to stop telling everyone that you hate slavery.”

  He stared at his sister, stunned that she, too, thought he needed to pacify his views. If he didn’t speak out on behalf of slaves, who would speak for them?

  Esther’s hands moved to her hips. “If you aren’t careful, you’re going to lose this new job as well, and then who would hire you?”

  “I am not going to lose my position,” he insisted. Yet his words sounded empty. He’d already lost two jobs because of his stance on abolition.

  “Mrs. Gunther said that...”

  Joseph interrupted his wife. “You will not repeat gossip in this house.”

  “But he is sacrificing his career for a bunch of...”

  “He is not sacrificing his career,” Joseph said, but Daniel stood and faced his sister.

  “For a bunch of what, Esther?” he asked.

  The word that came out of her mouth shocked both men.

  “Esther!” Joseph exclaimed—but she continued, her fists clenched to her sides.

  “People pay good money for slaves,” she said. “They are supposed to do the work that God intended for them to do.”

  Anger surged inside him, and his voice shook. “What if someone came and put Greta in chains and hauled her away to work in the fields?”

  “I think—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “What if you were born black, Essie? Would you be satisfied picking cotton or ironing for fourteen hours a day, every day, for the rest of your life?”

  Joseph pounded his palms on the table. “Enough!”

  Esther muttered something and then pursed her lips. Daniel looked away from his sister, grateful that Joseph had stopped them both before he shredded both her and her ridiculous notions.

  Many Americans thought that colored people were part of an inferior race, that they existed for the sole purpose of serving and obeying their white masters, but Esther seemed to treat Greta so well. How could she believe these lies, too?

  Esther patted her hair, and then smiled. “The peach compote is almost ready.”

  “Thank you, dear.” Joseph glanced at his pocket watch and stood. “Unfortunately, I can’t stay and eat with you this morning.”

  “Oh, Joseph, it’s Saturday....”

  “Illness has no respect for the calendar, my dear.”

  When Esther rushed into the kitchen, Daniel turned to him. “A house call?”

  Joseph nodded. “Down near Roseburg.”

  Daniel pushed his chair back. “Do you want me to come with y
ou?”

  “Not today, thank you. It’s a pneumonia case, and she’s still contagious.” He reached for the jacket on the back of his chair and pulled it over his shoulders. “Aren’t you debating Milton Kent this afternoon?”

  Daniel sat back down. He’d almost forgotten.

  His sister returned from the kitchen and handed Joseph a cloth napkin filled with food. “You need to eat, Joseph, or you’ll be the one sick in bed.”

  Joseph kissed his wife’s forehead and took the napkin before she walked him to the front door.

  Daniel stared down at the Union County News. He was ready to meet Milton Kent today. Ready to break through the propaganda and expose the underlying evils that so many in both the North and South sought to hide.

  Esther and Gertrude Gunther and half the town of Liberty may not want to hear the truth about slavery, but God had created him to speak out for those whom their government had silenced.

  No one could silence him.

  Chapter Five

  The path to Liberty was a rocky affair that cut through tree-covered hills and boggy swampland near the creeks. Ripe apples and blackberries sweetened the late morning air, and resounding bangs echoed across the fields as farmers harvested their corn by throwing the ears against wagon bang boards.

  Anna’s chaise sloshed over the narrow path like cream in a jug. One of her hands gripped Samara’s reins, and her other hand clung to the bench. Usually she walked to town, but she didn’t want to be gone from the house for so many hours. She would be of no help to Charlotte if she spent her day roaming through the wilds of Indiana.

  The bumps, along with the two cups of coffee she’d drunk before she hitched the buggy, kept her awake and somewhat alert, although Samara knew this old road so well that she didn’t need even the slightest nudge in direction.

  Sleep hadn’t come to Anna until four or five in the morning. She didn’t remember exactly when Peter had fallen asleep. He had cried and moaned in her arms for hours before he finally succumbed. She had placed him beside Marie and then collapsed on a straw tick in the attic. With no windows in the hiding place, the morning light didn’t wake her, and even when Charlotte came to invite the others down to the breakfast table, they didn’t disturb her. She’d slept until almost nine.

  Her father had promised he would rush Marie and the others to safety at the new moon, but Peter couldn’t leave until he had warm clothes and booties for his journey. With the onset of autumn, the nights were getting colder. Snow wasn’t supposed to arrive for another two months, yet with the cooler temperatures this year, it might come sooner.

  After a mile of dodging downed logs and gopher holes, Anna’s path broke onto a muddy road that traveled through a covered bridge and wound around Carter’s cornfield. Then it dumped her right into Liberty’s bustling downtown. She rode her horse past a row of shops first and then the county’s towering courthouse, which had been hewn from a local stone quarry.

  In a treed area beside the courthouse stood a jail with grated windows marking four small cells. A lone face in a window watched her ride by, and the man lifted his hand to her behind the glass. She looked away and then chastened herself. She should at least wave to the miserable soul who could see all the activity on Main Street but participate in none of it.

  She shivered as she stopped her horse below the large sign reading TRUMBLE & Co. There was no worse fate than to be chained inside a cramped room for weeks or months, locked away and alone.

  Anna tied Samara to the post outside the mercantile and walked toward the door. The owner, Lyle Trumble, was an elder at the Salem Anti-Slavery Meeting, and even though her family didn’t attend that Meeting, Lyle was a good friend of her father. His prices were higher than the other general-goods store in town, but Lyle did his best to purchase and sell items that weren’t produced by slave labor. She always shopped at his store.

  Bells rang overhead when she opened the door, and Lyle lifted his head from the ledger, shoving his wire-rimmed glasses up his steep nose. With a quill pen in hand, he waved at her. “Greetings, Friend Anna. Are you coming for tea or sugar today?”

  “Neither.” She lowered her voice as she stepped to the shiny wood counter. “I need to purchase a warm baby gown and shoes.”

  His eyes shifted across the room and then back to her, his voice falling to a whisper. “A baby gown?”

  She nodded. “For a friend.”

  “Oh, I see.” He set down his pen and scooted around the counter. “I’ve got the perfect gown for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She followed Lyle past the dusty barrels of flour and stacks of boots and yards of gingham to the back of the store. Folded in neat rows were store-bought trousers, bonnets, and shirtwaists. Lyle pointed to the end of the row, and she picked up a long gown made with shiny white chintz. The chintz would be too fancy for Marie and Peter’s long trek north, but underneath the white gown Anna discovered a rainbow of gowns, each of them dyed with gay colors like raspberry, moss green, and sky blue.

  Lyle picked up a plum-colored gown. “This one is lined with flannel.”

  She ran her fingers over the soft material. “Is it free labor?”

  He nodded. “I bought it a few weeks ago in Indianapolis.”

  She fingered the satin sash on another long gown. “They’re all beautiful.”

  A Quaker baby would never wear such bright colors, but Marie wasn’t Quaker. A fancy outfit on her white baby, along with a bonnet to hide Marie’s face, would help them to escape notice during the rest of their journey. When they arrived in Canada, Peter might be the finest-dressed fugitive to reach its shores.

  The bells rang again as the door of the shop opened, and Lyle excused himself. Anna draped the plum gown over her arm and decided to purchase it along with a white cap and sheepskin booties to keep Peter’s toes warm. She and Marie could knit him an extra pair of booties to wear under the sheepskin.

  A woman’s voice rang out in the quiet shop. “What beautiful silk, Mr. Trumble!”

  “The finest material on this side of the Alleghenies.”

  “I’d like to buy four yards, but I don’t know in which color.”

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  The woman clapped her hands. “It’ll make the prettiest gown and cap.”

  Anna didn’t hear Lyle’s reply, but the woman walked around the bolts of fabric and met her by the baby clothes. Anna recognized her immediately.

  Esther Cooley was the wife of the town physician and an avid promoter of all things social in Liberty. She had ridden alongside their town’s mayor, Frederick Gunther, and his wife, Gertrude, during the town’s Independence Day parade last July. Even though Esther was dressed in a full skirt layered with ruffles and a tightly laced corset, neither the corset nor the yards of fabric could hide her condition. In a few months, she would be delivering a child.

  Esther silently critiqued Anna’s plain dove-colored dress and apron, but when she saw the items in Anna’s hands, she smiled. “When are you expecting your event?”

  “Oh, no,” Anna protested. Gossip like that would spread like fire through their community until it reached the ears of the Ministry and Oversight Committee. She respected the men and women on the committee, but she didn’t want to have them admonish her over this. “I’m purchasing these for a friend’s baby.”

  Esther picked up a hand-crocheted rattle with white tassels. “Then you must get her a little toy as well.”

  Anna smiled back at the lady. “Are you working for Lyle?”

  “He needs some help,” Esther whispered. “He only buys free-labor materials, you know.”

  “I’ve heard....”

  “It doesn’t help business, but the quality at this store is so much better than what you can find at Perkins’s.”

  Anna took the rattle from Esther’s hands. “That’s why I shop here.”

  “Me, too.” Esther directed her to the bolts of material at the front of the store. “Do you think I should buy pink or white s
atin for my baby’s gown?”

  “White,” Anna replied, “in case it’s a boy.”

  Esther smiled again. “I’m sure it’s a girl.”

  “You want to buy pink, don’t you?”

  Esther picked up the bolt and held the soft pink material toward the sunlight. “Just think how beautiful she’ll look.”

  “Then I think pink is the right color for you.”

  Esther stepped toward the counter and handed Lyle the bolt of silk. As he scribed the price of the material onto her account, Esther turned back to Anna. “Are you from Liberty?”

  “Just south of here,” she replied. “My father owns the woolen mill on Silver Creek.”

  “The Brent Mill?”

  Anna nodded, and Esther’s face brightened into yet another smile. She wrapped her fingers around Anna’s arm. “I’ve been wanting to purchase a special blanket embroidered with my baby’s name.”

  “That would be a wonderful gift.”

  She patted Anna’s arm. “Do you think your father could make it at his mill?”

  “Maybe...”

  “I’d pay top dollar for it.”

  “I’m sure he would be glad to talk to you about it,” Anna said. “You could come out to the mill and discuss the design.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Or he could meet with you when he’s in town.”

  Esther bounced on her toes like she couldn’t contain the excitement bubbling inside her. “Could you talk to your father about it for me? Then you could come to tea at my house next week, and we could design it together.”

  The last thing Anna wanted to do was design a baby blanket, yet something in Esther’s pleading eyes wouldn’t let her refuse. The woman was desperate to welcome her child into the world...and maybe she was desperate for a friend.