Underground to Canada

by Barbara Smucker

  “I’m an ornithologist, Mr. Sims.” The portly Canadian lowered a shotgun which he carried and extended his right hand to Sims. The handshake was brief. “I want to make a thorough study of birds in this area and I could use several of your slaves to guide me.”

  Sims wasn’t impressed. He scanned the field and began picking at his yellow teeth with a sharp twig.

  “Guess you might as well choose them yourself,” he scowled. “This is a busy time here, and I can’t spare more than two men.”

  Massa Riley broke in. “Mr. Ross here has enough scientific names for birds to fill a 200-pound sack of cotton.” He viewed his guest with a measure of pride. “At dinner last night, he had our guests charmed with his talk.”

  Julilly continued to stare. The man must be from Canada. His speech as well as his dress was different. His words came out clipped and fast. They jumped along instead of running smooth together like those of all the white men she had ever known.

  “I’ll let Sims here take care of all your needs.” Massa Riley bowed to Ross, waved good-bye and walked away from the fields toward the Big House and the cool green shade of the magnolia trees.

  Sims’ small eyes focused on Julilly.

  “Get to work you nigger girl,” he shouted. His whip slashed down across her back. It pained like the sudden sting of a hundred bees. Julilly had seen others whipped, especially here at Massa Riley’s, but she had never had the lash come down on her. She bent over and grabbed Liza’s arm, preparing for another blow.

  It didn’t come. Mr. Ross grabbed Sims’ upraised arm and led him firmly down the cotton row. He walked straight and fast, all the while pointing to a far corner where a line of young men carried baskets of picked cotton toward the gin.

  Julilly doubled the speed of her cotton picking. She was angry and she was afraid. Now that Sims had picked her out as a slave who watched and listened to white men’s talk, he would not forget. He would use his whip on her again.

  The sun glared with a white heat from the noonday skies. Sims returned to pace up and down the rows with his angry whip. There were cries here and there as he let it fall. Mr. Ross remained in the far corner talking with the young men.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE COMING of Mr. Ross unsettled the slaves. Julilly felt it like a spark, flitting up and down the rows of cotton. There was something about the way the heavy-chested Canadian had grabbed Sims’ upraised hand when he aimed to strike her again that roused a hope in Julilly’s mind.

  She couldn’t talk with Liza. Sims was too close. She began picking quickly, and when she thought it safe, stuffed extra cotton bolls into Liza’s lows-lung sack. Without moving her head, she could see Mr. Ross talking with one slave and then another. It was a long time before he finally walked from the field with two of them.

  The slaves he chose were Lester and Adam. Julilly stopped picking for an instant just to watch.

  Big, fast-moving Mr. Ross from Canada had chosen Lester and Adam to help him look for birds.

  Julilly knew she must talk with Lester soon. Sometimes on Sundays, she met him in the yard of the slave quarters. He was always angry, but he listened when she talked of home. Once she had told him what Mammy Sally said about Canada. He had listened hard then. His eyes were excited and he had given Julilly that same cautious look of approval that came over his face the day she helped him from the swamp in the rain.

  “Don’t you talk about this to no one—just to me and to your friend, Liza,” he had cautioned.

  Tomorrow was Sunday. She would find Lester and ask him about Alexander Ross.

  Julilly and Liza finished picking their row. Far ahead of them they could see the big Canadian with Lester and Adam enter the Piney Woods and disappear.

  IT WAS DUSK when the picking and weighing of the cotton was finished. Sims was nervous and uneasy as he checked the scales. Mr. Ross was back and Lester and Adam had been sent to carry baskets of picked cotton. Mr. Ross held his shotgun loose. The grey wings of a dead mockingbird stuck out from a bag that he hung over his big shoulders. Even though he had been tramping about most of the hot afternoon hunting birds, his thick brown hair and preacher-looking suit were as neat and orderly as though he’d been sitting under the shade trees of the Big House lawn.

  He stood near Sims.

  “Now tell me, Mr. Sims,” he asked with his fast clipped Canadian accent, “how much does each slave pick during the day?”

  Sims mumbled an answer.

  “An amazing crop.” The Canadian patted his great stomach and chest. “You know it’s too cold in Canada to raise cotton.”

  Sims perked up with this comment.

  “I heard tell,” Sims grinned, his upper lip flattened against his yellow, uneven teeth. “it’s such a cold place that nothin’ but black-eyed peas can be raised there.”

  Julilly saw a smile flicker on the big man’s face.

  JULILLY AND LIZA, with the other slaves, trudged back along the dusty path to the slave quarters with lighter steps that evening. As though in some kind of celebration, a large black kettle swung over a crackling flame in the yard. It bubbled with greens and sparse strips of salt pork.

  There hadn’t been greens to eat since Julilly came to the Riley plantation on the first day. She reached inside her crocker bag for the gourd that she always carried with her, ladled out a portion for herself and poured some for Liza into a tin plate.

  “Without you, Julilly”—Liza raised her tired head where she sat resting against the trunk of a thick oak tree—“I’d starve to death.”

  THAT NIGHT in the long slave cabin, all the girls whispered about Canada and Mr. Ross. Most of them knew about the place. Word of it had crept along the plantation “grapevines” in the places where they came from—in Virginia and North Carolina. They shared what they had heard.

  Liza knew the most. Usually she was quiet and sullen after the day’s work, but tonight she felt like talking. She hunched her crippled back against the pile of rags to ease the constant pain.

  “This country is far away under the North Star,” she whispered hoarsely. “It’s run by a lady named Queen Victoria. She made a law there declarin’ all men free and equal. The people respects that law. My daddy told me that, and he was a preacher.”

  A girl down the line named Bessie, who was tall and strong like Julilly, moved near Liza.

  “How you know where to find that North Star, girl?” she asked.

  Liza answered with certainty and precision. “You look in the sky at night when the clouds roll back. Right up there, plain as the toes on my feet, are some stars that makes a drinking gourd.” Night after night Julilly and Liza had been watching it when the stars hung low, sparkling and glistening.

  “The front end of that drinking gourd,” Liza went on, “points straight up to the North Star. You follow that. Then you get to Canada and you are free.”

  “Don’t you talk so much, girl,” Bessie’s whisper was sharp now and strained with fear. “Look what happened to you when you tried to get your freedom. You got a bent back and your legs got all beat up. I ain’t lookin’ for no more whippin’s than I already get.” She rolled onto her rags and was soon asleep.

  Another girl near by crept close to Liza and Julilly. She was a timid girl, hunched up like a little mouse caught in a corner.

  “I’m afraid,” she shivered. “I heard a man say once that Canada is a cold country. Only the wild geese can live there. I’m afraid to go. I’m always afraid.” She began to whimper. Julilly reached for her hand and held it until the girl went to sleep.

  By now the other girls, sprawled along the floor, were too drained and dulled by the daily work and scant food to care or listen. Their exhausted bodies needed sleep. Like work-horses, they found their stalls each night and fell exhausted into the heap of tangled, ragged blankets.

  But Liza hadn’t moved from her hunched position against the wall. She wasn’t asleep. Julilly could see her open eyes in the soft moonlight that spread through the cracks and open doo
rway of the cabin. It was late. The only night sounds were the chirping of the crickets.

  Every muscle in Julilly’s body ached. She spread out flat on her back close to Liza, unable to close her eyes. The thoughts in her head jumped around like grasshoppers. Was Liza trying to reach Canada and freedom when Sims tracked her down?

  Free, thought Julilly. Free must be like a whippoorwill that could fly here and there and settle where it pleased … free could mean to get paid for your work like white folks … free was like the free black boy who stood beside the tall Abolitionist on the road to Mississippi and gave her water … if you were free, you wouldn’t be whipped.

  Julilly couldn’t stop her thoughts.

  She finally murmured to the silent, staring Liza.

  “Liza.” Julilly barely moved her lips. “You thinkin’ of tryin’ to run away to Canada again?”

  She felt Liza’s body twitch. Slowly the crippled girl slid to the floor and put her mouth against Julilly’s ear.

  “You is my friend, Julilly.” She barely made a sound. “What I is goin’ to say must not be told to anyone.”

  Julilly nodded her head.

  “Before the cotton is finished bein’ picked, I am gonna slip away from here some night.”

  “Are you afraid?” Julilly had to know.

  “I am afraid, and I am not afraid.” Liza’s bony fingers clasped Julilly’s arm. “Like my daddy said to me, ‘Liza, in the eyes of the Lord, you is somebody mighty important. Don’t you ever forget that.’”

  Julilly nodded again.

  “I’m scrawny, Julilly, but I’m tough. I think the Lord put that North Star up in the sky just for us poor niggers to follow, and I intends to follow it.”

  There was a long silence between them.

  Finally Julilly said slowly, her heart beating so fast she thought it might snap off from whatever held it in her chest, “I am goin’ with you, Liza. I’m afraid and I’m not afraid, same as you.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  JULILLY HAD ALWAYS looked forward to Sunday on the Hensen plantation. It was rest time from work. Sometimes a preacher came to an empty cabin that the black folks called their church. There was preaching and singing.

  On Saturday nights there was dancing.

  The slaves went far back into the woods for this, to another empty cabin. Massa Hensen didn’t mind, so long as he didn’t have to listen. There was plenty of ruckus with Lester and Adam playing the fiddles and Ben banging a set of bones. In her hair Julilly wore a red ribbon which Mammy Sally scrounged up for her. She could dance longer than anybody there.

  But things were different at Massa Riley’s place. He wouldn’t allow a preacher, and Sims whipped anybody he found dancing. Mostly everybody was too tired and too sickly to care. Sunday was washing day and cooking day at Massa Riley’s.

  ON THIS SUNDAY, Julilly and Liza sat on the ground near the boiling clothes kettle, beating their clothes with battling sticks. They hadn’t been able to talk at all about last night’s pledge. There were too many people around and there was too much to do.

  Julilly felt a new bond between them—stronger than just being good friends. It was held tight by the promise to run away together. It was the most solemn promise Julilly had ever made.

  A lazy bee buzzed around her head. She reached up to swat it, and saw Lester. He looked at her steadily and made a motion that she should join him. He shuffled past her without a word and walked down the dusty path, turning behind a row of cypress trees.

  “Liza,” Julilly whispered, “somethin’s happened. Lester wants to see me. Hold my stick. I’ll be right back.”

  “Lester looks upset.” Liza had seen him too.

  Julilly walked quickly toward the cypress trees. Lester was standing behind one of them—impatient and edgy. Julilly joined him.

  “I’ll talk fast, Julilly,” he said in his steady, bitter way. “Massa Ross from Canada isn’t here to catch birds. He’s here to help slaves escape to Canada.”

  Julilly grabbed Lester’s arm, but Lester moved away from her.

  “I don’t want no one seein’ me talk to you. Massa Ross is meetin’ tonight with some of us in the middle of the Piney Woods. It’s gonna be late—when most folks are asleep. Listen for three calls of the whippoorwill, then walk to this tree. You come and bring Liza. I’ll take you to the meetin’.”

  Lester left her, walking fast toward the slave quarters where the young men gathered. Julilly returned to the washing, taut and breathless. She whispered the message to Liza at once. The hunched, bony girl scarcely moved. She dropped the battling stick, which scraped over the dust, a hard, twisted branch of oak, unyielding against the constant whacks upon the dirty clothes.

  “That stick seems as tough and skinny as you, Liza.” Julilly grabbed it up and began pounding at the clothes. It was no good having the others look at them right now.

  Liza was in some sort of trance.

  When she looked up, though, the crippled girl’s eyes snapped and danced. They lit up her face until there wasn’t a scowl left.

  Julilly stared. Liza must be about thirteen years old—the same as her! She hadn’t thought of any age for this new friend of hers. She’d just seen a worn-out, sullen, old slave face on her, such as many of the other young girls had.

  “You look happy,” Julilly said eventually, beating hard with her stick to make up for Liza’s not moving at all.

  “I am.” Liza still didn’t move. “I thought my daddy was wrong. I thought the Lord had passed me by. But he hasn’t. This time I’ll have help in findin’ my freedom. I’ll have you and Massa Ross.”

  IN THE SHADOW-FILLED MOONLIGHT that night, Liza and Julilly lay quiet on their cabin floor. Their eyes were closed and they didn’t move. Honeysuckle sweetness from the Big House lawn drifted through the open door; gentle bird calls sounded from the cypress grove. They waited and waited, wondering when the call they were listening for would come.

  The big girl, Bessie, near by, twisted about and then sat up to swat a mosquito that circled her head.

  “Oh, Lord, put Bessie to sleep,” Julilly prayed.

  Within minutes the big girl did sleep.

  Then they heard it—three soft calls of the whippoorwill.

  Swiftly and silently the girls crept out of the door. They were barefoot and the hard dirt of the slave quarters made no sound. Lester’s shadow spread over the ground near the line of trees, guiding them.

  As they approached, they could see Lester put his fingers over his lips. They didn’t speak. Lester started walking fast toward the Piney Woods and motioned for the girls to follow.

  Inside the woods, the thick, fallen pine needles were soft to their feet. There was no path. Lester meandered dog-like around the tall trunks as though sniffing his way.

  They walked deep among the trees until the tall, guarding trunks enclosed them in an open space. Mr. Ross was there with Adam and Ben.

  “This is Julilly who I told you about,” Lester said breathlessly to Mr. Ross. “And this girl is Liza. She tried to escape once, but got caught. Massa Sims lashed her almost to death.”

  Mr. Ross shook Liza’s hand and then Julilly’s. Julilly hadn’t expected this. It was a gesture of friendship. It was like their hands made a bridge.

  Maybe, with this big man’s help she could cross over it into Canada.

  Mr. Ross drew the group close together. He spoke directly and forcefully. Julilly had to strain to understand his Canadian speech.

  “Lester has chosen you out of all the miserable slaves on this plantation,” he said, “because he thought you were the only ones with the desire and the courage to escape to Canada.”

  “That’s right for me,” Julilly answered gravely. The others nodded their heads.

  “My conviction is that human slavery is such a monstrous wrong that any measure is justified to liberate as many of you as possible.”

  Lester interrupted. “I think these folks should know, Massa Ross, that you are one of those Abolitionists who ar
e helpin’ to free the slaves.”

  “That’s right, Lester.” Mr. Ross’ eyes became merry and he laughed softly. “I’ve been called ‘Negro Thief,’ and in one town in Tennessee a sign was put up which said, ‘$1,200 reward for the apprehension of the Accursed Abolitionist.’ That was me.”

  His laugh eased the tension. The circle of sturdy pine trees closed about them like a sheltering arm.

  Mr. Ross began speaking straightforwardly. “This is a great risk you are taking to escape bondage for freedom. None of it is going to be easy. It won’t even be easy when you get to Canada.”

  He looked at each of them steadily and in turn they met his eyes with lifted heads.

  “It takes courage and determination and a good deal of wit.” His words were measured and slow. “If you don’t think you can do it, I will understand.”

  Julilly found it strange just to look in the eyes of a white man. How was she going to speak her mind in front of one? She was glad for the night and the darkness that covered all of them.

  “I’m afraid, Massa Ross. But I don’t want to be whipped by Massa Sims one more time. Even a horse shouldn’t be whipped the way he whips us slaves. My Mammy told me to join her in Canada and I want to do this. I’ve got courage the same as she has.”

  “That’s so, Massa Ross,” Lester added.

  “She helped me out of a swamp when the chain was round my ankle.”

  Julilly was pleased that Lester remembered. She knew Lester would never stay at Massa Riley’s place even if he was whipped until he nearly died. She didn’t know about Adam. He was meek and gentle. He mostly liked to sing. But he had strong arms and a proud head. His skin was as black as Liza’s. It faded into the night.

  Liza straightened her back and stood as tall as she could. “The Lord has been speakin’ to me, Massa Ross,” she said simply. “He says to me ‘You ain’t meant to be beaten. You is a woman same as Missy Riley.’ Bein’ black don’t make me no animal. I got eyes, and hands, and legs same as she has.”