Stealing Freedom (19 page)

The group surrounding her all began talking at once.

“That stupid Mr. Price doesn't know anything,” said Catharine.

“Whatever Master Richard told you about your birthday was right,” said her mother.

“He obviously didn't want it to look as if he'd mistreated a child enough for her to run, so he made you older to save his reputation,” said Mr. Bigelow

And finally, her father gave her the best evidence yet. “Baby girl, you've been walking around here looking for all the world like a boy, isn't that right?”

“Yes, Papa,” said Ann.

“Well, you won't pass for a boy once you've turned fifteen, you mark my words.”

Ann looked from Catharine's shapely form filling out her pale green dress, to her own flat chest under the black jacket. When she looked up again, Catharine was grinning at her.

Arabella shifted in her chair. “Ann Maria, I never would have known how important a birthdate could be to a child if it hadn't been for you. So John Junior and this new one will always know—now that I've got the time to tend to more than just keeping hunger and sickness from our door.”

John Junior sat at Ann's feet, playing with a spoon and a wooden bowl. Ann bent over and kissed the top of his head. His baby curls felt soft on her lips. “Thank you, Mamma,” she said.

The light behind the curtains faded, and when it had been dark for some time, they all began to feel it. There was an uneasiness,
then long breaks in the conversation, and finally silence—except for the sound of the clock ticking toward nine.

Ann felt it first as a tightness in her throat. Then, when her father rubbed his forehead with one trembling hand and said softly, “Those curfew bells will be ringing soon,” she felt as if her whole body wanted to shout “No!”

Her mother stood and held out her arms to Ann. But Ann refused to go to her. “Don't make me go,” she said, clutching her chair. She turned to Mr. Bigelow. “Please don't make me go,” she begged.

Mr. Bigelow's shoulders slumped as if the weight of her sadness rested on him.

“Let me stay here—I'll live as a boy. No one will ever know.” Her words tumbled over each other. “Joseph and Ad-dison and Augustus will be home soon—they can protect me. Master Charles will give up searching for me—he won't hunt me forever…then I can live with you.” She looked searchingly at her parents. “You can tell everyone I'm…a nephew. Please…let me stay here.” She didn't even try not to cry. Her shoulders shook and she hung her head, letting tears drip onto her lap.

She felt her mother's arms wrap around her shoulders, holding tightly and rocking. “Shhh…” Arabella whispered.

“Please let me stay here…. Let me stay here….” Ann chanted it to the rhythm of the rocking, wanting the words to make it come true.

Suddenly she felt her mother push away. She was startled by the fury she saw on Arabella's face.

“That bastard Price!” Arabella cried. “Who is he, to rip this
child away from us?” She swayed, and John caught her under the elbows to steady her. His face twitched with anguish.

“You're going to a new world, baby girl,” he said softly.

Ann could feel the time slipping away. When she'd told Mr. Bigelow yes to freedom, she had set in motion a wheel that would not—could not—stop turning until she arrived in that new world.

“Will you—” She swallowed, trying to form the words around her tears. “Will you come visit me?”

Her father pulled her from her chair and clasped her so tightly it hurt. “I will save every penny—and in a few years, if it's not enough for train fare to Canada, I'll jump a freight car to come see you,” he vowed.

“Me, too,” said Catharine, and she wound her thin arms into the hug so that she could hold Ann as well. Ann closed her eyes and breathed in the mingling smells of her father's wool waistcoat and the rosemary oil in Catharine's hair.

“Learn enough in school for both of us, all right?” she said to Catharine.

Catharine tipped her head back to gaze at Ann. “I will,” she said solemnly.

When Ann embraced her mother, they stood silent for a moment. Then Ann whispered, “Will you visit me, too, Mamma?”

Arabella nodded into the nape of Ann's neck. “Give these babies some time to grow up. Then we'll
all jump
that freight car!”

Ann sighed, knowing it was only a dream that they would ever be able to come, but remembering that Uncle William's dreams had come true. She gave her mother a squeeze—and felt
a tiny shove from her mother's belly. She jumped back. “I think she's telling me good-bye!” she said.

“I believe she is,” said Arabella.

John Junior tugged at Ann's skirt, begging to be picked up, and she gave him a good-bye kiss. “You grow up healthy, you hear?” she said to him. He patted her nose.

“We'll write to you and tell you everything—when you get a new sister or brother, and when your brothers come home,” said her mother.

“You be good, and take our love to Uncle William and Aunt Mimi,” her father said.

The curfew bell rang. Ann's parents, sister, and brother hurried to take their leave. As the bell clanged in the crisp night air, Ann felt that it announced the end of her time as a daughter and a sister within this circle of her family.

The next day, the sun rose cold and clear. Ann washed and dressed in her coach boy's clothes. She took a last look around the sitting room, which had been her bedroom since she became Joe Wright. She rolled up her straw mat and folded her quilt. Mr. Bigelow peeked in on her. “Ready?” he asked.

Ann straightened her cap. “Thank you …” she began, but then felt there were no words to express how grateful she was.

Mr. Bigelow held out both his hands to her, his head cocked in a way that showed he understood. Ann reached past the hands and went right to a hug around his middle. He pressed Ann's head against his chest briefly, then held her away
to look at her. “Whom will I discuss
Robinson Crusoe
with when you're gone?” he asked sadly.

“Maybe you should get married and have that son you were saving the book for,” Ann said.

Mr. Bigelow chuckled, but said he would consider her suggestion. “And now let's be off,” he said. “Dr. H. will be waiting for us.”

Mr. Bigelow rode inside the carriage. Ann drove expertly down the wide dirt streets of the city and turned onto the cobblestones of Pennsylvania Avenue. She found herself immediately in the path of a huge omnibus with passengers hanging off the sides and a full team of horses huffing as they pulled the heavy thing up the avenue. A month ago, she might have panicked and let go of the reins, but today she turned right, avoided another carriage and a man on a horse, and continued to her destination: the White House. There, waiting for them in front of the black iron fence, was a tall, slender man with a pointed nose and sandy brown hair.

Ann, now playing the part of a servant, was not introduced. While Mr. Bigelow and Dr. H. chatted and exchanged comments about the weather, she climbed down from Mr. Bigelow's carriage and mounted Dr. H.'s carriage. Dr. H.'s black horse twisted his head around to get a good look at his new driver.

Ann held the reins, ready to go. Inside her leather gloves her hands turned clammy with sweat, but she kept her face expressionless and calm. “I'm Joe Wright,” she told herself, “and no one is chasing me.”

When Dr. H. had climbed back into his carriage and it was
time to go, Ann turned to see Mr. Bigelow one last time. He lifted his chin, as if telling her to be strong, and gave her a lingering look, his eyes soft with fatherly affection. Ann pressed her lips together to keep from smiling too broadly. She didn't dare wave or call good-bye, but after she'd slapped the reins against the horse's back, she briefly swept one hand in an arc that appeared to passersby as if she were shooing away flies, but to Mr. Bigelow was meant as farewell.

They drove down Pennsylvania Avenue, turned onto F Street, and followed the road past the last few row houses, past the boggy places near the Potomac River, and out into the countryside. When they were a good way from the city, Dr. H. stuck his head out of the carriage. “Tell the horse whoa,” he said.

There, without a house in sight, he climbed out of the carriage. “Is my horse treating you well?” he asked. He shaded his eyes and squinted at her.

Ann thought he seemed pale, as if he spent more time reading medical books than out in the sunshine. “He's been very good,” she said. “Except he has given me a few worried looks, wondering who I am.”

“I'd like to switch places with you,” said Dr. H. “He's very used to me, and I'll feel better if I drive most of the way.”

Ann was relieved. She'd never driven for more than an hour or two, and she knew they would be traveling all day. Dr. H. reached up to help her down. She was surprised by the gentleness of his hands. He had slender fingers with delicate skin— good for a doctor, she thought. They would be very soothing on a feverish brow or an aching belly.

“It will be a two-day journey to Philadelphia,” he explained.
“My horse will need to eat tonight, and we'll need to sleep. We'll stop in with old acquaintances of mine who, unfortunately, are slaveholders. But it's safer than stopping at a tavern.” He opened the carriage door for her, like a gentleman.

Shortly after sunset Dr. H. stopped the carriage. The air had turned quite cold, and Ann was glad to hear they had only about a mile left to go.

“These people knew me as a young man,” said the doctor. “They thought I had very strange ideas.” He rubbed his hands together to warm them. “When I argued that blacks should be treated as equals with whites, they thought I'd gone mad.” He gazed into the distance. Then he kicked the dirt once and said, “I think it's best if tonight we make them think I have matured, seen the error of my youthful ideas, and now agree that slavery is a fine institution.”

Ann nodded. It sounded like a good way to keep the doctor's friends from becoming suspicious.

“And you, Joseph, must play the part of my free black servant.”

Ann blinked, startled to be called Joseph.

The doctor gave her instructions on how to act and what to expect: “You'll have your supper in the kitchen, not in the dining room and not in the slave quarters. You'll be served by the slaves.
Don't
talk to them, or their owners may think you're enticing them to run away to Pennsylvania. Don't look the master or mistress in the eye, but don't act too cowed, either. Remember, you're
a free
servant.”

Ann listened intently. When Dr. H. was finished, he asked her, “Ready?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. She took the reins and they rode on toward the distant light of the farmhouse.

Ann was thankful for the warmth of the kitchen, where she ate her supper while Dr. H. joined the family in the dining room. She nodded her thanks to the stoop-shouldered slave woman who served both her and the white folks, but did not say a word to her.

Ann easily overheard the discussion in the dining room. The farmer spoke about a black man in the area, a farmer as well, who owned slaves.

“He's got eight or ten head of slaves on that place, and he rides around checking up on their work like he thinks he's a white man. It just don't make sense,” the man said, his voice rising, “a nigger owning slaves like that.”

“No,” said Dr. H. “It makes no sense at all.”

Ann smiled to herself, knowing what the doctor really meant by his words. But the next thing she heard made her chest turn cold. It was the farmer's wife who spoke.

“Your boy can sleep in the cellar with our male slaves tonight. There have been so many runaways in the area—with us being so close to the line, you know—we keep them chained at night. I'm sure we can find an extra chain for your boy.”

Ann sat rigid, listening.

Dr. H. cleared his throat. “Ma'am, if he were to run away, he simply wouldn't get paid this week. I don't think the chains will be necessary.”

“Oh, dear, how silly of me,” said the woman. She laughed nervously. “I forgot how it is you-all do things in Pennsylvania.”

Still, Ann did not relish the idea of sleeping in the cellar with a group of men and boys she'd never met.

“My health has been poor,” the doctor was saying. “I suffer from dizziness at night. I would like the boy with me, to tend to my needs if necessary. Simply give him a bed quilt and he will fare well enough in a corner of the room.”

The farmer and his wife readily agreed to the request, and Ann breathed a sigh of relief.

Snug and warm in a corner of the bedroom, wrapped in the soft quilt, with the doctor sleeping in his bed nearby, Ann relaxed. As she drifted off to sleep, she was thankful for many things, including the fact that Dr. H. did not snore.

They were up before dawn, and on the road by first light. “I want you safe at William Still's house, and me safely reported to my wife, by nightfall,” said Dr. H.

At Havre de Grace they boarded the ferry to cross the Susquehanna River. The ferryman, pushing with his pole and spitting tobacco juice from between brown teeth, stared at Ann, narrowing his eyes. Ann moved around to the other side of Dr. H.'s horse, putting his black bulk between herself and the ferryman. She stroked the horse's neck and talked to him as if he didn't like ferry crossings and needed calming.

“You don't see many with freckles like that,” the ferryman said.

Ann's knees almost buckled and she grasped the bridle to steady herself.

“I beg your pardon?” said Dr. H.

“I say, there's one escaped, got a five-hundred-dollar reward on its head, what got freckles like your nigger,” the man said.

Ann heard the doctor say, “I see,” and nothing more. The
horse threw his head up and yanked against her grasp. She realized she'd been nearly hanging on the bridle. Her hands shook as she stroked his neck to quiet him.

They traveled in silence, listening to the splash of the river against the ferryboat. As the opposite shore got closer, Ann began to panic, wondering what they would do if the ferryman wanted to report her to the sheriff at Perryville.

“Good God, man, are you always this slow?” Dr. H. said impatiently. He paced back and forth on the boat and pulled out his pocket watch several times. “First the colonel kept me talking this morning, like a farmer who has all day to get his work done, and now I've got the slowest damned ferry in the state.” He stopped, stood over the ferryman, and glared at him. “Do you realize I have patients waiting, some of whom are extremely sick?”