Stealing Freedom (21 page)

Odder still was that after breakfast, kind, well-dressed people—both black and white—began arriving for one purpose: to meet her. They wanted to hear her story of escape, learn about her family and former owner, and marvel at how well she played the part of a boy.

“I never would have guessed!” said a tall, homely woman in a Quaker dress and bonnet.

“She fooled me!” said a spectacled man with a double chin.

These were members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee and “stockholders” in the Underground Rail Road, Mrs. Still explained to her. They were the people who donated
money, clothing, food, time, and often a spare bedroom or attic hiding place to help fugitive slaves like her. They were part of the secret network, and they'd all known about her escape and had been waiting expectantly for her to arrive safely in the north.

Ann was very surprised to find she had become someone whom white folks and well-to-do black folks wrote letters about and talked about by name. It was a strange feeling, though no more strange than sleeping in a real bed or watching water drain out of a tub with a hole in the bottom.

Some of the Vigilance Committee members spent the morning with them, others came later and spent the afternoon, and when several more arrived for supper, Ann began to wonder if they would ever stop coming. In all the days she had spent working in the garden, kitchen, stables, and tavern from before dawn until after dark, she had never had a day as tiring as this one, spent sitting in the parlor talking to polite, enthusiastic strangers.

After supper, fortunately, Mrs. Still noticed Ann's weariness. She politely reminded the admirers that Ann was still a child, and hurried her off to bed. The soft mattress felt like a cloud; Ann was instantly asleep.

Dr. H. came to see about her before sunup the next day. Mrs. Still shook Ann awake in the chilly morning darkness. “It's time for you to go,” she said softly.

Ann groaned and sat up. “But I've only just gotten here.” The Stills had been so warm and welcoming. And now she had to leave to meet new strangers.

She dressed hurriedly in the cold bedroom. Laura opened one eye. “Where you going so early?” she asked.

Ann sighed. “Dr. H. is here. I suppose I'm going to New York.”

Laura let out a low whistle. “Mercy. You stay close to that Dr. H. I hear the ruffians in New York walk around with knives in their teeth—make the Philadelphia Blood Tubs look like old ladies.”

Ann's face went slack. New strangers and new hoodlums all in one day.

Downstairs in the foyer Mrs. Still gave Ann a chunk of warm buttered bread for her breakfast and handed Dr. H. a package of food for their trip. She adjusted Ann's cap on her head. “You're so young to be going all alone…” she began, her eyes sad. Then she caught herself and brightened. “Our prayers will keep you safe,” she said.

Mr. Still came down the steps with his collar and tie not yet fastened. He rested a hand on Ann's shoulder. “We would have liked to have you stay for Thanks Giving,” he said. “But it's best to send you on quickly.”

Dr. H. glanced at his pocket watch. “The roads between here and New York are better than those in Maryland,” he said, “but we'll still be hard pressed to reach New York in one day.”

Ann suddenly felt the urgency that had been making Dr. H. pace impatiently since he'd arrived. She thanked the Stills for all they had done to help her and said her last good-byes. Then she climbed back up to her perch on the carriage driver's seat to begin the next part of her journey.

In the countryside between Philadelphia and New York, Ann noticed the changes. There was less clearcut and more forest. The snow began as a sprinkling on the ground, and became deeper as they traveled north. By the time they neared New York City, there were several inches of snow on the fields, the forest floor, and the road, and clinging to the branches of the towering pines.

As they rode the ferry across the Hackensack River, the sun set behind gray clouds. The ferryboat splashed through the icy water and made Ann seasick. By the time they boarded the ferry to cross the Hudson River, they had only the moon to light their way. It was not a small ferry, like the one they'd shared with only the ferryman on the Susquehanna. It was a large, flat boat with a huge paddle wheel and a smokestack to power the wheel, and was crowded with other carriages, horses, and passengers. Many of the people were dressed richly. Ann had never seen so many tall top hats and finely embroidered shawls. A stiff wind rippled the water, making the moon's reflection glitter and dance. Ann pulled her cap down as far as it would go and huddled close to Dr. H.'s horse.

When the ferry neared the shore, Ann could see in the moonlight that the harbor was teeming with other boats. Some were sailing vessels, with their ghostly white sails bulging in the wind, and others were steam-powered, with their smokestacks spewing the black smoke of coal fires.

Onshore the din of crates and boxes being thrown onto the docks combined with the shouts of the workers. Dr. H. helped
her lead the horse onto dry land, then mounted the driver's seat with her and took the reins. He had to dodge other carriages, pedestrians, wagons filled with barrels, and fast-trotting horses just to get to the street. Ann glanced up at the sign: Barclay Street.

Dr. H.'s carriage continued to weave in and out of the rushing traffic. The streets were lit everywhere with gas lamps, and in their amber light the life of New York City seemed to be going on as if it were midday. Tall buildings, some as much as eight stories high, rose on either side of them. Ann saw men in wide-lapeled suits, with stiffly waxed mustaches that stuck out like sheep horns under their noses. She saw ladies in colorful dresses, with feathers in their bonnets. Walking along the same sidewalks were people dressed in torn and dirty rags.

The noise was deafening. There was the sharp striking of many horseshoes against the stone pavement, red and yellow omnibuses clattering along their iron rails, the rattling of boxes in the bumping wagons, and everywhere the shouts and curses of drivers and pedestrians as people and horses and vehicles came close to colliding.

Ann rubbed her eyes. They stung from the coal smoke. She also began to cough, both from the smoke and the stench. It smelled as if all the chamber pots had been emptied directly onto the street.

They rounded a corner, and there was a bit less traffic. Ann heard what at first sounded like several babies wailing at once, then realized it was a choir of cats. Groups of men loitered on the sidewalks. Ann overheard conversations and drunken songs in the same Irish brogue she'd first heard in Philadelphia, and
in another strange language Dr. H. said was German. They passed several houses where ladies with scarlet shawls draped over their bare arms stood outside, while inside it sounded as if a band was playing! Ann stared at it all, wide-eyed as an owl.

They pulled onto a street that seemed almost quiet compared to what they had just driven through. There, in front of a four-story brownstone building, Dr. H. stopped the carriage. “Here,” he said. “The home of the Reverend Charles Bennett Ray. He's a colored minister from the Congregational Church. He's expecting you.”

“Reverend Ray!” Ann exclaimed. “That's who my father met with when he came to New York.” She felt suddenly as if she were about to meet a friend, not another stranger.

As Dr. H. walked her up the steps, Ann exclaimed, “What a big house the Reverend has!”

Dr. H. chuckled. “It's an apartment building. The Reverend just has rooms on the third floor.”

Reverend Ray greeted them and took Ann's hands in his.

“You
do
look like your papa,” he said. He had bushy sideburns with some gray in them, and a round, friendly face.

Ann was very happy to hear someone talk about her father. She glanced around the small apartment and imagined her father sitting on the couch, drinking tea from one of the teacups hanging in the kitchen, looking out the window at the street below.

“I'll leave you, then,” said Dr. H. “I must find an inn before too late. Shall I consider the parcel from Mr. Bigelow safely delivered?”

“Safely delivered, indeed,” said Reverend Ray.

What parcel? Ann wondered.

Ann thanked Dr. H., and once again felt how small her words were in the face of the risks he had taken to bring her across the Mason-Dixon Line and this far north into the free states. Dr. H. nodded modestly. “I consider it my duty,” he told her.

Ann expected to be shown a place to sleep in Reverend Ray's home, but instead the Reverend put on his coat and hat. Ann followed him down the steps and out to the street, where she held the horse's bridle as Reverend Ray hooked up his wagon.

“We'll deliver you to Mr. Tappan right away and put his mind at ease,” he said. “He's been waiting for this package as well. We expected you to arrive some time ago, so the Tappans have been worried to distraction.”

Ann was dismayed. She wasn't carrying the package Dr. H. had mentioned and that Reverend Ray now was so intent on delivering to Mr. Tappan. Had someone forgotten to give it to her?

“Sir, I'm so sorry,” she said. “But I don't have the package.”

Reverend Ray gave her a puzzled look, then burst out laughing.
“You
are the package!”

“Me?” Ann asked in surprise.

“It's the way we speak and write our letters,” the Reverend explained. “We refer to you, and others in your situation, as the ‘parcel’ or ‘article’ or ‘item’ or ‘package.’ That way, if a letter is intercepted or a conversation overheard, it simply sounds as if we're sending little gifts along for one another's wives. It's a sort of code, I suppose.”

Reverend Ray patted his horse's flank and held out his hand
to help Ann onto the rickety wagon. They rode down the street, then turned onto an iron-paved road where the wagon wheels made a hollow-sounding racket. As they traveled, Ann noticed that many of the people walking, riding horses, and driving wagons in this part of the city were Negroes.
Freedmen
, she thought with satisfaction.

Before long they came to a modest stone house with warm yellow light glowing from the windows. Here they stopped, and Reverend Ray led Ann up the front steps. A white woman, her brown hair pulled back tightly in a bun, met them at the door.

“Sarah.” Reverend Ray beamed at her. “Here is the parcel from Washington.”

“At last!” Sarah Tappan cried. “Come, my husband is in the parlor.”

Lewis Tappan greeted Ann with a broad smile. He was a kind-looking man with a great bulbous nose and a head that was bald on top and framed around the sides by a mass of brown and gray hair. “You've certainly been a long time coming, haven't you?” he said to Ann. “I think it was almost two years ago Jacob Bigelow first wrote to us about you.”

Mrs. Tappan offered Ann a late supper, which she was ravenous for, and the adults sat with her and sipped tea while she ate. She recounted her story between mouthfuls, and they told her their side of it—the meetings with her father and the letters back and forth between themselves, Mr. Still, and Jacob Bigelow, alias “William Penn.”

When they retired to the sitting room, they each carried with them a straight-backed chair from the kitchen, at Mr. Tap-pan's suggestion. He apologized for the absence of comfortable
seats. “I can't afford to replace all of the furniture at once—just one piece at a time, as funds allow.”

Reverend Ray leaned over to explain this to Ann: “The Tappans had a visit not long ago from some of their neighbors who don't like abolitionists. They dragged all of their furniture out of the house and set it on fire.”

Ann sucked in her breath. “Was anyone hurt?” she asked.

“No, no,” Mrs. Tappan assured her. “Just the chairs and tables and a couch.”

Ann studied the faces of these three brave people, two white and one black, and wondered which required more courage: to be a fugitive, or to be the one who helped the fugitive reach safety.

As Sarah Tappan tucked Ann in to bed that night she told her, “Tomorrow is Thanks Giving, so we'll hide you here. But the next day we'll deliver you to the Reverend A. N. Freeman. He's the pastor of the Siloam Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. He will take you to Canada.”

Ann was beginning to see why they called her the “parcel” and the “package.” She was, after all, being delivered quickly and efficiently from doorstep to doorstep.

The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Tappan made a startling announcement. “A man will be here tomorrow to take your daguerreotype, Miss Ann Maria.”

Ann's spoonful of porridge stopped on its way to her mouth. Only presidents and rich people had their daguerreotypes taken.

Mrs. Tappan continued, “Reverend Ray said Mr. Bigelow has written saying your mother requested it. They want the picture taken before you change back to your rightful sex, and it will be kept as part of the Underground Rail Road records.”

Ann was even more astonished. Her mother? Here she was, in this faraway city of New York, and a message had been sent from her
mother.
So this was the magic of writing letters.

Around midday, Sarah Tappan explained that it would be best if Ann stayed upstairs, since their Thanks Giving guests were not all abolitionists and could not be trusted with the knowledge that there was a runaway in the house. She took Ann to a room on the third floor. It had a fire in the fireplace, and, over in one corner, a wooden chair and a desk with an inkwell, a quill pen, and papers.