Underground to Canada

PUFFIN CANADA

UNDERGROUND TO CANADA

BARBARA SMUCKER

Underground to Canada

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Kansas,
BARBARA SMUCKER
(1915–2003) worked as both a researcher and journalist before marrying Donovan Smucker and moving to Chicago, where they raised their three children. In 1969 they moved to Waterloo, Ontario, where Barbara became a children's librarian and went on to write most of her books.

Ms. Smucker's many stories for children have won her several awards, including a Canada Council Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and the Brotherhood Award for the U.S. National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Also available by Barbara Smucker

Amish Adventure Days of Terror

Garth and the Mermaid Incredible

Jumbo Jacob's Little Giant

White Mist

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First published by Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, Toronto/Vancouver, 1977 Published in Puffin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1978

Published in this edition, 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

Copyright © Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited,

Toronto/Vancouver, 1977 Interior illustrations copyright © Vincent McIndoe, 2008

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-0-14-317802-6.

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NOTE TO THE READER

The escape from Mississippi to Canada by two fictitious characters, Julilly and Liza, could have happened. It is based on first-hand experiences found in the narratives of fugitive slaves: on a careful study of the Underground Railroad routes; and on the activities of two Abolitionists: Alexander M. Ross of Canada and Levi Coffin of Ohio.

I have avoided too much dialect. It is difficult for many readers to understand.

Barbara Smucker

By
Martin Luther King Jr.
from the Massey Lectures Toronto, 1967

It is a deep personal privilege to address a nationwide Canadian audience. Over and above any kinship of U.S. citizens and Canadians as North Americans, there is a singular historical relationship between American Negroes and Canadians.

Canada is not merely a neighbour to Negroes. Deep in our history of struggle for freedom Canada was the North Star. The Negro slave, denied education, dehumanized, imprisoned on cruel plantations, knew that far to the north a land existed where a fugitive slave, if he survived the horrors of the journey, could find freedom. The legendary underground railroad started in the south and ended in Canada. The freedom road links us together. Our spirituals, now so widely admired around the world, were often codes. We sang of “heaven” that awaited us, and the slave masters listened in innocence, not realizing that we were not speaking of the hereafter. Heaven was the word for Canada and the Negro sang of the hope that his escape on the underground railroad would carry him there. One of our spirituals, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” in its disguised lyrics contained directions for escape. The gourd was the big dipper, and the North Star to which its handle pointed gave the celestial map that directed the flight to the Canadian border.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the acknowledgement of copyright material and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

CHAPTER ONE

NIGHT MUSIC DRONED through the slave quarters of Jeb Hensen's
Virginia plantation
. The words couldn't be heard but they were there beneath the rise and fall of the melody.

Julilly hummed them as she sat in the doorway of her cabin, waiting for Mammy Sally to come home from cooking in the Big House kitchen. She was as still and as black as the night. The words of the song beat in her head.

When Israel was in Egypt's land

Let my people go

Oppressed so hard, they could not stand Let my people go.

Old Massa Hensen didn't like this song. He said it came when there were whisperings and trouble around. There were whisperings tonight. They murmured beneath the chirping of the crickets. They crept from ear to ear as soundless as the flickering of the
fireflies
.

Even though June was just beginning and there was summer heat mixed with honeysuckle sweetness in the air, Julilly shivered. She tried pulling her coarse
tow shirt
about her knees, but it had long since grown too short. It wasn't that Massa Hensen didn't give her clothes. He was good to his slaves. It was just that she grew faster than any other twelve-year-old on the plantation.

“She's tall enough to work beside the grown women in the cotton fields,” Massa Hensen said.

Mammy Sally scolded about this.

“My June Lilly is just a girl that's grown too fast,” she pleaded. Grown women had to pick more cotton and they worked longer hours.

It was because Julilly was born in June and Mammy Sally liked lilies that she got her name. Most folk slurred the words together and they came out Julilly. But they didn't for Mammy Sally.

There were no ring games tonight in the dusty yard before the cabin doors. The children whimpered—fretful and uneasy.

Julilly went inside the cabin where she lived alone with Mammy Sally. The flickering
pine knot
in the corner fireplace held blue flames. They had no warmth. There was loneliness and emptiness inside. When Mammy Sally came, the warmth would spark out in the fire, and the shadows would bring sleep.

The little slave cabin was tight-roofed and plank-floored, as were all the other slave cabins at Massa Hensen's.

“Better than any other slave cabin in all of Virginia,” Mammy Sally declared. She liked the Big House, too, where it was cool and wide and the logs were hewn smooth against the walls, and the plank floors were shined and polished.

THE WHISPERINGS that hung in the night-time air had started this morning when Old John, the coachman, drove Missy Hensen into town. Julilly and the other slaves heard about it later.

Missy Hensen sat uneasy and restless in the carriage seat. She talked to Old John of moving North and of selling things. She talked of how her husband, Jeb Hensen, was old and sick and had to go to the hospital in Richmond. She said they had no kin to leave things to.

The land's used up, Old John,” she mourned. “It just has no more life to raise tobacco, or cotton, or any other crops.”

Old John agreed. He knew that
the Masters in Virginia had used the land until it bled and died
.

 

They had no crops for sale these days; so they were beginning to raise and sell slaves instead. There was fertile land in the deep, deep South. The Masters there needed slaves to work their fields.

When Missy Hensen and Old John drove into town, there was excitement on the Court House lawn. Missy Hensen pretended not to see. Old John, who couldn't read, heard the white folks speak of
handbills
plastered on the Court House door: “
WILL PAY TOP PRICES TOMORROW FOR PRIME FIELD HANDS
,” they read.

Old John's hands trembled on the horses' reins. A slave trader from the deep South was coming to their town to buy tomorrow! Jeb Hensen was making plans to move!

Old John and the other slaves at the Hensen plantation knew about the buying of Virginia slaves. Word of it spread like a wind-whipped flame to one plantation and then another. Rumours spread. Some said the buyer lined the slaves up one by one like cows and pigs. They'd sell a mother to one man and all her children to another.

“In the deep South,” folks said, “even the little children tote hoes bigger than themselves, to chop the cotton. Then they get whipped 'cause they don't finish the work the overseer set out for them.”

Massa Hensen didn't whip much on his plantation.

“Too soft-hearted,” some of the slave owners said.

THIS AFTERNOON when Old John came home from his trip to town, he hobbled straight to the
stable boys
.

“A slave trader from the deep South is comin' tomorrow.” His voice trembled.

The stable boys ran like hopping toads to the children who carried water to the field hands in the cotton rows.

“A slave trader from the deep South is comin',” they whispered.

Up and down the cotton rows the message spread, faster than a winging bird.

Julilly heard, chopping, chopping cotton in the blistering sun. When lunch time came she ran to the Big House to tell Mammy Sally. For one instant Mammy Sally straightened her tall body and lifted her proud head.

“Oh Lord,” she said, “we is needin' your protection now.”

Then Mammy Sally drew her lips together and was peaceful. Fears, that had flapped around Julilly's head like
blackbird wings
, flew away. Mammy Sally would take care of her. She was Mammy's only child.

Now the night had come. Julilly huddled shivering near the cabin door. The plank floor of the cabin was warm and dry. The
whippoorwill
called its evening song and the round, orange moon spread its gentle light. But her feet were cold. Her hands were icy. A strangeness spread about like an uneasy quiet before a storm.

Then Mammy Sally came, her bare feet silent on the soundless dust. She clasped Julilly's hand, but the coldness and the strangeness didn't go away. She pulled Julilly close, bending toward the small blue flame. The light showed indigo across her strong, lined face. It glistened in her troubled eyes.

“June Lilly, child.” She spoke softly, rocking slowly back and forth. “You know the slave trader's in our town. Some of the slaves is to be sold.”