Virginia Hamilton (7 page)

Anthony was unaware that abolitionist ministers and lawyers argued fiercely hour upon hour over their next course of action on his behalf. There was no one to inform him that the slavers, Suttle and Brent, were followed everywhere by black men who never looked at them but were always in their sight. Suttle became so terrified that these blacks would try to lynch him, he and Brent moved to quarters in the Revere House attic and hired bodyguards.

In two short days Anthony had become a symbol to freedom lovers and a devilish token of danger to slavers like Suttle. But the courteous Reverend Leonard Grimes and his deacon, Coffin Pitts,
never for an instant confused the man, the fugitive, with his cause. They agreed that Reverend Grimes must try to see Anthony the next morning.

Anthony knew none of this. He wished to shut out the prying questions of guards hoping to trick him. He did what he knew how to do best of all: He retreated within, taking comfort in his unchanging past.

7
Winter 1846

THE BOY OF HIS
past was now twelve. At that time he had just finished two years
' service to Mars William and Missy Brent in Falmouth, Virginia.

“I be two year with Brents,” spoke the boy. “Missy treat me kind, and all 'em be house slaves she treat the same. She let me read secret in her house. And I gain two hundred money for Mars Brent. He hired me out and I done it all well.”

Charles Suttle had more black slaves then he could possibly need or use. He had mortgaged his land and sold much of it to pay off past debts. By the time Anthony was grown, Suttle was a shopkeeper and a high sheriff. In his part of Virginia, Stafford County, the land had been worked almost to death. So Suttle began to hire out his slaves to people who had none and needed workers. It became so profitable for him to supply other towns and cities that he made more of his women slaves into breeders to keep up the supply of slave labor.

When Anthony came back to the
Suttle home after his second year with the Brents, Suttle said, “Tony, Mr. Brent speaks very well of you. Likes you so well, he has hired you for another year.”

“But Mars Charles, I haven't hire
him
,” Anthony said. He was confident he could speak boldly to his owner, for he knew Mars Charles favored him.

“What's the matter, boy—hasn't Brent treated you well?” asked Suttle.

“Well, yes, Mars, but there's th'tuther boy there mislikes me, and—”

Suttle shook his head. “It can't be helped now,” he said. “I've agreed to let you stop with Mr. Brent. And besides, he pays more for you this year than he did last year.”

“Just as you say, Mars. The
woods
is big enough to hold
me
,” Anthony said.

Charles Suttle was surprised. This was the first time Anthony had used the
argument of the woods
, and it was a position that carried weight with every slaveholder. So much of Virginia was dense forest that a slave might disappear into the deep woods of Stafford County and run for weeks under cover clear to the North. In Anthony's case it meant that if Suttle did not consider what he wanted, Anthony might run away into the forest, where it would be difficult to catch him again. If word got around that Anthony had raised the
argument
, it would lower his value. For no one wanted to hire or purchase a slave with the runaway disease.

Suttle sighed. “All right, Tony,” he said. “This time I'll let you have it your way
.”

Anthony's heart sprang for joy. He could leave Mars Brent!

“But you must now repair to the Hiring Ground,” Suttle told him. “And you will lead some of my Jims. Take Efrum, and Luther, Simon, and Whittom.

“You are in charge,” Suttle added. “You know how to go.”

“Yay sur, I know,” Anthony said, for he had hired out before. The Hiring Ground was in Stafford County, in a large village of more than two hundred houses, fifteen miles along the river. Its exact location was by the market and near the court house. It was in no way hard to find. Thinking about it gave Anthony mixed feelings, both somber and pleasant. He knew that if he could keep moving, he might find a way to freedom. Mamaw had told him all about it. Freedom was north. “Go find it,” she had said. The Hiring Ground might bring him one step closer.

“You meet me there with my Jims tomorry,” Suttle said. “Here is money for their food.”

“I would have a penny for my lodging,” Anthony boldly said.

Suttle looked at him sternly. “I ought to slap you in the face for that,” he said. “You will sleep with the rest, Tony. How can you keep your eye on them if you are not beside them? And if they get into difficulty, you will pay me for it.”

“Yay sur,” Anthony mumbled, bowing his
head as was proper. This time he had gone too far, but there was always hope in trying. He would ever try to get his way, forcing his owner to give a little and a little more each time. It was a small opening of freedom's door.

By seven o'clock the next morning, Anthony was ready. He gathered his charges and saw to it that they were dressed carefully enough for the hiring time. He gave them their passes, which allowed them to leave the Suttle house and their village and enter the next village for the purpose stated by their owner.

“Now don't you lose 'em papers,” he said, “ 'cause Mars Suttle won't be comin' till middayclean. We on my own time till then. And I ain't having no pateroller along the way saying how we running so's he can sell us off to Loozanna.”

Anthony watched as each lad put his pass away in his clothing. “You get a little bread, a little cracklin',” he said, and handed some to each. He carried a gourd for water. One of the others did also.

Soon they were on their way. Anthony kept an even, fairly fast pace. So much so that after the food was eaten, he had to cajole his group along.

“Too quick, Anthony,” Whittom said. He was a hang-back youth, even in this cool winter weather.

“Keep you warmer, walking fast,” Anthony told him.

“Then talk some more,” Whittom panted.

“I am talking,” Anthony said, and began a quiz. “Who's oldest of Mars Charles' black folks?”

They all answered promptly
. “Your own mama!”

“That's it,” Anthony said. “And who's youngest of Mars Eldy's colored boys?”

They all thought about the nearest planter's young male slaves. They saw other planters and their slaves only at church-sermon time. “That be one they calls By Big Ducey,” said Whittom.

“But what his name called?” asked Anthony.

“That be the name!” cried Efrum.

“That just be who 'em by,” Luther said. “I know what his name called.”

“Then tell,” said Anthony.

“You know?” Luther asked him.

“Course I do.”

“Then you tell it.”

Anthony almost did when he realized he was being tricked. It wouldn't do for Mars Charles to learn that one of his own boys had beaten Anthony. Luther wanted to be leader someday soon, Anthony knew. Not this soon! he thought.

“It my quiz,” Anthony told him.

“Well,” Luther said, “if I got to. It one they call Little Henry. Ain't but one Christmas old.”

“He right?” Whittom ask.

“He right,” Anthony said. “Somebody else tell something. I'm tired.”

“I got something,” Simon said.

“Say it, then,” Anthony told him.

“Hear tell.” It was the way a story began.

“Then tell,” the others replied.

“Hear tell the pot call the skillet
black.”

“We all know that the pot call the skillet black.” Whittom laughed.

“But you don't know what in the skillet when pot call him black.”

“Huh?” Luther said.

Anthony chuckled. “Tell it, Simon.”

“Grease,” Simon said. “And Bruh Rabbit be lying in the skillet grease.”

“No!” everyone said.

“Didn't I just say so?” Simon said.

“What that rabbit doing in there?” Anthony wanted to know.

“He doing grease-to-fry labor,” Simon said. “He doing up
brown
. He got one back leg cooked brown clear to his thighbone. The other back foot be hanging over the rim and still raw. And Bruh Rabbit holler his head off, too, and clappin' his front paws in time with the holler.

“ ‘You black thang thar,' call the cook pot hanging on the wall,” Simon said. “ ‘Can't ya keep that beast-urn quiet?' Well, skillet get so mad, pot callin' him black, that he thew the grease up the wall, trying to catch that pot. ‘Shew!' skillet call to pot. ‘You black youself, so hesh up!' Well. That grease hot-splatter every which-a-way. And rabbit, he fall to the floor. He skidaddle on him three good legs outta there. I saw him last month, sittin' on a stump. Say to him,” Simon said, “ ‘Bruh, you got a leg up and what for?' 'Cause rabbit holding his leg up like it still sore. And rabbit say to me, ‘Pot call skillet black. 'Cause guess she be thinkin' she white.' ”

They had stopped in the
dusty way. They surrounded Simon, watching his eyes. “Took me a month a Sunday's to find out what for Bruh Rabbit fry he leg up.”

Simon looked off into the distance, like he could see something standing on thin, cool air. When they followed his gaze, he tricked them, as quick as you please: “And-I-ain't-lyin'!” Simon said.

They roared with laughter. There was something about saying the ending when they least expected it that always made them hold back their laughter until that point. Because in the tell, Rabbit would answer one question and keep from answering another. And so would Simon.

“So that's why the pot call the skillet black,” Anthony said. “ 'Cause
she
think she white.” He shook his head, grinning.

“And Skillet be a black folk! And a
she
, too!” Efrum said, laughing.

“Heard tell it,” Simon said simply.

“Wonder why that rabbit in that grease skillet first place,” Anthony said. He eyed Simon.

Simon looked a way off, a faint smile on his face. “Said he'd tell me next time,” Simon said.

Anthony gave him an affectionate shove. He almost knocked Simon over. “Ooops,” Anthony said. “Didn't mean to hurt you.”

“Didn't hurt me,” Simon said.

But he was small and wiry, on the frail side. Anthony reminded himself to be careful with him.

Probably why Simon liked to tell about rabbit so much, he thought. Rabbit was small,
but he was also smart. Just like Simon.

There were sure to be other pot-'n'-skillet and rabbit tells.

They set off again for the Hiring Ground. They moved at a good pace, but more slowly, as though some of the fun were leaving them. And it was true, as they drew nearer to the Ground, that Anthony left off talking and his face grew serious. Most of the time he kept his eyes fixed on his moving feet.

Thus did Anthony spend his second night in jail, as if in a stupor, yet within reliving a vivid time of his past.

8
May 26, 1854

WHEN THE FUGITIVE
Thomas Sims was captured and
returned to slavery in 1851, five hundred business and professional men of Boston volunteered as special constables to aid Marshal Freeman in removing the prisoner from the city. But public sentiment had changed so greatly by the year 1854 that now no decent man would help the Marshal serve up another slave. Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, published in 1852, had become an immense success. The book had created broad sympathy for the plight of slaves, and in the North it had stirred antislavery emotions to a high pitch. It also primed the growing territorial disputes.

With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, Kansas was sure to seek admission to the Union as a slave state and Nebraska as a free state. Free-state communities and secret slavery societies were formed and settled in Kansas, bringing violence and bloodshed and civil war. “Bleeding Kansas” became the rallying cry for both sides in the bitter battle.

Freedom lovers in the North were more deeply concerned and more determined than ever to resist the Fugitive Slave Act. They feared that if slavery
could enter the territories, it could slither just as easily into the free states of the North. The Vigilance Committee, determined to forestall this at any cost, worked in secret against the law and the government to aid fugitive slaves.

Friday morning, the day after Anthony stood before the Commissioner, Richard Dana tried to get him released from jail until Saturday, when he was to appear in court again. But Commissioner Loring refused to allow this. Privately Loring had told the abolitionist Wendell Phillips that he thought the case was clear, that Burns would probably have to go back to where he came from.

A little later on Friday, Dana went to the Court House with Reverend Grimes. They did not speak much. Richard Dana was deep in thought, and the reverend appeared to have some thinking of his own to do.

It was indeed a sorry business, thought Dana, if Edward Loring had prejudged the case. Massachusetts law of 1843, passed by a state legislature determined not to go along with earlier Federal laws regarding runaway slaves, forbade state officers and magistrates to assist in the business of returning fugitives. The terms of this law also included judges of probate; Edward Loring was just such a judge as well as United States Commissioner. Why hadn't a gentleman of such respectability resigned his commission rather than carry out the Fugitive Slave Act? Dana could only guess that Loring, by acting upon the slave law, supported President Franklin Pierce, whose administration was decidedly proslavery.

Wendell Phillips had told Dana that Edward Loring thought the Burns case was clearly on the
side of Colonel Suttle, and that he believed Anthony would go back to Virginia. Dana didn't think Loring had meant harm to the defense. He wouldn't use Loring's words against him in court. The conversation had to be regarded as a private one between one gentleman and another.