Rhoda of the Underground

by Florence Finch Kelly

A woman in the back of the room began clapping her hands softly, and presently Rhoda was shrinking back, blushing and abashed, before the storm of applause. Immediately and enthusiastically, and perhaps not in strict accord with parliamentary rules, it was decided to change their circle into a “Female Anti-Slavery Society,” to continue their present work and to add to it whatever their hands might find to do, and to make Rhoda Ware its president. Surprised and embarrassed, she tried to decline the honor. But the women, crowding around her with praise and caresses, would not let her refuse.

At home she said nothing of the affair to her mother or sister, to neither of whom did she ever make mention of any of her anti-slavery activities. All that portion of her life, which, indeed, had come to be the major part, had as little community with them as if there had been between them no bond of love and use and relationship. To her father she related the bare facts of the occasion. But he soon heard from Horace Hardaker, whose mother had told him all about it, a full and enthusiastic account of what had taken place.

Rhoda grieved much over the growing alienation between herself and her mother and sister. Charlotte held herself plainly aloof, and Rhoda was puzzled by an evident resentment in her attitude. She did not know that Charlotte held her responsible for her own failure to capture the fancy of Jefferson Delavan.

“She’s no right to keep him dangling after her if she doesn’t intend to marry him,” was the vexed young woman’s summing up of the situation, having quite decided that if her sister would only move out of the way she herself would soon be mistress of Fairmount.

As the spring and summer went by Mrs. Ware’s hope for a marriage between Jeff and Rhoda dwindled into profound disappointment. A sadness came into her face and voice that smote her daughter to the heart. The sick-headaches, to which she had long been subject, became more frequent, and other ailments began to manifest themselves. Fearing remorsefully that her anti-slavery work and her refusal to marry Delavan were at the bottom of her mother’s failing health, the girl strove in all tender, care-taking ways of which she could think to make amends for the double hurt and disappointment. In the conduct of the house Mrs. Ware leaned upon her more than ever. But as the months wore on Rhoda felt keenly that the old tenderness and intimacy between them were disappearing.

The warm weather brought much increase of Underground traffic. At that time and during the years immediately following the work of the Road was at its height. For its operations there were friends, money, workers in plenty, and slaves were gathered up even before they reached the free-state border, and hurried on from hand to hand in such secrecy and safety that they had hardly a care or a responsibility until they found themselves secure on British soil.

To Rhoda her father gave over most of the care of the fugitives upon their arrival and while they were secreted in the cellar. Not infrequently also she drove them on to the next station, sometimes in the night, sometimes by day, in a spring wagon with a false bottom which he had bought for this purpose. Occasionally Chad Wallace appeared in the neighborhood with his peddler’s wagon at their service, if it did not already contain its complement of hidden chattels. Now and then farmer Gilbertson, on a trip to town, hauled back some “baggage” well concealed in his wagon bed, to be stowed away in his hollow haystack until it could be sent on to the next station. A man who had a market garden out on the same road and drove back and forth a good deal with vegetables for the Hillside market and for steamboat supplies, and another who traveled about ostensibly selling reeds often carried black passengers.

With hands and head and heart all so full Rhoda found little time to spend in thinking of her own unhappiness. Nevertheless, the day never went by that had not a little space saved out from other things and held apart for thought of her lover. Now and then a letter passed between them. But from these missives was dropped all mention of both slavery and love, although on both sides the correspondence breathed a sense of mutual tenderness and understanding that amounted to a sort of spiritual intimacy. To Rhoda these letters were the treasure of her heart. They were read over and over again, held caressingly in her hands during the brief minutes of each day when she gave herself up to thought of him, and kept under her pillow or upon her breast while she slept. Every night, when she knelt at her bedside, her petitions to the Heavenly Father begged for His blessing upon her efforts in behalf of the slaves, pleaded that He would soon put forth His hand and make an end of slavery, and implored the safety and the happiness of her lover.

In the late summer there came a message from Fairmount. Emily Delavan, Mrs. Ware’s namesake, was to be married in October and the Ware family was bidden to the festivities. The news set Charlotte upon the borders of ecstatic delight. The visit, which was to be prolonged through several weeks, would not only be filled with no end of alluring pleasures and amusements, but it should open, she decided at once, the door of escape from her home into more congenial surroundings. It would be just the sort of environment,—a gay crowd of people with nothing to do but enjoy themselves—in which she knew she always appeared to best advantage. Two or three uninterrupted weeks of it, with Jefferson Delavan always there to feel the effects of her charms, and she could be quite sure of the result. But—there was Rhoda.

“If she’s there,” Charlotte grumbled to herself, “she’ll just keep on making Jeff think she’s going to marry him some day, and have him dangling after her all the time.”