Rhoda of the Underground

by Florence Finch Kelly

Mid-October came, and the day of local elections in three of the northern states. The whole country was waiting on the tiptoe of expectancy for the result. Pennsylvania was the keystone of the situation. The party that would win the presidential contest would have to have her twenty-seven electoral votes, and this state poll was looked upon as a sure indication of how the commonwealth would go three weeks later. It was everywhere admitted that the issue would be close. Sectional and party feeling and consequent excitement ran so high and hot that there were dark forebodings of what might happen. All men knew that they walked upon a thin crust over volcanic fires that might burst through at any moment, upon any pretext.

The Republican party was surprising itself and the entire country by its showing of remarkable strength and its brilliant prospects of success. From the South were coming threats of disunion louder and more frequent and more positive. In many of the slave states there was already the stir of endeavor to agree upon concerted action in case Frémont should be elected. Through the north the Democratic and the Whig parties made much of these portents as showing the danger Republican success would mean to the united country. But the Republican leaders, jubilant over the proofs of their strength which the campaign had developed, and secretly recognizing the weight of this argument, made light of both it and the southern threats.

And so the whole country waited in breathless anxiety on that cold and drizzling October day, with its attention centered on tumultuous Philadelphia, both sides fearing defeat, both sides hoping for victory, and all dreading the spark with which some chance word or untoward accident might kindle the smoldering passions in that city into flames that would quickly involve the whole nation.

Rhoda moved restlessly about the house, showing little interest in her usual duties and disregarding her mother’s hints that she was neglecting their invalid guest. Delavan had almost recovered from his injuries and in a few days would return home. Mrs. Ware was sorely disappointed that his presence in the house had not affected her daughter’s determination. She began to feel sure that it must be her husband’s influence over Rhoda that balked all her own efforts and nullified the effect of the constant association from which she had hoped so much.

Jeff asked her advice that morning and they talked the matter over intimately. She promised him once more the full measure of her influence with Rhoda. “I’m afraid it isn’t much,” she said, a little tremulously. “But I’ll do my best, Jeff.”

“I thank you, Mrs. Ware, madam, and I assure you I shall not go away without trying again to win her consent.”

“You and little Emmy used to call me ‘Aunt Emily,’ when I was at Fairmount,” she said with a suggestion of reproof, half motherly, half coquettish, if the chastened ghost of a manner that sometimes remembered its alluring youth might still be called coquettish.

“It is the dearest wish of my heart to call you ‘mother,’ some day,” he answered, kissing her hand.

“And of mine to hear you call me so,” she added, bending over and touching her lips to his forehead. Then they fell to talking of his mother and she was deeply interested in the many little things Jeff remembered of her life at Fairmount. He recalled that she had always shown concern for the welfare of the slaves and had given training in their duties and deportment to the housemaids and had allowed them and also the men who served about the house and gardens to acquire a little education if they wanted it.

“You must tell Rhoda about that,” Mrs. Ware exclaimed. “Let her see that there is some virtue in slaveholders. It’s just her notion about slavery being wrong that keeps you apart, Jeff. If you could only convince her that there is as much right in it as there is in anything in this world, where nothing is all right, I believe she’d give up. I’ve tried to, but she seems to think I don’t know enough about it, in general, for what I say to have any influence. Talk to her about it, Jeff, and make her see plainly how we of the South feel about it. You know how necessary slave labor is to the South, and all that side of it. She has heard only the things the abolitionists say, here in the North, and she’s all taken up with that. But you can give her the other side, as a southern man with one of the best and kindest of hearts, who has studied the question thoroughly. If you can only convince her that slavery is right, dear boy, or even best for the niggers, as we know it is, you’ll win the day—and make me almost as happy as you will Rhoda, or yourself!”