“I wish I could, but—We—I can’t—now.”
Anna slipped her hand in his. It was warm and a little moist. The young man understood. He cleared his throat.
“You’d like to read it?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!” It was Anna who breathed the answer.
“Then—you can pay me later!”
“Oh, Freddie, that’s wonderful!” Anna said, but her eyes were beaming at the young man, who grinned and disappeared around the corner.
“She’s got brains!” he thought, with thorough appreciation.
Back at the stove, Anna was fairly singing.
“We hardly dared get the Liberator through the mail in Baltimore. Now to think we can sit in our own yard and read it!”
Every week Anna watched eagerly for the paper. When it came she waved the sheet triumphantly over her head as she walked back from the mailbox. Garrison was a hero. The authorities had run the New Englander out of Baltimore. But it had been from the sparks he drew that the East Baltimore Improvement Society had come into being. Anna sent their copies to Baltimore after they had finished with them.