“Crazy fools!” whispered Caleb. “Singin’ lak dat!”
Singing for all the world to know! He wanted to warn them. He shook his head. Caleb had been young once, too. And he had dreamed of freedom. He was old now. He would die a slave. He shuffled back to the pantry. Shut in there he could no longer hear the singing.
Two days before the appointed time Sandy withdrew. He could not go off and leave his wife. They pleaded with him.
“You young ones go! You make good life. I stay now!”
John was the most visibly shaken. John whose little Susan had wept several times of late because of his moody silences and bad temper. After saying that nothing could change his mind or intention he walked away stiffly.
Then Sandy confessed that he had had a dream, a bad dream.
“About us?” Frederick asked the question, his heart heavy. This was bad, coming from Sandy. And Sandy spoke, his voice low and troubled.
“I dream I roused from sleep by strange noises, noises of a swarm of angry birds that passed—a roar like a coming gale over the tops of the trees. I look up. I see you, Frederick, in the claws of a great bird. And there was lots of birds, all colors and all sizes. They pecked at you. Passing over me, the birds flew southwest. I watched until they was clean out of sight.” He was silent.
Frederick drew a long breath.
“And they took me with them?”