“What’s the matter with you, Henry?” asked Mr. Freeland. The fellow looked as if he was going to be sick.
“Nothin’, suh! Nothin’ at all!” Henry answered quickly.
On the other side of the river Frederick ran into a new danger. A German blacksmith for whom he had worked only a few days before looked him full in the face. Two trains had stopped on tracks next to each other—one going south, the other going north. The blacksmith was returning to Baltimore. The windows were open and Frederick, sitting close to his window, was bareheaded. The German opened his mouth. Then his face froze like Frederick’s. He flicked ashes from his big cigar and turned away from the window.
Frederick sank back into his seat, closed his eyes and pulled his hat over his face as if he were asleep.
The last danger point, and the one he dreaded most, was Wilmington. Here he had to leave the train and take the steamboat for Philadelphia. It was an hour of torture, but no one stopped him; and finally he was out on the broad and beautiful Delaware on his way to the Quaker City.
He had eaten nothing and his head felt very light as he stood on the deck. He knew that never would he see anything so beautiful as that river. Yet he dared not relax one moment of watchfulness.
They reached Philadelphia late in the afternoon. The sky was a crimson glow as he stepped first upon free soil. He wanted to shout and sing, but he had been warned not to pause until he reached New York—there only might he savor the taste of freedom. He asked the first colored man he saw in Philadelphia how he could get to New York. The man directed him to the Willow Street depot. He went there at once, and had no trouble buying a ticket. During the several hours’ wait for his train, he did not leave the station. It seemed as if the train would never come, but at last he was safely aboard.
He thought something was wrong. It was still dark, but all the passengers were getting off. He was afraid to ask questions.
“Come on, sailor!” the conductor said. And when he looked up stupidly, the conductor added, “It’s the ferry. You have to take the ferry over to Manhattan.”