"Yes, or any other day," and she laid her other hand over his. "And I think I'm more glad than ever since we visited in Virginia. New England for me always."
After another little silence her father said, "Uncle Tom and Fanny seem to enjoy it here."
"Oh yes, or they wouldn't stay. Uncle Tom never stays anywhere unless he's comfortable. But I can't help wondering how he gets on without servants, for Abe is always at his elbow on the plantation, and there's no one at all to wait on him here. I wonder," continued Patty, laughing a little, "what Uncle Tom and Fanny would think if they knew that Wellfield was a station in the underground railroad, and you the station-master, and the particular station our house, and the hiding-place under the closet floor in the very room that he sleeps in?"
Uncle Tom was a Southerner, and was visiting with his daughter his Northern relatives, with whom he was on the best of terms except on the subject of slave-holding.
"I don't know I'm sure," her father said, seriously, "but once, years ago, I told him that I'd help along any of his slaves to freedom if they asked me, and he said that if any of them wanted to run away I was quite welcome to do it. But Tom is a good master, as his father was before him, and if his servants are going to be slaves at all they're probably as well off with him, and perhaps better off than they would be anywhere else."
"It's lucky," said Patty, and she laughed heartily, "that you have always been able to pass your fugitives right on, for I believe that if any one was shut up in that place very long they'd suffocate."
"Well," said her father, slowly and thoughtfully, "it would be cramping, but it's ventilated directly to the air; and 'twas awfully lucky that that trellis with the honeysuckle on it ran up on that side of the house, so that I could make that little window there. That is your station, Patty, and you were a clever girl to find it out. I think that your mother and I were pretty stupid not to see that the ceiling of the closet was so much lower than it was in the room until you told us, for we'd racked our brains for years to think of a secure hiding-place."
"But it wouldn't have been any good if there hadn't been a closet above," said Patty; "and if you hadn't been such a good carpenter that you could cut the little window and fix the trap-door that—well, that no eyes could see."
"And especially with a small trunk over it, and no servants to spy it out," interrupted her father. "Yes," and he smiled, "I think that 'Patty's station' will be a safe one if it ever has to be used. But here comes Uncle Tom now," as a handsome man came toward them from the front door.
"All ready for your birthday jaunt, Patty? Where is Fanny?"