"Oh, Marse Doctah! Don't gib me up! don't gib me up! I didn't know it was Marse Tom's—Marse Doctah—I wuz comin' to."
"Hush, Abe!" said the doctor, "I'll not give you up; but your master is here, and I must get you safely away as soon as I can. It's my brother's man," said Dr. Miller.
"That's a great fix," said Lem; "but I'll get out of here and try to throw them off the track. Don't you leave him here two shakes; the barn'll be the first place they'll aim for," and even as he spoke he slipped away.
"Abe," said the doctor, "you must be perfectly quiet and do exactly what I tell you, and I will have you safe soon. Come with me." And he took him by the arm, and led him out of the side door of the barn and up the path to the kitchen door. He left him for one moment in the little entry outside of it, and went in and told his wife who it was that had come to them. She was shocked and rather frightened, but very quiet, and made no exclamation; and then they put Abe in the big store-room, just out of the kitchen, and she got him some food while she was saying:
"Go and send Patty to me. Tell her anything you can think of. Oh, I know—tell her to come out and show me where the milk is for the cottage cheese."
When the doctor went away Abe told her in a few frightened words that as soon as Mr. Mason left home, two weeks before, the overseer had given him a pass to go to the next county for some sheep, and as he had to drive them back, which would take some days, he knew that he wouldn't be missed for that time, and so could never have a better opportunity for the escape that he had planned for years; but had kept it such a secret that not even the doctor—whose abolition principles were well known to Abe—had had the least suspicion of such a thing. So he had run away, and, strangely enough, been passed along, until he was under the very roof with his master.
"Patty, be careful not to speak loud," Mrs. Miller said a moment later, when her daughter appeared. "I didn't want to see you about the cheeses; but we've got to hide a man to-night until father can get him away. He's in the store-room now; and, Patty," and her mother laid her hand on her shoulder, "it's a strange thing, and I can hardly believe it myself, but it's somebody we know—it's Uncle Tom's Abe."
It was lucky that a chair was behind Patty, for she sat down suddenly and grew very white, but all she said was, "Oh, mother, what shall we do?"
"Father will drive him to Northampton just as quick as he can get him away. But Mr. Carter thinks that Dimmock is following him up very closely, and if he comes here Abe has got to be put in the hiding-place."
A moment later Patty and her mother returned to the room, apparently quite calm and composed, and the doctor was just saying, "Well, I have a long drive before me, and must be off," in such a matter-of-fact way that Patty felt almost hysterical.