One day she owned to me that she had some connection with this underground railway, principally in the way of providing with old clothing the destitute creatures who were arriving—generally at unexpected moments—barefoot, and with scarce a rag upon their backs to protect them from the bitter cold of the Canadian winter, which even under the best circumstances is so sadly trying to the negro constitution.
She told me that as the agents in the neighborhood were few and poor, and as these sudden calls admitted of no delay, they were sometimes unable to provide the required clothing; and she asked me, in case of such an emergency, if she might sometimes apply to me for some of the articles of which they might be in especial need. From that time Canada became the ultimate destination of all my old clothes. I could imagine superannuated cloaks and shawls wrapped around dusky and shivering shoulders, and familiar bonnets walking about Canada in their old age on the woolly heads of poor fugitive negro women.
It was but a short time after our conversation that the first call came. One bitter winter's night, word was sent me that a family had arrived—father, mother, and several young children, all utterly destitute. The articles which their friends were least able to provide, and which would therefore be particularly acceptable, were shoes for the boys, and warm clothing of every kind for the woman. The latter requirement was soon provided for. An old purple bonnet that had already seen good service in the world, a quilted skirt, and sundry other articles were soon looked up and repaired to meet the poor creature's necessities—but shoes for the boys! The message had been very urgent upon that point. Shoes! shoes! any sort of shoes! Now our boys had, for the most part, grown up and departed, and in vain I rummaged through the garret—that receptacle of ancient treasures—for relics of the past, in the way of masculine shoes and boots. I was giving it up in despair, when suddenly an idea occurred to me. It had happened, in days long past, that a French lady of our acquaintance had broken up housekeeping, and we had stored a part of her furniture in our spacious garrets. Ere long it had all been reclaimed except two articles, which had somehow or other remained behind. The first was a handsomely mounted crayon drawing, representing a remarkably ugly young man with heavy features and a most unprepossessing expression of countenance. Below this drawing, maternal pride and affection had caused to be inscribed in clear, bold letters, these two words: 'My Son.' The second piece of property remaining behind with 'my son's portrait, were 'my son's elegant French boots—a wonderful pair, shiny as satin, and of some peculiar and exquisite style, long and narrow, with sharp-pointed and slightly turned-up toes. They were of beautiful workmanship, but being made of a firm and unaccommodating material, and in form utterly unadapted to any possible human foot, they had probably pinched 'my son's feet so unendurably that no amount of masculine vanity or fortitude could long support the torture, and with a sigh of regret he had no doubt been forced to relinquish them ere their first early bloom had departed, or the beautiful texture of the sole-leather had lost its delicate, creamy tint. These two articles had long lain in a corner of the garret, to the infinite amusement of the children of the family, who were never weary of allusions to 'my son,' and 'my son's boots. In process of time the portrait also was reclaimed, but the deserted boots still occupied their corner of the garret, year after year, until there were no children left to crack their jokes at their comical and dandified appearance. Upon these elegant French boots I pounced, in this sore dilemma, and as my messenger was waiting, without time for a moment's reflection, I bundled them in with the rest of the articles, and dispatched them at once to their destination.
Scarcely had the messenger departed than I sat down to laugh. I thought of the brother, who had especially distinguished himself in his boyish days, by witticisms upon those famous boots, and I recalled to mind, also, a slightly exaggerated description of the negro foot, with which he had been wont to indulge his young companions. This foot he would describe as very broad and flat, with the leg planted directly in the centre, leaving an equal length for the toes in front and for the heel behind.
Now, although I had never given credence to these exact proportions, I still remained under the impression that there was a peculiarity in the negro foot, that the heel was somewhat more protuberant than in the European foot, and rather broad, it might also well be supposed to be, in its natural and unpinched condition. The whole scene came vividly before my imagination; the unfortunate family handing round in dismay those exquisite French boots, vainly striving, one after another, to insert their toes into them, but finding among their number no Cinderella whom the wonderful shoe would fit. I figured them at last descending to a little fellow six years old, or thereabouts, whose poor little feet might possibly be planted in the centre of the boots, and thus, in default of any other protection, be saved for a time from frost and snow. My mind was divided between amusement at the final destination of these celebrated relics, and regret that I had nothing more suitable to send. I could only hope that this part of the poor fugitives' outfit might be more successfully provided for from some other quarter.
Winter passed by; spring came, succeeded by long, hot mid-summer days of the western summer. Our neighbors, for the most part, were scattered to the North and East—gone to the lakes, to New-York, to Boston, or to some summer resort upon the Atlantic coast—all who could, breaking the long-continued and oppressive heat by a pleasant excursion to some cooler clime. My friend, the minister's daughter, and most of our own family, had gone like the rest, and I was left in a somewhat solitary state to while away the long hours of those burning summer days, in the monotony of a large and empty country-house.
One day at noon, I strolled to the door, seeking a breath of air. I stood within the doorway, and looked out. Before me extended a level tract of green grass, thinly planted with young shade-trees. At some distance beyond, melting away in haze beneath the glowing sun, a little wood extended toward the north-east, meeting at its extremity another and denser wood of much greater extent. This first little wood had been in our young days our favorite resort. We had explored every turn in it again and again; we knew well every tree upon its outskirts, beneath whose shade some little patch of green grass might serve for a resting-place, or a pic-nic ground; we were familiar with every old trunk with wide-extending roots, in whose protecting cavities that little, speckled, pepper-and-salt-looking flower, the spring harbinger, nestled, peeping forth toward the end of March, ere the ice and snow had well melted, or any other green thing dared show itself. Deeper in the shade lay the soft beds of decaying leaves, where somewhat later the spring beauties would start forth, clothing the brown and purple tints of the ground with touches of delicate pink. With them would come that fair little wind-flower, the white anemone, and the blue and yellow violets, soon to be followed by that loveliest of all Ohio wild flowers, called by the country people, 'Dutchman's breeches,' but in more refined parlance, denominated 'pantalettes,' looking for all the world as if the fairies had just done a day's washing and hung out their sweet little nether garments to dry, suspended in rows from the tiny rods that so gracefully bend beneath the pretty burden. Pure white are they, or of such a delicate flesh-tint, the fairy washerwoman might well be proud of her work. Other spots were sacred to the yellow lily, with its singular, fierce-looking leaf, spotted like a panther's hide, growing in solitary couples, protecting between them the slender stalk with its drooping yellow bell. Later in the season come the larger and more brilliantly tinted flowers, the wild purple larkspur, the great yellow buttercup, and the lilac flox. There were dusky depths in the wood, too, into which, book in hand, we sometimes retreated from the mid-summer heat into an atmosphere of moist and murky coolness. There we found the Indian pipe, or ghost-flower—leaf, stem, and flower, all white as wax, turning to coal-black if long brought into light, or if pressed between the leaves of a book.
This first little wood, then, though somewhat dark and damp, had its pleasant and cheerful associations; but the wood beyond was weird and dismal, with its dense shade, its fallen trees rotting in dark gullies, its depth of decaying leaves, into which your feet sank down and down, until in alarm you doubted whether there were really any footing beneath, or if it would be possible ever to extricate yourself again. These two woods touched only at one point, included in an angle between a little burying-ground, whose solemn associations increased the gloom of the farther wood. As children, we had been wont, in adventurous moods, to cross one corner of the burying-ground, and striking into a ravine within this wood, down which trickled a little dark stream, wade up it barefoot, with grave, half-awe-stricken faces, until the stream sank again beneath the dead leaves, emptying itself I know not where. We had given wild and fantastic names to some of the ways and places about this ravine, but the rest of the wood was so little attractive and enjoyable that we generally avoided it, unless in some ramble of unusual length, we wished to strike across one portion of it, making thereby a somewhat shorter cut into the turnpike road a mile or two beyond.
As I stood this hot summer-day looking toward the woods, suddenly there stood before me a strongly-made middle-aged negro woman. Whether she had glided round the house, or in what way she had come so suddenly and quietly before me, I do not know; but there she stood, bare-headed, and humbly asking for a piece of bread, or any cold food that I could spare. Her appearance struck me with surprise; her skin was of a deep, rich, yellow brown, her face soft and kindly in expression, but wonderfully swollen, and with the appearance of being one mass of bruises. Her red, inflamed eyes seemed to weep incessantly and involuntarily; whatever might be the expression of her mouth, so inflamed and suffering were they, that they were pitiful to see; and to complete the picture, the stump of one of her arms, which had been severed at some former period, close to the shoulder, was but partially hidden by her ragged, low-necked dress. Her whole appearance struck me as the most pathetic I had ever beheld.
I speedily brought the poor thing some bread and cold meat, which she received with warm expressions of gratitude; and she then told me that she was a fugitive slave, and having come here at night with her husband, at the approach of day they had hidden themselves within the wood.