'And oh!' she said, 'you would be sorry if you could see my husband. He is not an old man at all, but you would think he was very old, if you could see him; his hair is so white, his face is so wrinkled, and his back all bowed down. He is so cowed and frightened that he doesn't dare come out of the wood, though he is almost starving. We ran away a little while ago, and they caught us and took us down the river to Louisville; and there they just knocked us down on the ground like beeves that they were going to kill, and beat us until we could neither stand nor move. The moment we got a chance, we ran away again. But my poor husband shakes like a leaf, and can not travel far at once, he is so frightened.'
Then she spoke of her bruised face, and said that the sun hurt her eyes so dreadfully, begging me to give her some old thing to cover them with and keep off the light. 'It would be such a mercy,' she said, and 'Heaven will bless you for helping us when we are so distressed.'
I betook myself again to the garret; there were plenty of old bonnets, to be sure; but, alas! all of them were of such a style that they might serve, indeed, to adorn the back of the head, but were none of them of any manner of use to shelter a pair of distressed eyes. While rummaging about, I came at length upon something which struck me as just the thing required; it was an ancient relic, more venerable even than 'my son's boots,' but in excellent preservation. It was a head-dress that had been manufactured for my mother, some twenty years ago, before the invention of sun-bonnets, or broad hats. It was called a calash, and was constructed of green silk outside and white silk within, reeved upon cane, similar in fashion to the 'uglies,' which, at the present day, English ladies are wont to prefix to the front of their bonnets when traveling or rusticating by the seaside; but instead of being something to attach to the bonnet, it was a complete bonnet in itself, gigantic and bow-shaped, which would fold together flat as a pancake, or opening like an accordeon, it could be drawn forward over the face to any required extent, by means of a ribbon attached to the front. It was effective, light, and cool, and the green tint afforded a very pleasant shade to the eyes. I seized upon it and carried it to the poor woman, who received it with transport, clapped it immediately upon her head and drew it well down over her face. She took up the bread and meat, telling me with many thanks, that as soon as she and her husband had eaten, they should continue on their way, not waiting for the night, as they were very anxious to find themselves further from the Kentucky border. I wished her God speed, and watched her as she crossed the open turf, her bundle in her hand, and the great green calash nodding forward upon her head, until she disappeared within the wood.
She had scarce been ten minutes out of my sight when a very unpleasant misgiving came over me. That great green calash that she had been so glad to receive—what an odd and unusual head-dress it was! Surely, it would attract attention; it would render her a marked object. If her pursuers should once get upon her traces, it would enable them to track her from point to point. I wished, with all my heart, it had been less conspicuous, and I began to think that my researches in the garret were not destined to be particularly fortunate. I wished exceedingly that my friend the minister's daughter, had been at home, that I might have taken counsel with her and have had the benefit of her experience in such matters.
As I was still standing in the doorway, ruminating upon the subject with a troubled soul, I saw in the distance the figure of a student of theology, whom I knew to be a friend of our old minister and his daughter, and thoroughly anti-slavery in principle. I hastened after him, told him the circumstances of the case, and imparted to him my misgivings. He promised me to put the matter into safe hands, and to have a look-out kept for the wanderers. After a few hours he returned to me with the welcome intelligence that the fugitives had been overtaken on the turnpike road a mile or two beyond, by one of the emissaries of the underground railway in a covered cart, in which they had been comfortably stowed, and safely forwarded on their way, and that from that time forth they would be speedily and quietly passed from point to point and from friend to friend, until they reached their destination.
A weight was lifted from my heart, I could have danced for joy; and I learned with astonishment, that the agent, who had come like an angel to the relief of the poor fugitives, was no other than a little ugly negro man, who had often worked in our garden, and who was usually employed to do the roughest and dirtiest work in the neighborhood. His crooked figure, his bandy legs, and little ape-like head, had always led me to regard him as the most unpromising specimen of his race that I had ever beheld; but from that time forth I regarded him with respect. The poor crooked form, distorted by hard toil, contained a heart, and the little ape-like head a brain, to help his outcast brethren in the hour of need.
As time passed on, the borders of the wood of which I have already spoken, began to be invaded by the woodman. Rough, ragged bits were cleared, and cheap, slight, frame houses sprang up, some of them erected and owned by the workmen in the neighborhood, some of them put up by speculators, and rented to a poor class of tenants. Playing about outside one of these shanties, a pretty child might soon be seen, a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy of five years old or thereabouts. So regular were his features, so white his skin, it would hardly have been suspected that he had any but European blood in his veins, had it not been known that the house was occupied by colored people, to whom he seemed to belong. An old man was said to be lying ill in the house, which was rented by two colored women, who were anxious to get work in the neighborhood, or washing and sewing to do at home. At that time I was preparing for rather a long journey; and on inquiring for some one to sew for me, Sallie Smith was sent to me. When she came, I learned that she was an inmate of one of the new cottages, and the grandmother of the pretty child of whom we have spoken.
Sallie Smith came and went, carrying home pieces of work, which she dispatched quickly and well. She was a fine-looking mulatto-woman, in the prime of life, with wavy black hair and sparkling eyes, though her features preserved the negro cast. Her manners had a warmth and geniality belonging to good specimens of her race, with a freedom that was odd and amusing, but never offensive. When she brought home her work, with some comical expression of fatigue, she would sink upon the ground, as if utterly exhausted by the walk and the heat, and sitting at my feet, would play with the hem of my dress, as she talked over what she had done, and what still remained to be done; or related to me, in answer to my inquiries, scraps of her past history, her thoughts about her race in general, her religious experiences, and the affairs of her church in Cincinnati, of which she was an enthusiastic member.
On inquiring about the health of her old, bed-ridden husband, I learned, to my surprise, that he was a white man.
'You see,' she said, 'he wasn't a gentleman at all; he was one of those mean whites down South.' As she said this, the scornful emphasis on mean whites was something quite indescribable. Truly, the condition of poor whites at the South must be pitiable indeed, to be regarded with such utter contempt by the very slaves themselves.