Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table February 25 1896 by Various

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Ebook has 453 lines and 26824 words, and 10 pages

As the men walked into the room, Patty said, "Father, is Mr. Dimmock going up into my room?"

"I suppose so," said her father; "no place is sacred when Mr. Dimmock goes hunting."

"Then I must go up a moment first," said Patty; "it isn't in order." And she left the room.

Mrs. Miller sat still and looked at the men, and Mr. Mason rose to his feet, saying,

"What's all this?"

The doctor knew that if he could keep the men back a very few moments Patty would hide Abe, for he was sure that his wife had made some plan with her. So he turned to Mr. Mason and said, "It's very likely, Tom, that I have a fugitive slave here, isn't it?"

Mr. Mason laughed, but showed that he was very indignant, and he told Mr. Dimmock shortly that it was scarcely likely that Dr. Miller would conceal a fugitive slave under the same roof with a slave-owner, especially when that owner was his guest. But of the nice laws of hospitality Mr. Dimmock was quite unconscious, and the doctor didn't care what anybody said if they could only gain a little time. Mr. Dimmock said afterwards that the doctor was in a white rage, but he was quite mistaken; it wasn't rage at all, but a great variety of conflicting emotions.

As soon as Patty left the room she flew to the store-room, and said, in a whisper, "Abe, follow me quick. They're after you. Be very still."

He was terribly frightened, but long habit made him absolutely obedient, and he crept up the back stairs like a cat. They crept through the front hall, the voices plainly heard below, and Patty showed him how to lift the trap in the closet floor.

"This is your master's room," she whispered. "Don't even breathe loud, or you'll be heard. I'll let you out when it's safe. I don't believe you'll have to stay all night." Then she fitted the trap down carefully, lifted the light trunk over it, picked up her uncle's shoes and put them down softly as if they had been thrown in, dropped a soiled collar and handkerchief from the bureau, and then closed the door softly. Long in the telling, it had not taken three minutes. Then she ran down stairs.

"Show Mr. Dimmock and his friends about," said her father; "take them everywhere, Patty."

Patty took a lamp, and Mr. Dimmock said, "Give me another. I always carry my own light. People have a way of throwing shadows in the wrong places. The garret first." And when they got there he held his lamp high, casting its light into every dark corner. "What's that?" he said, pointing to a dark pile.

"Carpet rags," said Patty.

"Hiding a nigger, likely. You'd better look there, Sterling."

The man tossed the heap over until he came to the floor.

Into every room they went, and opened every closet door, and Patty felt herself trembling as they came to the door of the closet in her uncle's room, but grew quiet as she heard herself saying, calmly,

"Now you can hardly suppose that he's in Uncle Tom's room?"

At last they went, and the question was how to get Abe out of the closet and then out of the house. There was not a moment when it could be done, for Mr. Mason said he was tired to death, and would go to bed at once. And go he did, and there was nothing for the doctor to do but to suddenly remember that he had had a call, and to pretend to start for it. And after Fanny went upstairs Mrs. Miller and Patty absolutely groaned when they heard Mr. Mason shut his door and bolt it for the night. In the morning it did seem as if Mr. Mason and Fanny would never go down stairs. But at last Mr. Mason appeared below with his cheerful "Good-morning," and Fanny followed after a little. Then Patty discovered, as they sat down to the breakfast table, that she had left her handkerchief upstairs, and she ran up to her uncle's room to release Abe. As she lifted the trap-door he crawled out, stiff and cramped. She hurried him up to the garret, for they were obliged to hide him until night. Poor Abe was so frightened that he could only say,

"Oh, Miss Patty, s'pose Marse Tom come up heah and catch me!"

"Oh, he won't," said Patty; "Uncle Tom never comes up garret." But a bright thought came to her. "If you hear anybody coming, get under that pile of rags and pull them over you." And she pushed them together, for the men had left them strewed all over the floor, and ran down to breakfast.

A little later she smuggled some food and coffee to Abe, and cautioned him over and over not to step about at all, lest his footsteps should be heard below. But at last the long day drew to an end, and the night came. Silas had again been spirited out of the way; her father had the light wagon all ready, and they were ready to get Abe out of the garret and down to the barn.

Patty got her water-colors out to show to Mr. Mason and Fanny just at the moment that her mother slipped away to get Abe down and out of the house into the garden. He had to pass through the front hall to get from the garret stairs to the back stairs, and just at the critical moment, when she knew that Abe must be passing through the front hall, her uncle Tom said, "Oh, I've left my glasses upstairs!" and started to go for them.

"Let me," said Patty, for the whole hall was visible from four steps up on the front stairs.

"No, I'll go myself," said her uncle Tom, and he moved toward the foot of the stairs, and for one second Patty felt at her wits' end. Then she knocked over a vase of flowers on the table. The water ran all over the pictures. Both girls exclaimed; Mr. Mason turned to help mop it up with his handkerchief also, and the danger was over.

At breakfast-time the next day Mr. Mason said, "You came in late, or rather, early. Jack. Did you have a hard night of it?"

"Tiresome," said the doctor.

It was true, for he had driven Abe about sixteen miles up the river.

Abe was sent from Northampton to Canada by rail, and it was not until he was safe there that Mr. Mason, who was then in Boston, learned from his overseer of his disappearance; for just as Abe had hoped and supposed, he had not been missed for several days. Then Mr. Mason, very much cut up by his running away, went directly back to Virginia with his daughter.

That was the only time Patty's station ever held a waiting passenger.

FOR KING OR COUNTRY.

A Story of the Revolution.

BY JAMES BARNES.

THE TWO LIEUTENANTS.

As the little boat, with the two fishermen rowing and the silent figure sitting in the stern-sheets, dipped and tossed through the racing tide, which was at the flood, the wind began to blow up cold and nipping from the north. The spray froze as it splashed now and then over the gunwales of the boat.

It was quite midnight before they reached the New Jersey shore and pulled in beneath the shelter of a point of rocks that rose steeply out of the water. Here for the first time words were spoken.

"You have done well, my men, and here is a 'bright yellow' for each of you," said the young man in the cloak.

As he extended his hand, Roger, the younger, grasped it in a friendly way.

"I remember you, sir. I was one of the boatmen who rowed you across after the battle of Long Island. We are both good patriots."

The older man at this allusion respectfully touched his oil-skin cap. Then the boat was shoved out once more into the current.

The young man on the shore watched until it had disappeared.

"Now for a horse!" he exclaimed aloud.

Climbing up the rocks, and following closely a road which ran through a wide meadow, he saw a farm-house to the right. A light in one of the windows had first attracted his attention. He walked up the little lane, and stopped for a moment before knocking at the door.

"Tory or patriot, I wonder?" he queried. He had hesitated before pronouncing the last word.

In response to the tapping of his cold knuckles, the door was opened.

Before him stood a tall woman, and back of her a boy of thirteen or fourteen. The latter had a large bell-mouthed blunderbuss in the hollow of his arm.

"What is it at this time of night?" the woman inquired, in a deep voice like a man's.

"A word of direction," was the answer. "Could you tell me where I can find a horse? I will pay well for him."

"Where are you from?" asked the woman.

"From New York, but I would go on to the westward, and must hurry or I will be caught."

"Oh!" said the woman. "Come in by the fire. You are alone?"

"Yes," was the response.

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