Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad by Judith Redline Coopey Page A

white men, sure’ nough.” He wiped the slate and handed it to me for a new model. “Where you keep your fine clothes, ma’am?”
    “It’s Ann, not ma’am,” I reminded him.
    “Ann.”
    “I don’t have any, if by fine you mean fancy and colorful.”
    “Why not? You be poor?”
    “No, Josiah, I’m not poor. Friends don’t believe in fancy clothes. We’re plain people. No frills or laces or bright colors.” I handed the slate back to him with a line of ‘M’s for him to copy.
    “Why, ma’am? . . . I mean Ann.”
    “We think it’s a way people try to put themselves above others. We really do believe all people are equal. Quakers aren’t opposed to wealth, but we think it should be used to do good, not feed vanity.”
    “Who vanity?”
    I smiled. “Vanity’s not a person. It’s an attitude. A pre-occupation with self and appearances. Quakers think being vain about who you are, what you have or how you look is wrong. It leads to all sorts of bad things.”
    Josiah studied my face, trying to grasp all this, so foreign to him.
    “You don’t be like no other white woman I ever met,” he repeated, shaking his head. “All I knew was Massa’s wife and daughters. Massa’s wife, she mean to me ’cause I’m Massa’s son, my momma said.” He paused to watch my reaction. “She made Massa sell my momma away, but he refuse to sell me. Don’t say I’se his son. Don’t say nothin’. But he treat me well. Give me a job workin’ horses. Say I the best horse trainer he ever seen.
    “Your master was your father?”
    “Yes, Ma’am. That happen a lot.” He spoke carefully, concentrating on his awkward imitation of my ‘M’s. His face was pleasing, if not outright handsome, though I hadn’t formed the thought until now. Chiseled planes. I wondered if the African people had any gods like the Greeks.
    He spoke again, pulling me back to reality. “Sometime they hate they child, but my Massa don’t have no other boys. Just three girls.”
    “Those girls were your sisters! Did they know that?”
    “No’m, Miss Ann. Nobody done told ’em. I sure didn’t. Afraid I be sold if I done that.”
    “When did your master’s wife have your mother sold?”
    His face clouded. “When I’se six. I cried for her every night for a month. Cook raise me. She kind, but she not my momma.”
    “Why did you run, Josiah?”
    “Massa die. Fall off his horse comin’ home from town. Folks say it apoplexy. Never know’d what hit ’im, I reckon.” He held up the slate for my approval of his ‘M’s. I nodded. “Once that happen, all hell break lose. Massa’s wife hate me. Want me gone. I gotta run or get sold, an’ who know what that mean?”
    “So you ran. How did you know where to go?” I leaned forward, savoring this rare chance to get to know one of our charges. Most of the time they came and went like shadows.
    “Black folk on the plantations talk among theirselves all the time ’bout gettin’ away. They always say, follow the north star. Even sing songs about it. Follow the rivers ’n creeks. Watch. Wait. Other free Blacks’ll help you if they can. Pass you along the road.” The slate was forgotten now as he spoke of his escape.
    “You were a long time getting here from Virginia.”
    “Yes ’m, Miss Ann. I ’bout got caught three, four times. Had to lay low in the creek bottom couple days till they call off the dogs. Not many free Blacks in Virginny, and they’s afraid, too, now. Could be kidnapped back in.”
    “Oh, Josiah, how sad!” The thought that some people would deliberately kidnap free blacks and sell them back into slavery made my blood run cold. “You did eventually find help, though.”
    “Yes’m. I hit out for Washington ’cause I know’d free Blacks be there. I was hidin’ in the bushes by a creek when along come a black man drivin’ a wagon. I was so hungry, I had to stop him. He hide me under some sacks and take me to his brother, Harry Rutherford.” Now Josiah stopped