American Tales

“Jacob, Thomas, get your sleepy heads out of bed,” ordered a small but strong black woman. “Ma, do we have to?” whined Thomas from his spot on the dirt floor where he lay. “You know what happens if we get out to the field after the sun comes up,” replied his mother, suggesting without actually saying aloud that they had better hurry up or there would be punishment by the white overseer. So Thomas and Jacob began dragging themselves up off the floor. They went over to the table where their mother had set out some bread and water. The only light came from a small candle, as it was still dark outside. “It’s going to be another hot one today, boys, so drink lots of water,” instructed their mother. “Ma, don’t we have anything to eat besides bread?” complained Jacob. “You know we don’t,” answered their mother. “When I used to live up in Virginia, before I was sold down here, we were allowed a little bit of land to grow our own garden so we could have other food. But here in the Deep South, they plant every square foot of land with cotton, so there’s no place for us to grow food. Just be glad you have something to eat.” Thomas, Jacob, and their mother grabbed their water and what little food they had prepared the night before. The boys had managed to kill a couple of gophers in the dark of the evening, which they cooked up, eating one for dinner and saving the other for lunch the next day. The three of them headed out to the cotton fields, finding the spot where they had stopped picking cotton the evening before. They greeted their friends, sharing any news from the short time that had passed since they had seen each other last; it was harvest season, so they worked nineteen or twenty hours a day, getting very little sleep. Groggily, they began picking. It wasn’t long before one of the workers started singing, and before long everyone in the area was singing the same song. Enslaved African Americans often sang when they were most unhappy, helping to relieve their sorrows. The day got hotter and hotter once the sun came up, but all the African Americans kept on working. They didn’t push themselves too hard; after all, they weren’t working for themselves, instead they were working for a white master who gave them little food and one new set of clothing per year, if they were lucky. Every once in a while the white overseer would patrol their area on his horse, and when he was near, all the workers stepped up their pace a little. He usually had something fairly insulting to say. Toward the end of the day, he approached once more. “What are y’all singing in that African tongue?” yelled Mr. Kelly. “You know we don’t tolerate that.” “Please, Mr. Kelly,” pleaded Thomas and Jacob’s mother. “It’s powerful hot today. We need our music to get through the day. That song has been passed down in my family for generations.” “Now, Hattie, you can sing, but you got to sing in English,” replied Mr. Kelly. “You know that, you stupid n—— .” Suddenly Thomas stood up tall. “Don’t you talk to my momma like that!” he spit at Mr. Kelly. “Why, Thomas, what’s gotten into you?” replied Mr. Kelly. “Come here, boy, you’re going to have a little taste of my whip.” As the overseer pulled his whip back to strike, Thomas jumped at the horse and grabbed the other end of the whip. Thomas was only thirteen, but he was strong from all his work in the fields, and he pulled the whip from Kelly’s hands, letting it drop to the ground. Both Thomas and the overseer looked dumbfounded at the whip lying on the ground, then Thomas took off running. Now Kelly pulled out his shotgun, leveled it at Thomas, and fired. Luckily Kelly’s aim was off, and Thomas sprinted for the forest at the edge of the fields. “Thomas, I love you!” shouted Hattie. “You all get back to work!” ordered Kelly. “I’m going to get some men and dogs together. We’ll track down your Thomas, and boy is he going to be sorry for what he’s done.” ************************************************************************ We had stayed on the couch through the whole episode with Thomas. Now we found ourselves in some woods in the very early morning. You could just see the sun’s rays poking through the trees at the edge of the horizon. Suddenly we heard some huffing and puffing, then quick footsteps pounding the ground. We saw Thomas approaching us in the distance, still doing his best to keep his body running. When he saw us, he slowed down and eventually came to a stop right in front of our couch. “Thomas, you must be exhausted,” greeted Mr. B. “Here, have a seat on our couch. Have you been running all night?” “As much as I could,” answered Thomas between breaths. “I had to get as far away as I could during the night so I can catch a little sleep during the day. They’ll be looking for me this morning, so hopefully I’ve gotten far enough away to have a little time to rest.” “Thomas, these are my students,” introduced Mr. B. “We saw what happened yesterday, and we will be following you for a while.” “Hi, Thomas,” said Melanie politely. “I want to ask you a question. When you ran off yesterday, had you been planning to escape?” “Not really,” he replied. “Oh, everyone talks about it now and then, but we know how difficult it is, and how severely we’ll be punished if we are caught. But sometimes you just can’t take the abuse anymore. That jerk Kelly was insulting my momma, and I just couldn’t let it go.” “How do you know where to travel?” I asked. “We know we have to go north, across a big river called the Ohio,” answered Thomas. “To go north, you follow the North Star, which you find by using the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper looks like a drinking gourd, and we have a song that talks about following it. You imagine a line going straight up from the right side of the Big Dipper. I’ve also seen some quilts that have maps sewn into them that help you know how to get to the North. So I have a rough idea of how to go.” “Won’t you miss your mother and brother?” asked Emma. “I guess I really didn’t have time to think about that,” answered Thomas. “But you never know when they are going to sell you away from your family anyway. My pa was sold away two or three years ago; we have no idea where he is. And I actually had heard rumors that Master Jenkins, the owner of the plantation, was getting low on cash and might be selling me. So I guess that’s another reason why I reacted the way I did and was willing to run away.” “Are you going to be traveling on the Underground Railroad?” asked Zach. “I sure would like to,” responded Thomas. “I would really like it if Harriet Tubman would guide me along that road. But she is guiding people out of Maryland, which is much closer to the North. I think the closest stations on the Underground Railroad for me are up near the Ohio River. So maybe when I get close to the river I will be able to use it.” “Is it a real railroad?” asked Angela. “No, it is really a group of safe houses along the way where people will let you stay with them as you travel north,” answered Thomas. “They use the word ‘underground’ because the people just seem to disappear. By traveling at night and wearing disguises, the travelers are hard to catch.”