Freedom Crossing

Laura’s outburst surprises all three of them. Laura can’t help but notice how small and scared Martin is when standing next to Bert and Joel. Joel, especially, has grown into a man since she played with him those four years ago. He leans over her and accuses Laura of eavesdropping.

Laura, refusing to back down, admits that she was listening to them. She tells them, “I’m sorry to find out you and Pa and Bert are breaking the law” (12). Laura is more afraid of what might happen if they are caught breaking the law, but Joel believes the law is one that should be broken. He is willing to take that chance.

The tension is temporarily lifted when Laura suggests that they feed Martin, who hasn’t eaten in nearly two days. Joel is pleasantly surprised by her offer, but she warns him that she still doesn’t want Martin to stay. Bert starts to make a fire in the stove, but Joel tells him to avoid doing anything that might arouse suspicion from the slave hunters and their hounds, which can be heard howling in the distance.

When Bert brings some food to the table for Martin, Laura is shocked by Martin’s polite manner of speech. She thinks that “[he doesn’t] sound like the slaves she had known, but almost as if he’d been to school” (14). Even though he must be starving, he doesn’t scarf down his food as Laura expects him to.

Joel tells Bert and Laura that the plan is to get Martin across the Niagara River the following night to Canada, where his parents and siblings expect to meet him. Joel is vague with his plan, despite Bert’s pleas for more information about what will happen during the escape. Joel hushes them, listening close for any voices outside. When Joel tells Martin he must be valuable to have so many people after him, Martin replies, “My master likes to catch any runaway, so’s he can take him back and show the other slaves it doesn’t pay to escape from him” (16). Laura shudders at the thought of someone hurting Martin and tries to convince herself that, as her aunt and uncle told her, such stories of violent slave owners are made up.

Bert is torn about whether to hide Martin. Joel’s house is being watched carefully because they are already housing another fugitive. Bert wishes his Pa were there to help him decide, but ultimately he agrees that Martin should stay the night; it’s what Pa would want. Joel says they should hide him in the secret room under Laura’s bedroom floor, and Laura should sleep elsewhere for the night.

The suggestion infuriates Laura, who knew nothing about the trap door in her room. She reminds the boys what will happen to Pa if any of them are caught harboring a fugitive: The large fine could cost them the farm. Joel assures her that their Pa isn’t involved this time. Joel will take the fall if they’re caught, and worst case scenario, he’ll have to spend six months in jail if he can’t pay the fine.

With a warning look, Joel tells Laura, “No one’s going to know Martin’s here. That is, unless you tell them” (18). Laura promises she’ll do no such thing. Satisfied with her answer, Joel starts to lead Martin up the stairs to Laura’s room. Laura is unrelenting and blocks their path, thinking “[t]his runaway slave [has] no right to her room” (19). She faces off with Joel and tells them to find somewhere else to hide Martin for the night. 

Joel expresses his surprise at Laura’s selfishness. He asks her, “What’s happened to you, Laura? You were never hard-hearted” (20). He and Bert try to convince her that the situation is temporary and that Martin’s safety is at stake.

Laura, instead, turns to Martin to scold him for running away. Not only will his master be upset, she tells him, but he’s left behind a “home and food and clothes” (22). Martin stands his ground and politely tells Laura that he’d rather be free and educated than go back to live with his former master.

Since Laura refuses to let Martin use her room, which has the hiding place, they must look elsewhere for a hiding spot. They try an oven in the cellar, but it’s too small, and the fireplace is too obvious a hiding place for Martin to stay. Martin sees a stack of potatoes in sacks and gets an idea. He covers himself with a burlap sack and sinks back amongst the other potatoes. To Laura’s surprise, he blends in perfectly.

While Martin is content with his clever spot, Joel insists it’s too cold in the cellar for Martin to sleep there overnight. He should instead sleep somewhere that has easy access to the cellar but is warmer. As the group makes their way back up the stairs, Joel attempts to make peace with Laura. He tells her he understands that she’s “only heard the slave owners’ point of view for a long time” (26), but that she should “listen to the other side of the story” (26). He tells her he’ll let her borrow a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Laura scoffs at his offer. She’s heard of the book that is sympathetic toward enslaved people but is convinced the book is entirely fictitious. Joel informs her that not only is it true, but that some enslaved people have it even worse than those depicted in the book.

At last, they settle Martin down for the night on an old rag carpet by the stove. Joel still wishes Laura would let Martin use her room, but Laura won’t budge. She thinks that she’s “agreed to let Martin stay in the house, and that [is] more than she should have done” (27). She bids them all good night, then retreats to her room.

There, she searches in vain for the hidden door in the floorboards. She looks out the window to catch Joel leaving the house. Just as she is mourning the strain on their friendship, she is startled to see another figure following Joel into the night.

Laura races down the stairs to tell Bert what she’s seen, but he is unphased. He tells Laura that Joel likely knows he’s being followed, and chasing after him to warn them will only put Martin in more danger. When Laura spits back that he is wrong for putting Martin’s safety ahead of Joel’s, Bert tells her he hasn’t missed Laura bossing him around. Laura’s feelings are hurt, and she tells her brother, “Just as soon as I can, I’m going back where I’m wanted. Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruth begged me to stay!” (30). She then rushes back to her room, willing herself not to cry.

The next morning, Laura awakens to Bert knocking on her door. He has come to apologize, and as he stands there, Laura takes in just how much he has grown in the last four years. She remembers a time when they were younger, and Laura had been sent to her room in the middle of dinner. Later that night, Bert came up with “a smuggled cookie, and sprawled companionably on the floor where [Laura] sat in lonely misery” (31). The cookie was Bert’s, which he had given up for his sister to have since she went to bed without the rest of her dinner. Laura was touched and split the cookie with Bert. Now, Laura feels that closeness is gone.

Bert comments on the state of Laura’s room, saying she must have been looking for the trapdoor. When she tells him she hasn’t found it yet, Bert points “to a section of bare floor between the bed and the doorway” (32). Laura insists that she looked there, and Bert pulls up the floorboard to reveal a man-sized hiding spot. Bert explains the care they took when selecting where to install the room, laying out in detail all the clues they had to avoid for when slave catchers came looking for the runaways. Laura asks how long they have to stay in there, and Bert tells her “All day. Sometimes longer” (33). He shows her the holes they drilled in the floorboards so the escapees could breathe.

Laura is astonished at the hidden room and remarks how it’s too dark in there, even to read. Of course, she says, the runaways can’t read. Bert corrects her: Most of them can’t, but Martin can. He tells her that Martin read to him from a newspaper. This revelation stuns Laura, who isn’t used to enslaved people having any sort of education, much less being able to read. Bert hurries her along downstairs, where Martin is ready and waiting with breakfast that he cooked.

Downstairs, Martin has set up plates of food for Bert, Laura, and himself. He doesn’t join Bert and Laura at the table, despite Bert’s insisting, opting to instead stay by the stove where he can turn the griddle cakes. Laura knows “he [is] not accustomed to sitting with white people” (34) and probably sat at the table with them last night only because he had been “too tired and hungry to object” (35). Laura remembers how the enslaved people at her aunt and uncle’s home always sat by themselves.

Laura sinks into the comfort of having Martin bring her the food he cooked. As they eat, she asks Martin about his reading. Martin confirms what Bert had said, telling her that his dad taught him. He is in the middle of speaking when he stops suddenly and looks out the window in terror. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.

Martin hides in the cellar just in time. At the door is Mrs. Fitch, their middle-aged neighbor. The woman is “better than a slave catcher, [but] she [does] have the reputation of being a busy-body” (38). Bert welcomes her in, and immediately Mrs. Fitch scoffs at the griddle cakes, which have burned since Martin abandoned them to hide in the cellar. She announces that she brought Laura and Bert some biscuits and wanted to check in since their father and stepmother are away for the weekend.

Bert and Laura assure Mrs. Fitch that they are fine. After a few other snide comments about the state of the house and whether Laura will return to school now that she’s back in town, the nosy neighbor finally leaves. Bert and Laura breathe a sigh of relief and knock on the cellar door, signaling Martin to come back up into the kitchen. Martin offers to make more griddle cakes to replace those that burned, but the siblings tell him not to worry about it. They tell him they are going to start on their chores, and Bert adds that when he’s back they will look for a new hiding place for Martin. He is worried the cellar will be the first place people will look for him.

As Laura goes back to her room to make her bed, she feels certain that Bert still wants her to give up her own room for Martin. She is set on keeping it to herself and thinks “If he want[s] it, let him ask for it!” (41). Not long after, she can hear Bert return from the barn, and he and Martin go into Bert’s room. Laura decides to work on the chores in the kitchen alone while the boys are together. She laments having to do so much work, especially after having most of these chores done for her when she lived with her aunt and uncle.

After a while, Laura starts to enjoy the chores more. She remembers helping her mother in the kitchen, and “[n]ow, doing the once familiar tasks, she [finds] herself humming” (42). As she tidies up the breakfast dishes, she reminisces about her stepmother, Abby. Abby has always shown Laura kindness, and she wonders how Abby feels about their house being a stop on the Underground Railroad. She is certain Abby is okay with it, since she typically agrees with anything her father says or does. Her thoughts are interrupted by the sudden sound of dogs howling again in the distance. They are a constant reminder that Martin is still in danger. 

Laura bounds up the stairs to warn Bert and Martin that the slave catchers are getting closer. Bert asks Laura if she can find Martin; they are trying to make sure he’s well hidden in case the house is searched. Laura looks under the bed first, then finds Martin in the wardrobe. She tells Bert that Martin’s feet show, and they should put a row of shoes in front of his feet to better disguise him. She realizes that it was far too easy to find Martin and asks if there’s anywhere else they can hide him. Bert insists this is the best he can do.

Meanwhile, the sound of dogs grows louder outside. Martin tells the siblings, “If they ever catch up with me, they’ll tear me in little pieces. They’ll be so mad at all the work I made for them” (46). When Laura asks why so many people are after him, Martin reveals that his master sent out posters offering a reward to anyone who could bring him back. Aside from those specifically searching for Martin, there are dozens of slave catchers who stay near the Canadian border, ready to send back enslaved or freed blacks to the South for the reward money. Laura presses further, asking why the slave catchers seem to be hanging around their house in particular. Bert tells her he doesn’t know and to stop asking so many questions.

Laura, annoyed, leaves the room to finish her chores. As she cleans her room, she thinks about everything Bert and Martin told her about the slave catchers. She thinks it’s “natural for a slave owner to try to get back his property, but it surely wasn’t right for people to catch a freed man and sell him down south” (47). She remembers a Black man at the plantation next to Uncle Jim’s who said he was a freed man who’d been caught by slave catchers.

From downstairs, Laura hears someone washing the dishes. She goes down to find Martin washing them. He tells her the kitchen is the safest place for him because it’s close to both stairwells. Laura asks Martin more about his education. He tells her his father “had a kind master who taught him and let him have books to read” (48), even though teaching enslaved people was against the law in the South. His father then became the accountant for that master. However, eventually the master died, and Martin and his family were sold to a new master, Mr. Spencer.

Bert soon joins them and tells Martin he shouldn’t be downstairs, but that he’ll get a book for him before Martin goes back upstairs. Martin remarks how Mr. Spencer would hate that Bert is giving him a book. Prompted by Bert, Martin takes off his shirt to show Laura what happened the last time he tried to teach a friend how to read. Laura is shocked to see long scars across Martin’s back, clearly from being whipped.