The Last Runaway

Straw

FOR A MONTH the flow of runaways dried up. Indeed, Honor had little contact with anyone outside of Faithwell. Though he had threatened to, Donovan did not ride past the farm. There were no letters from her family or Biddy. She did not go to Oberlin, even when Abigail had her baby and Adam could have used an extra pair of hands at the store; nor did Jack offer to take her with him when he delivered cheese. Honor did not complain, but worked hard in the garden, finished Dorcas’s quilt and began another, and grew.

Only sometimes she reread Belle Mills’s letter and smiled.

She was planting squash in the garden one afternoon when something flickered in the corner of her eye. Honor looked up across the orchard to Wieland Woods and saw a figure ducking from one tree to another. When she went over to the edge of the woods and called softly, a young man emerged, limping, to stand by the brambles where Honor and Dorcas had picked blackberries. He was shaking, from fear or something else Honor did not yet know. As she prepared to explain that he could not stop here, she glanced down at his feet and sucked in her breath.

“Please, ma’am, can you help me?” The man leaned against a maple trunk. “I ain’t doin’ so good.”

“What happened to thee?”

“Got caught in a trap.”

Someone had tried to help by dressing the wound with a knot of pine resin, but his foot was swollen, and blood and pus dribbled from it. It smelled of a rotting sweetness that, now she knew what it was, made Honor want to gag. She could not imagine that Belle would have let him go on in this state. “Where has thee come from?”

“Greenwich. They told me to go to Norwalk. This Norwalk?”

Norwalk was twenty miles to the west. “No. I-We cannot keep thee here.”

The man stared at her with feverish eyes.

Honor sighed. “Wait here. I will get thee some water.” She hurried back to the well. As she drew up the bucket to fill the tin mug, Judith came out onto the back porch. “Thee has promised not to help runaways.”

Honor flushed. “I am just giving him water. I will not hide him.” The grim line of Judith’s mouth made her add, “He has been hurt, his foot caught in a trap. Infection has set in. Can thee look at it? There may be something we can do.”

“We are not getting involved in that colored man’s troubles.”

“But-”

“We have discussed this before, Honor, and thee agreed this family would not help fugitives. Whatever we may feel as Friends, it is against the laws of our government, and we cannot afford to break them. Does thee want thy husband to go to jail? Or thee, for that matter?”

“If thee could just meet the man, thy conscience would tell thee to help him.”

“I am not going to meet him.”

Honor stood still, trying to tamp down the rage that pushed up through her. “I have promised him water.”

“Give him the water, then, and go back to thy work in the garden.” Judith turned and went inside.

The hope in the man’s face as Honor handed him the mug of water was so painful to see that she dropped her eyes and stepped back. “Leave the mug there when thee has finished. Oberlin is three miles north of here. Go to the red house on Mill Street. They will get thee the doctor thee needs.”

She turned away and hurried to the garden, where she continued digging a furrow with the hoe, her back to the man, hot tears streaming down her face. Only when she had finished the row did she dare to turn around. The man was gone, and so was the tin mug.

That night she did not sleep. It was late spring, and warm, though not yet too hot-perhaps the best weather Ohio would ever offer. Honor lay next to Jack, the wedding quilt covering her except for her feet, which she left bare to keep her cool. Jack slept soundly, as he always did after they had coupled. Her growing belly did not seem to put him off, and he never asked if she would rather not. She submitted to his nightly expectation because it was easier to. There had been a window of time when Honor enjoyed what they did in bed, the surprise and novelty and shock of sensation-when their feelings for each other had briefly been like hay. Since the sugaring and her agreement not to help runaways, however, relations between them had become more like straw: dull and gray, the life cut from it. When she lay under Jack, letting him pump away, she no longer found her place in the rhythm of his movement. If he noticed, he said nothing, but fell asleep quickly afterwards.

Honor lay thinking of the man and his foot. She could not sleep, for she could feel he was still nearby, suffering out in Wieland Woods. She must do something to help him, but she did not know what she could do on her own. The Haymakers would not help; nor would Adam Cox, as he would not want to go against her husband’s family. She thought of the blacksmith Caleb Wilson, who had recited Whittier and often brought up the issue of slavery at Meeting. He was certainly a man of principle, and might help her-except that his respect for Judith Haymaker was also strong. Indeed, it would be hard to find anyone in Faithwell willing to defy her mother-in-law, even when the cause was just.

The answer hung like a ghost on the edge of her mind for some time before Honor allowed herself to think it. Then she could think of nothing else. Finally she got up and dressed quietly. Jack did not stir. Honor crept downstairs and stepped over Digger, who lay across the doorway. He growled but did not stop her.

Outside she sat for a time on the porch and waited. If Judith or Dorcas heard her and came down to investigate, she could always say she felt ill and needed air. Indeed, as she breathed in the mild night breeze, she felt sharper, fresher and more resolved. I have been obedient, she thought, and it has made no difference.

When she was sure no one had woken, she left the porch and set out across the dewy grass to the track that ran in front of the farm. A half-moon lit it, and she hurried toward Faithwell, through the trees that eventually gave way to the cluster of houses. She passed the general store, the smithy, and Adam and Abigail’s house; then she headed toward the main road between Oberlin and Wellington. Honor had never walked on her own at night in Ohio. All around her were the overlapped sawings and chirpings and croakings of thousands of crickets and frogs, the appropriate accompaniment for the multitude of stars spread overhead. It was hard to appreciate them, however, for there were other sounds too, rustlings in the undergrowth that frightened her. The bitter, pungent musk of a nearby skunk made her gulp several times, though she kept walking, wishing she had brought Digger with her. Even after nine months at the farm, she and the dog remained uneasy around each other, but Digger would have reassured her with his serious presence. The only way she could cope with the sounds and the dark was to hurry through them, thinking only of the comparative openness and safety of the larger road.

In the daytime the main road was full of riders and drivers and walkers heading north or south, but now when she got to it, she discovered that at this time of night it was empty of traffic and as dark and still as the Faithwell track. Honor stood in the middle of it, listening to the nightlife around her. What she wanted to hear was the sound of a horse with one thick shoe, coming from either direction-she was not sure which. He would not be asleep: if a runaway was in the area he would be out searching, for most traveled at night and hid during the day. Honor gazed up the road north toward Oberlin, then south to Wellington. She could stand and wait for him, but did not think she could bear to, for her stillness seemed to bring the rustling nearer, and made her fear grow. Better to walk steadily. She turned toward Wellington. If she did not meet Donovan she would go to Belle Mills. She did not dare involve Mrs. Reed. It was not safe for a black woman-particularly an ex-slave-to be out at night, away from her own people. Besides, she could not face Mrs. Reed’s flashing spectacles and jutting lower lip.

She walked with shaky steps toward Wellington, fighting her growing terror of the darkness and solitude. She had often felt alone even when sitting among the Haymakers or the Faithwell community at Meeting, but now for the first time in America she really was completely alone, forced to confront the vast indifference of the natural world around her and the stars and moon overhead. This feeling grew so strong that at last it overwhelmed her, the hard cruelty of the world pressing into her like cold metal she could taste in her mouth. Honor had to stop in the road, gulping again and again as if she were drowning. She tried to escape it by turning inward as she did at Meeting to find the warming Inner Light, but she could not shed her overriding desire: that Donovan would come to save her from that metallic taste.

He arrived half an hour later. By then Honor was limp from fighting her fear. She heard the horse with the thick shoe a long way behind her and waited by the side of the road, her cap and the V along her neckline dimly visible in the moonlight. Yet he didn’t see her until his horse shied, a side step away from Honor that made Donovan swear and clutch at the animal’s mane. When he had calmed the horse, he stared down at her. “Honor Bright,” he declared, clearly stunned to find her there.

Honor too could barely speak. “Donovan, I-Someone needs thy help.”

“Who?”

“I will show thee.”

He reached a hand down to her. “Come up.”

Honor hesitated-because of the growing baby, because she had to trust him when she didn’t, because she would have to put her arms around his waist and lean against his back and she knew what that would make her feel. But she thought of the man in the woods whom she had failed, and that made her put her foot in the stirrup, take Donovan’s hand and swing herself up.

“Where to?”

“Wieland Woods, next to the farm. But…” Honor did not want to tell him she was doing this secretly-though it must be apparent, else she wouldn’t be out on her own. “Please don’t ride through Faithwell or past the farm. I don’t want them to hear. We can leave the horse near the village and walk the rest of the way.”

Donovan twisted around to look at her. “There a nigger in the woods?”

“Yes.”

“You told me a month ago you weren’t gonna be tradin’ in runaways any more.”

“He strayed from Greenwich. I did not intend to get involved, but he is hurt and needs a doctor.”

Donovan snorted. “You think I’m gonna take him to a doctor?”

She did not reply. They sat on the horse, Donovan letting it take delicate side steps as it waited for its rider’s signal.

“Honor, you know I’ll turn him in. That’s what I do.”

Honor sighed. “I know. But he will die otherwise. It is better that he lives, even in slavery.”

“Why you askin’ me, anyway?”

She said nothing.

“You live in a town full o’ Quakers and you go to me for help? You got yourself a problem there, darlin’.”

“There is nothing wrong with Friends here. Many would do what they can to help. It is just… the Haymakers have had their principles compromised by circumstances. And they are influential in the community.” Without meaning to, Honor was leaning against him, the small hard bump of her belly pressing into his back. Donovan felt it and stiffened, then leaned forward so that they were not so close.

“Right,” he said at last. “Hold on.” He pulled the reins around, clicked his teeth, and set out back up the road.

He was not moving when they found him, but lay propped against a bur oak, his legs stretched out in front of him, the tin mug beside him. Donovan made Honor wait several trees away while he held his lantern briefly to the face with its rictal grimace. Honor closed her eyes but could still see the imprint of the lantern and the man’s teeth flashing in the dark.

Donovan came back to Honor and studied her stricken face. When she stepped into his arms, he said nothing, but held her and let her sob into his chest. This time he did not flinch when he felt the baby pressed against him. Honor clung to him long after she had stopped crying. Pressing her cheek against his chest, she breathed in the sharp woodfire smell of him. There was something hard there: the key to her trunk. Donovan was still wearing it around his neck.

If he asked me now, I would go west with him, she thought. For his spirit is with me.

But he did not ask. “Honor, it’s getting light,” he said at last. “You should get on home before they find out you’re gone.”

She nodded. Though it hurt to, she let go of him, wiping her face on her sleeve so that she did not have to look at him.

“You want me to bury him?”

“No. Let them see what they have done. What we have done.”

“You know he probably would have died anyway, even if you got him to a doctor. Smells of gangrene.”

Honor’s eyes flared. “We should have helped him. At least then he would not have died alone in the dark in the woods.”

Donovan said nothing more, but walked her to the edge of the orchard where the apple trees began. He touched her arm briefly, then disappeared back into the trees to circle around the village to his horse.

When Honor emerged from the orchard, Jack and Dorcas were crossing the yard toward the barn, carrying pails for milking. They looked confused. “Where has thee been?” Jack called, taking in her face smeared with dirt and tears, her disheveled cap, the mud on her boots and the meaty smell of horse that lingered on her. “We thought thee was in the outhouse.”

Honor ignored him. “Digger!” she called.

The dog came running from the barn, drawn by the novelty of Honor commanding him. “Go.” She pointed to the woods. “Find him.” Digger followed her finger, sniffed the air, then shot off like a fish snagged on a hook.

“Honor, what is it?”

Honor did not answer. She could not find the words to say it. Instead she turned and headed for the haymow. Little hay was left from the previous year; in a few weeks the first harvest would replenish the much-diminished stacks. There was some straw, however. Though it smelled flat and dull, Honor climbed into the pile, curled up around her belly and slept.

When she woke, her sister-in-law was sitting nearby, plaiting strands of straw. Honor looked at her but did not sit up. Of the three Haymakers, she was glad it was Dorcas who had come to find her: Jack would have upset her and Judith would have made her angry. Over the months Honor had lived at the farm, Dorcas had become more of a benign irritation.

She seemed to understand that now. Setting down the braid, she hugged her knees. “They found him. Some men have come to help bury him.” After a pause, she continued. “I do not hate thee, Honor, whatever thee may think of me. Last summer when thee helped me with the yellow jackets, I heard thee speak to the colored man, and I never told Mother or Jack, though I should have.” She stopped again. Honor did not speak.

“I want to help thee to understand the Haymakers. There is something we did not tell thee about what happened in North Carolina. I thought we ought to,” Dorcas added, for a moment lapsing into her habitual self-defense. “Jack did too, but Mother felt it was old family business that would not be important to thee. But it is important, for it may explain some things.” She fiddled with the straw plait. “I have not told Mother I am telling thee.”

Now Honor did sit up, and brushed the straw from her cap. She still did not speak. Something seemed to have closed her throat.

“Thee knows of the door at the side of the barn, put there in case of fire.”

Honor nodded.

“Jack took great care to have it put in.” She paused. “Mother told thee that we were fined for helping a runaway slave in North Carolina. But she did not tell thee of a far greater punishment. When Father-when he-” Dorcas pressed her lips together. “I was ten years old, Jack fifteen. Father had helped a few runaways already. One morning one appeared, and Father hid the slave in our barn. When the owner and his men came looking for him, Father said there was no one in the barn. Yes, he lied, but for the greater good. So-so the owner grabbed Father, and had his men set fire to the barn, to see what Father would do. He admitted then that the slave was hidden there. They told him to go and get the slave while they put out the fire. But when he went inside they-they pulled the bolt on the barn door so that neither Father nor the slave could get out that way.” Tears were trickling from Dorcas’s pale eyes. Honor took up one of her cold hands.

“They would not let us near the barn. Jack even fought them, which thee knows we don’t do. We thought Father and the slave might be able to get out through the trapdoor where the hay and straw are dropped down to the animals, but the smoke must have been too thick. We heard-we-we…”

Honor squeezed her hand so that Dorcas would not continue.

“The slave owner was not even charged with murder, since Father went willingly into the burning barn,” Dorcas began again when she had wiped away her tears. “Instead we were forced to pay a fine for the ‘destruction of property’-the death of the slave. Losing Father and the barn and the money was too much, and we came north. So thee can understand now why we do not want to become involved with runaways again.”

They sat for a time in silence. For the first time since marrying Jack, Honor felt some warmth toward her sister-in-law; she was just sorry the feeling had to come out of the telling of such a story.

Dorcas left her in the straw, to find her way back when she was ready. Honor did not know if she would ever be ready.

She had begun with a clear principle born of a lifetime of sitting in silent expectation: that all people are equal in God’s eyes, and so should not be enslaved to one another. Any system of slavery must be abolished. It had seemed simple in England; yet in Ohio that principle was chipped away at, by economic arguments, by personal circumstances, by deep-seated prejudice that Honor sensed even in Quakers. It was easy for her to picture the Negro pew at the Philadelphia Meeting House and grow indignant; but would she herself feel completely comfortable sitting next to a black person? She helped them, but she did not know them as people. Only Mrs. Reed, a little: the flowers she wore in her hat; the stew so full of onions and chilies; the improvised quilt she had made. These daily details were the things that fleshed out a person.

When an abstract principle became entangled in daily life, it lost its clarity and became compromised and weakened. Honor did not understand how this could happen, and yet it had: the Haymakers had demonstrated how easy it was to justify stepping back from principles and doing nothing. Now that she was a member of this family, she was expected to take on their history and step back as well.

Honor left the barn at dusk to walk across the yard to the house, her eyes wide and dry, her throat stopped with a feeling as if she had swallowed a ball and it had got stuck there. She felt so confused by the gap between what she thought and what was expected of her that she could not speak. Perhaps it was better not to, until she was more sure of what she wanted to say. That way her words could not be twisted and flung back at her. Silence was a powerful tool at Meeting, clearing the way to God. Perhaps now it would allow Honor to be heard.

The Haymakers did not know what to make of her silence. When Honor came back from the barn, Judith and Jack questioned her about being out all night, the smell of horse on her evidence that Donovan must be involved. When she did not speak to confirm or deny this, they took her silence for guilt. Jack raged; Judith threatened to have Honor disowned by the community, though even she knew there were no grounds for doing such a thing. Besides, their anger was intertwined with guilt over the death of the runaway.

Eventually that anger was replaced with defensive embarrassment, for they took her silence to be a judgment on them. Jack and Judith continued to defend their actions, or non-actions, their frustration increasing when they could not tell if their words had any effect on Honor. She gave them her attention whenever they spoke, looked them directly in the eye, then simply did not respond, but went back to her milking or washing or hoeing or sewing.

With her sister-in-law, however, Honor’s relationship improved. Perhaps Dorcas felt she did not have to compete any longer. She could talk as much as she liked, and did, often responding on Honor’s behalf, and calling her “sister”: “I think Honor would like more cherry pie”; “Honor and I will do the milking this evening, won’t we, sister?”; “I’m sure Honor is willing to quilt the central panel at the frolic, won’t thee, sister?” Honor let Dorcas speak for her; it was easier.

The Haymakers began to treat her as if she could not talk. They stopped asking her questions or expecting her to take part in conversations. When a new family arrived to settle in Faithwell, Jack introduced Honor by saying, “My wife has extended the silence of Meeting into her whole life.” She became the mute in the community, smiling and ducking her head when anyone said something that required a response. Jack still turned to her at night, but did not try to give her pleasure, taking only his own. As her belly grew between them, taking on the hard roundness of a pumpkin, he reached for her less and less.

In a way, she was mute. Her throat was so tight it was difficult to swallow, though she forced herself to eat, for the baby’s sake. She had always been quiet, but never completely silent. Now it became a relief not to speak. Her words could no longer be misunderstood-though now her silence was. And because she did not have to form thoughts into words for others, after a time Honor could stop thinking, and just be. For the first time since she was a girl she could sit in Meeting and not try to harness her impressions into thoughts she might speak aloud. Now she simply watched the sun cross the quiet room, catching dust motes kicked up by shifting Friends. She listened to the insects outside, and learned to distinguish between the chirping of the cricket, the sawing of the grasshopper, the ticking of the beetle, the buzzing of the cicada. She leaned into any breezes that passed from one window to another. She closed her eyes and breathed in the clover in the field next to the Meeting House, the first crop of hay left drying, the honeysuckle that grew around the door. Closing her mouth seemed to heighten her senses. It was a different sensation from the sinking-down feeling she’d had in past Meetings, but she began to think that it was as meaningful. God makes His presence felt in many ways, she thought.

After a time, her silence became less awkward, and Honor could sit at meals or on the porch or at Meeting and feel more content than she had when she spoke. In some profound way she knew that though it was not a conscious decision, she had stopped herself from speaking. She did not ask herself why, but accepted the silence as a gift.

Honor’s silence upset not only the Haymakers, but the wider community as well. It seemed even Quakers, with their silent Meetings and tolerance of difference, did not like the judgment of silence.

Adam Cox drew her aside after one First Day Meeting. “I will walk thee back to the farm,” he declared, leading her away from the Haymakers as Abigail watched over the head of their baby, a son they had named Elias. “I want to ask why thee has chosen to be silent, but I know thee will not answer,” he said as they made their way along the track. The mud had dried into hard, sharp ruts that made walking almost as tricky as when the mud was wet. “Jack said thee was upset by the death of the Negro. So were we all.” Caleb Wilson had organized a Meeting of Remembrance for the runaway, but no one had spoken, for no one knew him, not even his name. “But that should not make thee shun thy family and thy community.”

Honor of course said nothing.

“Judith has asked me to speak with thee,” he continued, “for she thinks perhaps thee will listen to someone from thy past. The Elders see thy silence as an act of aggression. They have asked me to tell thee that it is only because thee carries a child that they have not asked thee to leave the community. But thee must begin to speak after the baby is born or else leave the child with the Haymakers and go from Faithwell.”

Honor drew in her breath. Even though she had witnessed the severity of Bridport Friends with Samuel, she had hoped she would not meet with the same treatment.

“I have reminded them that thee has had a difficult year, losing thy sister and Samuel, leaving England when perhaps thee should have stayed. Not everyone is suited to such change, though it is sometimes only after it has happened that this is discovered.” Adam paused. “Thee must understand, Honor, that America is a young country. We look forward, not back. We do not dwell on misfortune, but move on-as I have with Abigail and I had hoped thee would with Jack. It is seen as poor form to linger over the bad things that have happened. Thee would do well to accept what thee has with the Haymakers. They are good people.”

Adam had not said anything about slavery, or principles being upheld or abandoned. He looked at her, clearly hoping Honor would respond. Instead she studied the wildflowers along the track: Joe-Pye weed, ragged sailors, queen of the prairie. She had been in Ohio a year now, and knew their American names.

The following Sixth Day, with the Haymakers’ agreement, Adam asked her to help at the Oberlin store. Perhaps they thought serving customers would force her to speak. Instead Honor demonstrated how little words were needed for a transaction. With smiles and nods and hand signals she could make herself understood. Few customers questioned her muteness. Plenty of people were afflicted in one way or another.

During the afternoon Mrs. Reed came in to have some scissors sharpened. She watched Honor nod and gesture with other customers; then she nodded herself. “Words ain’t everything,” she commented to the room, taking off her spectacles and polishing them on her sleeve. “Get you in trouble, more likely’n not. Maybe I be quiet one day too.” She seemed tickled by the thought.

When Adam had handed back her scissors, she said to Honor in a low voice, “I heard ’bout that man. Sad, but it happens.” She paused. “That shouldn’t be what’s stoppin’ you speakin’. You want to keep quiet, that’s fine, but leave the runaways out of it.” She wrapped the scissors in a rag and tucked them back in her skirt pocket. Then she straightened her hat, which was trimmed with goldenrod. “Good day to you.” She nodded at Adam. “And you, Honor Bright.” She began to hum as she left, the goldenrod tails bobbing.

East Street

Bridport

Dorset

8th Month 15th 1851

Dear Honor,

Every day now we await a letter from thee, for we have not had one for three months. Thee has always been so careful to write regularly, except when thee was ill, and we are concerned that something has happened. By the time thee receives this thee may have had thy baby, with God’s grace, but we hope to hear from thee before then, to say that all is well.

Thy loving parents,

Hannah and Abraham Bright