Jump Ship To Freedom Part 5

"Oh," I said. I was pretty sorry about that, and I knew Mum would be, too, if I ever got back to tell her. "You don't know where she went, sir?"

"No," he said. "It was some time ago." Then he put his arm around my shoulder. "Well, I guess you'll be pretty hungry. Come on inside and well see what we can do about it."

He led me into the kitchen, with Nosy following along behind. It was the biggest kitchen I'd ever seen, with a fireplace you could have stabled horses in, and great pots and pans and kettles hanging down from the ceiling on hooks everywhere. There was a whole hog with its head still on, turning on the spit in the fireplace, and a couple of kettles on hooks over the fire, too. It was getting over toward suppertime now, and two or three men were bustling around, serving up big dishes of stew from the kettles, or chunks of pork and bread. There was waiters in red jackets going in and out. Oh, didn't it smell good in there. I'd been too busy being scared most of the day to think about being hungry, but all of a sudden it hit me.

Mr. Fraunces set me down at a little table off to one side and told Nosy to get me a dish of stew. Oh, it felt mighty warm and comfortable to be there. For the first time in a long, long while I was someplace where it seemed like people liked me. And I wondered if it was because Nosy was black and Mr. Fraunces was black, too. I wished I was sure about that-his being black. But my daddy said he never was sure about him, either, and if my daddy wasn't sure, how was I to know?

Nosy brought the stew, and when I'd got it in front of me and was digging in, I told Mr. Fraunces the whole story-about how Mrs. Ivers stole my daddy's notes, and how I stole them back, and going on the brig, and the storm, and Birdsey drowning, and swimming to Bedloe's Island and coming ash.o.r.e from there. And when I ended, he just nodded and said, "And what are you planning to do now?"

"I don't know, sir," I said. "I got to get those notes back, somehow."

"And suppose you get the notes?" Mr. Fraunces said.

"I'll take them to Congress and find Mr. William Samuel Johnson, sir. My Aunt w.i.l.l.y used to work for him. He'll help me to sell them."

Mr. Fraunces shook his head. "You're out of luck there, Dan. Some of the men from Congress have gone down to Philadelphia to help rewrite the Articles of Confederation. Mr. Johnson was one of them."

8.

It seemed like I was carrying my own bad luck in my pocket. No matter where I went it was there, too, coming along right beside me so as to give me a punch anytime it looked like things were going my way. Here I'd finally made it to New York; but Mr. Johnson was in Philadelphia, and the soldiers' notes was on the Junius Brutus.

Mr. Fraunces went off to do some business, and Nosy was set to work opening oysters. I sat there ramming in the food and thinking about my troubles. There just wasn't any way I could sneak on board the brig without getting caught, and once Captain Ivers got hold of me he'd lash the tar out of me, and then sell me off to the West Indies as quick as he could. There wasn't any doubt about that. Nor was there any way for me to get to Philadelphia. If I'd have been white, I could have worked my pa.s.sage down there in a coastal s.h.i.+p, or even walked down if worse came to worse. But a black boy on his own was bound to raise suspicions that he was a runaway. They generally put out a good reward for runaways. They'd get handbills printed up with a description of me on it, and maybe even a picture, saying fifty dollars reward. Somebody was bound to turn me in. I kept wis.h.i.+ng I could think up some smart plan for getting my notes off the Junius Brutus, but nothing came to me. I wondered if Birdsey would have been able to think of something smart.

When I'd rammed as much food in me as I could, I felt a little better. I hadn't had a really good meal since before the storm, and just filling up my belly with fresh bread and hot stew encouraged me a little. I still had my troubles; but at least I felt warm and peaceful for a change. I was mighty sleepy, though, and I just sat there and by and by I dozed off in my chair, and the next thing I knew, Nosy was shaking me. "Hey, Arabus, wake up," she said. "You're supposed to come with me."

I jumped up, shaking my head to get the sleep out of it. "What?"

"You're supposed to come with me."

"Where?"

"Just come along," she said.

I followed her out of the kitchen to a little hall where the back stairs started up. Through a door I could see into the tap room. It was a big room, almost the whole length of the building. There was tables set about, with people eating and drinking, some of them dressed up mighty fine, too, and waiters in red jackets rus.h.i.+ng about serving them. The walls had carved paneling, and there was gla.s.s chandeliers filled with candles hanging down from the ceiling. Oh, it was the most fancy place I'd ever seen. I wished I could go out there, but the only way I'd ever get into a place like that was if I got to be a waiter and went out there to serve the white folks.

We went on up the stairs, with Nosy asking me the usual questions about where I came from and what it was like for black folks there, and did my daddy really fight in the Revolution, and such. I didn't see any harm in answering, so I did. On up we went, past the second floor and the third one, to the top floor underneath the eaves. We went down a pa.s.sage to the end, and Nosy knocked on a door. "Who is it?" somebody said from inside.

"It's Carrie, sir. I got Arabus." The door opened, and we went in. It was a little corner room, with two windows looking out south and west. There wasn't much furniture in it-just a bed, a chest of drawers, a couple of chairs, a little table, and a fireplace. Even though it was warm out, there was coals glowing in the fireplace.

Mr. Fraunces was there, standing by the door. Lying in bed propped up on a pillow, with the blankets tucked up under his chin, was an old man. His hair was white, and his wrinkled skin was pale and sweaty. He hadn't shaved, either. It was plain that he was sick, which explained why there was a fire going in the July heat.

Mr. Fraunces shut the door. Me and Nosy just stood there. The old man looked at me. Then he said, "Thou are Jack Arabus's boy?"

"Yes sir," I said.

"Sam says he was drowned. Is that true?"

"Yes sir," I said. "He went out in the Katey Lee and they never came back."

"What a pity. He was a fine man. I knew him. I visited him when he was in jail." He began to cough, and stopped talking. There was a gla.s.s of rum on the table by the bed, and he took a swallow of it.

It hadn't surprised me too much that Black Sam Fraunces knew about my daddy, because my daddy had told me he knew Mr. Fraunces. But it sure surprised me that this old white man knew him, too. It seemed like my daddy was more famous than I reckoned. It made me feel kind of proud. But there was another part of it, too. From the way the old man said "thou," I knew that he was a Quaker. According to their religion, they wasn't supposed to hurt anybody and was against war. On account of this way of thinking they was against slavery, too, and they was always trying to help out the black folks and some of them even wanted to do away with slavery completely. I figured he knew about my daddy suing Captain Ivers for his freedom.

His name was Mr. Fatherscreft. He asked me a lot of questions, and I told him about stealing our soldiers' notes back, and the storm, and Birdsey getting drowned, and escaping from the brig and the rest of it.

When I got finished, he nodded and lay there thinking for a bit. Then he said, "Well, thou has got thyself in quite a bit of trouble, haven't thee, Daniel?"

"Yes sir, I guess so. I'm worth eighty pounds; Captain Ivers ain't going to let me go easy."

"Eighty pounds? I'd have thought thee worth more than that."

"Oh, I reckon that's about the going price for a n.i.g.g.e.r boy."

Mr. Fatherscreft shook his head. "Not in the sight of the Lord, surely. Nor in thy own view, either. I'd have thought that thee would be worth a good deal more than eighty pounds to thyself."

I'd never thought about it that way before. It put a new light on things. "Come to think of it, I suppose I am. If I lived to be pretty old that wouldn't come out to more'n twenty-five s.h.i.+llings a year."

"Thou wouldn't take twenty-five s.h.i.+llings for a year of thy life, would thou, Daniel?''

I shook my head. "No sir. Nor anything near it, neither."

"What would thou take? A thousand pounds?"

I puzzled over that for a minute. "Well, I guess a man's life don't exactly measure out in money. I mean, what's the use of having the money if you don't have your life?"

"That's the point, isn't it, Daniel? Well. Now how dost thou plan to get thy father's notes back from the brig?"

"I don't know, sir," I said. "I hardly even dare go down to the waterfront."

"It would be risky," Mr. Fatherscreft said. He coughed again.

"Where's the brig at the moment?" Mr. Fraunces said.

"I ain't sure. She was anch.o.r.ed off Bedloe's Island this morning."

"You can see Bedloe's from the window," Mr. Fraunces said.

I walked to the window. It was getting dark, but you could plainly see the Battery, the s.h.i.+ps tied up at the harbor, and then beyond the Upper Bay with Bedloe's and Governor's islands in them. The Junius Brutus wasn't anch.o.r.ed there anymore. "I guess the captain brought her into the dock," I said.

"They'll probably be unloading pretty soon," Mr. Fraunces said. "Ivers will want to get rid of the stuff as soon as possible, so he can put the brig into a s.h.i.+pyard for repairs."

"I've got to get those notes out of there."

"Is it worth the risk, Daniel?" Mr. Fatherscreft asked.

"It's our freedom money, sir," I said.

"It won't be worth much if Captain Ivers catches thee," he said. "He'll take it away from thee in any case."

"There's Mum. It's her freedom money, too."

n.o.body said nothing for a minute. Then Mr. Fatherscreft said, "Suppose the notes turn out to be worthless, Daniel?"

I scratched my head. "I'm blamed if I can see how that could happen, sir," I said. "How could they do that to all those soldiers like my daddy? I mean, he fought and risked his life for years and years. They just wouldn't take his pay away from him, would they?"

"Who dost thou mean by they, Daniel?"

"They?" I puzzled over that for a minute. "Why, the government, I guess."

"What government?"

I puzzled about that some more. "Well, come to think of it, I ain't sure. The Congress, I guess."

"But suppose the Congress were to adjourn permanently, just disband entirely."

"What? Just quit?"

"Daniel, the point is this: you've heard of the Philadelphia Convention, surely."

"Oh, yes sir."

"Dost thou know what the convention is doing?"

I thought that one over, too. I was beginning to feel pretty stupid. "Well, sir, not exactly. Captain Ivers says it's to fix up the Articles of Confederation so he won't have to pay import taxes to New York."

"Well, that was the idea, Daniel, but they've decided to sc.r.a.p the old articles and write a whole new const.i.tution. The greatest men from twelve of the thirteen states are gathered in Philadelphia to try to write a const.i.tution under which all of the states can join into one single nation. But it isn't an easy matter. There are many different ideas about how the new nation ought to work. For example, in a new government, should each state have a single vote in making laws, or should the votes be calculated according to how many people there are in each state?"

I scratched my head again, feeling more stupid. "I don't rightly know," I finally said.

"Neither do the men at the convention," Mr. Fraunces said.

"Thou should understand, Daniel, that the larger states, like Virginia and Pennsylvania, want the votes to be allotted according to population, because that would give them more power. The smaller states, like New Jersey and Maryland, want it one vote to each state, as it is now, so that the large states aren't able to run everything their own way."

"Oh," I said. Once I thought about it, it made sense enough. I could see easy enough that there was likely to be a lot of squabbling over it.

"And that isn't all of it, either, Daniel," Mr. Fatherscreft said. "Some of us are especially worried about what the convention will decide to do about the black people in America. Many of us want slavery abolished. Others, especially the big slaveholders in the South, want slavery continued. Still others have different points of view-slavery should be permitted, but no new slaves brought in; slavery to be permitted in the present thirteen states, but not permitted in any new states that are made, and so forth."

"Do you think they'll set us free, sir?" I asked.

"I don't think there's any chance of that, for now at least. Someday, perhaps. For the present we're trying to bargain for whatever limits on slavery we can get."

"Oh," I said. "Then we'll need our freedom money."

"Yes, of course," Mr. Fatherscreft said. "The point is simply that if the convention fails to agree on all of these questions, they'll give up the attempt to form a new government. Each state will be independent, like the countries of Europe. And the soldiers' notes won't be worth the paper they're printed on, because there'll be no government strong enough to make the states pay taxes. And without tax money, the U.S. government can't pay off the notes."

"They'd be worth nothing at all? After all that fighting my daddy did?"

"Nothing at all. Not a penny. Not unless the state governments decided to pay them. On the other hand, if the convention settles all the disputed points and forms a new federal government, they'll almost certainly pay off the notes-perhaps not in full, but certainly they'll pay something for them."

Once Mr. Fatherscreft spelled it out point by point like that, I could understand it. "If I wasn't just a stupid n.i.g.g.e.r, I'd have seen it before," I said.

Mr. Fraunces gave me a funny look. "What makes you think you're stupid, Daniel?"

My face got hot and sweaty. I shouldn't have said such a thing in front of Mr. Fraunces. Maybe he was black and maybe he wasn't, but whichever way it was, he wasn't stupid. "Well, I guess I am just stupid," I said. "If I'd had more brains I wouldn't have left those soldiers' notes on the brig."

"Seems to me like you had to be pretty smart to get them that far," he said.

That kind of stopped me for a minute. It seemed to me that pretty much everything I'd done had gone wrong. "I don't see what I did that was so smart," I said.

"A lot of people would think that the trick you pulled to escape from the brig was pretty smart."

It confused me. When you figured you was one kind of person all your life, it's hard to start thinking of yourself as another kind. I reckoned I'd have to think about it some more. "If I'd have been really smart I'd have figured out a way to get those soldiers' notes off the brig, too."

Mr. Fraunces laughed, and Mr. Fatherscreft gave a little smile, as much as he could, being sick as he was. "Think about it, Daniel," Mr. Fraunces said. "The more important question is, what do you do now? It's my advice to forget about those notes. You don't know what they'll fetch in the end, and it isn't worth taking a chance that you'll spend the rest of your life in slavery to get them."

"They ain't just mine. They're Mum's, too."

"Look, Daniel," Mr. Fraunces said. "As you stand right now, you're free. If you stay out of sight for a couple of weeks, Ivers will be gone back to Connecticut. You could go to Philadelphia or Boston, or west to the new Pennsylvania lands that are opening up, or into the Northwest Territories around Lake Michigan, and start a new life. Why take a chance on it?"

But I knew I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go off like that and leave Mum with no husband and no son, to work for the Iverses all the rest of her life. "I have to get those notes, sir. I know it's risky, but I have to chance it."

"Think about it, Daniel," Mr. Fraunces said. Then he turned to Mr. Fatherscreft. "When do you plan to leave for Philadelphia?" he asked.

"I'm to see William Few tomorrow. If negotiations come right, I'll leave for Philadelphia immediately."

Mr. Fraunces shook his head. "Not as sick as you are," he said.

"I can't let an illness stop me. I'm an old man; staying alive is of no great importance. It's the work of the Lord that matters."

Then Mr. Fraunces remembered that Nosy and I were listening. "Carrie, find Daniel a place to sleep in one of the sheds. We'll see what to do with him in the morning." So we went and left them talking; but my mind was working, too, for if Mr. Fatherscreft was going to Philadelphia, maybe I could figure out a way to go, too.

9.