“I didn’t know what I’d do or where I’d go, but I just hurried along down another street, and then I saw the man who’d been at master’s plantation last year and told us about going to Canada if we wanted to try it.” “Yes--Mr. Wilson,” Dr. Ware interrupted. “I knew him right away, though he looked different, and I spoke to him and told him what I wanted. He said to follow him and we walked fast and turned up and down streets, and came to a free woman’s house. But they’d followed us, and in two or three minutes they were at the door. The woman took me into the back room and told me to jump into that box. Then she put the cover down quick and went back and I heard the men go all round the house looking for me and they swore at the woman and told her they’d seen me come in and they’d watch the house and keep on searching it till they got me. Then the man--Mr. Wilson, you said?--spoke up right loud and said he couldn’t wait any longer and would she have his clothes ready if he’d send for the box right away, ’cause he wanted to catch the boat for Cincinnati. I ’spected he meant me, and he did. She put a pillow in the box and some biscuits and a bottle of water, and cut a little hole in the side, so I could breathe. “I thought I was gwine die in the box,” the woman went on, again showing signs of hysteria, as memory of her experience returned. “It was such a little box I had to be all crunched up and I got awful pains, and sometimes it seemed as if I’d just have to scream right out. And then I’d think what would happen if I did, and I’d be caught and they’d flog me and send me--where they’d bought me for, and then I’d bite hard on the pillow and keep still. And once the box was turned up so I was on my head till I knew I was gwine die in another minute, but they turned it down again and I didn’t.” She stopped speaking, as long, nervous sobs shook her frame. The tears were streaming down Rhoda’s face and her bosom was heaving as with trembling hands she administered the draught her father had prepared. Dr. Ware noted her agitation and admonished her gently to calm herself. The old fear of displeasing him by showing too much emotion quickly steadied her nerves. To distract her thoughts from the fugitive’s harrowing experience he began to question the woman, as she grew quiet once more, about her life in slavery. “You must have had a hard master to be willing to take such chances to gain your freedom.” “It was the trader I run away from, ’cause I knew what he’d bought me for. Master was a kind man.” “But he sold you.” “It wasn’t master that sold us. He never does. It was Miss Emily, ’cause she married.” A chill struck to Rhoda’s heart. Was her fate to be forever linked in this way with that of the slaves from Fairmount? She was glad her father did not even look at her as he passed, with apparent unconcern, to the logical next question: “Who was your master?”