Rhoda knew from her father that the people engaged in the Underground work considered him one of the safest of the “conductors.” The commonplace character of his occupation and his eccentricities, which Dr. Ware told her were mainly assumed in order that he might appear all the more innocent, had proved so efficient a disguise as to prevent, even in pro-slavery communities, the least suspicion of his real business. Word had come that afternoon that the expected half-dozen fugitives had safely reached the Kentucky shore and would cross the river in a rowboat after dark. Chad Wallace ate supper with the Ware household and entertained them with stories of his travels told with so many touches of eccentric humor that he kept the table in a breeze of laughter. Jeff Delavan, who was to leave for his home the next day, enjoyed them so much that he invited the peddler if he ever journeyed as far south as Lexington to drive on to Fairmount, where he would be glad to see him and listen to more of his amusing stories. On the veranda after supper Charlotte begged Wallace for some of his funny dances, and he did negro shuffles and antics and sang negro melodies down the front walk to the gate. There he kept up the entertainment, interspersing the negro songs with doggerel of his own composition, until a delighted audience of children, young people and a few of their elders had gathered. Finally, waving his old hat at them, he walked away, breaking into a song that was much heard in those days at anti-slavery meetings: “Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave, Its branded palm shall prophesy ‘Salvation to the Slave!’” Jeff Delavan, listening on the veranda, started angrily, the amused smile died from his face and his brows knit in a frown. The tenor voice, still surprisingly good, though somewhat cracked by age, rang back from down the street as the slender, wiry figure disappeared in the dusk: “Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.” “Is he that sort of a crank?” Jeff exclaimed in a low voice to Mrs. Ware, who sat beside him. “If he is, I don’t care about his coming to Fairmount.” “There’s no harm in Chaddle Wallace,” she responded assuringly. “He isn’t much more than half-witted, and nobody ever takes seriously anything he says or does. But he has this quaint vein of humor, so that people are always glad to see him and hear him talk. He loves music, too, but I don’t suppose he cares at all about the meaning of the words. As for that abolition thing, why, he’s just as likely to break into ‘Dixie’ and sing it with just as much gusto. Oh, no, Jeff, Chad Wallace is a harmless creature!”