The Foothill Spirits Series
The Foothill Spirits – Book Two: Shawnees & Runaway Slaves
by Betty Casbeer Carroll
with illustrations by Jackie Carroll
Copyright 2001, 2005, 2011 by Betty Casbeer Carroll
Smashwords Edition 2011, License Notes:
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to Linda King of Portsmouth, Ohio, born and reared near the rolling foothills that overlook the beautiful Ohio River. Linda enjoys storytelling, loves people, understands their frailties, and demurs from passing judgment. Because of Linda, I know of people I never met, but wished I had.
Part I: The Foothills in the Year 1997
Part II: The Foothills in the Year 1803
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Part I: The Foothills in the Year 1997
Background
Heather Jean spends her summers in the rolling foothills of Southern Ohio with Nana, her great-grandmother, and Uncle Mike, Nana’s grown son. But in 1997, when she was twelve years old, she balked at coming, preferring to stay home near her friends. She lost that battle, leaving her a little on the rebellious side.
Synopsis of Book One: Frontier Life & the Shawnees
Bored and angry, Heather Jean dashes off into the forest behind Nana’s barn after a disagreement with Uncle Mike. An hour later, she finds herself on top of a foothill where she accidentally desecrates the grave of Maggie Sue. In the blink of an eye and one clang of Nana’s dinner bell at exactly 6:00 p.m., her spirit is transported back to the year 1803 when Maggie Sue was herself twelve years old.
Heather Jean’s spirit lives inside Maggie Sue for seven months, observing life on the Ohio frontier the year Ohio became a state. Her spirit can see and hear, and occasionally speak, through Maggie Sue’s eyes, ears, and tongue. Her presence inside Maggie Sue causes outward changes in Maggie Sue’s behavior which neither Maggie Sue nor her parents understand: she can read, even though she has had no schooling; she has visions of things she has never seen, such as TV sets, automobiles, and telephones; she predicts events that will happen, such as slaves being freed and women getting the vote; and she has nightmares, calling out in the night for Nana and Uncle Mike, whom neither she nor anyone else knows.
Maggie Sue is captured one night by a Shawnee tribe after she was bitten by a copperhead in her family’s cornfield. They adopted her, healed her snakebite and taught her their ways. When she learned her family and other squatters had been chased from their homes by the militia, she ran away from the Shawnees and leaving behind her best friend, twelve-year-old Fernleaf. She found her family sick with typhoid fever, and returned to the Shawnees to learn how to heal them.
Because of rumors that she could read and had healed folks of the typhoid, kids began to call her a witch. Then when she became ill herself and died on Halloween near the witching hour, other folks said that was proof, and the rumor spread across the rolling foothills, through its valleys and coves, and eventually crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky.
When Maggie Sue died, Heather Jean’s spirit is released and returns to her unconscious body, lying in wait on Maggie Sue’s grave. She awakens, and remembers nothing of her experience on the Ohio frontier. She reads the inscription on Maggie Sue’s tombstone. Who was Maggie Sue? Why did she feel like she knew her? She looked at her watch. It was nearly one minute past six. She felt like she’d been gone for weeks, maybe months. Yet not even a minute had passed. Why?
Chapter I of Book Two (next page) begins with Heather Jean awakening on the hilltop after her spirit returns.
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Chapter I: The Burial Mound -Summer 1997- 6:01 PM
Heather Jean felt a jolt. Her body jerked, and she opened her eyes, trying to focus. But the sky above was spinning, and her hands were flailing in all directions. She was lying on the ground, and the fading echo from Nana’s dinner bell was ricocheting off the distant foothills. She felt groggy and disoriented. Had she been asleep?
She laid like that until the whirling stopped. Then she glanced around, still flat on her back. A tall rock at her feet jutted up from the ground and towered overhead. She had seen it before, but when? A strawberry vine, ripe with fruit, circled the rock as it wound itself upward. Her mouth watered. She was hungry and her stomach growled so loud that squirrels stopped their chasing and woodpeckers ceased their incessant pecking just to gawk.
Her mind was blank, not comprehending nor even caring, that she was staring at the sky and listening to the echo from Nana’s dinner bell bouncing off the foothills. She looked at her Mickey Mouse watch. It was nearly one minute past six, almost time for the second clang. Why did she feel like she’d been gone for weeks, even months, when not even a minute had passed.?
She didn’t get up right away, but watched the clouds overhead stretch into thin lace patterns and mesh into fluffs of cotton candy. When she heard the second clang of Nana’s dinner bell, loud and demanding, it startled her and jerked her memory open like a scabbed sore.
Images trapped inside her brain flowed out as scrambled and meaningless pictures until she shuffled them in her head like a deck of cards, and put them in logical order:
She was bored listening to Nana talk about the olden days and complained to Uncle Mike, who called her a whiner.
She got angry and ran into the woods, past the centuries-old barn where water trickled beneath its rotting floorboards.
When a thick white substance rolled down and covered the hillside where she had stopped to rest, she scrambled to the top of the hill and grabbed a tall stone for support. She heard the distant clang of Nana‘s dinner bell calling her home to eat and as she started to leave, a cool breeze blew across her face and a girl with flowing blonde hair appeared out of nowhere.
She couldn’t remember what happened next. Was the girl with the flowing hair a ghost? Had she fainted? Is that why she woke up on the ground? She raised up on one elbow and looked closer at the tall rock looming overhead. Yikes! It was a tombstone. She was lying on a grave.
She rolled off immediately, hoping she hadn’t desecrated the spirit lying beneath the dry weeds. “Heather Jean, never stand, sit, or lie on a grave,” Grandma had warned her time and again whenever they visited cemeteries. “Never disturb the dead.” She never told her why, and it sounded so ominous Heather Jean was afraid to ask.
She stood up and saw a name carved in the rock, and rolled it silently across her tongue, then whispered out loud, “Maggie Sue.” A vague memory, a feeling of déjà vu , washed over her. She felt like she knew her. But who was she?
Being curious like she was, Heather Jean peered closer at the inscription. Here lies Maggie Sue Douglas. Born in the Year of our Lord on January 2, 1791. Passed to her Heavenly Reward on October 31, 1803.
Goosebumps ran up her spine and down her arms. She was twelve years old. Her very same age. She even died on Halloween. Ohmygosh! How spooky!
If her grandma was here, they’d make up a story about her. They took outings to cemeteries the way other people go to the lake, and make up stories about the people buried there. Her favorite graves are babies, with angels and cherubs carved on their headstones, even if they do make her cry.
She began to slide, and looked around for something to grab. Uncle Mike taught her to be real careful on the foothills. They were so steep, you could tumble right down to the bottom without even stopping. There was no end of terrible things that could happen. Poisonous snake bites from copperheads, broken bones from jagged rocks, and deep scratches from thorn-covered thistles and underbrush.
To get a better footing, she inched around to the other side of the tombstone, keeping an eye out for copperheads. The word ‘witch’ was scrawled across the back.
She began to shake, and let go of the rock like it was defiled. She grabbed a nearby wisteria vine and pulled herself on to a small knoll covered with moss and strewn with morning glory vines and trumpets of blue, purple, pink and white blossoms. It was shaded by a weeping willow that brushed the ground like a broom with its long fronds, sweeping the mound and Maggie Sue’s grave each time the wind blew.
She caught her breath and turned toward the west. The sun still glowed through the trees, not yet ready to splash the blue sky and the white clouds with its magic brush. She wanted to watch the trumpets close and wait for the evening sunset, but felt too unsettled. A weird feeling was gnawing inside, like she was trying to recall something that kept eluding her.
Her mind was full of sounds that wouldn’t let go, like a melody that stays in your head for days and you can’t get rid of it no matter what. Even when you listen to other songs, it just stays there like a broken record, going around and around, over and over, until it finally stops on its own. But it wasn’t music Heather Jean heard. It was the sound of mothers and children moaning and groaning in agony and the muffled war cries of their fathers with the rhythmic boom, boom of drums in the background.
She placed both hands over her ears, but the noise only became louder. She dropped her hands, one at a time, and listened impatiently until the moans of the past slowly ebbed away. Then she sighed with relief and sat on the edge of the mound, rubbing her fingers across its thick texture.
She pulled off her tennis shoes, shook out the gritty dirt, stood up in her bare feet, and bounced on the green moss like a trampoline. But she barely started when she sensed something nearby and stopped. Was she being watched? The woods were full of bobcats and packs of coyotes. Sometimes at night she could hear them wailing, like a woman crying.
She shuddered, and glanced down at the valley. A thick fog was rolling around the bend toward Nana’s barn like a huge snake wriggling through the woods hunting prey.
It was time to go, to get out of there. She took her first step to leave just as a cool wind blew against the back of her neck. She dropped her shoes, held her breath, and looked around cautiously. A thick fog was rising from the ground. It lifted slightly and a shadowy figure appeared inside. Her throat tightened and she began to perspire. Was it a ghost?
She didn’t make a sound. She just stood there, mesmerized, as a young girl floated out of the moss. Her dark hair blew in the evening breeze and her face glistened from the setting sun. She wore moccasins and a deerskin dress, and her hands reached out toward Heather Jean. She cringed and backed away, terrified, falling off the moss-covered mound into a bed of soft grass.
The girl quickly disappeared, vanishing from sight like a mirage, and taking the fog along with her. Heather Jean got up, moved away from the mound, and started down the steep hillside. She slipped and grabbed a sapling to break her fall, landing in tall weeds near a wooden cross, barely visible under the thick undergrowth. She leaned forward for a closer look. Could it be another grave? A tiny warning inside her head told her to ignore it. Go home. But her curiosity got the better of her as she tiptoed to the site in her bare feet. As she moved closer, she could read the name and date carved into the wood: Harriet Jane Douglas 1846–1858. She shivered. She was only twelve. Her age. Maggie Sue’s age. Was that her spirit she just saw?
Heather Jean nearly lost her balance again. Now she knew why Uncle Mike told her not to climb these hills. If only she had listened. She circled around to the other side where the land was flatter and she could get a better footing. The weeds came up to her kneecaps, so she didn’t discover the other three graves immediately. They were nestled among dry weeds and sun-blistered ferns. When she did see them, she choked on her own spit. Standing real still, she stared down at the wooden crosses, took a deep breath to control her emotions, then read the inscriptions carved on their markers:
Amy Kwan Douglas: 1873–1885
Isabel Pia Douglas:1903–1915
Naomi Ruth Douglas: 1925–1937
She slowly calculated their ages, one at a time. Holy mackeral! They were all twelve years old. Her knees buckled and she collapsed on the hard ground, stunned.
Did Nana know she had a whole cemetery of dead twelve-year-old girls on the top of her foothill? She figured Uncle Mike knew, but never said. He could’ve warned her. Of course, he did tell her not to climb up there. Heather Jean made no effort to get back on her feet right away, but sat there thinking. It occurred to her if Uncle Mike didn’t know about these graves, she might be the only person alive who did. What an awesome thought!
She was getting spooked. She inched back to the mound where she left her shoes. She sat down, pulled them on, and tied the strings.
The second clang was already fading into the distant foothills. Nana would ring the bell four more times, just like a clock chime, one minute apart for each hour of the day.
But she never heard the other ones, at least not then. A cool breeze blew against the back of her neck. She shivered, glanced at the setting sun, and decided she had procrastinated long enough. But she waited too long. The summer breeze blew her a warning: she was standing on sacred land; the moss-covered ground was a Shawnee burial mound.
“But I didn’t know,” she whispered to the wind as the girl in the deerskin dress reappeared, floating toward her, with hands extended, beckoning. She tried to get off the sacred mound so the girl would leave, go back into the earth. But her feet wouldn’t budge. She was too spooked to move.
She wished she was walking on the trail where she belonged and not on top of this hill. She could be naming trees and wildflowers and birds that lived in the forest like Uncle Mike taught her. It no longer sounded boring. It might even be fun.
But it wasn’t going to happen. In the next instant, her soulless body collapsed on the moss-covered earth and her spirit just floated away.
“Come back,” she called to her spirit. And to appease it, she named every wildflower that grew on the foothills: violets, lilies, asters, jewel weeds, red clovers, irises, butterfly weed, bloodroot, trillium, black-eyed susans, ferns.
It did no good. Her body could no longer move. She lay half-conscious on sacred land overlooking Maggie Sue’s grave, shaded by a weeping willow that swept the hilltop with the blowing of the wind.
Her spirit began to spin like a merry-go-round, moving faster and faster. Images flashed like clip art on a computer screen over her still body:
Shawnees moved to the Ohio Valley, building villages, planting maize and barley, beans and pumpkins, and sharing the land with nature and other tribes.
Then white settlers came and chopped down forests, killed off game and burned their villages.
Shawnees struggled to keep their ancestral hunting grounds by fighting the intruders. But other tribes signed a treaty that gave them land where they would be sovereign for perpetuity, called Indian Territory.
Soon white settlers coveted the treaty land and squatted there, also. So the Great White Father took back the territory that was promised forever and moved the tribes to smaller plots, called reservations.
Eventually the swirling ceased and so did the imagery. Then like a bolt of lightning flashing across the sky, Heather Jean’s spirit entered the body of a young girl standing on a hilltop next to a tall stone covered in strawberries. Her dark hair blew in the evening breeze and her face glistened from the setting sun. She wore moccasins and a deerskin dress.
Her name was Morning Glory. And she was twelve years old.
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Part II: The Foothills in the Year 1832
Chapter II: Maggie Sue’s Gravesite-Spring 1832
Morning Glory felt a slight jolt. She swayed and dropped to the ground.
“Morning Glory, are you all right?”
The question startled her. She felt dizzy and looked up at the woman standing next to her. For a moment she seemed like a stranger. She was dressed in buckskin with wavy, black hair that had been unbraided and blew in the wind.
Her mind cleared, and she recalled climbing up the steep foothill with her mama, sure they would never get to the top, as they grabbed thickets of underbrush and curving vines that wound around the taller trees. No wonder she felt so tired and confused.
Her mama asked again, “Morning Glory, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“Yes, Mama,” she answered, getting back up. “I got dizzy for a minute.”
“You were swaying,” she said. “I thought you were going to faint.”
“I’m all right Mama.” She looked at the headstone jutting up from the ground, from the grave of her papa’s sister and friend of her mama’s older sister a long time ago.
Morning Glory recognized the name carved on the tombstone and her tongue began saying the Paleface words out loud, “Here lies Maggie Sue Douglas. Born in the Year of our Lord on January 2, 1791. Passed to her Heavenly ...”
Her mama grabbed her arm before she could finish and began shaking her. “Morning Glory,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Mama, you’re hurting me,” she said, trying to pull from her grasp.
Her mama tightened her hold. “I heard you. I heard you,” she said over and over.
“Mama, please. It hurts.”
“Tell me how you did that?”
“What?”
“You read the words. How did you do that?” She let loose of Morning Glory’s arm, and touched her lightly on her face, caressing it with her fingertips.
“Mama, I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. How did she do it? She’d had no schooling. No one had taught her. Her knees began to tremble.
“Morning Glory, I heard you read the words. I heard you.”
“My tongue said the words,” Morning Glory whispered, unable to explain how she could read.
“I heard you. I heard you,” her mama said over and over. Her dark eyes flashed as she spoke, and her nostrils widened like a frightened animal. She looked down at Maggie Sue’s grave. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I thought you were old enough.”
“Mama, I’m not afraid,” Morning Glory answered. But she was.
“I am,” her mama responded. “Something’s wrong. I’m scared.”
“Why?” she asked. Morning Glory could feel her mama’s terror, and it began to grow inside her.
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Because my tongue said the words?”
“Because you read the words,” her mama said without further explanation. She took her child’s hand. “We must leave. Come.”
Morning Glory didn’t want to go home. She had begged her mama for years to bring her to Maggie Sue’s grave. And her mama had kept her promise to bring her after her twelfth summer. That time had arrived. She had waited long enough.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I’m not afraid.” But she was. It took all her strength to stand on her trembling legs and pretend to be brave.
“Morning Glory,” her mama replied, pronouncing her name very slowly, emphasizing each syllable. “We must leave. Now.”
She pulled away from her mama, and grabbed Maggie Sue’s headstone to steady her balance. This wasn’t how she dreamed her first visit would be. “Mama, please. Let’s stay,” she implored. “I didn’t read the words.” She knew the way her mama was acting, she would never bring her back. “Tell me about Maggie Sue and Aunt Fernleaf.”
While other Shawnee children listened to tales about Tecumseh, or ancestors like the Wise One who lived 110 winters, Morning Glory was told bedtime stories of Maggie Sue. She referred to them as The Tales of Maggie Sue because she’d heard them so often. Even the old settlers near Portsmouth still talked about Maggie Sue like it was only yesterday, and passed her legend to their own children. Some of the hill folks claimed she was a witch. They said because she died on Halloween proved it was true. But her mama insisted she wasn’t.
“Morning Glory, your papa will hear of this.”
“Don’t tell Papa. Please, Mama.”
“Then come. Right now.”
“Please, Mama. Tell me about Maggie Sue. I climbed all the way up here.”
Her mama threw up her arms. “Okay, Morning Glory. But your papa will still hear of this.” They sat down next to Maggie Sue’s headstone and her mama started the story she had heard so many times before. Her dark eyes grew large with anticipation as her mama began talking in their native tongue:
“One morning my big sister, Fernleaf, woke up to see a Paleface her age lying on a mat nearby, sick and maybe dying, from a copperhead bite. She had long, yellow hair that was nearly white, and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. She was very sick for one moon, but soon became strong and learned the ways of the Shawnees. In no time, she was using our talk and sign language. Then she taught my sister her talk, and they became best friends.
“I was still a papoose strapped into my cradleboard when Maggie Sue lived with us. I was told many times when I was little that Maggie Sue was the first person to make me laugh, so I have this mental picture of her making a face at me while I gurgled back. Her face is fuzzy except for the blue eyes and the yellow-white hair that hung down her back and blew with the wind. I was told I loved to pull her hair.
“Maggie Sue thought the Shawnee elders were trying to marry her off to Copperhead Hunter, who was sixteen at the time. She would hide whenever Copperhead was nearby, and everyone would laugh. No one ever told Maggie Sue that my mama and Copperhead’s mama had their eyes on Copperhead for Fernleaf.
“Then one day Maggie Sue ran away. She heard that the troops from Fort Recovery had chased off the squatters and burned down their houses. She found her ma and pa, her little sister Myrtle Ann, and her two brothers outside Portsmouth with the other squatters. Her ma and pa are now your Grandpa Adhamh and Grandma Margaret. Her sister Myrtle Ann is your Aunt Myrtie, and one of her brothers is your Uncle Joe. And the other brother, Johnny, is my dear husband and your sweet papa. When I married your papa, her family and ours became one. If Maggie Sue had lived, she would be your Aunt Maggie today.
“The squatters were sick with the typhoid when Maggie Sue found them living in makeshift shacks outside Portsmouth, including her sister Myrtle Ann, her ma and her two little brothers. She healed them with herbs that the Shawnee medicine man, the Wise One, taught her to use. Shortly after she healed folks of the typhoid, she was called a witch.
“Then Maggie Sue got the typhoid herself and couldn’t be saved. She died near midnight on Halloween in the year 1803. Because she died on Halloween, the people who called her a witch said that was proof.
“Maggie Sue left many dark secrets that still haunt her family, even though she’s been gone for twenty-nine winters. Why did she have visions? How did she know how to read? How did she heal the sick? Who were the people she called in her sleep? These questions frightened her ma and pa before she died, and added to their grief afterwards because then they would never understand. Did she have supernatural powers? And if she did, would that make her a witch?
“Her family visit her resting place every year after the snows melt and the wildflowers are in bloom on the hilltop where she’s buried. They all go together except for her pa. Your Grandma Margaret thinks he goes alone so he can cry. Your Grandpa Adhamh was never much for crying in front of people.
“I was a baby and too young to actually remember Maggie Sue myself, but the stories how she adored me reached inside my heart. I love her as much as anyone.”
When Rosebud finished her story, she began to cry and touched the tombstone with tears flowing down her face. Morning Glory hugged her mama and began to sob herself.
They traveled down the hill in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Morning Glory pondered the same question that haunted her mama. How did she read the words on Maggie Sue’s tombstone? What did it mean?
And when they arrived home, her mama forgot to tell her papa she had been disrespectful, like Morning Glory was hoping.
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Chapter III: A Light in the Window
Whispers from the kitchen floated into the room where Morning Glory slept next to Yellow Tulip. Her little sister was awakened by the voices, but turned over on her stomach, right back to sleep.
Morning Glory listened for a moment, then slid off her mat and crawled across the floor to the door. Not that she had far to go. The room was barely big enough for the two sleeping mats that laid side by side under an uncurtained window that let in moonlight on cloudless nights.
She placed her head near the wall to listen, careful not to lean too close. How would she explain a splinter in her ear?
The words from the kitchen were in Paleface talk, which her papa taught her when she was just a toddler. She used her own talk when her papa was gone. Her mama said it was important that her children not forget their own tongue.
“A wagon of potatoes is comin’ just before sunup.”
Morning Glory recognized her Aunt Myrtie’s high-pitched twang. She was Maggie Sue’s little sister, and only nine winters when Maggie Sue died from the typhoid. Maggie Sue thought her little sister was spoiled, which Aunt Myrtie agreed was true at the time. But after Maggie Sue died she had to do all the chores her older sister did: look after her younger brothers, Johnny and Joe; help her ma hoe the garden, scrub clothes on a washboard, and cook in the fireplace. She became unspoiled in a hurry.
“I’ll just look around a bit before we light the candle,” her papa said.
Morning Glory knew their house was a refuge for slaves that run away, and her pa only lit the candle in the window after he was sure slave catchers weren’t lurking in the nearby woods. Her mama would feed the fugitives a hot meal and give them clean clothes before her papa hid them in the root cellar or in her grandpa’s barn. They would hide until her papa’s brother Joe took them to the next town in his wagon, to another safe house like her mama and papa‘s. After that, the runaways would travel from one safe house to the next until they reached Canada. If they stayed in Ohio, they might get caught and taken back to their masters, or worse, sold down the river.
Morning Glory heard that being sold down the river frightened even the toughest slaves. It meant going down the Mississippi River to the huge cotton plantations in the deep South with long hours in the hottest weather from sunup to sundown year around. Morning Glory learned everything from listening behind the kitchen door when her mama and papa thought she was on her mat sound asleep.
“They’re comin’ from Ripley.”
She recognized her Grandma Margaret’s soft voice. She was her papa’s ma, and Maggie Sue’s ma a long time ago. Her grandma still had the dream catcher that Maggie Sue brought from the sycamore trees after she left the Shawnees, the friendship beads from her best friend Fernleaf, and the tiny book Nancy Marshall gave her just before she died. She promised Morning Glory the beads when she got married. But Morning Glory wanted the dream catcher, where Maggie Sue’s dreams were trapped. If she untrapped them, maybe she would learn if Maggie Sue really was a witch, like folks say.
“You say there’s two runaways?” her papa asked.
“With a tiny baby,” his sister Myrtle Ann answered. “She was born on the trip.”
Morning Glory’s heart skipped a beat. A newborn baby. She could hardly wait.
“That makes three, then,” her papa responded.
“That’s what we heard.”
“Is John Rankin really coming, too?” her mama asked.
Morning Glory’s heart jumped a second time. John Rankin. She crawled back to her mat, shaking with excitement. John Rankin was coming. She just had to meet him. John Rankin himself at her house. Right here where she could see him and say hello.
“Yellow Tulip,” she called to her sister. “Wake up.”
Yellow Tulip sighed and rolled on her side. Beams of light shone on her oval face as dark clouds momentarily moved and the full moon lit up the room. She opened her eyes, and blinked at the intrusion.
“What?” she whined. The moonlight that streamed in just moments earlier was blocked by moving clouds, and her face disappeared into the dark.
“Yellow Tulip,” Morning Glory said to the darkness. “I have to tell you something.” She wasn’t in the habit of confiding in her sister, but felt like she would go absolutely loco if she didn’t tell someone.
“You do?” she asked, as though this was a normal exchange between them. Yellow Tulip was their mama’s last baby, and Morning Glory thought she still acted like one. When she was eight winters like her little sister, she helped her mama in the garden, and was learning the ways of their people. Her sister was just too spoiled in her opinion. But Morning Glory forgot all that for the moment.
“Yes. Yes.” Morning Glory answered. “You won’t ever believe this.”
“What?”
“John Rankin is bringing a wagon of potatoes. Tonight.”
“We already have potatoes.”
“No, Yellow Tulip. Not really potatoes. That’s just what they say when they bring slaves that run away.”
“So.”
“Yellow Tulip, it’s the John Rankin. He’s a Paleface preacher. Don’t you want to meet him?”
“Why?”
Morning Glory was ready to explode with excitement, and Yellow Tulip lay there saying the stupidest things. “Never mind. Go back to sleep.”
Morning Glory barely got the words off her tongue when Yellow Tulip groaned and turned over on her stomach. Morning Glory crawled to the kitchen door again and before she could change her mind, she stood up, opened the door, and stepped inside the kitchen.
Her papa turned around and looked at Morning Glory. “Gloria,” he said, using her Paleface name. “What are you doin’ up?”
“Morning Glory,” her mama interrupted. “Go back to sleep.”
Morning Glory stood quietly at the door, and looked around the room. Shadows flickered from an oil lamp on the table where her Aunt Myrtie and Grandma Margaret sat on the bench across from her papa. Her mama stood by the wood stove, pouring hot tea into pottery cups.
“Hello Aunt Myrtie,” she said to her papa’s sister, then to his ma, “Hello Grandma Margaret.”
Her papa broke in before they could answer. “Gloria, get back to your mat.”
“Papa, let me stay up. Please,” she pleaded. She had to be brave and speak up or lose her only chance to meet John Rankin. Or it seemed that way at the time, like it was now or never.
“Morning Glory,” her mama said as she slowly stretched her name to get her undivided attention. “Your papa has spoken.”
“I want to help,” she answered softly.
Her mama looked at her papa with her mouth open, like she meant to speak but couldn’t find the right words. Her oldest child was openly disobedient, right in front of her grandma and aunt. Intolerable behavior.
“I want to help,” she said again, only louder this time. Her mama took one step forward and wrinkled her brow to show her displeasure. Morning Glory flinched and looked down at her bare feet. But she didn’t back down, like she’d been raised when her parents spoke. She felt a kind of tugging inside, like her guardian angel was egging her on, telling her to stand firm. “Please let me,” she whispered, without looking up.
“Gloria, why do you talk to your feet?” her papa asked somberly, while his blue eyes sparkled with amusement.
She put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile and mumbled, “I don’t know, Papa.” She looked up to see him grinning. He chuckled and put his arms out, the tension gone.
“Come here, Gloria,” he said. He looked down at her feet. “If you’d wear your moccasins I wouldn’t have to pull out splinters and listen to you yell.”
She climbed on his lap. “I know, Papa. Puncheon floors weren’t made for barefeet.”
He lifted both legs up and looked under her soles. “Oh-oh, here’s one,” he said, pulling out an imaginary sliver. “Next time you kin pull out your own splinters,” he added.
Morning Glory glanced around cautiously. A small smile at the corners of her mama’s mouth had replaced the frown. Her papa had once again ruptured the stress with his playfulness, and she was back in friendly territory. She took a deep breath, and announced, “I want to meet John Rankin.”
Grandma Margaret shuffled her feet like grownups do when they aren’t comfortable, and sipped her tea with little slurping sounds. She thought her son was too lenient with her Shawnee grandchildren, and though never averse to speaking out, she kept her silence. But moments later, she placed her cup on the table and began tapping it with her fingers, like she might yet say her peace.
“Why do you want to meet John Rankin?” her papa asked.
Morning Glory looked at her papa before she answered. He sounded just like Yellow Tulip, his precious little darling. She asked “Why? Why?” all day long. She was still ready to explode at the thought of John Rankin coming to their house, and her own papa was asking, “Why?” She wondered if anyone in the whole world understood anything at all. “Because he’s famous,” she replied impatiently.
“And you think a famous man like John Rankin has time for a little Shawnee girl who disobeys her papa?” he asked.
“Oh, Papa,” she begged. “I must meet him. Please.”
Her mama interrupted them. “Who said he’s coming?”
“Mama, I heard you talking.”
Her papa lifted Morning Glory off his lap and stood her on the floor. “Look at her, Rosie. She’s gonna be a young lady real soon. A beautiful one, too.”
“No, Johnny,” her mama answered. “She hasn’t gone to the moon hut yet. Morning Glory is still a child.”
She hated when her mama talked about the moon hut with her papa. “I won’t go there. Not ever.”
“Gloria. Respect your mama.”
“I’m sorry, Mama.” She didn’t look at her papa. She knew he was displeased. But her Paleface cousins Mattie and Margo didn’t have to go to the women’s hut like they were contaminated. Her mama even told her she hated the hut and would be glad when Nature no longer required her to go.
Morning Glory glanced at her mama. She was stirring her tea, looking around the room with her mouth stretched tight. Mama. Mama. She called out in her head. You won’t make me go when my time comes. Please Mama. I know you won’t.
Her Grandma Margaret decided it was time to speak up. She told her son, in her slow, soft way, “Johnny, you need to put the light in the window before Mr. Rankin gets here.”
“It kin wait awhile,” her son replied, and trying not to be disrespectful to his ma, he added, “Let’s hear what Gloria wants first.”
“If Morning Glory stays up, she must never speak of this to anyone,” her mama said. “She must hold her tongue, and keep what she knows tight inside her chest.”
“Of course,” her papa answered. “I will tell her.” He looked at Morning Glory and winked.
Morning Glory could barely contain her excitement. She was going to meet John Rankin this very night. She nearly passed out right there in front of everyone. Her papa lifted her back on his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear, “Thank you Papa.”
“What you see tonight you kin never tell nobody,” he said. “Not even Yellow Tulip. Understand?”
She nodded. She already knew her papa and mama hid runaways in the root cellar or in her grandpa’s barn. Even her grandpa didn’t know that. Her grandma said he wouldn’t like it, and she hated to fight with him because he was stubborn and set in his ways. And she knew Uncle Joe helped slaves get to other safe places. She knew everything just listening behind the kitchen door. And she never once told Yellow Tulip until tonight.
Her papa continued, “Slaves that run away are fugitives. Their masters pay huge rewards to get them tracked down.”
“Slave catchers are tough,” her mama added. “They have guns and use buckskin whips to capture runaways.”
“And bloodhounds,” her papa said. “Bloodhounds tear the flesh off fugitives who won’t give up.”
“If they come to a state like Ohio, they’re still not free. They kin still be sent back to their masters,” her Aunt Myrtie added.
“In Virginy, where your Grandpa and I lived before your papa was born, they’d cut the ears off slaves that run away,” said her Grandma Margaret. “It was plumb awful.” She moved her head back and forth, and closed her eyes like she was trying to put the picture out of her mind. “Plumb awful,” she said again. Her grandma had this habit of repeating herself when she spoke, like she was afraid no one heard her the first time.
“Ugh.” Morning Glory covered her ears with both hands. “Did it hurt bad?”
“I’m sure it did,” her papa answered. “I heard in South Carolina they kin kill slaves for runnin’ away.”
“Are they killed in Ohio?”
“Ohio don’t allow it,” her papa answered. “But they get torn up by bloodhounds.”
“Do they get killed?”
“I expect they do,” her papa answered.
“Johnny, that’s enough,” his wife said. “You’ll give Gloria bad dreams.”
He looked at his wife and commented, “What are dream catchers for? Won’t they catch her bad dreams?”
She ignored his comment. “No more talk,” she said firmly. “Morning Glory will know more someday. Not now.”
“Mama, I want to know now.”
“No, Morning Glory. You’ve heard enough.”
Morning Glory nodded. Besides, she already knew from listening behind the kitchen door.
“Now get some sleep. I’ll wake you when Mr. Rankin gets here.”
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Chapter IV: The Flood of 1832
John Rankin never came that night. Morning Glory’s sleep was fitful and when the sun rose over the foothills, bringing daylight to the darkness, she dressed, opened the kitchen door slowly, and peeked inside to get a glimpse of him. But all she saw was her papa and mama.
Her papa was sipping hot tea and reading from the Portsmouth Courier, and her mama was sitting across the table, listening.
“The new toll bridge fell into the Scioto River,” he said, looking up from his newspaper. “The flood waters just washed it away.”
“The Scioto Bridge?” her mama asked. “The one you worked on last year?”
“Same one,” her papa answered.
Morning Glory opened the door wider and walked in. “Papa,” she whispered, looking around for Mr. Rankin. “Is he here?”
Her papa greeted Morning Glory with a broad smile. “Gloria, you’re up early,” he said, holding out his arms.“The slaves didn’t get here. There’s been a flood.”
Morning Glory crawled on her papa’s lap and looked around the room. “He didn’t come?” she asked again, just to be sure.
“No, Gloria. He didn’t come,” her papa answered. He looked down at her feet. “Where are your moccasins?”
Morning Glory pulled her barefeet under the chair. “Where’s the flood at?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“The Kiskepila Sepe is flooded. The waters will go down in a few days,” her mama said. She smiled at her oldest daughter, the child her mama said looked just like her when she was twelve winters. Was she ever that pretty?
“The Ohio River is flooded?” she asked, saying the name her papa used. Her mama’s Shawnee tribe called the river Kiskepila Sepe, after the eagles found along the river. But the Palefaces preferred the name used by the Wyandot Indians “O-he-uh” which they pronounced Ohio and which Morning Glory liked to say as a reminder to her mama she was also a Paleface like her papa.
“Yes, it is. The waters are real swift right now. And full of logs and tree limbs. No place for a raft or boat to be,” her papa explained.
“But you promised,” she answered.
“Be patient, Gloria. Mr. Rankin will get here soon.”
“Then tell me about Mr. Rankin’s house,” said Morning Glory. She never tired of hearing her papa describe the Rankin’s home, with its stairs rising from the alleys of Ripley up the hill right to their front door. Visitors could sit on their porch and watch the Ohio River flowing below. And when the humidity was high, clouds of mist would float above the winding waterway. She wished she could go to Ripley and see it all for herself.
She closed her eyes as her papa was speaking, envisioning runaway slaves paddling their rafts across the river from Kentucky through misty clouds, banking near Ripley, then running to the alley and climbing the stairs right up to the Rankin’s hilltop porch. She could see Mr. Rankin and his wife Jane open the front door with big smiles, rush the slaves inside, give them clean clothes, feed them warm stew, and take them to the barn where they hid in a secret cellar below the hay mound.
When her papa finished, Morning Glory opened her eyes and the images disappeared. “Gloria, I have to work today. We’ll talk when I get back,” he said.
“When?” she asked.
“Depends. I reckon I’ll be working at the flood with your Uncle Joe,” he answered. “I might be gone a day or two, unless we get sent back to the canal.”
“Don’t you know?” she asked. She hated her papa’s job. He was gone for days, sometimes weeks. When they finished the canal in October, he promised to farm again with her grandpa.
“Morning Glory, stop pestering your papa. He has to work.”
“He could hunt with Uncle Copperhead. He doesn’t work.”
Her papa laughed, and pushed the hair off her forehead, like he wanted to get a closer look. His hands were rough and calloused, and she gritted her teeth every time he did that. “Gloria, we would go hungry. I wasn’t raised to hunt like a Shawnee. I’m a Paleface.”
“Then you could farm like Grandpa Adhamh.”
“I help my pa. You know that. Why all the questions?”
“I want you to stay home and tell me stories,” she answered.
He lifted her off the floor and placed her on the bench next to her mama. “Time to go,” he said, grabbing his jacket off a hook near the door. Waving as he left, he added, “Don’t forget to put on your moccasins.”
Morning Glory ran to the window and watched him hurry through the underbrush toward her Uncle Joe’s house, where her Paleface cousins Melissa Marie and Jackson lived. They owned a large cabin next to her grandpa and grandma’s two-story clapboard house, where the land was flat and near the road that went to Portsmouth. It wasn’t hidden away in a dark forest that even the sunlight had a hard time finding, especially in the summer when the undergrowth was thick with leaves and berries.
Yellow Tulip ran out of the forest toward their papa, calling, “Papa. Papa.”
He stopped, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. “Mama, Yellow Tulip stopped Papa,” Morning Glory yelled. “She never lets Papa alone. Papa has to work.” She stayed at the window until her papa disappeared into the dark forest that camouflaged their cabin from the outside world. He was so small he looked like one of the elves in her Grandpa Adhamh’s picture book from Ireland.
Her mama poured Morning Glory a cup of tea. “Come sit, Morning Glory,” she said. “Your papa will be home in a few days. He can’t work on the canal while the rivers are flooded.”
“Will you tell me stories?” she asked.
“I will tell you about Shawnees,” her mama replied. “But you only like Paleface stories.”
“Mama, that’s not so.” But she knew it was. She yearned to be a Paleface like her cousins: so she didn’t have to hide in the forest; so she could go to school in Portsmouth; so she could go places and feel like a normal girl.
“Tell me about Maggie Sue,” she persisted.
“She was a Paleface,” her mama replied.
Her tongue thickened from frustration. She took a deep breath, and tried again. “Tell me about Aunt Fernleaf and her best friend. She’s Shawnee.”
Her mama got up from the table. “No more talk about Maggie Sue or Fernleaf,” she said quietly. “No more.”
“But, Mama,” she replied. “You always talk about them.”
“No more,” she insisted. “No more.” She walked to the window and stared at the dark forest that lay between them and the open farmland that belonged to her husband’s family. The forest was darker than she’d ever seen it. It had never frightened her before. She shuddered, and her pores filled with sweat.
Morning Glory remained at the table, and picked up the Portsmouth Courier. A sketch of the toll bridge and the flood covered half the front page. The bridge that washed from the Scioto River into the mouth of the Ohio was only partly visible in the raging waters as it floated downstream with barns, tree limbs, fences, and houses.
Morning Glory stared at the picture of destruction as her tongue read the headlines out loud, “New Toll Bridge Destroyed by Raging Waters.” She nearly bit her tongue after the words came out. How did she do that? How could she read the Paleface words?
Her mama jerked around like she’d been shot from a bow. “Morning Glory, no,” she shouted, holding the window sill to keep from falling.
“Mama. Mama,” Morning Glory shouted, running to the window and grabbing her around the waist.
“This can’t be,” her mama cried. “Not again. No, Morning Glory. This can’t be happening.”
“Mama, don’t cry,” she begged.
“Never speak of this to anyone, Morning Glory. Promise me. Now.”
“Yes, Mama,” she answered. “I won’t speak of this to anyone. Ever.” How could she say her tongue speaks the Paleface words that she can’t even read?
Her mama pulled Morning Glory on her lap just like her papa, and hugged her as she rocked back and forth. “My poor baby,” she said, singing it over and over again. “They’ll call you a witch, Morning Glory. Just like they did Maggie Sue, a long, long time ago.”
####
Chapter V: The Fugitive Slaves
The flood waters subsided after a couple of days. Morning Glory’s papa and her Uncle Joe returned to their jobs on the Ohio Canal. Life in the foothills continued as before, except now when her papa brought home the Portsmouth Courier, her mama threw it in the fireplace after he was through reading. Morning Glory would sit across from her papa and look at the words on the back while he read the front. Then when he turned the pages and read the back, she would look at the words on the front. She learned how to say the words in her head without using her tongue. Her mama watched her, but never said anything. But she had that worried look on her face that made Morning Glory think she was doing something bad.
One day, Morning Glory saw the headline words: Ship Fever Brought from England. She asked her papa, “What’s ship fever?”
He folded the newspaper and placed it flat on the table. “Gloria, you’re so curious. Your mind is so hungry.”
Morning Glory smiled at her papa. He understood her. He knew she wanted to know everything. “So what is it?”
“Nothing you want to get. It’s worse than typhoid. You throw up and get terrible cramps,” he answered.
“Will you die?”
“You could.” Then he added, “Your lungs get congested. You kin die from exhaustion.”
She was getting scared. “How do you get it?”
“Drinking infected water that’s dirty,” he answered. “Doctors call it cholera.”
Her papa used a lot of big words, even though he only got enough schooling to read and write a little. His Pa had to pay for his schooling and he only went three months each year. He said he learned big words reading the Portsmouth Courier and other newspapers.
“What’s infectious?” she asked.
Her papa reached across the table and pulled one of her braids and smiled, “What’s this? What’s that?” he said. “How many questions kin you hold in that pretty head?”
But this was how Morning Glory learned about life outside the forest where she was confined with her mama, her sister Yellow Tulip, and her brother Running Wolf. She loved the woods, the trees, the birds, and the wildlife, but still felt imprisoned. Her mama said she was just like her papa, because they were both curious about things, except he’s a Paleface and she’s a Shawnee. She cringed when her mama said that, forgetting she’s half Paleface.
Sometimes her papa would read the newspaper out loud after she had already watched the words on the back. One day, he read about a big revival that was coming to Portsmouth. Charles Finney, the famous Presbyterian minister, was going to preach. He said folks should help free the slaves. He also preached that menfolk shouldn’t drink so much corn whiskey and rum, and that education should be free to all children. That’s the part that got Morning Glory’s attention because her papa didn’t drink corn whiskey very often and he already helped runaway slaves get to Canada.
“Papa, can I go to the schoolhouse when it gets free?”
“There you go again,” he said, pulling her braid.
“Can I?” she persisted.
Her papa put the paper down and looked at Morning Glory. “Joe and Mary Jane are goin’ with me to the revival in Portsmouth. They want you to take care of Jack and Lisa while we’re gone.”
Morning Glory wanted to cry. It didn’t seem fair she couldn’t go. She was half Paleface and had a right to learn about the Paleface religion. Besides that, she wanted to ask Mr. Finney herself if she could go to school when it gets free.
“Papa, I’m tired,” she said, leaving the kitchen before tears began flowing down her cheeks. She went to her sleeping room, and felt under her mat for The Liberator, an antislavery paper printed by William Lloyd Garrison that her papa brought home the previous day. She sighed. It was still there, safe. Her mama hadn’t found it. The paper included John Rankin’s Letters on Slavery that she planned to read when her mama was outside hoeing in the garden; Yellow Tulip was in the woods chasing frogs and chipmunks; and Running Wolf was hunting deer and elk with Uncle Copperhead.
Morning Glory cried until she fell asleep, then dreamed both Mr. Finney and Mr. Rankin came to see her, like they were old friends. She knew her dream catcher caught the dream in its web when it came true that very night.
Her papa came in, leaned down, and gently shook her shoulder. “Gloria, get up,” he whispered. “I got a surprise for you.”
She struggled to wake from her deep sleep. “Huh-h,” was all she could muster.
“John Rankin is here,” he said, shaking her harder.
She bolted awake immediately. “Oh, Papa,” she whispered. John Rankin. Here in her house.
Her heart pounded in her head like it had left her chest, and her legs felt like they would collapse before she got to the kitchen. She stood at the door and stared at the floor. The table was crowded with strangers and a tiny baby bundled in a shabby blanket.
“John Rankin, this is my daughter Morning Glory,” her papa said with obvious pride. He rarely used her Shawnee name. Then to the other Paleface, he said the same thing. “Charles Finney, this is my daughter Morning Glory.”
She was too nervous to look up. She wanted to say hello, but couldn’t speak. She tried nodding her head, but it wouldn’t move. She tried to walk, but her feet stuck to the floor. She tried to focus, but the faces in the room were all blurred. Where was her mama? She began to sway, but her papa caught her before she fell. He lifted her up and sat down at the table with Morning Glory on his lap.
“Soon Gloria will be too big to sit on her papa’s lap,” he said, laughing. He squeezed her arm and she began to relax. “Say hello to Mr. Rankin,” he coaxed.
She hid her face in his shoulder. She still couldn’t speak. She was so embarrassed.
“Let her be,” Mr. Finney said. “She just woke up. She can say hello later.”
“Let me introduce our guests,” said Mr. Rankin, as he motioned toward the three people who were quietly watching. “Morning Glory, this is Benjamin Franklin Templeton.”
Morning Glory couldn’t believe it. She knew all about Benjamin Franklin Templeton. She was so excited her voice returned. “You live with Mr. Rankin,” she blurted, which sounded really dumb after she said it, like he didn’t know where he lived. She read all abut him in the Portsmouth Courier. He was the first freed slave to attend Ripley College. Franklin Shaw beat him up and left him unconscious in an alley in Ripley, so the college sent him to live with Mr. Rankin where he would be safe, and Mr. Rankin could tutor him in his studies. And now he was here, sitting across the table from her this very minute.
Mr. Templeton smiled, and said hello. He seemed amused.
“You’re right. He lives with me,” Mr. Rankin said. He then introduced the two slaves, “Morning Glory, please meet Thomas Jefferson Johnson and Melinda Johnson from Kentucky. Their baby’s called Alice Marie.”
The tiny baby blinked her eyes and began whimpering. The infant’s father took her from his wife, placed her head on his shoulder, and patted her back until she hushed.
“Can I hold your baby?” Morning Glory asked after she quieted down.
He got up from the table without a word, and placed his tiny daughter in her arms. Morning Glory rubbed her black hair with her fingertips. “She’s so tiny.”
“Four days,” he responded.
Morning Glory rocked her back and forth until her eyes closed, and held her the rest of the evening while her mama warmed soup and sliced bread for their guests. Pure joy she rarely felt filled her heart as she held the tiny slave child.
“Was she born in Ohio?” she asked, still stroking the infant’s hair. It felt soft and springy to her touch.
“In Ripley,” Mr. Rankin said proudly, like the baby was his own. “My wife Jane delivered her.”
“Is she free?” Morning Glory asked.
“Good question,” answered Mr. Rankin. He knew what she meant. If a child of slaves is born in a free state, is the child free?
“Children born of slaves belong to the master who owns the mother,” said Mr. Finney.
“But it’s a good question, Morning Glory,” Mr. Templeton added. “Wouldn‘t you say so, John?”
“I don’t make the laws, nor do I enforce them. But in the eyes of God and the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal, ” Mr. Rankin answered.
“But she’s a girl,” Morning Glory responded. Her papa tightened his grip on her arms. “Is she equal in the eyes of the Paleface God?”
“Well, Morning Glory,” Mr. Rankin responded. “You are a most tenacious young lady.”
“Johnny, you have a very extraordinary daughter,” Mr. Finney added.
Her papa laughed slightly as he cleared his throat. “She keeps me thinkin’ with all her questions.”
Morning Glory continued to ask about other things, like her tongue was out of control. “Are women equal in your heaven?” she asked, looking from one man to the other. “Does the Paleface God free slaves when they die?”
“Whoa. One question at a time,” said Mr. Templeton. “One minute you can’t talk and the next you can’t stop.” Turning to Mr. Rankin he said, “What about that John? Will God free the slaves when they get to heaven? Will women get equality?”
“I’ll have to think on that,” Mr. Rankin answered, raising an eyebrow and glancing around the table. The question caught him off guard, and he was looking for support. But the flickering from the whale-oil lamp made it difficult to read their faces, a skill in which he took great pride. But all he saw were blinking eyes that kept time with the shimmering light.
“Perhaps God wants us to handle these matters here on earth before we get to heaven,” Mr. Finney suggested. “The Book of Exodus, Chapter 21, Verse 16 speaks to slavery. It says: He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he has found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”