A woman apparently thirty years of age, of mulatto skin, fell limp into a chair in the kitchen of Mrs. Oliver Schofield of Darby, Bucks County, Pennsylvania about the year 1857, with blood hounds and the voices of angry men following close upon her heels through the tangled swamps from which she had just emerged.
“Who can thee be? Who can thee be?—and what does thee want here?” inquired excited Mrs. Schofield as she dropped the dish rag and rushed to the prostrate form in the chair, eager to render aid and comfort to the suffering and afflicted woman as well as to ascertain the cause of her abrupt, unannounced entrance into her home.
Out of breath from the long run made necessary to escape the dogs and the traps laid by experienced officers of the law who had been so diligently upon her trail for more than a week, that she had had time to stop and rest and take nourishment for only a few minutes at a time, Laura Duncan was unable at first to give any coherent account of herself. She managed, however, to make it known to the kind Quaker lady that she was an escaped slave and was endeavoring with all speed possible to reach the Canadian border and enter the world of freedom, which she had been informed existed under the British flag in the Dominion of Canada for all who might enter that country.
As causes moving her to take this drastic step in defiance of the law of her own land and the possibility of involving the liberty and happiness of all who might be kind enough to assist her in the accomplishment of the task, she recited such evils as brought tears to the eyes of her enforced host. She exhibited a lash-scared back, a broken bone or two and a deep cut on the head that had since been healed without serious results only by the aid of a skillful surgeon.
But the physical suffering attested by these outward signs of the practice of brutality on the woman were but a fraction of the pain and torture which Miss Schofield knew was gnashing at her heart over the parting of herself and husband and children more than a month before, when at a public sale little Gabe, her ten year old son, and Jennie, the only daughter, and her husband, “Jim,” were each sold to different masters in as many different States and carried away where she would never see or hear of any of them again.
“Martha” said Mrs. Schofield addressing her daughter, whose face was covered in an immaculate white apron that adorned her whole front, to hide the freely flowing tears that rushed from her eyes like water from the fountains, “do thee find thy father at once and tell him to come to the house as quickly as possible.”
Then laying her arms around the body of the inconsolable wife and mother she spoke words of consolation and cheer, assuring her that God in his own way and wisdom would destroy the power of the government of human beings by the lash, would break the chains that bind the hand and foot and visit a just retribution on all those responsible for the sale of babies from the breasts of mothers. She begged and pleaded earnestly that Laura abandon the attempt to escape and entreated her to surrender to the officers and return to her master, but the slave, chafing under the influence of a life of injustice and brutality, expressed a firmer determination than ever before, to continue on in her course and begged pitiably of her host that her presence in the home be not divulged. She threatened suicide if captured.
Mr. Schofield, himself, by this time had reached the house and instantly grasping the situation, requested of Mrs. Schofield a familiar old shawl and bonnet of hers. Dressed in these Laura, in company with Mr. Schofield, passed readily as Mary, his wife, among acquaintances of the latter, and successfully eluded all pursuit by the officers, who a half hour after her departure had ransacked the Schofield home from turret to foundation stone in search of the fleeing fugitive.
Reaching a zone safely out of reach of harm’s way, the leader of the church of the Society Friends, deposited his burden, wishing her God-speed in her undertaking and placing in her hand one dollar in gold to assist her on her journey, turned his horse, after many days on the road, and made his way slowly back home, with a painful heart.
During the interval of her husband’s departure and return, Mrs. Schofield was kept busy in the attempt to control the indignant and outraged feelings of Martha, who had gone to her mother dozens of times with the question of the justice and mercy of God and the wisdom and power of the government in permitting the fettering of four million bodies in chains and the trampling under foot by brutal might of all the sacred relations of wife, father and child.
“Ah, my daughter, ’tis not for thee to question the mysterious workings of God,” she would reply, “in the Master’s own time and way He will touch the auction block, the slave pen and the whipping post, and in their place thee shall see what thy dear heart desires so much to see—happy homes and firesides, and school houses and books, where today thee only sees crime and cruelty and fear.”
“But mother,” Martha would protest, “for how much longer must the poor ignorant slaves endure the infinite outrages heaped upon them by reason of the barbarism of the slave-holding oligarchy? Have they not suffered enough already? Is it not time to close the door on the slave-holding class and render judgment as swift and implacable as death? Their cause was brought forth in iniquity and consummated in crime, and I for one believe God would only be served by our societies (the Society of Friends and the Abolitionist Society) hastening on the inevitable civil conflict, believed by most people as absolutely necessary in the settlement of the whole question of slavery.”
“My daughter, oh, my daughter, pray thee do not talk that way” said her mother in tones of profound anxiety; “does not the good book command thee not to kill? Eternal torment for thy portion if thou should commit murder, and to wish it to be done is father to the deed. Oh, my daughter! my daughter! thee frightens me!”
“Oh, no my mother, there’s no murder in my heart, I assure thee,” said Martha; “I only desire the government’s protection for every human being subject to its authority and I want that same authority to turn every auction block and slave pen into a school house even if its necessary to exact by bullet every drop of blood that has been spilled by the lash, in accomplishing this result. Thee must concede that the Bible also teaches us to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I wish this to be done, Mother, only to make possible a happier and blesseder existence here on this earth for a lowly race, when all other means of accomplishing so desirable an end have been tried and proven in vain.”
