Page 37 of Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Masters stopped moving his rag over the yoke. “I know you sympathize with the South, sir, but...” He stopped talking as if he realized that he was making a grave mistake with this line of speech.

“But what?” Mr.Johnson glared at him. “How can I sympathize with the South if I live in the North, is that what you are asking?”

Masters concentrated on the yoke. “It is not my business, sir.”

“You are right. It is not. Get back to work.” He stomped out of the tack room, and Emily and I ducked below the stall wall to avoid being seen.

When I dared look up again, Mr.Johnson was gone and Masters threw his rag on the tack room floor like he was angry about something. He marched out of the room too.

Emily and I shared a look.

“This proves at least that Mr.Johnson has sympathies with the South,” Emily said.

“Yes, but sympathies are much different than actively working with slave catchers,” I replied.

She nodded. “Maybe Jeremiah could answer that.”

I placed a hand on my cloak pocket and felt my brother’s diary there. I had debated all morning if I should bring the diary with me on this errand to the stables. I wondered now if bringing it was a mistake. Perhaps it would have been much safer under my mattress in the Dickinson home.

I hadn’t read more than a few pages. I used the excuse that I was caught up in preparing the Dickinson family for their time away, but in truth, every time I went to open the diary and read my brother’s words, pain overtook me. Henry wrote himself that he would not be revealing the names of those who had done wrong in the diary, so at the moment, I felt reading it was harming myself with no clear answer in the end. And the end was what I feared. When I read the last words of my brother, he would be at an end.

“I must ask you something, Willa, and I do not believe you will like the question.” Emily loosened the ribbons of her bonnet.

I waited.

“You said that Henry told you that he found a way to make money that would allow you to not have to work any longer.” She looked me directly in the eye. “Could he have been the one working with the slave catcher?”

Her question took my breath away. “He would never.”

“If the slave catcher was giving him a portion of his bounty to catch runaways, he might make the money he wanted rather quickly.”

I shook my head emphatically. “Henry would not do that. You heard Jeremiah when he was here. He said Henry was a good friend to him. How could Jeremiah think that if Henry was helping the slave catcher?”

“Jeremiah is a free man. Perhaps it makes a difference.”

“I can’t see how.” I refused for one second to believe what she was suggesting. Henry would not do any of it.

“What makes a difference to me?” a man’s voice asked.

Chapter Fourteen

Emily and I both jumped and turned to find Jeremiah York standing behind us holding two full buckets of water. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and I could see that his muscles strained under the pressure of holding the buckets off of the ground. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, but there was no way he could fix that without putting down one of the buckets.

“Jeremiah, how long have you been standing there?” I asked.

He set the buckets down and adjusted his glasses. “Long enough to see the two of you spying on Mr.Johnson and Masters. You do realize if they had seen you, it would not have been good.”

Emily lifted her chin. “They would never have spied us.”

“If they weren’t so angry at each other, they would have. Half of Willa’s head was sticking over the stable wall.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe we would be that stupid.

I grimaced. It wasn’t easy being tall.

“Well, it’s lucky they didn’t look at us then,” Emily said, seemingly unconcerned with the close call.

“What are the two of you doing back here?” Jeremiah wanted to know. “And why are you spying?”

I wasn’t sure we should share the answers to his questions. We didn’t know Jeremiah could be trusted with our investigation.

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