The Lost Quilter Read Online Free PDF Page B

hooves grew louder, passed,faded, until only the hum of insects and the distant popping of fireworks remained.
    For minutes Joanna could not move except to tremble.
    She dragged herself to her feet and sprinted for the road. Her filthy skirt clung to her legs, threatening to trip her up. Panting, she yanked it out of the way and dashed across the road, dirt and pebbles hot and sharp against her bare feet. Another acre of corn, and then she reached the grassy slope. She flung herself down the hill, half running, half falling, the trees ahead of her cool and dark and beckoning. Branches scratched at her hands and face as she broke a path into their shade. She pushed through the underbrush until she could not see the cornfield, until the fireworks fell silent behind her. Only then did she sink to the ground at the base of an oak, gasping for breath, limbs shaking, a cramp stabbing her side. “Praise Jesus,” she sobbed between gasps, but she knew she was far from safe.
    She plunged ahead on the trail, straining her ears for the sound of pursuit. All she heard was birdsong, and her own jagged breathing, and the blood pounding in her ears. The woods were cool and shaded, a blessed relief, but her mouth was dry, her stomach hollow. It took all her strength to stay upright and moving.
    After a time, the woods thinned ahead of her and she slowed her pace, reluctant to cross an open meadow. All too soon the trail ended at the edge of a wheat field, the pale green shoots rustling in an intermittent wind. About a quarter mile ahead, she spotted the back of a tidy white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. A barn and two smaller outbuildings stood several yards away, and beside the barn she spotted an iron pump with a trough. Horses milled in a nearby corral, and the wind carried to her the lowing of a cow and the clucking of chickens. On thesunny, southeastern corner of the house, a large kitchen garden thrived, and a few paces away, two quilts hung on a clothesline strung up between two trees. Joanna recognized the patterns, a Rose of Sharon and an Economy Patch, neither of which were the secret designs that indicated she had reached a station on the Underground Railroad. For all she knew, those patchwork symbols carried meaning only in the Elm Creek Valley. When she had journeyed north months before, no other stations had used a quilt to tell a weary runaway that she had found sanctuary. Each family had made themselves known in a unique manner that she was told only as she departed the station before. Now the order and nature of those symbols were so jumbled in her memory that she had no hope of sorting them out. Even if she could, Peter had chosen a different route south than the one Joanna had followed north, and she did not know how to find her way back to the Underground Railroad. She wasn’t even sure where she was, how close to the Pennsylvania border or how far.
    There were no slave quarters here that she could see, but that was no guarantee that the folk were abolitionists. It was a small farm, and perhaps they could not afford any slaves. Light-headed, wavering, Joanna watched from the woods, but she detected no sign of any people, no movement except the horses grazing and the quilts swinging back and forth in the breeze. It was late afternoon, the sun still high in the summer sky, and she knew she ought to press on and wait until nightfall to approach a dwelling. But she also knew she might not come upon another source of water before she fainted from exhaustion.
    She waited as long as she could bear, her gaze returning again and again to the pump. Then, praying that this family too had gone into town to enjoy the Independence Day celebration, shecrossed the wheat field and approached the back of the house, ready to flee at the first sign of danger.
    When she reached the pump, she worked the handle with shaking hands until water gushed from the spout. She cupped her hands beneath the clear, cold water and drank her fill,