Through the Storm Read Online Free PDF

I’ll bet.”
    Sable nodded yes.
    “Some of our folks’ll resent you for that, but don’t ever be ashamed of who you are. Can you read?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”

    “That’s a glorious thing, that reading. Hope I’ll be able to one day.”
    “I could help you learn.”
    The woman’s eyes shone as she replied, “You’ve a good heart, but I don’t have time right now.”
    “Why not?”
    “Have to take you to LeVeq.”
    “LeVeq?”
    “Yep. Dreamed about that too.”
    Sable hadn’t a clue as to whom this LeVeq might be. “Do you dream often?”
    “Most of the time. A dream took me out of slavery.”
    “You’re a runaway too, then?”
    “Yep. Ran the first time when I was seven, but got so hungry I went back. Ran for good once I became a woman. My husband and brothers wouldn’t go with me, so I went alone.”
    “You left your husband?”
    “Had to. The good Lord needed me.”
    Sable did not know what to make of this mysterious new companion. “Are you from around here?”
    “Nope, born in Maryland.”
    It astounded Sable to hear of a Black woman roaming so far from her home. “Why are you in Georgia?”
    “Doing the work I was called to.”
    “Which is?”
    Araminta smiled. “Freeing slaves.”
     
    Since Araminta told Sable it would be safer if they traveled at night, Sable spent that first night sleeping and regaining her strength; she spent the following morning listening to and marveling over the tales and adventures of the woman who’d taken her under her wing. Although the woman had originally introduced herself as Araminta, Sable learned that the rest of the world knew her as Harriet Tubman and that she was very famous. It seemed Mrs. Tubman stole slaves. Many slaves.
    She explained to Sable that during her nineteen tripsinto the South between 1849 and 1857, she’d led hundreds to freedom, including her aged parents, six brothers, their wives and fiancées, nieces and nephews. Although she’d been a slave when she married her husband, John Tubman, John had been free.
    “We’d been married five years when my master died. Rumor had it that me and my brothers were going to be sold. A dream told me to run so we wouldn’t be, but John chose staying put. So I ran alone. I went back to get him in ’51, but he refused to see me.”
    “Why?”
    “He’d taken another wife.”
    Sable’s eyes widened.
    “I was so angry and broken up inside, I wanted to storm right onto the place and confront him, and I didn’t care if the master saw me and threw me back into slavery, if I could only give John a piece of my mind. But I came to my senses. You can’t make a man love you, so—if he could do without me, I could sure do without him. Dropped him out of my heart then and there.”
    Sable sensed that the pain of the incident continued to linger in spite of Araminta’s staunch stance.
    “After that, I turned my life over to the Work.”
    Her “Work” entailed much more than encouraging slaves to leave their masters, Sable learned. Mrs. Tubman also did reconnaissance missions for the Union command, mainly the Second South Carolina Volunteers. “They’re a Black brigade under Colonel James Montgomery,” Araminta told her.
    “You certainly don’t look like a Union spy,” Sable said with a smile.
    Araminta grinned. “Sure don’t. No one would suspect an old Black woman with a bandanna on her head to be scouting naval defenses or city fortifications. Who would believe I’d be behind enemy lines for the express purpose of gathering information on livestock, supplies, and rumors of troop movements?”
    Sable had to agree. Araminta appeared aged andharmless, not the kind of woman who always carried a pistol, or the kind who, on her treks north, threatened to shoot any man who faltered or whined about the hard journey.
    She told Sable, “It’s two things I got a right to and these are Liberty and Death. One or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty,