Underground to Canada Read Online Free PDF

we just put our shirts on this big ol’ block of wood and hit and battle the dirt right out of them.”
    At last the miserable beaten rags were hung on a rattan vine to dry.
    THAT NIGHT Julilly crept into the long, shabby cabin that housed the slave girls who had no parents. She lay down beside Liza who shared her heap of rags. There was no talking; everyone slept. Julilly looked into the dark. She was fearful of the morning, when Sims would be back: Liza said the cotton in some of the fields was ready to be picked. She thought about the little children, about Adam, Ben, and Lester; and she wondered where Mammy Sally was sleeping tonight.
    â€œLord, help us find each other again,” she prayed and went to sleep.
    It seemed only a few minutes later to Julilly when a piercing bell clanged through the darkness. Liza pulled her up by her arm and led her out of doors, where a fire was crackling below the black-leafed trees. A line of slaves passed before it. Julilly followed. Each one was given a corn cake and a gourd of water for breakfast. Silently the line continued. This time hands reached out for a pail. Looking inside hers, Julilly saw that it held another corn cake and a cold strip of bacon.
    â€œIt’s your lunch,” Liza whispered; “don’t eat it now.”
    The line went on—women, men, and children all mixed up together. Next they all got crocker sacks—low and baggy—to fasten around their necks. Julilly knew that before that day was done she’d fill more than one bag full of white cotton bolls .
    Julilly had been picking cotton for three years now. The overseer at Massa Hensen’s always said how good she was—not breaking the branches off the stalks when she pulled off the blossoms. She could use both hands to snatch at the bolls and put them in the swinging sack around her neck without dropping one upon the ground.
    The line of slaves seemed endless to Julilly as they strung along the field behind fat Sims. He swayed back and forth on his horse, flipping a cat-o’-nine-tails whip into the pink sky. Soon the sun would rise and burn up all the pink and coolness of the dawn.
    Julilly followed Liza. She saw that the girl limped and that she bent forward, as though her back was trying to push away the burden of her crocker sack.
    â€œToo many whippin’s,” a slave woman behind Julilly said, pointing toward Liza.
    The sun still hadn’t risen far when the picking started.
    A sharp cry at the far end of the cotton row froze Julilly’s hands in mid-air. Fat Sims had dismounted his horse and was flaying his whip over the back of an old, white-haired man.
    â€œHe likes to beat at old folks and cripples like me,” Liza said in a low voice without lifting her head.
    Julilly saw that Liza couldn’t reach the high branches with her bent back, so she began pulling the open bolls from the top branches—letting Liza take all those at the bottom. Her new friend gave her a grateful smile.
    The sun rose, white and hot, burning at the nakedness of the ragged slaves. The face of Sims glistened with sweat. It dripped down from the wide brim of his hat. None of the slaves wore hats. There was no shade for their heads.
    Sims’ anger rose with the sun. When the work slowed, he used his whip. Julilly’s fear of the man turned to despair, and then to intense dislike. She had never disliked anyone as much as this fat, squint-eyed Sims. She avoided looking at him. When he came near her she worked steadily and tried to overshadow Liza, who crouched beneath her, pulling cotton from the lower branches.
    Once Liza said after Sims had safely passed beyond them, “That man thinks a slave is just like a work-horse. If you acts like a work-horse, you gets along just fine. If you don’t—it’s the cat-o’-nine-tails on your back.”
    The work went on—picking, filling the crocker sack—emptying it into baskets—stamping it