they can find.”
“No one strings up Negroes in Pennsylvania. Or in Michigan. You’ve been
reading too many abolitionist newspapers,” she said in exasperation. “You know,
for someone who’s never set foot in a slave state and has been treated pretty
decently by every white person he’s ever known, you spend an awful lot of time worrying about getting lynched or sold down the river. Besides, I already told you, I’m not going to tell them where I’m going. And you don’t have to tell anyone either.”
He scowled at her and took a sip of the coffee. “I could sell Big Bad,” he said,
his voice low, barely audible.
“You don’t have to do that. I told you, I’ve got money.” She stopped. “Oh, well, I guess you would have to sell him, since we can’t take him on the
steamboat. But you’d keep that money. Our arrangement would be that I supply
all the money and the land we start out with; you supply the strong back.”
“What if you run out a money?”
“We’ll think about that when it happens.”
He scowled again.
“Look,” she said, “I suppose if we did go broke you could always get work at
one of the logging camps. They operate mostly during the winter, when there’s
enough snow on the ground to make skid ways, so it’s perfect for a farmer.”
He glared.
“Well, I’d go with you, of course. I could get a job as a cook or washing the
loggers’ clothes. Then, come springtime, we’d go back to farming. And why
start out worrying about every tiny thing that could go wrong? What’s the worst
thing that can happen to us? We fail. And you know the only thing that’s worse
than failing? Being afraid to try. Stop rolling your eyes. Clichés get to be clichés
by being true.”
They heard Mrs. Hardaway’s heavy step on the back porch and both grew
silent. He rose, set his coffee cup on the counter, and began gathering up the pots
she had set out for him.
“Day to you, Mrs. Hardaway,” he said as she came in. “I get these back later
this afternoon,” he said.
“That will be just fine. Thank you for coming so quick,” she replied and set
her basket on the table.
After the noonday meal, Olivia went behind the post office to the Reading
Room and spent an hour working through the dusty stacks, picking out every
book and journal she could find that had anything good to say about Michigan.
Then she went looking for Mourning again and waited until no one else was
around before shoving Morse’s Geography under his nose.
He again rolled his eyes and acted as if he were humoring her. “What now,
someone find diamonds on your uncle’s place? Or maybe Moses been sighted
wanderin’ there? Or maybe them Michigan farmers started growin’ gold ’stead a
corn.”
“No, no gold or diamonds. But they do have trails that are wide enough for a wagon and they go to all these cities: Chicago, Port Huron, Saginaw, and Grand
