Now, the Old Man knowed nothing ’bout Mr. Douglass’s drinking and fresh ways, chasing me ’round his study and all as he done, and he weren’t gonna know, for one thing you learns when you is a girl is that most women’s hearts is full of secrets. And this one was gonna stay with me. But I liked the idea of going to Chambersburg, for I had never been there. Plus, anything to get me out the house and away from my true love was a welcome change, for I was heartbroken on the matter of Annie and was happy to get away from her anytime.
We rode up to Chambersburg in evening, early October, in a horse-drawn, open-backed wagon. We got there in a jiffy. It weren’t but fourteen miles. First the Captain called on some colored friends up there, Henry Watson, and a doctor named Martin Delany. Mr. Delany had helped ship arms through to the Ferry, apparently at much danger to himself. And I had a feeling that Mr. Watson was the feller the Rail Man had referred to when he said, “I know a feller in Chambersburg who’s worth twenty of them blowhards,” for he was a cool customer. He was an average-size man, dark skinned, slender, and smart. He was cutting hair in his barbershop on the colored edge of town when we come up on him. When he seen the Old Man, he shooed the colored out his shop, closed it down, brung us to his house in the back of it, and produced food, drink, and twelve pistols in a bag marked Dry Goods, which he handed the Old Man without a word. Then he handed the Old Man fifty dollars. “This is from the Freemasons,” he said tersely. His missus was standing behind him as he done all this, closed up his shop and so forth, and she piped out, “And their wives.”
“Oh, yes. And their wives.”
He explained to the Old Man that he’d set up the meeting with Mr. Douglass in a rock quarry at the south edge of town. Frederick Douglass was big doings in them days. He couldn’t just walk into town without nobody knowing. He was like the colored president.
Mr. Watson gived the Old Man directions on how to get there. The Old Man took ’em, then Watson said, “I am troubled that the colored may not come.” He seemed worried.
The Old Man smiled and patted Mr. Watson on the shoulder. “They will roust, surely, Mr. Watson. Don’t fret on it. I will mention your worries to our fearless leader.”
Watson smirked. “I don’t know ’bout him. He gived me a mouthful ’bout finding a safe place. Seems he’s slanting every which way on the question of your purpose.”
“I will speak to him. Calm his doubts.”
Mrs. Watson was standing behind them as they talked, and she blurted out to the Old Man, “We got five men for your purpose. Five we can trust. Young. Without children or wives.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“One of them,” she managed to choke out, “one of them’s our eldest son.”
The Old Man patted her on the back. Just patted her on the back for courage as she cried a little bit. “The Lord will not forsake us. He is behind our charge,” he said. “Take courage.” He gathered up the guns and money they gived him, shook their hands, and left.
Turns out them five fellers never had to come after all, the way it all worked out, for by the time they was geared up to go, the only place for them to head was due north as fast as their legs could carry them. White folks got insane after the Old Man done his bit, they went on a rampage and attacked coloreds for miles. They was scared outta their minds. I reckon in some fashion, they ain’t been the same since.
I hears that much has been said ’bout the last meeting between the Old Man and Mr. Douglass. I done heard tell of ten or twenty different variations in different books written on the subject, and various men of letters working their talking holes on the matter. Truth be to tell it, there weren’t but four grown men there when the whole thing happened, and none lived long enough to tell their account of it, except for Mr. Douglass himself. He lived a long life afterward, and being that he’s a speechifier, he explained it every which way other than in a straight line.
But I was there, too, and I seen it differently.
The Old Man came to that meeting disguised as a fisherman, wearing an oilskin jacket and a fisherman’s hat. I don’t know why. No disguise would’a worked by then, for he was red hot. His white beard and hard stare was plastered on every wanted poster from Pittsburgh to Alabama. In fact, most of the colored in Chambersburg knowed ’bout that supposed secret meeting, for they must’ve been two or three dozen that turned out in the dead middle of the night as we rolled in the wagon toward the rock quarry. They whispered greetings from the thickets on the side of the road, some held out blankets, boiled eggs, bread, and candles. They said, “God bless you, Mr. Brown” and “Evening, Mr. Brown” and “I’m all for you, Mr. Brown.”
None said they was coming to fight at the Ferry though, and the Old Man didn’t ask it of ’em. But he seen how they held him. And it moved him. He was a half hour late for meeting Mr. Douglass on account of having to stop every ten minutes to howdy the colored, accepting food and pennies and whatever they had for him. They loved the Old Man. And their love for him gived him power. It was a kind of last hurrah for him, turned out, for they wouldn’t have time to thank him later on, being that after he moved to the business of killing and deadening white folks at breakneck speed, the white man turned on them something vicious and drove lots of ’em clear outta town, guilty and innocent alike. But they juiced him good, and he was fired up by the time we turned into the rock quarry and bumped down the path toward the back of it. “By gosh, Onion, we will push the infernal institution to ruination!” he cried. “God’s willing it!”
The quarry had a big, wide, long ditch at the back of it, big enough for a wagon to roll through. We rolled into that thing smooth business, and an old colored man silently pointed us right through it to the back. At the back of it, standing there, was Mr. Douglass himself.
Mr. Douglass brung with him a stout, dark-skinned Negro with fine curly hair. Called himself Shields Green, though Mr. Douglass called him “Emperor.” Emperor held himself that way, too—straight-backed, firm, and quiet.
Mr. Douglass didn’t look at me twice, nor did he hardly greet Mr. Kagi. His face was drawed serious, and after them two embraced, he stood there and listened in dead silence as the Old Man gived him the whole deaclass="underline" the plan, the attack, the colored flocking to his stead, the army hiding in the mountains, white and colored together, holing up in the mountain passes so tight that the federals and militia couldn’t get in. Meanwhile Kagi and the Emperor stood quiet. Not a peep was said by either.
When the Old Man was done, Mr. Douglass said, “What have I said to you to make you think such a plan will work? You are walking into a steel trap. This is the United States Armory you are talking about. They will bring federals from Washington, D.C., at the first shot. You will not be there two minutes before they will have you.”
“But you and I has spoken of it for years,” the Old Man said. “I have planned it to the limit. You yourself at one time pointed out it could be done.”
“I said no such thing,” Mr. Douglass said. “I said it should be done. But what should be and could be are two different things.”
The Old Man pleaded with Mr. Douglass to come. “Come with me, Frederick. I need to hive the bees, and with you there, every Negro will come, surely. The slave needs to take his liberty.”
“Yes. But not by suicide!”
They argued ’bout it some more. Finally the Old Man placed his arm around Mr. Douglass. “Frederick. I promise you. Come with me and I will guard you with my life. Nothing will happen to you.”