Freedom Crossing

Laura leaves the church and passes in front of the Todd house. Joel leans out of the window to see what’s going on outside and doesn’t look Laura’s way at all. She hurries past, feeling ignored, and keeps walking. At the church, the crowd gathers and shouts for the enslaved person to be set free. Laura finds herself feeling conflicted again. Just “[y]esterday, she couldn’t have understood this, but now she knew Martin—and that made all the difference in the world” (108). Now, Laura understands why slavery is wrong, and that enslaved people are not property, but people who deserve to live their own lives.

From the porch of the church, Laura hears people shouting. While the commotion is going on, a man with a deputy’s badge slips in through the back, followed by a second deputy. Just then, a carriage races past the church, and Laura recognizes it as her family’s carriage and horse. The carriage comes right toward Laura, who is pushed out of the way and against a wall just in time.

Laura sees two men in the carriage: “[o]ne she had never seen before, but the other was the black-bearded man who had been in Josiah Tryon’s shop” (110).