Barbara Smucker Quotes

″‘Are you the slave of that tall man?’ she asked instead. ‘No,’ the boy said quickly, ‘I’m free. Mr. Fox pays me for stackin’ his wood.‘”

″‘There’s three things I want to say to you, child.’ Mammy drew Julilly close again. ‘Pray to the good Lord. Remember to be proud that you had a strong, fine Daddy and a Mammy that loves you... This is secret talk I’m tellin’ you now. Hold it quiet in your head and never let it out of your mouth. There’s a place the slaves been whisperin’ around called Canada. The law don’t allow no slavery there.‘”

“It was because Julilly was born in June and Mammy Sally liked lilies that she got her name. Most folk slurred the words together and they came out Julilly.”

“The flickering pine knot in the corner fireplace held blue flames. They had no warmth. There was loneliness and emptiness inside. When Mammy Sally came, the warmth would spark out in the fire, and the shadows would bring sleep.”

″‘The land’s used up, Old John,’ she mourned. ‘It just has no more life to raise tobacco, or cotton, or any other crops.’ Old John agreed. He knew that the Masters in Virginia had used the land until it bled and died.”

″‘A slave trader from the deep South is comin,’ they whispered. Up and down the cotton rows the message spread, faster than a winging bird.”

“When he saw Julilly, his back straightened. Pulling a large, white handkerchief from his pocket, he waved it up and down- up and down- up and down- until it became a tiny speck and disappeared.”

″‘Oh Lord,’ she said, ‘we is needin’ your protection now.‘”

“The chain became a silver snake. It coiled over the ground, around the men, and up onto the back of their cart. It bit into a lock that held it fast.”

“Don’t you listen to that Quaker Abolitionist and that free boy. They got evil in their words and destruction in their ways.”