ARTHUR SHELBY, the father of George Shelby and the master of Tom and Eliza, was a very easy-going man. He was always kind to his slaves, but that was only because it made him feel more comfortable to be kind.

  He often boasted that they were a good deal better off with him for a master than they would be free. And he used to say that he would never sell any of his people so long as they behaved themselves.

  But now he was in very great need of money. He had fallen in debt to a coarse, brutal slave trader named Haley. This man had written, saying that he must be paid at once, and at last he had come to the Shelby home to get his money. When Mr. Shelby told Haley that, though he had tried very

  His choice fell upon Uncle Tom. Tom was an unusual negro. He was honest. He was a good manager. For years he had taken full charge of his master's farm.

  So Haley said he would take Tom in place of the rest of the money that was owing him if Mr. Shelby would "throw in a youngster" who had taken his fancy. This was little Harry, a very pretty boy of five.

  Harry was the only child of Mrs. Shelby's own maid, Eliza, or Lizzie, as the negroes all called her. She had been brought up from childhood by her kind mistress, and was married to a bright young man on one of the neighboring farms.

  Mr. Shelby knew that his wife would be very unwilling to let Harry go.

  She was a kind-hearted, good woman, who felt that she owed a duty to every one of her servants. She watched over them. She taught them. She

  So her husband felt sure that, though she would be very sorry if he sold Tom, she would feel even worse about letting a little child be sold away from its mother. He knew she would think that wicked as well as unnecessary.

  So he held out a long time against selling Harry, but at last he gave in. There seemed nothing else to do, and he signed the bill of sale the very hour his son George was teaching Tom the difference between a q and a g.

  The men agreed that Haley should call and take away his new slaves early the next morning. So Mrs. Shelby must be told about the sale that same night. It was an unpleasant thing to do, and Mr. Shelby always put off unpleasant things as long as possible. Thus, it was late in the evening before he went to his wife's room to tell her the story.

  As he had expected, she was very sad when she heard the news. "Something must be done," she said, "Eliza's little boy must not be taken away

  But her husband told her it was too late. The sale had been already made. Harry now belonged to the slave trader.

  There was a third listener to this talk between the husband and wife.

  Eliza had come into the room where Haley was talking with her master that afternoon and had overheard a few words. She did not understand what those words meant, but something, she hardly knew what, made her very anxious.

  Could Massa be thinking of selling her baby?

  Oh no, that was not possible. But yet——

  Her mother-heart beat loud with fear.

  It was best to make sure.

  And so, when her mistress had sent her away for the night, and she saw Mr. Shelby go into his wife's room, she felt that she must hear what he said.

  With her ear pressed close to the crack of the door, she heard every word that passed between her master and mistress. Then, pale and shivering, she crept softly to her own little bed-room.

  On the bed lay her boy. There was a smile on his rosy lips, and his little fat hand was thrown out on the bed-clothes, still clutching his favorite toy, a gayly painted wooden parrot.

  Eliza knelt by the bed, sobbing bitterly. No mother had ever a prettier, dearer baby. He was like the beautiful little angels in the picture in Miss Emily's room. How could Massa be so wicked as to sell him?

  Then she rose from her knees with a sudden thought.

  She would not let him be taken from her. She would save her baby.

  Mas'r had said that the slave-trader was coming in the morning to take away her Harry.

  It was nearly twelve o'clock. She had until morning to save her darling.

  Quickly she made up a little bundle of food and clothes. In all her haste, she did not forget to add to that bundle the gay parrot. Then she woke the little sleeper and dressed him quickly. She hushed in fear his sleepy questions. He must be very, very still, she whispered, or else an ugly man would catch him. Then, taking the child in her arms, she slipped softly across the grounds to Uncle Tom's cabin.

  She stopped there for only a moment to warn her friends of Tom's danger. But the moment was long to her, for she seemed to feel Haley's cruel hand trying to pull her Harry out of her arms.

  With a shudder, she pressed the boy close to her heart and hurried on into the darkness.

  The frosty ground creaked under her feet. Every sound frightened her.

  Harry had been very much frightened at first, and begged his mother to hurry so the ugly man could not get him. But soon he fell asleep in her arms.

  She left the Shelby farm far behind her. She passed the grove, the wood lot. She entered the road which led to the Ohio River.

  This river flowed between slave states on the South and free states, that is, states where there were no slaves, on the North. And Eliza felt that if she could only get across its waters she would be safe. But the river was still many, many miles away.

  She hurried on wildly.

  The stars began to fade out of the sky. The east grew red with the sunrise.

  Then a horse and its rider passed Eliza. She saw the man turn and look

  She felt that she ought to go more slowly. If she hurried along so fast, people might suspect that she was a slave running away. But they would not notice her, she said to herself, if only she went slowly and did not act so frightened. For she was almost as fair as her mistress, and little Harry was pretty as any white woman's child, so she thought proudly.

  She came to a grove by the side of the road, with a little brook running through it. Here she rested for a while and gave Harry his breakfast from the cakes and apples in her bundle. Then she walked on again. But now she held her boy by the hand. Often she forgot all about what people might think, and tried to hurry his baby steps.

  Hour after hour the two traveled on. Mile after mile she walked without once stopping to rest. Part of the time she carried Harry. Part of the time he trudged beside her.

  At noon, they got their dinner at a farmhouse. Then they started out again, all the more bravely because of the little rest.

  An hour before sunset, Eliza and the child reached a little village on bank of the Ohio River. The poor woman was very tired. It seemed as if she could go no farther. And yet, for a few moments, she felt almost happy. She could breathe more freely than at any time since she stole into her mistress's closet the night before.

  For there was the river so very near. Soon she should get across it and be safe, she thought.

  She hurried to the bank. Then she stopped with a cry of terror.

  The river was full of great cakes of floating ice. They swung heavily about in the muddy waters and piled up in a bend of the stream like a great ice-raft. No ferry-boat, Eliza felt sure, could move through such ice-packed waters. Here was a trouble she had not thought of.

  She turned and went into a small inn close by to ask if there was an way of getting across.

  "No," said a woman who was busy over the stove, getting supper ready. "No, the boats have stopped running."

  Eliza could not keep back a groan.

  The woman looked at her kindly. "Anybody sick?" she asked. "Ye seem mighty anxious to git over."

  "I've got a child that's in danger," answered Eliza. "I never heard of it till last last night, and I've walked quite a piece to-day in hopes to get to the ferry. It just seems as if I must get across some way."

  "A child in danger" meant a very sick child to the woman, and she sorry for the poor mother.

  "Well now, that's mighty onlucky," she said, "I lost a baby of my own so I know how 'tis. But I tell ye what. There's a man goin' to tote some

  "Now, yer jes come in here an' rest," and she showed Eliza into a little bedroom. "Ye sure look fit to drop. That's a pretty little fellow ye got. Here, honey, here's a cake fer ye."

  It may seem strange that a woman, who much of the way had to carry a heavy child, could walk all day long without being overtaken. A man on horseback, if he took the right road, could very easily have overtaken her. And Haley, who was now the owner of Harry, was not the sort of man to let his slaves get away from him easily.

  The slave trader had done his best.

  As was planned, he got to Mr. Shelby's house early in the morning, ready to take away Tom and little Harry.

  A flock of eager pickaninnies were waiting for him, roosting like crows in the trees and on the railings of the verandahs. Each wanted to be

  "Lizzie an' Harry done run away! Dey done run away! Dey done run away!" they all shouted in chorus as soon as Haley came in sight.

  The little imps had said among themselves that "that thar Haley 'ill talk jes orful when he larns it." And they were not disappointed. He was very angry.

  Mr. Shelby, as in honor bound, told him he could have all the horses and servants he needed to catch the runaways. The slave-trader was surly and grumbled that it was "mighty queer the gal knew enough to cut away jes now." But he took care not to let Mr. Shelby hear him, and accepted the offered help.

  When it came to getting off, though, he did not find things very easy.

  First, the slave-dealer's horse threw him as soon as he touched the saddle, and dashed madly away. Haley would have known the reason for that if he

  Then there was a wild time. There was whooping and shouting and rushing about. But, somehow, the boys were not able to catch the horses. It took all the morning to get three horses ready, a thing that had never happened before in all the history of the Shelby farm.

  Since it was so late, Mrs. Shelby asked Haley to stay to dinner, and Aunt Chloe was very slow about that dinner.

  When at last they started, Haley and his two guides, Sam and Andy, another queer thing happened. Sam, who knew every foot of the way to the Ohio River, made a mistake and led the party several miles out of the way

  So, it was half an hour after Eliza had laid Harry to sleep in the fresh white bed of the little inn by the side of the river, before the party came riding up to the same place. Eliza saw them as she stood by the window looking out. But Haley did not see her.

  For a minute her heart stood still. She looked wildly about her. The room in which she stood opened by a side door to the river. She caught up her child. She threw open this door and sprang down the steps that led the water.

  At that moment, Haley caught sight of her. He threw himself from his horse, called to Sam and Andy, and rushed after her. She flew before him. He followed like a hound. Her feet were at the water's edge. Haley was just behind. With a wild cry and a wilder flying leap, she jumped over the current of water near shore to the raft of ice beyond.

  The big green mass of ice on which she landed pitched and creaked. But she stayed there only a moment. Then she jumped to another floating cake of ice. Then to another! And another! Springing, stumbling, standing, slipping, leaping! Nearer and nearer she drew to safety. Or to what seemed like safety.

  One of her shoes was gone. Her stockings were cut away. Blood marked every step. But she felt nothing, knew nothing, until, dimly, as in a dream, she saw that a man was helping her up the Ohio bank. She had crossed the river.