The Water Dancer

While waiting for updates on the mission, Raymond, Otha, and Hiram set off for the big meeting of abolitionists in New York. This is one of the only occasions when members of the Underground meet with those working on the official, legal fight to end slavery. During their journey to New York, Moses joins them. Seeing her, Hiram is so awed that he can barely speak. Raymond calls her Harriet, and apparently this is the name she likes best. The next day they arrive in the campsite near the Canadian border where the convention is being held.

Walking through the convention, Hiram hears orators speaking about the rights of women, indigenous people, and child laborers. One person speaks in favor of trade unions, another in favor of communes where marriage is replaced by “free love.” Feeling overwhelmed, he sits against a tree, until a woman a little older than him comes up to him and greets him by name. She introduces herself as Kessiah, saying that she also used to live at Lockless and that Rose used to leave Hiram with her to look after. She is Thena’s daughter. She and Hiram walk together, and she recalls happy memories of growing up with Thena and Big John, back when the family was still together.

Kessiah recalls that Hiram was “always different,” always watching people, just like he was just then when she found him at the convention. She says it is strange to think of her time growing up in slavery and remember being happy, but that this is how she felt. Everything changed when Big John came down with a fever and died. At least Thena and her children could comfort each other, but when they were separated even that solace was taken away. Hiram tells Kessiah that Thena looked after him, adding, “For me, Thena was the best part of Lockless.”

Kessiah cries and tells Hiram that after she and her siblings were sold off, she never saw them again. Most of the siblings were taken toward Natchez, but she was brought to Maryland. There, she met a freeman who began working toward buying her freedom. However, their plans fell through when they were both taken to be sold at auction. Moses saved Kessiah, and she has been travelling with her ever since. This is how she heard about Hiram. Kessiah embraces Hiram warmly and asks how Rose is doing.

Hiram keeps walking, this time past jugglers and acrobats. During dinner, a group of black people get together around a campfire and start singing “the songs that could only be made down in the coffin.” Hiram thinks about how slavery is the root of all evil, as revealed by the orators comparing factory work, alcohol consumption, and childrearing to slavery. Ending slavery is thus a chance to “remake” the whole world. A messenger approaches Hiram and hands him a letter from Bland. Hiram brings it to Otha. The letter states that Bland has Lydia and the children; they have escaped Alabama and are currently in Indiana. Otha is awestruck.