I sometimes visited the slaves’ quarters on the plantations and always was heartily welcomed.

But I was obliged to pay my visits very secretly, for, if the owners of the slaves or the ordinary white folks in the neighborhood had discovered that I was visiting the quarters, my motives would at once have been suspected. (Though the Negroes whose acquaintance we had made never hinted at the subject, I felt pretty sure that they all guessed why we had taken up our abode in their midst.)

Three months passed, and during the whole of that period the work at our station had gone on smoothly. Sometimes in one week we would have two or three fugitives; on other occasions several days would pass without a single runaway arriving. Whatever the case, they always came after dark to the back of the house and the first thing we did was to give them a good meal, then put them in the barn for the night. Next day we fed them well, and, as soon as it was dark, we supplied them with a packet of provisions and they started off for the next station, walking all night and hiding in the woods during the day. (If, as sometimes happened, the fugitive was a woman who was too tired to go on after only one night’s rest, we kept her till she felt able to continue her journey.)

The runaways were of all sorts: old men and young men, old women and girls, and sometimes a woman with a baby in her arms. Some of the fugitives were in good condition and decently clothed, others were gaunt and ragged, having come long distances and having been many days on the road. Some had come even from the extreme South of Florida.