Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier Page A

here.”
    Of course the last thing I wanted was to run into Captain Ivers and Big Tom. I was pretty nervous that they might be somewhere up there on the dockside. But I couldn’t do anything about that, so I thanked the lounger, climbed out onto the wharf, and went up onto the street that ran away from the river. It was called Whitehall. I decided I’d better look close at the signposts, in case I had to get back in a hurry.
    Oh my, was it busy. It was the middle of the afternoon. There were sheds and stalls and warehouses and shops and inns. And of course thousands of people everywhere—men and women and boys and lots of sailors, some dressed up fine, some drunk and dirty, some racing here and there carrying boxes or sacks over their shoulders, or pushing barrows filled with fish or meat or vegetables through the crowd. And everywhere barrels, boxes, casks, stacks of lumber, crates of chickens, cattle, bales of hay, bundles of cotton. It was all so rich, and busy, and full. Whitehall Street ended and I had to turn. I decided to go right on Dock Street.
    Suddenly it came to me that for the first time in my life I was free. I stood there, letting the feeling of it rise up in me. There wasn’t anybody around to tell me what to do. I could do whatever I wanted. I could stroll along the waterfront and take in the sights, I could set off for the wilderness, I could walk into one of the warehouses or shops along the dockside, take a job, and spend the money I earned any way that I wanted. Thinking about it, I felt light and sparkling inside. It was just about the sweetest feeling I’d ever had.
    But then my worries came over me, and the sparkling feeling went away. The first thing was, I didn’t have the soldiers’ notes anymore—they was still tucked down inside that cherrywood linen chest on the Junius Brutus. The second was that Captain Ivers and Big Tom was certain to be around the waterfront somewhere. If they spotted me, I wouldn’t be free anymore, I’d be on my way South to the cane fields. Captain Ivers was bound to reckon that if I ran off once, I’d run off again, and he’d sell me South sure as the moon.
    What I had to do was to go to the Congress and find Mr. Johnson. But it was a mighty big city and I didn’t have an idea where Congress was.
    I was at the corner where Dock Street ran into a great, wide road just full of people and wagons and horses and cows, and even pigs. The signpost said Broad Street. So I slipped back out of the way and stood in the shadows of a long warehouse building, waiting for somebody to come along I could ask directions of who wouldn’t ask too many questions back. And in about a minute there came along a little black girl, about ten years old, pushing a barrow filled with oysters. I reckoned she wasn’t going to pry too much and wasn’t likely to give me away if she got suspicious of me, anyway. As she went by, I grabbed her arm. “Say,” I said.
    She stopped pushing the barrow and looked at me. “What?” she said.
    â€œI’m looking for the Congress. My master sent me down there with a letter. He told me how to get there, but I forgot. I’m bound for a licking if I don’t get there soon.”
    â€œI don’t see no letter,” she said.
    â€œIt’s in my shirt,” I said.
    â€œWho’s it for?”
    â€œThat ain’t none of your business,” I said.
    â€œHow’d you get your clothes all wet?” she asked.
    â€œYou’re pretty nosy, ain’t you?” She was younger than me. I wasn’t going to take anything from her.
    â€œTell me,” she said, “or I won’t tell you where the Congress is at.”
    I’d never met anyone like her for nosiness. “Don’t you know it ain’t polite to ask all those questions?”
    â€œYou asked the first question,” she shot back.
    â€œNo, I didn’t,” I said.
    â€œYes,