Free Race for Freedom by Lois Walfrid Johnson Page B

9
Free Eyes

    T en minutes later Libby entered Pa’s cabin at the front of the texas deck. When the two boys came in, Libby pulled out the notice she had ripped down. “Here’s what caused all the trouble!” When she laid the paper on the table, Jordan glanced at it, then turned away.
    “Look at it!” Libby said.
    “I did.” Jordan was gazing at the floor.
    “Read it!” Libby pointed to the words.
    Again Jordan stared at the paper. Pain stole over his face. Once more he looked away.
    “I can’t,” he said.
    “Sure, you can,” Libby answered.
    “Libby,” Caleb said softly. “Jordan is trying to tell you something.”
    But Libby pushed the paper closer to Jordan. “They’re still offering two hundred dollars to whoever catches you.”
    “Stop it, Libby,” Caleb said, as though trying to warn her.
    Libby paid no attention. “See, Jordan? Read for yourself.”
    “I can’t, Libby,” Jordan said again. “I can’t read for myself.”
    This time his quiet words got through. “But Jordan,” Libby stumbled over her words. “Everyone your age knows how to read.”
    “Everyone but us colored folks.” Jordan’s head was bowed again, his voice filled with pain. “We ain’t allowed to read.”
    “You aren’t allowed to read?” Libby couldn’t imagine a life without books.
    “And we can’t learn to write.” Suddenly Jordan lifted his head. “If we knows how, we could write our own passes.”
    “Passes?” Again Libby felt lost.
    “Both slaves and free colored people have to carry a pass,” Caleb explained. “Without that piece of paper, they can’t travel around alone.”
    “But I thought—” Libby remembered back. “That time in Pa’s cabin when Jordan bent over the map as though reading. And before that, in St. Louis.”
    She stared at Caleb. “The first time we saw Jordan, you wrote in the dirt. You started writing the
Christina
’s name. When I asked you about it, you said—”
    “That I hoped Jordan would remember the letters, and it would help him find the boat.”
    Finally Libby understood. “Because he couldn’t hear the name and know how it would look in writing.”
    Libby felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I didn’t know.”
    “I wants to read, Libby,” he said. “With all my heart I wants to read the Good Book.”
    “The Good Book?” Again Libby felt puzzled.
    “The Bible,” Caleb explained.
    “And I wants to read the newspaper like Captain Norstad. I wants to read any book I set my hand on.”
    Jordan looked from Libby to Caleb. “If I knows how to write my own pass, it be easy to go where my momma is. But I ain’t never had no teacher.”
    “Caleb and I will teach you!” Libby glanced toward Caleb and saw him nod. Turning back to Jordan, Libby saw that a light had come into his face—a light that shone as brightly as the sun.
    He pointed out a window. “Look!”
    Without their noticing, the
Christina
had put out from Keokuk. In a town a few miles above Keokuk, a small log school stood high on the riverbank. As though on recess, children played in the school yard.
    “I could learn like them?” Jordan asked, his voice filled with awe. “I could learn to read a book?”
    “You can learn to read like them,” Caleb said.
    Jordan straightened. Drawing back his shoulders, he held his head high. “I can learn to write?”
    “You can learn to write. I promise you,” Caleb said. “We’ll ask Libby’s pa what to do—what books to use.”
    Libby sat down at the table. “Let’s start with the alphabet right now. When you know the letters, you can put them together into words.”
    Taking up a slate, she wrote a letter.
“A,”
she said, printing it as she spoke. “
A
is for apple.”
    Caleb handed Jordan another slate. “Make the letter after Libby.”
    When she reached the letter
L
, Libby stopped. “That’s enough for today.”
    “That’s all the alphabet?” Jordan asked.
    “No,” Libby answered. “But I don’t want to mix you up by