Free Mysterious Signal by Lois Walfrid Johnson Page A

“To the loading platform. I’ll follow at a distance to make sure the barrels are put on the train to Chicago.”
    “What will happen when they get there?”
    “Mr. O’Malley—the cooper—told me that the Underground Railroad has a man working in the Chicago freight room. When he sees a certain label on top, he knows that a fugitive is hiding inside. He gives those barrels extra care and rolls them to the back part of the room. When it’s safe, someone will take Jordan and his daddy to where they need to go.”
    Libby didn’t like the idea of Jordan and Micah in something that small. She couldn’t help but think how hot it would be inside a barrel, especially when she already felt sticky with heat.
    “What if they need to get out?” Libby asked.
    “They can push the lids off their barrels from inside.”
    “But how do they breathe?” Libby asked.
    Caleb led her outside. At the corner of the house was a barrel to catch rainwater for washing clothes. Heavy metal rims circled the outside of the barrel, holding the pieces of woodtogether. Between the two center rims was a good-sized hole plugged with a cork.
    “If a barrel holds liquid, its owner puts a spigot in here,” Caleb explained.
    “And if there’s no cork or spigot, it’s a breathing hole!” Libby felt relieved. It seemed so simple, and a simple plan often seemed the best of all.
    Feeling better about how Jordan and his father would reach Chicago, Libby thought back to the problem of how to carry the money. “I know what to do,” she said. “I’ll use a bit of Pa’s money to buy cloth and rawhide bootlaces. I’ll sew each of them a money belt.”
    Caleb grinned. “And you’ll go to the store looking the way you do?”
    Libby scowled at him. It wasn’t hard to remember how awful she looked. Caleb didn’t need to remind her of it. But how could she do what she needed to do without lying?
    Then Libby had an answer for Caleb. “Before I go, I’ll write a note asking for what I want. I won’t say anything about who wrote it. I’ll just lay the note on the counter.”
    As soon as the general store opened, Libby set out. At the counter along one side of the store, she put down the note.
    1 yard of light brown, heavy cloth

1 yard of rawhide bootlace
    It took only a minute for the clerk to find and cut the right size cloth. “But I’m out of bootlace,” he told Libby.
    When she paid for the cloth, he gave her change anddirected her on to another store. There Libby paid for what she needed and hurried out.
    At Annika’s house again, she collected her sewing bag and went upstairs. Finding a table, she laid down the cloth and cut it in half. Spreading out one piece, she folded up the bottom third. Then, using one of Pa’s dollars as a guide, she sewed straight lines to make a pocket. Soon she had pockets from the left side to the right.
    Taking the top third of the cloth, Libby folded it over the bottom third. Finally, she sewed a length of rawhide on each end of the pockets.
    Working quickly, Libby started a second belt. She was just finishing that one when Caleb came in.
    When Caleb saw what she had done, he was pleased. “Both Jordan and his daddy are wearing loose shirts. Unless someone searches them, no one will see the money belts. And you’re just in time!”
    As a wagon rolled into the yard, Caleb took the money he and Libby and Peter had carried and divided it in half. Libby helped him slip the bills into the money belts. Caleb stuffed the belts into his knapsack and raced out of the room.
    From an upstairs window, Libby saw the wagon filled with barrels pull up to the barn. When Caleb opened the large double doors, the wagon rolled inside, as though for a delivery.
    In that moment Libby heard footsteps. Hollow-sounding footsteps from the boardwalk, but with a lighter thud than the strange clump of the night before.
    Only two houses away, Dexter was coming along the boardwalk. Looking from left to right, he was searching for