ng that no one wanted any place else in the orchard.
It was the only unkept spot on our land, and I always wondered why
father didn't clean it out and make it look respectable. I said so to
Leon as we crouched there watching down the hill where Mrs. Deam and
Sammy hunted ducks with not such very grand success. They seemed to
have so many they couldn't decide whether to go back or go on, so they
must have found most of them.

"You know I've always had my suspicions about this place," said Leon.
"There is somewhere on our land that people can be hidden for a long
time. I can remember well enough before the war ever so long, and
while it was going worst, we would find the wagon covered with more mud
in the morning than had been on it at night; and the horses would be
splashed and tired. Once I was awake in the night and heard voices.
It made me want a drink, so I went downstairs for it, and ran right
into the biggest, blackest man who ever grew. If father and mother
hadn't been there I'd have been scared into fits. Next morning he was
gone and there wasn't a whisper. Father said I'd had bad dreams. That
night the horses made another mysterious trip. Now where did they keep
the black man all that day?"

"What did they have a black man for?"

"They were helping him run away from slavery to be free in Canada. It
was all right. I'd have done the same thing. They helped a lot.
Father was a friend of the Governor. There were letters from him, and
there was some good reason why father stayed at home, when he was crazy
about the war. I think this farm was what they called an Underground
Station. What I want to know is where the station was."

"Maybe it's here. Let's hunt," I said. "If the black men were here
some time, they would have to be fed, and this is not far from the
house."

So we took long sticks and began poking into the weeds. Then we moved
the brush, and sure as you live, we found an old door with a big stone
against it. I looked at Leon and he looked at me.

"Hoo-hoo!" came mother's voice, and that was the third call.

"Hum! Must be for us," said Leon. "We better go as soon as we get a
little dryer."

He slid down the bank on one side, and I on the other, and we pushed at
the stone. I thought we never would get it rolled away so we could
open the door a crack, but when we did what we saw was most surprising.
There was a little room, dreadfully small, but a room. There was
straw scatter