Mysterious Signal Read Free Page B

in her mind.
If nothing else goes wrong
. She remembered the fugitive slave laws and the danger to Jordan and his father. She remembered all that had kept them from finding the money before now.
    Then she pushed her anxious thoughts away. Today, after their long struggle, the sun was shining. Jordan and his daddy were safe. Today only good things could happen.
    Inside the depot they found a man using a telegraph. As he jiggled a lever, Libby heard short and long clicks and knew he was sending Morse code. To her it seemed a miracle that a message could fly over a line of wire stretched between two cities.
    Eleven days before, when Libby, Caleb, Jordan, and Peter left the
Christina
at Alton, Illinois, Libby’s father, Captain Norstad, continued down the Mississippi River to St. Louis. Before separating, they had agreed to use the Alton train depot as a place to leave messages. Only yesterday Libby and Caleb had telegraphed Libby’s father to tell him they were in Springfield.
    As the telegraph operator looked up, Libby asked, “Any message from my pa?”
    “Here you are!” The telegraph operator handed Libby a piece of paper. Eagerly she read it:
    GLAD FOR GOOD NEWS STOP
MEET IN QUINCY AUGUST 12 STOP
       Libby stared at the message, then showed it to Caleb and Peter. “If Pa is glad for our good news, why does he say stop?” she asked Caleb.
    “Stop means the end of the sentence,” Caleb told her. “It’s like a period. Your pa wants us to meet him at Quincy, Illinois, on Wednesday, August twelfth.”
    “Two days from now.” Libby looked forward to seeing herfather. She wrote to Peter. “We can meet Pa in time.”
    But Caleb’s eyes had that uneasy look again. He turned back to the telegraph operator. “The next train to the Junction at North Bloomington. When does it leave?”
    After several more questions, Caleb led Libby and Peter away from the telegraph operator. The depot had two waiting rooms. Both were filled with benches and looked much alike. However, one room was set aside for women and children. The other, for men and boys, had spittoons—small brass pots—for the men who chewed tobacco.
    Instead of separating into two rooms, Libby and the boys went outside. Under the shelter of an overhanging roof, they sat down on crates ready to be shipped.
    “What’s wrong, Caleb?” Libby asked while eating breakfast.
    Picking up a stick, Caleb started to draw in the dirt. “We’re here,” he said, making a round hole that he labeled
Springfield
. Making a second hole, Caleb marked it
North Bloomington
, then drew a line from Springfield.
    From North Bloomington Caleb drew a longer line to Chicago. Then he marked the Mississippi River, Quincy, and Galena.

    Peter understood. “From the Junction at North Bloomington, Jordan and his daddy will go to Chicago. We’ll take whatever trains we need to meet Libby’s pa in Quincy. But how will Jordan and his daddy stay safe?”
    Safe
. As much as Libby wanted to forget the word, she couldn’t.
All my life I’ve wanted to be safe
, she thought.
    During the four years after her mother’s death, Libby lived with her Auntie Vi in Chicago. Since coming to be with her father on the
Christina
, Libby had learned a new meaning of the word
safe
. She and Pa and Caleb and his grandmother all worked to help runaway slaves be safe. Often Libby longed for a safe place for herself—a place where no danger could touch her or Pa or the people they loved.
    Pulling forward a strand of her long auburn hair, Libby started twisting it around her finger. In the early morning sunlight her hair shone red gold. Libby felt proud of her hair and thankful that she had inherited the color from her mother. She also felt glad that she had the same brown eyes as both Pa and Ma. Even now, Libby missed her mother.
    Sometimes it was just a fleeting thought—something such as the color of her hair that reminded Libby of days gone by. Other times she felt the deep ache of loneliness.
I wish