Page 12 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

stop. She had told them about the place where they would stay, promising warmth and
good food, holding these things out to them as an incentive to keep going.
When she knocked on the door of a farmhouse, a place where she and her parties of
runaways had always been welcome, always been given shelter and plenty to eat, there was no answer. She knocked again, softly. A voice from within said, “Who is it?” There was fear in the voice.
She knew instantly from the sound of the voice that there was something wrong. She said, “A friend with friends,” the password on the Underground Railroad.
The door opened, slowly. The man who stood in the doorway looked at her coldly,
looked with unconcealed astonishment and fear at the eleven disheveled runaways who were standing near her. Then he shouted, “Too many, too many. It’s not safe. My place was searched last week. It’s not safe!” and slammed the door in her face.
She turned away from the house, frowning. She had promised her passengers food and rest and warmth, and instead of that, there would be hunger and cold and more walking over the frozen ground. Somehow she would have to instill courage into these eleven people, most of them strangers, would have to feed them on hope and bright dreams of freedom instead of the fried pork and corn bread and milk she had promised them.
They stumbled along behind her, half dead for sleep, and she urged them on, though she was as tired and as discouraged as they were. She had never been in Canada, but she
kept painting wondrous word pictures of what it would be like. She managed to dispel their fear of pursuit so that they would not become hysterical, panic-stricken. Then
she had to bring some of the fear back, so that they would stay awake and keep walking though they drooped with sleep.
Yet, during the day, when they lay down deep in a thicket, they never really slept, because if a twig snapped or the wind sighed in the branches of a pine tree, they jumped to their feet, afraid of their own shadows, shivering and shaking. It was very cold, but they dared not make fires because someone would see the smoke and wonder about it.
***
That night they reached the next stop—a farm that belonged to a German. She made the runaways take shelter behind trees at the edge of the fields before she knocked at the door. She hesitated before she approached the door, thinking, suppose that he too should refuse shelter, suppose——Then she thought, Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to You
and You’ve got to see me through—and knocked softly.
She heard the familiar guttural voice say, “Who’s there?”
She answered quickly, “A friend with friends.”
He opened the door and greeted her warmly. “How many this time?” he asked. “Eleven,” she said and waited, doubting, wondering.
He said, “Good. Bring them in.”
incentive: something that motivates or encourages one to do something
disheveled: untidy, disordered
dispel: to rid one’s mind of, to make disappear
guttural: harsh sounding, gruff
Close Reading Workshop 1 • Close Reading of Informational/Literary Nonfiction Texts 11
© 2014 College Board. All rights reserved.