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newspaper,” Mrs. Monroe said, before the tinkle of the bells on the door announced her departure.
    “That Mrs. Monroe don’t know nothin’,” Mourning said. “Colored man need to know how to read more than any white man.”
    “That doesn’t make sense.” Olivia frowned at him.
    “It surely do. What if I tell you ’bout some slaves what escaped off a plantation all the way down in Virginia. For weeks they’s goin’ north.”
    Olivia never pointed out his grammatical errors. When Billy Adams or any of the other boys at school said things like “don’t know nothin’’ or “ain’t got” Olivia rolled her eyes and repeated the correct phrase in a show of great superiority. But Mourning’s voice flowed into his pattern of speech with such warm resonance, it sounded as if the words were meant to be put together just that way. Olivia was more tempted to imitate him than correct him, but knew how ridiculous she would sound.
    “They ain’t got nothin’ but their feet,” Mourning continued. “And they be walkin’ all night and hidin’ in the woods when the sun be shinin’. Don’t got nothin’ to eat but bark and berries. Just about starve straight to death. Can’t hardly stand up. Can’t hardly see where they goin’. But they keep on, walkin’ all night. Walkin’ and walkin’. And walkin’ some more.” He stopped to dip a cup of water from the barrel and drink it.
    “So what happened to them?”
    “Finally they be here in Pennsylvania, in the snow. Walk all the way from Virginia. And then what you think happen to them? Them slaves be losin’ their direction and turnin’ ’round the wrong way. They be spendin’ the next few days walkin’ smack back toward that slave state what they come from. Smack toward the slave-catcher what’s chasin’ after ’em. You know why? Cause of they can’t read no map and can’t read no road sign. So that show you.” He stabbed a finger at the air in front of Olivia’s face. “Person got to know where they be in this world. Specially a person what can get sold if he be in the wrong place.”
    “So what happened?” Olivia asked. “Did the slave-catchers get them?”
    “No. Luck from the Lord, they pass by a field where a colored man be workin’. He set them back on the right way. They find their way to Five Rocks in time for her to birth her baby.”
    Olivia stared at him for a long moment, hand cupped over her mouth, slowly absorbing the realization that the slaves in Mourning’s story were his parents.
    “Well, you don’t have to worry, Mourning Free,” she said at last. “You already read way better than most of the blockhead white kids around here.”
    Ten years had passed since then and Olivia seldom saw Mourning any more. They were agreeable to one another whenever he worked at Killion’s General, but he spent most of his time at the Feed & Grain, Ferguson’s Livery, or Smithy’s – all places Olivia seldom had cause to visit. When the weather was mild he was often gone for months at a time, working outside of town on someone’s farm. By now he was nearly a stranger to her.
    Olivia put on her coat and boots, picked a wrinkled cellar apple from the bowl on the table and put it in her pocket, wrapped a scarf around her ears and mouth, and opened the back door. She felt like laughing when an image formed in her mind – her trying to drag a kicking and screaming Mourning Free into a wagon headed for Michigan.

Chapter Four
    Olivia was glad to see it had stopped snowing. She loved the steel blue haze of the afternoon light in this kind of weather. The sun had begun to drop in the sky and the town wore a veil of mystery, the houses casting gray shadows and the church steeples stark against the muted sky.
    For a moment she grew melancholy. With her father gone she was an orphan too, just like Mourning Free. She didn’t have anyone to stick up for her either. But she shook herself silently. Oh, woe is you. So get going and start sticking up