The Last Runaway

Winter approaches, leading Honor to worry about those escaping slavery. She muses over where on the farm these escapees can hide without detection, eventually deciding on the haymow, despite its obviousness as a hiding place. She hides a 12-year-old boy there for a day, slipping out to give him food before giving him directions to the Mill Street safe house in Oberlin. The boy remains the next day, citing the rarity of a warm place to hide. Honor frets that he will be discovered, but the next day, the boy has gone.

Several weeks later, Honor hides another person while Jack, Dorcas, and Judith are away from the farm. Honor hides with the woman in the barn as Donovan approaches. The two women endeavor to stay still and silent, which reminds Honor of accessing “Inner Light” at Quaker meetings. Donovan, however, seems to sense them; he calls that he will “let [Honor] go this once” but that it “won’t happen again” (206). Donovan leaves, and the silent woman indicates that she knows to follow the pole star northward.