1 Along the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Dorchester County, in Caroline County, the masters kept hearing whispers about the man named Moses, who was running off slaves. At first they did not believe in his existence. The stories about him were fantastic, unbelievable. Yet they watched for him. They offered rewards for his capture.
2 They never saw him. Now and then they heard whispered rumors to the effect that he was in the neighborhood. The woods were searched. The roads were watched. There was never anything to indicate his whereabouts. But a few days afterward, a goodly number of slaves would be gone from the plantation. Neither the master nor the overseer had heard or seen anything unusual in the quarter. Sometimes one or the other would vaguely remember having heard a whippoorwill call somewhere in the woods, close by, late at night. Though it was the wrong season for whippoorwills.
3 Sometimes the masters thought they had heard the cry of a hoot owl, repeated, and would remember having thought that the intervals between the low moaning cry were wrong, that it had been repeated four times in succession instead of three. There was never anything more than that to suggest that all was not well in the quarter. Yet when morning came, they invariably discovered that a group of the finest slaves had taken to their heels.
4 Unfortunately, the discovery was almost always made on a Sunday. Thus a whole day was lost before the machinery of pursuit could be set in motion. The posters offering rewards for the fugitives could not be printed until Monday. The men who made a living hunting for runaway slaves were out of reach, off in the woods with their dogs and their guns, in pursuit of four-footed game, or they were in camp meetings saying their prayers with their wives and families beside them.
5 Harriet Tubman could have told them that there was far more involved in this matter of running off slaves than signaling the would-be runaways by imitating the call of a whippoorwill, or a hoot owl, far more involved than a matter of waiting for a clear night when the North Star was visible.
6 In December, 1851, when she started out with the band of fugitives that she planned to take to Canada, she had been in the vicinity of the plantation for days, planning the trip, carefully selecting the slaves that she would take with her.
7 She had announced her arrival in the quarter by singing the forbidden spiritual-
"Go down, Moses, 'way down to Egypt Land"- singing it softly outside the door of a slave cabin, late at night. The husky voice was beautiful even when it was barely more than a murmur borne on the wind.
8 Once she had made her presence known, word of her coming spread from cabin to cabin. The slaves whispered to each other, ear to mouth, mouth to ear, "Moses is here." "Moses has come." "Get ready. Moses is back again." The ones who had agreed to go North with her put ashcake and salt herring in an old bandanna, hastily tied it into a bundle, and then waited patiently for the signal that meant it was time to start.
9 There were eleven in this party, including one of her brothers and his wife. It was the largest group that she had ever conducted, but she was determined that more and more slaves should know what freedom was like.
10 She had to take them all the way to Canada. The Fugitive Slave Law was no longer a great many incomprehensible words written down on the country's lawbooks. The new law had become a reality. It was Thomas Sims, a boy, picked up on the streets of Boston at night and shipped back to Georgia. It was Jerry and Shadrach, arrested and jailed with no warning.
11 She had never been in Canada. The route beyond Philadelphia was strange to her. But she could not let the runaways who accompanied her know this. As they walked along she told them stories of her own first flight, she kept painting vivid word pictures of what it would be like to be free.
12 But there were so many of them this time. She knew moments of doubt when she was half-afraid, and kept looking back over her shoulder, imagining that she heard the sound of pursuit. They would certainly be pursued. Eleven of them. Eleven thousand dollars' worth of flesh and bone and muscle that belonged to Maryland planters. If they were caught, the eleven runaways would be whipped and sold South, but she-she would probably be hanged.
13 They tried to sleep during the day but they never could wholly relax into sleep. She could tell by the positions they assumed, by their restless movements. And they walked at night. Their progress was slow. It took them three nights of walking to reach the first 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.
14 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.
15 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.
16 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.
What two words in the sentence below are clues that it uses conditional
* 1 point
mood?
"If they were caught, the eleven runaways would be whipped and sold
South"
"caught" and "be"
• "f" and "would"
• "runaways" and "sold"
• "they" and "South"
What is the Underground Railroad? *
• A subterranean railroad that runs through a mountain range
• A secret railroad to help slaves escape north
• A network of people and paths to help slaves escape
• Harriet Tubman's codename
What is Harriet Tubman's nickname? *
• Abraham
• Harry
• Hope
• Moses
1 point|
In paragraphs 39-41 why does Tubman say that they must "go on or die"? *
1 point
• It was too late in the year to return to Maryland.
• They would never survive the return trip.
• Going back would put the entire Underground Railroad at risk.
• The group was lost.
In paragraphs 54-55 what does she like better about Canada and what does * 1 point she like better about Maryland?
better weather
more freedom
Maryland
Canada
1 answer
Here are the answers to your questions based on the excerpt from "The Railroad Runs to Canada":
What two words in the sentence below are clues that it uses conditional mood?
Answer: "if" and "would"
What is the Underground Railroad?
Answer: A network of people and paths to help slaves escape
What is Harriet Tubman's nickname?
Answer: Moses
In paragraphs 39-41 why does Tubman say that they must "go on or die"?
Answer: They would never survive the return trip.
In paragraphs 54-55 what does she like better about Canada and what does she like better about Maryland?
Answer: more freedom (about Canada); better weather (often associated with Maryland, but not specified directly in the provided text)
Please note that the last question might need a specific reference to paragraphs 54-55 for the exact answer related to the text context.
