One day long before he became President, Abraham Lincoln was selling things in a shop. Then there was a mysterious man with rags and had a barrel. He wanted to sell it. The man said that the barrel would change Abe’s life.Then he left.

Abe opened the barrel, there was a book inside. Abe loved reading so he opened the book. When he was done reading, he learned about slavery.When he looked outside, he saw the saddest thing he ever saw. He saw dark-colored people getting sold on auction! They looked very sad. They were chained together by the foot. Very, very sad, he thought. He imagined how it would be like if he was one of them and he imagined how they would miss their family if they got separated.

He wanted to stop it. But how? When he got home he tried to think about stopping it. The next day he saw more people on auction like yesterday! Now he was very mad but he didn’t have the power to stop them doing it. The people would easily kick him out! Still, he was very angry but how would he stop them? When he got home he saw a woman running, she stopped into Abe’s house. Abe’s heart was pounding. Was she the one he saw two days ago?! His mind had tons of questions to ask but nothing came out of his mouth. He was speechless.Then the woman spoke, “Hi my name is Harriet Tubman, I am a runaway slave.”

“How did you get to my house in North Carolina?” he asked.

“I was running in the woods and I found a house and I was very hungry and tired. My life on the plantation was hard because we had to pick cotton for the master, and get whipped by  the wife if I didn’t do good on weaving. I wanted to run away because of that but my husband didn’t want me to, so if he noticed me run away, he would tell my master and I would get caught.”

“Wow, so how did you finally escape?”

“I sneaked into the night while both of them were asleep. I took some food and started to head out. It was very dark and I heard the sound of squeaking noises, like mice and owls hooting. I ran for a long time until I got to the North and I saw the light on in your house.”

Then Abe said, “I want to free slaves, do you want to help me?”

Harriet said, “Sure, but we first have to try it ourselves to see if it’s safe and then we can free the slaves.”  

“Sure,” said Abe.

First they packed some food to eat just in case they started to get hungry and they took some water. Then they took off. While they were walking Abe was trying to find his compass but he just couldn’t find it.

Abe said, “Harriet I think we’re lost.”

After saying that sentence, he spoke too soon, so they found a cottage. He opened the door and they saw an old lady sitting by a fireplace.

Harriet and Abe asked the lady if she could help. “Can you show us how to get to freedom?”

The lady said, “Sure.”

“But where do we go?” asked Harriet.

“Go to the Underground Railroad,” said the lady.

“What is the Underground Railroad?” asked Abe.

“It’s a pathway in the woods that the slaves use to escape, but sometimes they still get caught.”

“Where is it?” asked Harriet.

“Five miles more north,” said the lady.

“But how do you know?” asked Harriet.

“I saw other slaves like you running through the woods and they stopped in my house too, but they got caught. It was very sad,” said the lady, filled with pity. “But I hope that you two don’t get caught.”

Harriet and Abe thanked the woman, and then started their journey again. They were in a forest and it was very cold, but they still walked and walked until they got to the Underground Railroad. It was a pathway with bushes around it and with trees. There were already footsteps there, so they followed the footsteps.

They were so happy. Abe thought he would be brave because after working so hard, going on a trip and being cold and scared, they finally found the place to lead them to freedom.

Suddenly they saw a white slave hunter and the slave hunter saw them.

Harriet and Abe were so frightened, they tried to run away but they were not fast enough.

So they got caught. They got lassoed.They were chained together by the foot walking in a straight line.                 

When they were heading to the South, Abe found a knife in the slave hunter’s pocket and Abe tried to cut the chains. Finally he broke it. It took two hours to break the chains open but the slave hunter didn’t hear them because he was deaf.

So they escaped easily.

It was still a long way to the north because they took two hours to break the chains and THAT was a big disappointment.

After a day they were running out of food but they were to the north. Finally they could free the other slaves because they knew where the Underground Railroad was. They went back to the old lady’s house and asked for a wagon.

“Can we have a wagon to help free the slaves?” asked Abe.

She said, “Sure, it’s outside in my backyard.”

Harriet thought: We can use it quicker and faster to get to the South because last time we had to walk on foot.

They took the wagon and freed more of the slaves at night. When they went back to the South, they took the slaves to the Underground Railroad. They pretended to be slave hunters so no one would think they were actually helping the slaves, and they hid the wagon with bushes.

Finally they freed all the slaves in two months. All the slaves thanked Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln.

Abe said to Harriet, “If we didn’t do it together, we would have failed.”

“We did lots of teamwork the whole time,” said Harriet.

Then they built a house in the North instead of the South. They lived in the house for many years.

                                                  THE END