The Good Lord Bird

They stay at Douglass’s home for three weeks. Henry meets Douglass’s two wives: a German white woman named Miss Ottilie and a colored woman, Miss Anna. The two women dislike each other and take their anger out on Henry by making him do chores and scolding him for his bad manners. He feels that “In Rochester, you couldn’t so much as doodle your fingers without insulting somebody on the question of a lady behaving thus and so” (221). Henry wants to drink badly, and one evening he sneaks into Douglass’s liquor cabinet for a sip of alcohol. He is then summoned to Douglass’s office for an interview.

Douglas asks Henry what he knows about “the plight of the Negro” (224) and then sits on a love seat with him. He touches Henry’s neck, and then his nose, and Henry gets nervous and stands up, saying that he needs a drink. They drink two bottles of whiskey together, quickly, and Douglass makes a speech, forgetting about Henry and how he had been flirting with him. After telling Henry never to marry two women, Douglass passes out on the floor. 

On a train to Chicago, Brown wakes Henry up and tells him they have to jump from the train. They get off when the train stops to take on water. Brown says they are in Pennsylvania and he is again trying to throw federal agents off of their trail. They follow the tracks to the nearest town and get on a train to Boston. Brown tells Henry that they are going to raise funds by giving speeches, and he may ask Henry to talk about the horrors of his life as a former slave.

Two rich men meet them at the train station and escort Brown to several churches where he speaks against slavery. The audiences are enthusiastic and Brown is beloved in the east. It makes Henry “A bit sad, truth be to tell it, to watch them hundreds of white folks crying for the Negro, for there weren’t hardly ever any Negroes present at most of them gatherings, and them that was there was doodied up and quiet as a mouse. It seemed to me the whole business of the Negro’s life out there weren’t no different than it was out west, to my mind. It was like a big, long lynching. Everybody got to make a speech about the Negro but the Negro” (233).

They travel for weeks, earning significant amounts of money at each stop. Brown is eager to return to both fighting and prairie life, but decides to stop at Boston once more before returning west. Brown speaks at a large pulpit before an audience of several hundred. There are rumors that a federal agent is in the crowd, ready to arrest him. Brown tells Henry to wave the Good Lord Bird’s feather that is tucked into his bonnet if he sees the agent.

Henry sees a suspicious man watching Brown and believes he is a federal agent. During the closing prayer, the man approaches Brown and Henry tries to warn him. But the man is actually Hugh Forbes, a military expert from Europe. He claims that he will train Brown’s armies and lead their campaigns. Brown gives him over six hundred dollars to use for the cause, but after Forbes leaves, they never see him again. 

Two weeks later Brown admits that Forbes has tricked him, and announces that they are going to Canada “to unleash the true gladiators in this hellion against the infernal wickedness. The leaders of the Negro people themselves” (242). They take a train to Detroit and meet the twelve current members of Brown’s army. They make their way to the Canadian town of Chatham, where Brown delivers a speech to a group of black people and then asks for their help in the fight against slavery. Most of them do not want to sign up without knowing Brown’s specific plan. He will not give his plan because he believes there may be spies in the room.

A woman stands and scolds the men for their lack of commitment. She is Harriet Tubman and supports any plan that Brown has. Her speech excites Henry, who yells, “I’ll follow the Captain to the ends of the earth! Count me in!” (249). The men all sign up after seeing that a child is brave enough to join the fight.

Afterwards, Tubman talks to Henry and says, “God’ll take you however you want to come to Him. But it’s easier on the soul to come to Him clean. You’re forever free that way. From top to bottom” (252). Brown promises Tubman that he will execute his plan on a specific date, but it never happens, “and for that reason, the one person he could count on, the greatest slave emancipator in American history, the best fighter he could’a got, the one person who knows more about escaping the white man’s troubling waters than any man alive, never showed up” (252). 

Brown is excited when he returns to Iowa, believing that he will have the support of hundreds of Canadians when he calls for them. Henry begins to worry that Brown does not actually have a plan, and that he might be going crazy. He writes letters asking for money from supporters, but when they respond, they say they need to know more about his strategy before donating. This infuriates Brown.

Brown falls ill and they stay at a cabin outside of Tabor for four months. During an extreme fever, Brown hallucinates and talks to people who aren’t there. Henry stays by his side and gives the men updates on his condition. Brown had left a man named Kagi in charge while in Canada, and Kagi continues training with the men, helping them with their swords and pistols.

One evening Brown is feeling better and asks Henry to summon the men. Brown tells them that it will be time to fight soon, but still refuses to tell them his plan. Kagi says he has been working on a plan, and will institute it instead if Brown doesn’t tell them his strategy. Brown relents and tells them that he plans to attack the government. He is going to take them to Harper’s Ferry in Virginia and raid the Federal Armory for weapons. Henry is disturbed, but also comforted by the men’s reception to this news: “I knows I weren’t the only person in the world who knowed the Old Man’s cheese had slid off his biscuit” (263). The attack would mean facing down over ten thousand military men in nearby Washington, should they respond.

The men argue for three hours. Brown asks them to sleep on it before deciding, and to consider that if they successfully complete the raid, they will be able to arm thousands of Negroes who will then help them fight. 

Brown sends a man named Cook ahead to Harper’s Ferry to spread word of his plan among the Negroes. Cook is a boaster and Kagi thinks he will make a terrible spy because will reveal their plans while bragging to women. Brown decides to send Henry with him to curb his behavior. Henry agrees because the trip will take him close to the Philadelphia line, where he will be able to escape to freedom.

Outside the town of Harper’s Ferry, Cook rents the biggest house he can find. He spends three days flirting with local woman and then tells Henry to go “find and rouse the Negroes” (281). Henry goes to a plantation owned by a man named Washington, where he speaks to a black coachman and tells him that John Brown is coming. The coachman hides Henry in the back of his wagon. Then he drives Henry outside of town and tells him to run towards Chambersburg, a town twenty miles away. Gradually, Henry convinces him that he knows John Brown, and that Brown’s army is coming. The man rides away after saying that he is going to send someone to the farm where Cook is staying to check on Henry’s story. 

Two days later, an old black woman named Becky comes to the farm and asks if they want to buy brooms. She then says, “The Coachman says you did” (290). Becky talks with Cook and Henry, but does not believe their story. She believes Brown is dead. Cook shows her the crates of rifles they brought with them and Becky is more convinced. But she tells them that there are only ninety slaves in Harpers Ferry, not the twelve hundred Brown had promised. Cook tells Becky that they will attack on October 23rd and Henry can’t believe he is stupid enough to give the date.

Becky tells Henry that there is a man they call the Blacksmith. He runs the local region of the Underground Railroad and will kill Henry and Cook if he thinks their presence endangers the Railroad. Becky notices that there is a shawl covering one of the rifle crates. It is a shawl that Harriet Tubman gave to Brown. She recognizes it. Henry tells her that the person who gave them the shawl also promised to come on October 23rd, and that she would be bringing help. Becky leaves, but warns them that if any colored people come around, unless they mention the “Rail Man or the Blacksmith” (298), they have to kill that person. 

Cook begins working in a tavern. One night he says that someone from the Railroad wants to meet with Henry at one in the morning. Henry meets the Rail Man on the banks of the Potomac River. He tells Henry that Brown’s plan is stupid and dangerous. He also does not believe that the colored people in Harpers Ferry will want to fight with Brown. When Brown loses the insurrection, The Rail Man says, “These white folks is gonna donate every bullet they got to elephant-hunt the Negro once they kill old John Brown” (304).

Henry tells him Brown’s plan. The Rail Man loves Brown, but does not believe that his plan to raid the Armory without help will work. He says that he believes he could recruit several hundred Negroes to come fight in three weeks by using the Railroad. Every day he plays the numbers (an earlier version of the lottery), and so do hundreds of others. The numbers are delivered by word of mouth, via Railroad workers like the Rail Man. This is how he can get news of the insurrection for October 23rd to people who otherwise receive no news, given that most people of color at the time do not receive telegrams, and many can’t read. If Brown can give him five hundred dollars, The Rail Man promises to use the Railroad to recruit. 

Cook writes to Brown, who sends five hundred dollars, which arrives a week later. Brown arrives after two weeks and goes to the farm. His army will be arriving in small groups, to avoid suspicion. That afternoon Brown’s sixteen-year old daughter, Annie, and his daughter-in-law, Martha, come to the farm to help care for the army. Henry will sleep upstairs with the two women. He sees Annie taking a bath and she laughs at his shyness, not knowing that he is a boy. Henry thinks, “I couldn’t stand it, for I was then fourteen, near as I can tell it, and had yet to experience nature’s ways” (312).

Brown’s army comes to town and they plan at the house. When Henry walks through the streets, the colored people avoid him. One woman shouts at him, “You’re gonna get us all murdered!” (315). The Rail Man meets with Kagi and promises that the plan to bring in other fighters is going well. For six weeks they plan in the house. Henry spends most of the time with Annie, who had decided to give him Bible lessons. As they talk, Henry thinks about having to pose as a girl around a girl he likes: “Being a Negro’s a lie anyway. Nobody sees the real you. Nobody knows what you are inside. You just judged on what you are on the outside whatever your color” (318).

One evening on the porch, Henry sings gospel songs to Annie. She kisses him on the cheek and says, “Would that you was a boy, Henrietta! Why, I’d marry you!” (319). Henry tells himself that he can’t go near her again. He is falling in love with her and doesn’t want to make trouble for her, or the army.

A nosy neighbor named Mrs. Huffmaster begins visiting the house every day, trying to see inside. She senses that something is happening, but doesn’t know that fifteen men are always hiding inside. Annie never lets her in. One day Mrs. Huffmaster sees Henry and says, “Why is you hanging ‘bout the railroad down at the Ferry all the time, trying to roust the niggers up? That’s the talk ‘round town ‘bout you” (323). Annie orders her to leave, and she does. Henry wants to hug her, but stops, because, “She’d a felt my heart banging, she’d’a felt the love busting outta me, and she’d’a knowed I was a man” (324). 

Brown takes Henry and Kagi to Chambersburg to visit Frederick Douglass, because Brown is concerned that the colored fighters are not showing up in Harpers Ferry yet.

Henry tells the reader that the historical accounts, of which there are many, of Brown’s visit to Douglass are wrong. “I was there too, and I seen it differently” (328), he says. As they ride towards the quarry where the meeting will happen, dozens of colored people are hiding on the sides of the road, whispering thank you’s and prayers to Brown, who is disguised as a fisherman.

Douglass is with another black man named Shields Green, although Douglas refers to him as “Emperor” (329). Brown outlines their plan, and Douglass says that it cannot succeed. He also refuses to help, saying that it is too dangerous. Brown leaves, and Emperor goes with him. Brown “never spoke to Frederick Douglass or ever mentioned his name again” (331). On the ride back to Harpers Ferry, Henry sees that Brown now realizes he will lose the fight “for the Negro, on account of the Negro, and he brung hisself to it anyway” (332). 

At the farm, Annie has bad news. Mrs. Huffmaster has called the Sheriff. Oliver got him to leave, but the Sheriff is returning with deputies the following Saturday to search the house. Brown decides to move the attack up by a week. He also plans to send Henry to Philadelphia with Annie and Martha, prior to the fight. Henry goes to the train station and tells the Rail Man the change in plans. The Rail Man agrees to bring the fighters on the train, but that he will not send them into the fight unless someone comes and speaks the password “Jesus is walkin’“ (339).

At the house, Annie is afraid, telling Henry she has a “terrible feeling” (340). The day before the attack they prepare a wagon. Henry says a brief good-bye to Brown and hides under a pile of hay in the back of the wagon. Then Henry realizes that he forgot to give Brown the Rail Man’s password. They have already ridden for three hours. Annie asks Henry if he will come to North Elba with her and help start a school. Henry realizes that he will never respect himself if he doesn’t go back. He comes out from under the hay and “pulled the bonnet off my head, and ripped my dress down to the waist. Her mouth opened in shock” (347). He tells her that he loves her and jumps off the wagon.

Henry gets a ride with an old man on his coach, but it takes a day to return to the farm since the man has to avoid slave patrols. When Henry gets to the farmhouse, he tells Owen about the password, but Brown left four hours prior for the fight. Henry runs miles towards the bridge, just in time to see the train arriving. Oliver and a man named Taylor are walking down the train tracks towards the Rail Man, who has stopped the train. Henry knows that if they don’t give him the password, the Rail Man will think he has been betrayed and will end the mission. Henry shouts “Jesus is walkin’!” (351) but they don’t hear him.

After hearing the password, the Rail Man was supposed to wave his lamp. Instead, he blows it out and walks towards the “rail office” (353). Oliver mistakenly thinks that the Rail Man is going for help against them, and shoots him in the back. Henry will later learn that it takes the Rail Man another day to die. Henry reaches Oliver and tells him that the Rail Man was trying to help them. Dozens of colored people jump off the train after failing to see the Rail Man waving his lamp as a sign that the attack was on. They run in the other direction and Henry says, “We is doomed” (355). 

They go into the Armory, where Brown is waiting with his army. He has actually managed to take Harpers Ferry. Now he is sure that they will be victorious, once the colored fighters arrive. Before Henry can tell Brown about the mistake, two white men knock on the door. Brown tells them he is there to free the Negroes, and the men laugh, saying that a man has been shot already at the railway station. Brown has one prisoner, and the two men outside say they will be back soon and not to harm him.

By noon, the townspeople are aware of the situation and rumors begin to spread. A crowd of drunken men begin to gather around the armory. Soon there are militiamen, who begin firing on the engine house that holds Brown’s army. Brown tells two men, Anderson and Stevens, to take Henry back to the farm and summon the people there to fight. They escape the engine house, make it across the bridge, and head up the hills towards the farm. 

They find Cook on a road, shouting, “We has hived some bees!” (372). He is referring to two white men and ten confused slaves. One of the slaves is the Coachman. One of the white men introduces himself as Colonel Washington, a great-nephew of George Washington. He owns the slaves. The Coachman says he is ready to fight, and Washington tells him to sit down. The Coachman tries to hit him and is restrained by the others. When they are calm again, Stevens says it is time to return to the Ferry, and he has a plan to get them inside. They will ride in the coach. Washington will tell the guards that, as a militia Colonel, he has been ordered to exchange himself and his Negroes for prisoners inside the engine house.

They make it to the engine house without being stopped, because the fighting is fiercest on the other side, opposite their approach. Inside, Brown is happy to see Henry. He says a lengthy prayer and the men prepare for the next wave of attacks from outside. 

Over two hundred militia men begin firing on the engine house. Brown’s army holds them off, wave after wave. During a lull, the mayor of Harpers Ferry, Fontaine Beckham, tries to get close enough to talk with Brown. A man named Coppoc shoots and kill him, sending the mob outside into a frenzy. After nightfall, over four hundred men burst through the gate and advance. Many of Brown’s men are killed and the army is overrun. Henry prays over the Good Lord Bird feather, saying, “Lord, let me be your angel” (393). Brown’s son, Watson, is killed as Brown tries to come up with a new plan. 

Later that night, Federal soldiers arrive. A man, Lieutenant Jeb Stuart from Robert E. Lee’s army, comes to speak with Brown. Brown refuses to surrender, and Stuart tells him that they are surrounded by twelve hundred troops. Henry watches the Negroes in the engine house. Some of them are trying to flatter their masters, who are hostages, now that they realize they are going to lose.

Emperor gathers the colored people and tells them that in the morning, Brown is going to lay down a barrage of gunfire through the front that should allow them to escape to the river through the back window. Henry is determined to find some boy’s clothes. If he is going to die, he wants to die as himself. While talking to Emperor, he reveals that he is a boy and asks for help with clothes. Emperor brings him the Coachman’s pants, and gives him his own shirt, along with a feather from Brown, “the last of the Good Lord Bird” (403). Emperor tells Henry that, once he escapes, he is to tell any white person he sees that he belongs to “Mr. Harold Gourhand” (404).

At dawn, they drop out the back window and are caught by the cavalry. They swear they are not part of the uprising. Henry tells one soldier he belongs to Gourhand, and the man says he will give him a ride home. Henry directs him to the farmhouse. Owen comes out onto the porch and says that he is not Henry’s master, but is watching Mr. Gourhand’s slaves while Gourhand is out of town.

Over the next few days, the small remaining group head north, trying to reach the free states. Henry stays for four months with a family, the Caldwells, and hides in the back of their barbershop. Through the wall, he hears customers talking about the rebellion at Harper’s Ferry. Afterwards, most of the slaves in the region were separated and sold so they could not organize. Brown and his surviving men were jailed in Charles Town (Charleston). In the six weeks before Brown’s hanging, he wrote more letters than ever and raised a great deal of discussion about slavery and emancipation.

Mr. Caldwell arranges for Henry to visit Brown in jail the night before his hanging. Henry poses as a cleaning boy and goes to Brown’s cell with his brushes and cleaning tools. Brown is surprised to see Henry in boy’s clothes, but not disturbed. He tells Henry that he is the luckiest man in the world, because “There is an eternity behind and an eternity before. That little spec at the center, however, is life. And that is but comparatively a minute. I has done what the Lord asked me to do in the little time I had” (413). Brown begins a prayer that lasts for half an hour. When he finishes, Henry asks why he never asked “why I went about as I did” (414). Brown smiles, and Henry realizes that he always knew Henry was a boy.

Brown takes out a feather and gives it to Henry, saying, “The Good Lord Bird don’t run in a flock. He flies alone. You know why? He’s searching. Looking for the right tree. And when he sees that tree, that dead tree that’s taking all the nutrition and good things from the forest floor. He goes out and he gnaws at it, and he gnaws at it till that thing gets tired and falls down. And the dirt from it raises the other trees. It gives them good things to eat. It makes ‘em strong” (415).

Henry takes a train to Philadelphia on the day of the hanging. Mr. Caldwell has given him the papers that will allow him to reach the free states. Thousands of rebel soldiers attend the hanging. While passing a church, Henry hears the worshippers singing Brown’s favorite hymn, “Blow Ye Trumpet” (416).