Study Questions

1. What issue prompts Mrs. Bird to discuss politics with her husband?

2. What does Mrs. Bird call the Fugitive Slave Law?

3. Why does Senator Bird at first believe that the law is “right and Christian”?

4. What does Senator Bird suggest to his wife when they see Eliza and Harry?

5. How does Eliza gain the sympathy of Mrs. Bird?

6. What do the Birds give to Harry?

7. Why does Senator Bird want to move Eliza and Harry to Van Trompe’s place?

8. Why does Senator Bird himself take them to Van Trompe’s?

9. From where is Van Trompe originally?

10. What does Senator Bird give to Van Trompe to pass on to Eliza?

Answers

1. The Fugitive Slave Law prompts Mrs. Bird to discuss politics.

2. She calls it a “shameful, wicked, abominable law.”

3. He believes that he must support the law as a public duty to the country.

4. He suggests that they give Eliza and Harry some clothes and blankets.

5. Eliza asks Mrs. Bird if she had ever lost a child.

6. They give Harry their dead son’s clothes.

7. He thinks that Eliza and Harry will be safer with Van Trompe because the slave catchers are nearby.

8. The Senator is the only one who knows the back roads to take through a rainy night.

9. He is originally from Kentucky. He moved to Ohio after freeing his slaves.

10. He gives Van Trompe a ten-dollar bill to give later to Eliza.