Follow the Drinking Gourd

Authors: Jeanette Winter

To Frances Foster

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 1988 by Jeanette Winter
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. Originally published in hardcover
by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 1988.
knopf, borzoi books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winter, Jeanette.
Follow the drinking gourd / written and illustrated by Jeanette Winters.
p. cm.
summary: By following the directions in a song, “The Drinking Gourd,” taught them by an old sailor named Peg Leg
Joe, runaway slaves journey north along the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada.
Trade paperback ISBN 978-0-394-89694-6 — Library binding ISBN 978-0-394-99694-3 — eBook ISBN 978-0-307-98278-0
[1. Fugitive slaves — Fiction. 2. Slavery — Fiction. 3. Underground Railroad — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W7547Fo 1988
[E]—dc19
88-9661
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

Contents

Title Page

First Page

About the Author

A NOTE ABOUT THE STORY

In the early days of slavery in the United States, many slaves tried to escape their cruel bondage by fleeing north—usually to Canada—to freedom. By the 1840s, a loosely organized group of free blacks, slaves, and white sympathizers formed a secret network of people and places that hid escaped slaves on their dangerous journey to freedom—a network that came to be known as the Underground Railroad.

Traveling along darkened roads at night, hiding out by day, moving slowly upriver along hundreds of miles of connecting waterways, the fugitive slaves endured many hardships. Slave catchers hunted them down with dogs. Many were shot or hanged And even after crossing into the “free” states, runaway slaves could still be captured and returned to their masters for a reward.

The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave herself, who led hundreds of her people to freedom. Among other conductors, there was a onelegged sailor named Peg Leg Joe. Joe hired himself out to plantation owners as a handyman. Then he made friends with the slaves and taught them what seemed a harmless folk song—“Follow the Drinking Gourd.” But hidden in the lyrics of the song were directions for following the Underground Railroad. The Drinking Gourd is the Big Dipper, which points to the North Star. “When the sun comes back, and the first quail calls” meant spring, when travel might be least hazardous.

As the runaway slaves followed the stars north, they would come across marks Peg Leg Joe had made in the mud or in charcoal on dead trees—a left foot and a peg foot—and they would know they were on the right trail.

The river that “ends between two hills” was the Tombigbee River The second was the Tennessee River, and the “great big river” was the Ohio River, where Peg Leg Joe would be waiting to ferry them across to the free states on the other side. From there the fugitives were guided from one hiding place to the next until—with luck—they made it to Canada or other safe places in the North.