Kentucky Watching

This novel starts out in Kentucky watching a meeting between Mr. Shelby and Mr. Haley. Mr. Shelby has gotten himself into debt and has to sell a couple of his slaves to pay it off. Shelby offers to sell his favorite slave Tom. Tom is a very obedient person and can be trusted with any job. Shelby mentions to Haley that he often gives Tom money to go down to the market to buy things he needs around the house and Tom always comes back with exact change for Shelby. Haley sounds pleased with the offer but tells Shelby that one slave will not suffice. He wants Shelby to include a younger slave with the deal. Shelby agrees to sell Harry, the son of his maid, Eliza. Eliza just happens to overhear Shelby talking about selling the slaves and goes to warn Tom and tells him she's going to escape to Canada with Harry. She wanted him to let her husband know where she was going and to meet her there someday.

However Tom didn't leave. He went the next morning with Haley after sharing one last meal with his family. Haley was furious when he found out the slave he bought had escaped. Shelby told his slaves to prepare Haley a horse to go out and capture the slaves, but when the put a saddle on the horse, and put a nut in a position that would irritate the horse. When Haley mounted it, the horse immediately through him off, setting him back even further time wise. Haley sets off with two young slaves to escort him. The young slaves trick Haley into following a route they are sure Eliza wouldn't have taken. They all eventually reach the town in which Eliza and Harry have stopped to sleep.

Upon entering the town, one of Haley's escorts see Eliza standing in a window at the inn. This slave purposefully gets his hat blown off of his head and shouts as if he is surprised. The boy's shout alerted Eliza as to their presence. The inn Eliza was staying at was right on the Ohio river which was the dividing line between the North and the South. The river at the time was frozen over, preventing the fairy from crossing. When Eliza saw the signal from the young slave, she throws open the river-side door to her room and she and Harry jump onto a raft of ice. Ignoring all pain and cold, Eliza jumps from raft to raft of ice. When she reaches the other side, a man gives her help up. She recognized the man as Mr. Symmes, an owner of a farm close to her old home. Mr. Symmes was afraid to offer her further assistance due to the recently passed fugitive slave act, so he told her where she could go to get help. Haley is stunned at what has just happened and returns to the tavern while the two young slaves return to Shelby's ranch with the story of Eliza's leap. At the tavern, Haley meet Tom Loker, a professional slave hunter. Haley pays Loker to hunt down and capture Eliza and Harry, and tells them they can keep Eliza as long as Haley receives Harry.

Across the river Eliza and Harry arrive at the house Mr. Symmes referred them to. The house belonged to Senator Bird, a man who recently helped put the fugitive slave act into place. He knew he couldn't harbor them in his own home, so he drove them to a house owned by a friend of his. The man living at the house was John Van Trompe. John was a former slave owner who had moved North and freed all his slaves. Mr. Bird gave John a ten dollar bill to give to Eliza.

Over in Kentucky, a Spanish colored man walks into a small hotel accompanied by a slave. The man looks over to see a sign for a runaway slave with "very light mulatto" skin who will probably try to pass for a white man. A man at the counter looks at the "Spanish" man and realizes he is George Harris, the slave from the sign. The man was Mr. Wilson, who used to own George while he worked at a bagging factory. George invites Mr. Wilson to come up to his room. There he explains that he is a free man now and tells Wilson to give his wife, whom he thinks is a slave at this point, a pin. He also tells Wilson to tell his wife that he is going to Canada and to join her if at all possible.

Meanwhile, Haley goes back to Shelby's to get Tom. Before Tom leaves, Shelby's son, or as Tom calls him Mas'r George, tells Tom that when he gets older, he will come to save Tom. For now George give Tom a dollar to wear around his neck. Haley and Tom then head off for the slave market. Haley buys more slaves then puts everyone on a ship headed for the deep south where Haley would then sell them for plantation work. On the ship, Tom hears a big splash. When he looks over the edge, he sees the splash came from a girl that Tom had befriended earlier, Eva St. Clare, falling over board. Tom dove over the side over the boat to save her. Eva's father was so grateful, he offer to buy Tom off of Haley. Eva made sure her father would pay any price Haley might ask for him. St. Clare purchases Tom and says that he will be the family's coach driver.

St. Clare's wife, Marie, is not the woman he wanted to marry. Marie is a materialistic woman who irritates everyone she comes in contact with unimaginably. She also is constantly suffering from countless imagined diseases. Because his wife is so difficult and unreasonable, he has his cousin, Miss Ophelia, live with him to help take care of the kids. Miss Ophelia is a robust and responsible New England woman. She and St. Clare have almost opposite personalities yet they love each other like they were brother and sister.

Meanwhile, Eliza and Harry are staying at a Quakers' settlement. By coincidence, George Harris, Eliza's husband shows up at the very same settlement. They are both ecstatic to be reunited again. The man who was responsible for driving Eliza and her family to the next stopping place informs them that Tom Loker and his gang have arrived in town. The family they've been staying with leaves, hoping to escape in the cover of the night. They stop and make camp in a small place accessible only by walking through a small gap between two rocks, making it a very easy to defend campsite. When the slave hunters reach their campsite, George stand s on a rock to confront them. He tells them that he is willing to defend the camp by force if necessary. The hunter start to shoot at him but he steps out of the way and warns that he will shoot any man who tries to enter. Sure enough when Loker forces his way between the rocks, George shoots him in the side, wounding him. The other hunters attempt to keep fighting, but eventually retreat, deserting Loker. Eliza shows mercy