All right now, Jack Snappy. Down with you now. I have work to do.” Harriet Beecher Stowe pushed the large cat from her lap. Both of them had dozed off together.
She had dreamed the dream before, the dream of heaven, Nat Turner, and the throne. In fact, all the dreams swirled around her, the resurrection dreams, indigo sun dreams, the Nat Turner dreams.
It was hard to piece together exactly who had told her what, but she had begun writing about Nat Turner. She was writing twenty pages a day. But tonight, before she returned to her writing, she must finish the letter. It was overdue. Harriet tucked her hair into her nightcap and sat down at her desk with quill pen, ink, and paper.
July 17, 1856
Dear Duchess of Argyll—
It has long been my intention to write you with respect to some of the persons whom I have been instrumental in assisting with the money kindly left in my hands by His Grace. For some time after the receipt of that money, no opportunity of redeeming any enslaved family seemed to present itself. My feelings have become deeply interested in a slave man—a refugee in Boston named William, who receiving his liberty by the grace of God and his own ingenuity, declined my offer to ransom him… together with an only sister and her child—they are persons of such gentleness of temper and refinement of manners—with considerable natural polish…
Some of the money in my hands I lent to assist William and this woman to furnish a lodging house and business which they are successfully carrying on in Boston. I offered to send and pay for their redemption to the nominal owner but they declined—with some natural indignation and said they had rather the money were expended in this cause in some other way…
Inspired by William, and the life of the rebel Nat Turner, I have decided to title my book Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.