Ann listens soberly to Aunty Rogers’ grievances. She says that this comes as a big surprise to her as well; she had no idea. She says that she can’t imagine what insanity came over her children. She agrees that they had no cause, assures Aunty Rogers of her own fundamental goodness. She admits to nothing. The Booths could take acting lessons from her (and probably any other slave in the South as well).

Asia would have been entirely convinced had she not, just a week or so prior, happened on Ann and Rosalie whispering together in conspiratorial fashion, a conversation that stopped immediately when Asia walked in.

Aunty Rogers remains insulted. She comes less often to visit the Booths, where she is so likely to run into Ann. Asia doesn’t want to choose between these two women—she loves them both. She feels there must be blame on both sides. Aunty Rogers should have forced her husband to emancipate Ann’s children. But Ann shouldn’t have participated, if she participated, in this illegal flight.

John says very little about it, noting only that the Booths depended on Pink to care for their horses and what are they to do now? It’s an inconvenience rather than an outrage. He grants the Hall family an exemption from his usual politics.

So two more of Ann and Joe’s children are free. But they won’t see their mother again until the end of the Civil War. And they have looked on their father for the very last time.

xii

For most of Asia’s life so far, the large world of not-Booths has occupied very little of her thinking. Living among slaves, intertwined as they are with the Hall family, she seems strangely oblivious to the great issue of the nation. What does it have to do with her and her brothers? Plus Father always said that actors can’t afford to be political. When he wrote his death threat to Jackson, that was a personal, not a political, matter.

This changes.

National politics grow increasingly violent while politics in Baltimore take their own volatile turn. The issue of the moment here is not slavery, but immigration.

John tries to goad Asia, and sometimes Rosalie, into argument. He has a didactic, badgering style and insists on continuing long past the point at which he’s either convinced or exhausted his opponent, as he will not quit without winning. Asia begins these arguments full of spirit and ends them drained of all conviction. His beliefs are so much more deeply held than hers.

He’s joined the Know-Nothing Party and, finding the opposition at home too tame, begins to frequent the Bel Air saloon in pursuit of livelier game. He’s passionate about the anti-immigration sentiments and there are other things that also appeal to his sixteen-year-old heart. The Know-Nothings are a party of clandestine meetings, secret oaths and handshakes. They think and move like spies.