DR. JAMES Seaver rehearsed what he would say, how he might approach Mary. He was just a little nervous, or perhaps he was trembling from eagerness.

He would at some point say, “All these years as a captive you have been drinking the nauseous dregs of the bitter cup of slavery.” It sounded elegant to him, and sympathetic.

In fact, he had already written one passage about his subject, based on numerous reports he had heard.

Although her bosom companion was an ancient Indian warrior, and notwithstanding her children and associates were all Indians, yet it was found that she possessed an uncommon share of hospitality, and that her friendship was well worth courting and preserving. Her house was the stranger’s home; from her table the hungry were refreshed;—she made the naked as comfortable as her means would admit of; and in all her actions, discovered so much natural goodness of heart, that her admirers increased in proportion to the extension of her acquaintance, and she became celebrated as the friend of the distressed. She was the protectress of the homeless fugitive and made welcome the weary wanderer. Many still live to commemorate her benevolence toward them, when prisoners during the war, and to ascribe their deliverance to the mediation of “The White Woman.”

THE DOCTOR was a sophisticated man. When the white-aproned Mrs. Whaley took him to Mary, who was already in the back parlor, he was taken wholly aback. She was sitting at a chair next to a table on which there was an oil lamp.

He had been trained to be observant. Normally he would have taken in all the details of her odd, hybrid garb first and committed those to memory, to the memory for which he had become famous among his friends and colleagues.

But the face stopped him. Her face. It was shining.

“Mary, this is James Seaver.” Mrs. Whaley was a large woman with baleful eyes, but she was brisk. She turned her massive body about and left the small room.

James managed, “Mrs. Jemison.”

Her lips parted as if she was about to respond and then closed again. She looked at him. “Please sit down,” she said finally.

Neither of them spoke for a minute, and then he said, “If it’s agreeable to you, I thought we might spend several hours just getting to know each other. That is, before we begin the formal account of your life. That is, one should know, don’t you think, a little about who one’s biographer is?” He began, “I am a physician who—”

“Dr. Seaver.”

“Yes?”

“You have been studying me. I have already studied you. I know much about you. Do you see my hair?”

“Well—yes.”

“It is going gray. But for this hour, I still have it. No one has scalped me yet. For this hour, I am still able to tell you my story. You are willing to receive it. This would be a good hour in which to begin.”