Uncle Tom's Cabin Notes | Chapter 7

Eliza, having run with Harry all night, decides to stop for lunch at a small cafe the next day, explaining to the owner that she is on her way to visit friends. Eliza inquires about ferry passage over the Ohio River, and the cafe owner explains that while there is no boat service, she knows of a man who is planning to make a personal journey that evening. Eliza tells the woman that she needs to cross urgently, as her son is sick. The woman offers her a room to rest while she waits for the man who is planning to cross the river. Meanwhile, Sam, Andy, and Haley have proceeded in their search for Eliza, and their wagon parks at the inn where Eliza is sleeping with Harry. Upon hearing Sam's voice, Eliza grabs Harry and escapes through a side door in her room and runs toward the river.

Haley catches a glimpse of her, and the whole party chases after her. She sprints toward the river's edge, and with a wild and desperate leap, hops onto a cake of ice floating in the river:

"The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;--stumbling--leaping--slipping--springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone--her stocking cut form her feet--while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank." Chapter 7, pg. 61

Miraculously, she lands on it and hops across several others, her feet cut and bleeding, and manages to scramble to the Ohio side of the river. There, she sees a man she knows who owns a farm near the Shelby's. He helps her up the bank, and she explains her predicament. He points her toward a nearby house, and tells her she will be received kindly there. She thanks him profusely and proceeds to the house.