Sweet Clara is a slave who is taught to sew and given the opportunity to be taken to the big house and become a seamstress. While she is there, she listens carefully and hears about the surrounding lands and how people try to escape to freedom, but without a map, they have a hard time making it far enough to be taken in by the underground railroad.
So, Clara sets to work to make a map that can be hidden in plain sight. She starts making a strange, patternless quilt, with seams for roads and flowered pieces for fields. Without saying a word, some of the other slaves catch on to what she is doing and stop by to share their information. From one slave who tries to escape and is brought back, she finds out how to reach the boat that will take them to the underground railroad. Finally, when the quilt is complete, she leaves it behind, and she follows the map with a male friend. They go to another farm following the map and pick up her baby sister and her mother, and together find their way north, leaving behind a map to lead anyone else who wants to find the way.
Taken from a lesser known piece of American history.
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