noon
She was many miles past any neighborhood where she was personally known . If she should chance to meet any who knew her , she reflected that the well-known kindness of the family would be of itself a blind to suspicion , as making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a fugitive . As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage , without a critical survey , and her child was white also , it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected . On this presumption , she stopped at noon at a neat farmhouse , to rest herself , and buy some dinner for her child and self ; for , as the danger decreased with the distance , the supernatural tension of the nervous system lessened , and she found herself both weary and hungry . The good woman , kindly and gossipping , seemed rather pleased than otherwise with having somebody come in to talk with ; and accepted , without examination , Eliza 's statement , that she `` was going on a little piece , to spend a week with her friends , '' -- all which she hoped in her heart might prove strictly true . An hour before sunset , she entered the village of T -- , by the Ohio river , weary and foot-sore , but still strong in heart . Her first glance was at the river , which lay , like Jordan , between her and the Canaan of liberty on the other side .