Well, I did it. Oh, it was a long rowin time in the cold, with me worryin. But pretty soon I see a light way up high. Then I remembered the woman told me to watch for a light. Told me to row to the light, which is what I did. And when I got to it, there were two men. They reached down and grabbed the girl. Then one of the men took me by the arm. Said, “You about hungry?” And if he hadn’t been holdin me, I would of fell out of that rowboat.

Well, that was my first trip. I was scared for a long time after that. But pretty soon I got over it, as other folks asked me to take them across the river. Two and three at a time, I’d take them. I got used to makin three or four trips every month.

—“Carrying the Running-Aways,”
Virginia Hamilton

What is the topic of this passage?

an enslaved man rowing other people to freedom

a runaway who has not eaten in days

details about what slavery was like in the South

a man’s last trip down the Ohio River