Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

The search lasts longer than Linda expects, and she begins to think she’ll never be able to leave the town. Once she hears patrols so close to her friend’s house that she runs into the swamp, staying there for hours. That night a reptile bites her and the wound becomes infected, preventing her from running if it becomes necessary.

Dr. Flint has threatened Linda’s family and urged her to return to him, but she is determined not to. At this point, Grandmother turns to a white woman she has known for a long time, and who has been visiting her in this time of crisis. The woman says that she will hide Linda in her house until there’s a possibility of sending her north, but that her name must never be mentioned, as it would ruin her husband’s social position.

Grandmother gets word to Linda, telling her to be ready. On the specified night her friend Betty, the white woman’s cook, comes to collect her. In the house, she’s given a small attic room; only Betty and the mistress will know about her presence, and they will care for her every day. Linda praises them both for their “Christian womanhood.”

Linda hopes that Dr. Flint will sell her children soon, but he seems to want revenge more than money. He throws William, Aunt Nancy, Benny, and Ellen into the city jail and tells Grandmother that she will never see them again until Linda comes back. Thinking of her children in jail, Linda wants to go to them, but she knows she can do nothing for her family as a slave. She even receives a note from William urging her to stay strong and keep hiding. Betty often visits them, bringing food and telling Linda how eager they are to see their mother.

At some point Ellen gets measles and is taken to Dr. Flint’s house to recover, but she screams and cries so much while she’s there that Mrs. Flint soon sends her back to jail. Linda is proud of her daughter for her instinctual loathing of the Flint household, but she also hears that Mrs. Flint is threatening to sell her to a sugar plantation as soon as she’s found.

To frighten Linda, Dr. Flint falsely tells Grandmother that he knows where she is and will soon capture her. Worried, Betty has Linda hide in a trap door under the kitchen for the entire day, until his threat proves to be a false alarm. Another day, Linda is even more frightened to hear Dr. Flint’s voice in the house while she’s sitting in the attic. She imagines that he’s searching the house and is terrified when the door to her room opens; but it’s only the white woman, who tells her that Dr. Flint has just come to borrow money from the family in order to go to New York and search for her. They both laugh at the thought of this expensive and fruitless search.