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Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Release date: January 13, 2006 [eBook #203]
                Most recently updated: November 21, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Judith Boss, an Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE TOM'S CABIN ***




Uncle Tom’s Cabin
 or
 Life among the Lowly

by Harriet Beecher Stowe


Contents

 VOLUME I
 CHAPTER I—In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity
 CHAPTER II—The Mother
 CHAPTER III —The Husband and Father
 CHAPTER IV—An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
 CHAPTER V—Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners
 CHAPTER VI—Discovery
 CHAPTER VII—The Mother’s Struggle
 CHAPTER VIII—Eliza’s Escape
 CHAPTER IX—In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man
 CHAPTER X—The Property Is Carried Off
 CHAPTER XI—In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind
 CHAPTER XII—Select Incident of Lawful Trade
 CHAPTER XIII—The Quaker Settlement
 CHAPTER XIV—Evangeline
 CHAPTER XV—Of Tom’s New Master, and Various Other Matters
 CHAPTER XVI—Tom’s Mistress and Her Opinions
 CHAPTER XVII—The Freeman’s Defence
 CHAPTER XVIII—Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions

 VOLUME II
 CHAPTER—Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions Continued XIX
 CHAPTER XX—Topsy
 CHAPTER XXI—Kentuck
 CHAPTER XXII—“The Grass Withereth—the Flower Fadeth”
 CHAPTER XXIII—Henrique
 CHAPTER XXIV—Foreshadowings
 CHAPTER XXV—The Little Evangelist
 CHAPTER XXVI—Death
 CHAPTER XXVII—“This Is the Last of Earth”
 CHAPTER XXVIII—Reunion
 CHAPTER XXIX—The Unprotected
 CHAPTER XXX—The Slave Warehouse
 CHAPTER XXXI—The Middle Passage
 CHAPTER XXXII—Dark Places
 CHAPTER XXXIII—Cassy
 CHAPTER XXXIV—The Quadroon’s Story
 CHAPTER XXXV—The Tokens
 CHAPTER XXXVI—Emmeline and Cassy
 CHAPTER XXXVII—Liberty
 CHAPTER XXXVIII—The Victory
 CHAPTER XXXIX—The Stratagem
 CHAPTER XL—The Martyr
 CHAPTER XLI—The Young Master
 CHAPTER XLII—An Authentic Ghost Story
 CHAPTER XLIII—Results
 CHAPTER XLIV—The Liberator
 CHAPTER XLV—Concluding Remarks

List of Illustrations

 Eliza comes to tell Uncle Tom that he is sold, and that she is
 running away to save her child.
 THE AUCTION SALE.
 THE FREEMAN’S DEFENCE.
 LITTLE EVA READING THE BIBLE TO UNCLE TOM IN THE ARBOR.
 CASSY MINISTERING TO UNCLE TOM AFTER HIS WHIPPING.
 THE FUGITIVES ARE SAVE IN A FREE LAND.




VOLUME I

CHAPTER I
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity


Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were
sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in
the town of P——, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the
gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing
some subject with great earnestness.

For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two _gentlemen_. One of
the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly
speaking, to come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man,
with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of
pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward
in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many colors,
a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged
with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man.
His hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and
he wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous
size, and a great variety of colors, attached to it,—which, in the
ardor of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling
with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and easy
defiance of Murray’s Grammar,[1] and was garnished at convenient
intervals with various profane expressions, which not even the desire
to be graphic in our account shall induce us to transcribe.

 [1] English Grammar (1795), by Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the most
 authoritative American grammarian of his day.


His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a gentleman; and the
arrangements of the house, and the general air of the housekeeping,
indicated easy, and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated,
the two were in the midst of an earnest conversation.

“That is the way I should arrange the matter,” said Mr. Shelby.

“I can’t make trade that way—I positively can’t, Mr. Shelby,” said the
other, holding up a glass of wine between his eye and the light.

“Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly
worth that sum anywhere,—steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm
like a clock.”

“You mean honest, as niggers go,” said Haley, helping himself to a
glass of brandy.

“No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He
got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really
_did_ get it. I’ve trusted him, since then, with everything I
have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and go round the country;
and I always found him true and square in everything.”

“Some folks don’t believe there is pious niggers Shelby,” said Haley,
with a candid flourish of his hand, “but _I do_. I had a fellow, now,
in this yer last lot I took to Orleans—’t was as good as a meetin’ now,
really, to hear that critter pray; and he was quite gentle and quiet
like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him cheap of a man
that was ’bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I
consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it’s the genuine
article, and no mistake.”

“Well, Tom’s got the real article, if ever a fellow had,” rejoined the
other. “Why, last fall, I let him go to Cincinnati alone, to do
business for me, and bring home five hundred dollars. ‘Tom,’ says I to
him, ‘I trust you, because I think you’re a Christian—I know you
wouldn’t cheat.’ Tom comes back, sure enough; I knew he would. Some low
fellows, they say, said to him—‘Tom, why don’t you make tracks for
Canada?’ ’Ah, master trusted me, and I couldn’t,’—they told me about
it. I am sorry to part with Tom, I must say. You ought to let him cover
the whole balance of the debt; and you would, Haley, if you had any
conscience.”

“Well, I’ve got just as much conscience as any man in business can
afford to keep,—just a little, you know, to swear by, as ’t were,” said
the trader, jocularly; “and then, I’m ready to do anything in reason
to ’blige friends; but this yer, you see, is a leetle too hard on a
fellow—a leetle too hard.” The trader sighed contemplatively, and
poured out some more brandy.

“Well, then, Haley, how will you trade?” said Mr. Shelby, after an
uneasy interval of silence.

“Well, haven’t you a boy or gal that you could throw in with Tom?”

“Hum!—none that I could well spare; to tell the truth, it’s only hard
necessity makes me willing to sell at all. I don’t like parting with
any of my hands, that’s a fact.”

Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between four and five
years of age, entered the room. There was something in his appearance
remarkably beautiful and engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk,
hung in glossy curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of
large dark eyes, full of fire and softness, looked out from beneath the
rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment. A gay
robe of scarlet and yellow plaid, carefully made and neatly fitted, set
off to advantage the dark and rich style of his beauty; and a certain
comic air of assurance, blended with bashfulness, showed that he had
been not unused to being petted and noticed by his master.

“Hulloa, Jim Crow!” said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and snapping a bunch of
raisins towards him, “pick that up, now!”

The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the prize,
while his master laughed.

“Come here, Jim Crow,” said he. The child came up, and the master
patted the curly head, and chucked him under the chin.

“Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing.” The boy
commenced one of those wild, grotesque songs common among the negroes,
in a rich, clear voice, accompanying his singing with many comic
evolutions of the hands, feet, and whole body, all in perfect time to
the music.

“Bravo!” said Haley, throwing him a quarter of an orange.

“Now, Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe, when he has the rheumatism,”
said his master.

Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the appearance of
deformity and distortion, as, with his back humped up, and his master’s
stick in his hand, he hobbled about the room, his childish face drawn
into a doleful pucker, and spitting from right to left, in imitation of
an old man.

Both gentlemen laughed uproariously.

“Now, Jim,” said his master, “show us how old Elder Robbins leads the
psalm.” The boy drew his chubby face down to a formidable length, and
commenced toning a psalm tune through his nose, with imperturbable
gravity.

“Hurrah! bravo! what a young ’un!” said Haley; “that chap’s a case,
I’ll promise. Tell you what,” said he, suddenly clapping his hand on
Mr. Shelby’s shoulder, “fling in that chap, and I’ll settle the
business—I will. Come, now, if that ain’t doing the thing up about the
rightest!”

At this moment, the door was pushed gently open, and a young quadroon
woman, apparently about twenty-five, entered the room.

There needed only a glance from the child to her, to identify her as
its mother. There was the same rich, full, dark eye, with its long
lashes; the same ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her
complexion gave way on the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened
as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and
undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and
set off to advantage her finely moulded shape;—a delicately formed hand
and a trim foot and ankle were items of appearance that did not escape
the quick eye of the trader, well used to run up at a glance the points
of a fine female article.

“Well, Eliza?” said her master, as she stopped and looked hesitatingly
at him.

“I was looking for Harry, please, sir;” and the boy bounded toward her,
showing his spoils, which he had gathered in the skirt of his robe.

“Well, take him away, then,” said Mr. Shelby; and hastily she withdrew,
carrying the child on her arm.

“By Jupiter,” said the trader, turning to him in admiration, “there’s
an article, now! You might make your fortune on that ar gal in Orleans,
any day. I’ve seen over a thousand, in my day, paid down for gals not a
bit handsomer.”

“I don’t want to make my fortune on her,” said Mr. Shelby, dryly; and,
seeking to turn the conversation, he uncorked a bottle of fresh wine,
and asked his companion’s opinion of it.

“Capital, sir,—first chop!” said the trader; then turning, and slapping
his hand familiarly on Shelby’s shoulder, he added—

“Come, how will you trade about the gal?—what shall I say for
her—what’ll you take?”

“Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold,” said Shelby. “My wife would not
part with her for her weight in gold.”

“Ay, ay! women always say such things, cause they ha’nt no sort of
calculation. Just show ’em how many watches, feathers, and trinkets,
one’s weight in gold would buy, and that alters the case, _I_ reckon.”

“I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of; I say no, and I mean
no,” said Shelby, decidedly.

“Well, you’ll let me have the boy, though,” said the trader; “you must
own I’ve come down pretty handsomely for him.”

“What on earth can you want with the child?” said Shelby.

“Why, I’ve got a friend that’s going into this yer branch of the
business—wants to buy up handsome boys to raise for the market. Fancy
articles entirely—sell for waiters, and so on, to rich ’uns, that can
pay for handsome ’uns. It sets off one of yer great places—a real
handsome boy to open door, wait, and tend. They fetch a good sum; and
this little devil is such a comical, musical concern, he’s just the
article!”

“I would rather not sell him,” said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully; “the fact
is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother,
sir.”

“O, you do?—La! yes—something of that ar natur. I understand,
perfectly. It is mighty onpleasant getting on with women, sometimes. I
al’ays hates these yer screechin’, screamin’ times. They are _mighty_
onpleasant; but, as I manages business, I generally avoids ’em, sir.
Now, what if you get the girl off for a day, or a week, or so; then the
thing’s done quietly,—all over before she comes home. Your wife might
get her some ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up
with her.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Lor bless ye, yes! These critters an’t like white folks, you know;
they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say,” said Haley,
assuming a candid and confidential air, “that this kind o’ trade is
hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never
could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I’ve seen
’em as would pull a woman’s child out of her arms, and set him up to
sell, and she screechin’ like mad all the time;—very bad policy—damages
the article—makes ’em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real
handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o’
handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn’t want her baby; and
she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you,
she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real
awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think on’t; and when they
carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin’ mad, and
died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want
of management,—there’s where ’t is. It’s always best to do the humane
thing, sir; that’s been _my_ experience.” And the trader leaned back in
his chair, and folded his arms, with an air of virtuous decision,
apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce.

The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply; for while Mr.
Shelby was thoughtfully peeling an orange, Haley broke out afresh, with
becoming diffidence, but as if actually driven by the force of truth to
say a few words more.

“It don’t look well, now, for a feller to be praisin’ himself; but I
say it jest because it’s the truth. I believe I’m reckoned to bring in
about the finest droves of niggers that is brought in,—at least, I’ve
been told so; if I have once, I reckon I have a hundred times,—all in
good case,—fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man in the
business. And I lays it all to my management, sir; and humanity, sir, I
may say, is the great pillar of _my_ management.”

Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, and so he said, “Indeed!”

“Now, I’ve been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I’ve been talked
to. They an’t pop’lar, and they an’t common; but I stuck to ’em, sir;
I’ve stuck to ’em, and realized well on ’em; yes, sir, they have paid
their passage, I may say,” and the trader laughed at his joke.

There was something so piquant and original in these elucidations of
humanity, that Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps
you laugh too, dear reader; but you know humanity comes out in a
variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd
things that humane people will say and do.

Mr. Shelby’s laugh encouraged the trader to proceed.

“It’s strange, now, but I never could beat this into people’s heads.
Now, there was Tom Loker, my old partner, down in Natchez; he was a
clever fellow, Tom was, only the very devil with niggers,—on principle
’t was, you see, for a better hearted feller never broke bread; ’t was
his _system_, sir. I used to talk to Tom. ‘Why, Tom,’ I used to say,
‘when your gals takes on and cry, what’s the use o’ crackin on ’em
over the head, and knockin’ on ’em round? It’s ridiculous,’ says I,
‘and don’t do no sort o’ good. Why, I don’t see no harm in their
cryin’,’ says I; ‘it’s natur,’ says I, ‘and if natur can’t blow off one
way, it will another. Besides, Tom,’ says I, ‘it jest spiles your gals;
they get sickly, and down in the mouth; and sometimes they gets
ugly,—particular yallow gals do,—and it’s the devil and all gettin’ on
’em broke in. Now,’ says I, ‘why can’t you kinder coax ’em up, and
speak ’em fair? Depend on it, Tom, a little humanity, thrown in along,
goes a heap further than all your jawin’ and crackin’; and it pays
better,’ says I, ‘depend on ’t.’ But Tom couldn’t get the hang on ’t;
and he spiled so many for me, that I had to break off with him, though
he was a good-hearted fellow, and as fair a business hand as is goin’.”

“And do you find your ways of managing do the business better than
Tom’s?” said Mr. Shelby.

“Why, yes, sir, I may say so. You see, when I any ways can, I takes a
leetle care about the onpleasant parts, like selling young uns and
that,—get the gals out of the way—out of sight, out of mind, you
know,—and when it’s clean done, and can’t be helped, they naturally
gets used to it. ’Tan’t, you know, as if it was white folks, that’s
brought up in the way of ’spectin’ to keep their children and wives,
and all that. Niggers, you know, that’s fetched up properly, ha’n’t no
kind of ’spectations of no kind; so all these things comes easier.”

“I’m afraid mine are not properly brought up, then,” said Mr. Shelby.

“S’pose not; you Kentucky folks spile your niggers. You mean well by
’em, but ’tan’t no real kindness, arter all. Now, a nigger, you see,
what’s got to be hacked and tumbled round the world, and sold to Tom,
and Dick, and the Lord knows who, ’tan’t no kindness to be givin’ on
him notions and expectations, and bringin’ on him up too well, for the
rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, I venture to
say, your niggers would be quite chop-fallen in a place where some of
your plantation niggers would be singing and whooping like all
possessed. Every man, you know, Mr. Shelby, naturally thinks well of
his own ways; and I think I treat niggers just about as well as it’s
ever worth while to treat ’em.”

“It’s a happy thing to be satisfied,” said Mr. Shelby, with a slight
shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature.

“Well,” said Haley, after they had both silently picked their nuts for
a season, “what do you say?”

“I’ll think the matter over, and talk with my wife,” said Mr. Shelby.
“Meantime, Haley, if you want the matter carried on in the quiet way
you speak of, you’d best not let your business in this neighborhood be
known. It will get out among my boys, and it will not be a particularly
quiet business getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I’ll
promise you.”

“O! certainly, by all means, mum! of course. But I’ll tell you, I’m in
a devil of a hurry, and shall want to know, as soon as possible, what I
may depend on,” said he, rising and putting on his overcoat.

“Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and you shall have
my answer,” said Mr. Shelby, and the trader bowed himself out of the
apartment.

“I’d like to have been able to kick the fellow down the steps,” said he
to himself, as he saw the door fairly closed, “with his impudent
assurance; but he knows how much he has me at advantage. If anybody had
ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of those
rascally traders, I should have said, ‘Is thy servant a dog, that he
should do this thing?’ And now it must come, for aught I see. And
Eliza’s child, too! I know that I shall have some fuss with wife about
that; and, for that matter, about Tom, too. So much for being in
debt,—heigho! The fellow sees his advantage, and means to push it.”

Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the
State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a
quiet and gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry
and pressure that are called for in the business of more southern
districts, makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable
one; while the master, content with a more gradual style of
acquisition, has not those temptations to hardheartedness which always
overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain
is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the
interests of the helpless and unprotected.

Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored
indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty
of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend
of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the
scene there broods a portentous shadow—the shadow of _law_. So long as
the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and
living affections, only as so many _things_ belonging to a master,—so
long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the
kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind
protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil,—so long
it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best
regulated administration of slavery.

Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured and kindly, and
disposed to easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never
been a lack of anything which might contribute to the physical comfort
of the negroes on his estate. He had, however, speculated largely and
quite loosely; had involved himself deeply, and his notes to a large
amount had come into the hands of Haley; and this small piece of
information is the key to the preceding conversation.

Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza had caught
enough of the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to
her master for somebody.

She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as she came out;
but her mistress just then calling, she was obliged to hasten away.

Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her boy;—could
she be mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily
strained him so tight that the little fellow looked up into her face in
astonishment.

“Eliza, girl, what ails you today?” said her mistress, when Eliza had
upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the workstand, and finally was
abstractedly offering her mistress a long nightgown in place of the
silk dress she had ordered her to bring from the wardrobe.

Eliza started. “O, missis!” she said, raising her eyes; then, bursting
into tears, she sat down in a chair, and began sobbing.

“Why, Eliza, child, what ails you?” said her mistress.

“O! missis, missis,” said Eliza, “there’s been a trader talking with
master in the parlor! I heard him.”

“Well, silly child, suppose there has.”

“O, missis, _do_ you suppose mas’r would sell my Harry?” And the poor
creature threw herself into a chair, and sobbed convulsively.

“Sell him! No, you foolish girl! You know your master never deals with
those southern traders, and never means to sell any of his servants, as
long as they behave well. Why, you silly child, who do you think would
want to buy your Harry? Do you think all the world are set on him as
you are, you goosie? Come, cheer up, and hook my dress. There now, put
my back hair up in that pretty braid you learnt the other day, and
don’t go listening at doors any more.”

“Well, but, missis, _you_ never would give your consent—to—to—”

“Nonsense, child! to be sure, I shouldn’t. What do you talk so for? I
would as soon have one of my own children sold. But really, Eliza, you
are getting altogether too proud of that little fellow. A man can’t put
his nose into the door, but you think he must be coming to buy him.”

Reassured by her mistress’ confident tone, Eliza proceeded nimbly and
adroitly with her toilet, laughing at her own fears, as she proceeded.

Mrs. Shelby was a woman of a high class, both intellectually and morally.
To that natural magnanimity and generosity of mind which one often
marks as characteristic of the women of Kentucky, she added high moral
and religious sensibility and principle, carried out with great energy
and ability into practical results. Her husband, who made no
professions to any particular religious character, nevertheless
reverenced and respected the consistency of hers, and stood, perhaps, a
little in awe of her opinion. Certain it was that he gave her unlimited
scope in all her benevolent efforts for the comfort, instruction, and
improvement of her servants, though he never took any decided part in
them himself. In fact, if not exactly a believer in the doctrine of the
efficiency of the extra good works of saints, he really seemed somehow
or other to fancy that his wife had piety and benevolence enough for
two—to indulge a shadowy expectation of getting into heaven through her
superabundance of qualities to which he made no particular pretension.

The heaviest load on his mind, after his conversation with the trader,
lay in the foreseen necessity of breaking to his wife the arrangement
contemplated,—meeting the importunities and opposition which he knew he
should have reason to encounter.

Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassments,
and knowing only the general kindliness of his temper, had been quite
sincere in the entire incredulity with which she had met Eliza’s
suspicions. In fact, she dismissed the matter from her mind, without a
second thought; and being occupied in preparations for an evening
visit, it passed out of her thoughts entirely.




CHAPTER II
The Mother


Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a petted
and indulged favorite.

The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air
of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many
cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These
natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most
dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance
prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have described her, is
not a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance, as we saw her, years
ago, in Kentucky. Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza
had reached maturity without those temptations which make beauty so
fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a bright and
talented young mulatto man, who was a slave on a neighboring estate,
and bore the name of George Harris.

This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging
factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered
the first hand in the place. He had invented a machine for the cleaning
of the hemp, which, considering the education and circumstances of the
inventor, displayed quite as much mechanical genius as Whitney’s
cotton-gin.[1]

 [2] A machine of this description was really the invention of a young
 colored man in Kentucky. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.]


He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a
general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in
the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior
qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded,
tyrannical master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of
George’s invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this
intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great
enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so
valuable a slave.

He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George,
who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked
so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy
consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be
marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head
among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop to it. He’d take him back, and
put him to hoeing and digging, and “see if he’d step about so smart.”
Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded
when he suddenly demanded George’s wages, and announced his intention
of taking him home.

“But, Mr. Harris,” remonstrated the manufacturer, “isn’t this rather
sudden?”

“What if it is?—isn’t the man _mine_?”

“We would be willing, sir, to increase the rate of compensation.”

“No object at all, sir. I don’t need to hire any of my hands out,
unless I’ve a mind to.”

“But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to this business.”

“Dare say he may be; never was much adapted to anything that I set him
about, I’ll be bound.”

“But only think of his inventing this machine,” interposed one of the
workmen, rather unluckily.

“O yes!—a machine for saving work, is it? He’d invent that, I’ll be
bound; let a nigger alone for that, any time. They are all labor-saving
machines themselves, every one of ’em. No, he shall tramp!”

George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly
pronounced by a power that he knew was irresistible. He folded his
arms, tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter
feelings burned in his bosom, and sent streams of fire through his
veins. He breathed short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live
coals; and he might have broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had
not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the arm, and said, in a low
tone,

“Give way, George; go with him for the present. We’ll try to help you,
yet.”

The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he
could not hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in
his determination to keep the power he possessed over his victim.

George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm. He
had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing
eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that
could not be repressed,—indubitable signs, which showed too plainly
that the man could not become a thing.

It was during the happy period of his employment in the factory that
George had seen and married his wife. During that period,—being much
trusted and favored by his employer,—he had free liberty to come and go
at discretion. The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who,
with a little womanly complacency in match-making, felt pleased to
unite her handsome favorite with one of her own class who seemed in
every way suited to her; and so they were married in her mistress’
great parlor, and her mistress herself adorned the bride’s beautiful
hair with orange-blossoms, and threw over it the bridal veil, which
certainly could scarce have rested on a fairer head; and there was no
lack of white gloves, and cake and wine,—of admiring guests to praise
the bride’s beauty, and her mistress’ indulgence and liberality. For a
year or two Eliza saw her husband frequently, and there was nothing to
interrupt their happiness, except the loss of two infant children, to
whom she was passionately attached, and whom she mourned with a grief
so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her mistress, who
sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her naturally passionate
feelings within the bounds of reason and religion.

After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually become
tranquillized and settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve,
once more entwined with that little life, seemed to become sound and
healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband
was rudely torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway
of his legal owner.

The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a week or two
after George had been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of the
occasion had passed away, and tried every possible inducement to lead
him to restore him to his former employment.

“You needn’t trouble yourself to talk any longer,” said he, doggedly;
“I know my own business, sir.”

“I did not presume to interfere with it, sir. I only thought that you
might think it for your interest to let your man to us on the terms
proposed.”

“O, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your winking and
whispering, the day I took him out of the factory; but you don’t come
it over me that way. It’s a free country, sir; the man’s _mine_, and I
do what I please with him,—that’s it!”

And so fell George’s last hope;—nothing before him but a life of toil
and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation
and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.

A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is
to hang him. No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is
WORSE!




CHAPTER III
The Husband and Father


Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah,
rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand
was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her
fine eyes.

“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I am so glad you ’s
come! Missis is gone to spend the afternoon; so come into my little
room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”

Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the
verandah, where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her
mistress.

“How glad I am!—why don’t you smile?—and look at Harry—how he grows.”
The boy stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding
close to the skirts of his mother’s dress. “Isn’t he beautiful?” said
Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.

“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly. “I wish I’d never
been born myself!”

Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her
husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.

“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl!”
said he, fondly; “it’s too bad. O, how I wish you never had seen me—you
might have been happy!”

“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has happened,
or is going to happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till lately.”

“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his knee, he
gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through
his long curls.

“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and
the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you,
nor you me!”

“O, George, how can you!”

“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as
wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable,
forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all. What’s
the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying
to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked! I know how you feel about
losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray
be patient, and perhaps something—”

“Patient!” said he, interrupting her; “haven’t I been patient? Did I
say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason, from
the place where everybody was kind to me? I’d paid him truly every cent
of my earnings,—and they all say I worked well.”

“Well, it _is_ dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is your
master, you know.”

“My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what
right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than
he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager
than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better
hand,—and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him,—I’ve
learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to make a
dray-horse of me?—to take me from things I can do, and do better than
he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he
says he’ll bring me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the
hardest, meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”

“O, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never heard you talk so;
I’m afraid you’ll do something dreadful. I don’t wonder at your
feelings, at all; but oh, do be careful—do, do—for my sake—for
Harry’s!”

“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it’s growing worse
and worse; flesh and blood can’t bear it any longer;—every chance he
can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my
work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out
of work hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He
says that though I don’t say anything, he sees I’ve got the devil in
me, and he means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come
out in a way that he won’t like, or I’m mistaken!”

“O dear! what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully.

“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy loading stones
into a cart, that young Mas’r Tom stood there, slashing his whip so
near the horse that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop,
as pleasant as I could,—he just kept right on. I begged him again, and
then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then
he screamed and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that I was
fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he’d teach me who was my
master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master,
and told him that he might whip me till he was tired;—and he did do it!
If I don’t make him remember it, some time!” and the brow of the young
man grew dark, and his eyes burned with an expression that made his
young wife tremble. “Who made this man my master? That’s what I want to
know!” he said.

“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my
master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”

“There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like
a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that
you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim
you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best
only let alone; and what do I owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a
hundred times over. I _won’t_ bear it. No, I _won’t_!” he said,
clenching his hand with a fierce frown.

Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this
mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed
in the surges of such passions.

“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added George; “the
creature has been about all the comfort that I’ve had. He has slept
with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o’ looked at me
as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding
him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas’r
came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he
couldn’t afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to
tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond.”

“O, George, you didn’t do it!”

“Do it? not I!—but he did. Mas’r and Tom pelted the poor drowning
creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if he
wondered why I didn’t save him. I had to take a flogging because I
wouldn’t do it myself. I don’t care. Mas’r will find out that I’m one
that whipping won’t tame. My day will come yet, if he don’t look out.”

“What are you going to do? O, George, don’t do anything wicked; if you
only trust in God, and try to do right, he’ll deliver you.”

“I an’t a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart’s full of bitterness; I
can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?”

“O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go
wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best.”

“That’s easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and
riding in their carriages; but let ’em be where I am, I guess it would
come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can’t
be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn’t in my place,—you can’t now, if I
tell you all I’ve got to say. You don’t know the whole yet.”

“What can be coming now?”

“Well, lately Mas’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry
off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they
are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud
notions from you; and he says he won’t let me come here any more, and
that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only
scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I
should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he
would sell me down river.”

“Why—but you were married to _me_, by the minister, as much as if you’d
been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.

“Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in this
country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part
us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you,—why I wish I’d never been
born; it would have been better for us both,—it would have been better
for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to
him yet!”

“O, but master is so kind!”

“Yes, but who knows?—he may die—and then he may be sold to nobody knows
who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I
tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every
good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth
too much for you to keep.”

The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart; the vision of the trader came
before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she
turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the
verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired,
and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s
walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but
checked herself.

“No, no,—he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she thought. “No, I won’t
tell him; besides, it an’t true; Missis never deceives us.”

“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear up, now; and
good-by, for I’m going.”

“Going, George! Going where?”

“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and when I’m there,
I’ll buy you; that’s all the hope that’s left us. You have a kind
master, that won’t refuse to sell you. I’ll buy you and the boy;—God
helping me, I will!”

“O, dreadful! if you should be taken?”

“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll _die_ first! I’ll be free, or I’ll die!”

“You won’t kill yourself!”

“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get
me down the river alive!”

“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked; don’t
lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too much—too
much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully, prudently; pray God to
help you.”

“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas’r took it into his head to send
me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I
believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It
would please him, if he thought it would aggravate ‘Shelby’s folks,’ as
he calls ’em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all
was over. I’ve got some preparations made,—and there are those that
will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the
missing, some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear
_you_.”

“O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then you won’t do
anything wicked.”

“Well, now, _good-by_,” said George, holding Eliza’s hands, and gazing
into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there were last
words, and sobs, and bitter weeping,—such parting as those may make
whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web,—and the husband and
wife were parted.




CHAPTER IV
An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin


The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close adjoining to
“the house,” as the negro _par excellence_ designates his master’s
dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch, where, every summer,
strawberries, raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables,
flourished under careful tending. The whole front of it was covered by
a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which,
entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to
be seen. Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as
marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an indulgent corner in which
to unfold their splendors, and were the delight and pride of Aunt
Chloe’s heart.

Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house is over, and
Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to
inferior officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and
washing dishes, and come out into her own snug territories, to “get her
ole man’s supper”; therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the
fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a
stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a
bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable intimations of
“something good.” A round, black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to
suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with white of
eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams
with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched checked
turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a little of that
tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the
neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to
be.

A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not
a chicken or turkey or duck in the barn-yard but looked grave when they
saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their
latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on
trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to
inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its
varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous
to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders;
and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and merriment, as
she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of her
compeers had made to attain to her elevation.

The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of dinners and
suppers “in style,” awoke all the energies of her soul; and no sight
was more welcome to her than a pile of travelling trunks launched on
the verandah, for then she foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.

Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the bake-pan; in
which congenial operation we shall leave her till we finish our picture
of the cottage.

In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy spread;
and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting, of some considerable
size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being
decidedly in the upper walks of life; and it and the bed by which it
lay, and the whole corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished
consideration, and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding
inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner was the
_drawing-room_ of the establishment. In the other corner was a bed of
much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for _use_. The wall
over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant scriptural
prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and colored in a
manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he
had happened to meet with its like.

On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed boys, with
glistening black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were busy in
superintending the first walking operations of the baby, which, as is
usually the case, consisted in getting up on its feet, balancing a
moment, and then tumbling down,—each successive failure being violently
cheered, as something decidedly clever.

A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in front of the
fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and saucers of a
decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms of an approaching
meal. At this table was seated Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby’s best hand, who,
as he is to be the hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our
readers. He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a full
glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were
characterized by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united
with much kindliness and benevolence. There was something about his
whole air self-respecting and dignified, yet united with a confiding
and humble simplicity.

He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying before him,
on which he was carefully and slowly endeavoring to accomplish a copy
of some letters, in which operation he was overlooked by young Mas’r
George, a smart, bright boy of thirteen, who appeared fully to realize
the dignity of his position as instructor.

“Not that way, Uncle Tom,—not that way,” said he, briskly, as Uncle Tom
laboriously brought up the tail of his _g_ the wrong side out; “that
makes a _q_, you see.”

“La sakes, now, does it?” said Uncle Tom, looking with a respectful,
admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly scrawled _q_’s and
_g_’s innumerable for his edification; and then, taking the pencil in
his big, heavy fingers, he patiently recommenced.

“How easy white folks al’us does things!” said Aunt Chloe, pausing
while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap of bacon on her fork, and
regarding young Master George with pride. “The way he can write, now!
and read, too! and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons
to us,—it’s mighty interestin’!”

“But, Aunt Chloe, I’m getting mighty hungry,” said George. “Isn’t that
cake in the skillet almost done?”

“Mose done, Mas’r George,” said Aunt Chloe, lifting the lid and peeping
in,—“browning beautiful—a real lovely brown. Ah! let me alone for dat.
Missis let Sally try to make some cake, t’other day, jes to _larn_
her, she said. ‘O, go way, Missis,’ said I; ‘it really hurts my
feelin’s, now, to see good vittles spiled dat ar way! Cake ris all to
one side—no shape at all; no more than my shoe; go way!’”

And with this final expression of contempt for Sally’s greenness, Aunt
Chloe whipped the cover off the bake-kettle, and disclosed to view a
neatly-baked pound-cake, of which no city confectioner need to have
been ashamed. This being evidently the central point of the
entertainment, Aunt Chloe began now to bustle about earnestly in the
supper department.

“Here you, Mose and Pete! get out de way, you niggers! Get away, Polly,
honey,—mammy’ll give her baby somefin, by and by. Now, Mas’r George,
you jest take off dem books, and set down now with my old man, and I’ll
take up de sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your
plates in less dan no time.”

“They wanted me to come to supper in the house,” said George; “but I
knew what was what too well for that, Aunt Chloe.”

“So you did—so you did, honey,” said Aunt Chloe, heaping the smoking
batter-cakes on his plate; “you know’d your old aunty’d keep the best
for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!” And, with that, aunty gave
George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and
turned again to her griddle with great briskness.

“Now for the cake,” said Mas’r George, when the activity of the griddle
department had somewhat subsided; and, with that, the youngster
flourished a large knife over the article in question.

“La bless you, Mas’r George!” said Aunt Chloe, with earnestness,
catching his arm, “you wouldn’t be for cuttin’ it wid dat ar great
heavy knife! Smash all down—spile all de pretty rise of it. Here, I’ve
got a thin old knife, I keeps sharp a purpose. Dar now, see! comes
apart light as a feather! Now eat away—you won’t get anything to beat
dat ar.”

“Tom Lincon says,” said George, speaking with his mouth full, “that
their Jinny is a better cook than you.”

“Dem Lincons an’t much count, no way!” said Aunt Chloe, contemptuously;
“I mean, set along side _our_ folks. They ’s ’spectable folks enough in
a kinder plain way; but, as to gettin’ up anything in style, they don’t
begin to have a notion on ’t. Set Mas’r Lincon, now, alongside Mas’r
Shelby! Good Lor! and Missis Lincon,—can she kinder sweep it into a
room like my missis,—so kinder splendid, yer know! O, go way! don’t
tell me nothin’ of dem Lincons!”—and Aunt Chloe tossed her head as one
who hoped she did know something of the world.

“Well, though, I’ve heard you say,” said George, “that Jinny was a
pretty fair cook.”

“So I did,” said Aunt Chloe,—“I may say dat. Good, plain, common
cookin’, Jinny’ll do;—make a good pone o’ bread,—bile her taters
_far_,—her corn cakes isn’t extra, not extra now, Jinny’s corn cakes
isn’t, but then they’s far,—but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and
what _can_ she do? Why, she makes pies—sartin she does; but what kinder
crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your mouth, and
lies all up like a puff? Now, I went over thar when Miss Mary was gwine
to be married, and Jinny she jest showed me de weddin’ pies. Jinny and
I is good friends, ye know. I never said nothin’; but go ’long, Mas’r
George! Why, I shouldn’t sleep a wink for a week, if I had a batch of
pies like dem ar. Why, dey wan’t no ’count ’t all.”

“I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice,” said George.

“Thought so!—didn’t she? Thar she was, showing ’em, as innocent—ye see,
it’s jest here, Jinny _don’t know_. Lor, the family an’t nothing! She
can’t be spected to know! ’Ta’nt no fault o’ hern. Ah, Mas’r George, you
doesn’t know half your privileges in yer family and bringin’ up!” Here
Aunt Chloe sighed, and rolled up her eyes with emotion.

“I’m sure, Aunt Chloe, I understand all my pie and pudding privileges,”
said George. “Ask Tom Lincon if I don’t crow over him, every time I
meet him.”

Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a hearty guffaw of
laughter, at this witticism of young Mas’r’s, laughing till the tears
rolled down her black, shining cheeks, and varying the exercise with
playfully slapping and poking Mas’r Georgey, and telling him to go way,
and that he was a case—that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin
would kill her, one of these days; and, between each of these
sanguinary predictions, going off into a laugh, each longer and
stronger than the other, till George really began to think that he was
a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it became him to be careful
how he talked “as funny as he could.”

“And so ye telled Tom, did ye? O, Lor! what young uns will be up ter!
Ye crowed over Tom? O, Lor! Mas’r George, if ye wouldn’t make a hornbug
laugh!”

“Yes,” said George, “I says to him, ‘Tom, you ought to see some of Aunt
Chloe’s pies; they’re the right sort,’ says I.”

“Pity, now, Tom couldn’t,” said Aunt Chloe, on whose benevolent heart
the idea of Tom’s benighted condition seemed to make a strong
impression. “Ye oughter just ask him here to dinner, some o’ these
times, Mas’r George,” she added; “it would look quite pretty of ye. Ye
know, Mas’r George, ye oughtenter feel ’bove nobody, on ’count yer
privileges, ’cause all our privileges is gi’n to us; we ought al’ays to
’member that,” said Aunt Chloe, looking quite serious.

“Well, I mean to ask Tom here, some day next week,” said George; “and
you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and we’ll make him stare. Won’t we
make him eat so he won’t get over it for a fortnight?”

“Yes, yes—sartin,” said Aunt Chloe, delighted; “you’ll see. Lor! to
think of some of our dinners! Yer mind dat ar great chicken pie I made
when we guv de dinner to General Knox? I and Missis, we come pretty
near quarrelling about dat ar crust. What does get into ladies
sometimes, I don’t know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest
kind o’ ’sponsibility on ’em, as ye may say, and is all kinder
_‘seris’_ and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin’ round and
kinder interferin’! Now, Missis, she wanted me to do dis way, and she
wanted me to do dat way; and, finally, I got kinder sarcy, and, says I,
‘Now, Missis, do jist look at dem beautiful white hands o’ yourn with
long fingers, and all a sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when
de dew ’s on ’em; and look at my great black stumpin hands. Now, don’t
ye think dat de Lord must have meant _me_ to make de pie-crust, and you
to stay in de parlor?’ Dar! I was jist so sarcy, Mas’r George.”

“And what did mother say?” said George.

“Say?—why, she kinder larfed in her eyes—dem great handsome eyes o’
hern; and, says she, ‘Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are about in the
right on ’t,’ says she; and she went off in de parlor. She oughter
cracked me over de head for bein’ so sarcy; but dar’s whar ’t is—I
can’t do nothin’ with ladies in de kitchen!”

“Well, you made out well with that dinner,—I remember everybody said
so,” said George.

“Didn’t I? And wan’t I behind de dinin’-room door dat bery day? and
didn’t I see de General pass his plate three times for some more dat
bery pie?—and, says he, ‘You must have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.’
Lor! I was fit to split myself.

“And de Gineral, he knows what cookin’ is,” said Aunt Chloe, drawing
herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de Gineral! He comes of one of
de bery _fustest_ families in Old Virginny! He knows what’s what, now,
as well as I do—de Gineral. Ye see, there’s _pints_ in all pies, Mas’r
George; but tan’t everybody knows what they is, or orter be. But the
Gineral, he knows; I knew by his ’marks he made. Yes, he knows what de
pints is!”

By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to which even a
boy can come (under uncommon circumstances), when he really could not
eat another morsel, and, therefore, he was at leisure to notice the
pile of woolly heads and glistening eyes which were regarding their
operations hungrily from the opposite corner.

“Here, you Mose, Pete,” he said, breaking off liberal bits, and
throwing it at them; “you want some, don’t you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake
them some cakes.”

And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the chimney-corner,
while Aunt Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby
on her lap, and began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and
distributing to Mose and Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating
theirs as they rolled about on the floor under the table, tickling each
other, and occasionally pulling the baby’s toes.

“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in
a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too
obstreperous. “Can’t ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye?
Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I’ll take ye down
a button-hole lower, when Mas’r George is gone!”

What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to
say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce
very little impression on the young sinners addressed.

“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle all the while,
they can’t behave theirselves.”

Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with hands and faces
well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.

“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their woolly heads.
“Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion. Go
long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding her
exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which
seemed only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as
they tumbled precipitately over each other out of doors, where they
fairly screamed with merriment.

“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe, rather
complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies,
she poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began
rubbing off the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having
polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she
busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals
in pulling Tom’s nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands
in his woolly hair, which last operation seemed to afford her special
content.

“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take a
full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder,
and began capering and dancing with her, while Mas’r George snapped at
her with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned
again, roared after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they
“fairly took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her own
statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in
the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one
had roared and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of
composure.

“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in
pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose and you
Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the meetin’.”

“O mother, we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin’,—meetin’s is
so curis. We likes ’em.”

“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said Mas’r
George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.

Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to
push the thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’t will do
’em some good.”

The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to
consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.

“What we’s to do for cheers, now, _I_ declar I don’t know,” said Aunt
Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s weekly, for an
indefinite length of time, without any more “cheers,” there seemed some
encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.

“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,”
suggested Mose.

“You go long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some o’ your shines,” said
Aunt Chloe.

“Well, it’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!” said Mose.

“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, cause he al’ays hitches when he
gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’ other night,”
said Pete.

“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den he’d begin, ‘Come
saints—and sinners, hear me tell,’ and den down he’d go,”—and Mose
imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the
floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.

“Come now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe; “an’t yer shamed?”

Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared
decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition seemed
rather to fail of effect.

“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote in them ar
bar’ls.”

“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s, Mas’r George was reading
’bout, in de good book,—dey never fails,” said Mose, aside to Pete.

“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete, “and let ’em all
down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was failin’, warnt it?”

During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks had been
rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on
each side, boards were laid across them, which arrangement, together
with the turning down of certain tubs and pails, and the disposing of
the rickety chairs, at last completed the preparation.

“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll stay to
read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “’pears like ’t will be so much more
interestin’.”

George very readily consented, for your boy is always ready for
anything that makes him of importance.

The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from the old
gray-headed patriarch of eighty, to the young girl and lad of fifteen.
A little harmless gossip ensued on various themes, such as where old
Aunt Sally got her new red headkerchief, and how “Missis was a going to
give Lizzy that spotted muslin gown, when she’d got her new berage made
up;” and how Mas’r Shelby was thinking of buying a new sorrel colt,
that was going to prove an addition to the glories of the place. A few
of the worshippers belonged to families hard by, who had got permission
to attend, and who brought in various choice scraps of information,
about the sayings and doings at the house and on the place, which
circulated as freely as the same sort of small change does in higher
circles.

After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all
present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could
prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild
and spirited. The words were sometimes the well-known and common hymns
sung in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite
character, picked up at camp-meetings.

The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung with great
energy and unction:

“Die on the field of battle,
Die on the field of battle,
Glory in my soul.”


Another special favorite had oft repeated the words—

“O, I’m going to glory,—won’t you come along with me?
Don’t you see the angels beck’ning, and a calling me away?
Don’t you see the golden city and the everlasting day?”


There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s banks,”
and “Canaan’s fields,” and the “New Jerusalem;” for the negro mind,
impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and
expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; and, as they sung, some
laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands
rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other
side of the river.

Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed, and
intermingled with the singing. One old gray-headed woman, long past
work, but much revered as a sort of chronicle of the past, rose, and
leaning on her staff, said—

“Well, chil’en! Well, I’m mighty glad to hear ye all and see ye all
once more, ’cause I don’t know when I’ll be gone to glory; but I’ve
done got ready, chil’en; ’pears like I’d got my little bundle all
tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a waitin’ for the stage to come along
and take me home; sometimes, in the night, I think I hear the wheels
a rattlin’, and I’m lookin’ out all the time; now, you jest be ready
too, for I tell ye all, chil’en,” she said, striking her staff hard on
the floor, “dat ar _glory_ is a mighty thing! It’s a mighty thing,
chil’en,—you don’no nothing about it,—it’s _wonderful_.” And the old
creature sat down, with streaming tears, as wholly overcome, while the
whole circle struck up—

“O Canaan, bright Canaan,
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”


Mas’r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation, often
interrupted by such exclamations as “The _sakes_ now!” “Only hear
that!” “Jest think on ’t!” “Is all that a comin’ sure enough?”

George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by
his mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw in
expositions of his own, from time to time, with a commendable
seriousness and gravity, for which he was admired by the young and
blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on all hands, that “a minister
couldn’t lay it off better than he did;” that “’t was reely ’mazin’!”

Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the
neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the _morale_
was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and
cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked
up to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the
simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified
even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially
excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike
earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture,
which seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his being, as to
have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously;
in the language of a pious old negro, he “prayed right up.” And so much
did his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences,
that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in
the abundance of the responses which broke out everywhere around him.


While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite
otherwise passed in the halls of the master.

The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the dining room
afore-named, at a table covered with papers and writing utensils.

Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, which, as they
were counted, he pushed over to the trader, who counted them likewise.

“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these yer.”

Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and signed them,
like a man that hurries over some disagreeable business, and then
pushed them over with the money. Haley produced, from a well-worn
valise, a parchment, which, after looking over it a moment, he handed
to Mr. Shelby, who took it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness.

“Wal, now, the thing’s _done_!” said the trader, getting up.

“It’s _done!_” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and, fetching a long
breath, he repeated, _“It’s done!”_

“Yer don’t seem to feel much pleased with it, ’pears to me,” said the
trader.

“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you’ll remember that you promised, on
your honor, you wouldn’t sell Tom, without knowing what sort of hands
he’s going into.”

“Why, you’ve just done it, sir,” said the trader.

“Circumstances, you well know, _obliged_ me,” said Shelby, haughtily.

“Wal, you know, they may ’blige _me_, too,” said the trader.
“Howsomever, I’ll do the very best I can in gettin’ Tom a good berth;
as to my treatin’ on him bad, you needn’t be a grain afeard. If there’s
anything that I thank the Lord for, it is that I’m never noways cruel.”

After the expositions which the trader had previously given of his
humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly reassured by
these declarations; but, as they were the best comfort the case
admitted of, he allowed the trader to depart in silence, and betook
himself to a solitary cigar.




CHAPTER V
Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners


Mr. and Mrs. Shelby had retired to their apartment for the night. He
was lounging in a large easy-chair, looking over some letters that had
come in the afternoon mail, and she was standing before her mirror,
brushing out the complicated braids and curls in which Eliza had
arranged her hair; for, noticing her pale cheeks and haggard eyes, she
had excused her attendance that night, and ordered her to bed. The
employment, naturally enough, suggested her conversation with the girl
in the morning; and turning to her husband, she said, carelessly,

“By the by, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow that you lugged in to
our dinner-table today?”

“Haley is his name,” said Shelby, turning himself rather uneasily in
his chair, and continuing with his eyes fixed on a letter.

“Haley! Who is he, and what may be his business here, pray?”

“Well, he’s a man that I transacted some business with, last time I was
at Natchez,” said Mr. Shelby.

“And he presumed on it to make himself quite at home, and call and dine
here, ay?”

“Why, I invited him; I had some accounts with him,” said Shelby.

“Is he a negro-trader?” said Mrs. Shelby, noticing a certain
embarrassment in her husband’s manner.

“Why, my dear, what put that into your head?” said Shelby, looking up.

“Nothing,—only Eliza came in here, after dinner, in a great worry,
crying and taking on, and said you were talking with a trader, and that
she heard him make an offer for her boy—the ridiculous little goose!”

“She did, hey?” said Mr. Shelby, returning to his paper, which he
seemed for a few moments quite intent upon, not perceiving that he was
holding it bottom upwards.

“It will have to come out,” said he, mentally; “as well now as ever.”

“I told Eliza,” said Mrs. Shelby, as she continued brushing her hair,
“that she was a little fool for her pains, and that you never had
anything to do with that sort of persons. Of course, I knew you never
meant to sell any of our people,—least of all, to such a fellow.”

“Well, Emily,” said her husband, “so I have always felt and said; but
the fact is that my business lies so that I cannot get on without. I
shall have to sell some of my hands.”

“To that creature? Impossible! Mr. Shelby, you cannot be serious.”

“I’m sorry to say that I am,” said Mr. Shelby. “I’ve agreed to sell
Tom.”

“What! our Tom?—that good, faithful creature!—been your faithful
servant from a boy! O, Mr. Shelby!—and you have promised him his
freedom, too,—you and I have spoken to him a hundred times of it. Well,
I can believe anything now,—I can believe _now_ that you could sell
little Harry, poor Eliza’s only child!” said Mrs. Shelby, in a tone
between grief and indignation.

“Well, since you must know all, it is so. I have agreed to sell Tom and
Harry both; and I don’t know why I am to be rated, as if I were a
monster, for doing what every one does every day.”

“But why, of all others, choose these?” said Mrs. Shelby. “Why sell
them, of all on the place, if you must sell at all?”

“Because they will bring the highest sum of any,—that’s why. I could
choose another, if you say so. The fellow made me a high bid on Eliza,
if that would suit you any better,” said Mr. Shelby.

“The wretch!” said Mrs. Shelby, vehemently.

“Well, I didn’t listen to it, a moment,—out of regard to your feelings,
I wouldn’t;—so give me some credit.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Shelby, recollecting herself, “forgive me. I have
been hasty. I was surprised, and entirely unprepared for this;—but
surely you will allow me to intercede for these poor creatures. Tom is
a noble-hearted, faithful fellow, if he is black. I do believe, Mr.
Shelby, that if he were put to it, he would lay down his life for you.”

“I know it,—I dare say;—but what’s the use of all this?—I can’t help
myself.”

“Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice? I’m willing to bear my part of the
inconvenience. O, Mr. Shelby, I have tried—tried most faithfully, as a
Christian woman should—to do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent
creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them,
and known all their little cares and joys, for years; and how can I
ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake of a little
paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, confiding creature
as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment all we have taught him to
love and value? I have taught them the duties of the family, of parent
and child, and husband and wife; and how can I bear to have this open
acknowledgment that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, however
sacred, compared with money? I have talked with Eliza about her boy—her
duty to him as a Christian mother, to watch over him, pray for him,
and bring him up in a Christian way; and now what can I say, if you
tear him away, and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled
man, just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is
worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me
when she sees us turn round and sell her child?—sell him, perhaps, to
certain ruin of body and soul!”

“I’m sorry you feel so about it, Emily,—indeed I am,” said Mr. Shelby;
“and I respect your feelings, too, though I don’t pretend to share
them to their full extent; but I tell you now, solemnly, it’s of no
use—I can’t help myself. I didn’t mean to tell you this Emily; but,
in plain words, there is no choice between selling these two and
selling everything. Either they must go, or _all_ must. Haley has come
into possession of a mortgage, which, if I don’t clear off with him
directly, will take everything before it. I’ve raked, and scraped, and
borrowed, and all but begged,—and the price of these two was needed
to make up the balance, and I had to give them up. Haley fancied the
child; he agreed to settle the matter that way, and no other. I was in
his power, and _had_ to do it. If you feel so to have them sold, would
it be any better to have _all_ sold?”

Mrs. Shelby stood like one stricken. Finally, turning to her toilet,
she rested her face in her hands, and gave a sort of groan.

“This is God’s curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed
thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to
think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin
to hold a slave under laws like ours,—I always felt it was,—I always
thought so when I was a girl,—I thought so still more after I joined
the church; but I thought I could gild it over,—I thought, by kindness,
and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better
than freedom—fool that I was!”

“Why, wife, you are getting to be an abolitionist, quite.”

“Abolitionist! if they knew all I know about slavery, they _might_
talk! We don’t need them to tell us; you know I never thought that
slavery was right—never felt willing to own slaves.”

“Well, therein you differ from many wise and pious men,” said Mr.
Shelby. “You remember Mr. B.‘s sermon, the other Sunday?”

“I don’t want to hear such sermons; I never wish to hear Mr. B. in our
church again. Ministers can’t help the evil, perhaps,—can’t cure it,
any more than we can,—but defend it!—it always went against my common
sense. And I think you didn’t think much of that sermon, either.”

“Well,” said Shelby, “I must say these ministers sometimes carry
matters further than we poor sinners would exactly dare to do. We men
of the world must wink pretty hard at various things, and get used to a
deal that isn’t the exact thing. But we don’t quite fancy, when women
and ministers come out broad and square, and go beyond us in matters of
either modesty or morals, that’s a fact. But now, my dear, I trust you
see the necessity of the thing, and you see that I have done the very
best that circumstances would allow.”

“O yes, yes!” said Mrs. Shelby, hurriedly and abstractedly fingering
her gold watch,—“I haven’t any jewelry of any amount,” she added,
thoughtfully; “but would not this watch do something?—it was an
expensive one, when it was bought. If I could only at least save
Eliza’s child, I would sacrifice anything I have.”

“I’m sorry, very sorry, Emily,” said Mr. Shelby, “I’m sorry this takes
hold of you so; but it will do no good. The fact is, Emily, the thing’s
done; the bills of sale are already signed, and in Haley’s hands; and
you must be thankful it is no worse. That man has had it in his power
to ruin us all,—and now he is fairly off. If you knew the man as I do,
you’d think that we had had a narrow escape.”

“Is he so hard, then?”

“Why, not a cruel man, exactly, but a man of leather,—a man alive to
nothing but trade and profit,—cool, and unhesitating, and unrelenting,
as death and the grave. He’d sell his own mother at a good
percentage—not wishing the old woman any harm, either.”

“And this wretch owns that good, faithful Tom, and Eliza’s child!”

“Well, my dear, the fact is that this goes rather hard with me; it’s a
thing I hate to think of. Haley wants to drive matters, and take
possession tomorrow. I’m going to get out my horse bright and early,
and be off. I can’t see Tom, that’s a fact; and you had better arrange
a drive somewhere, and carry Eliza off. Let the thing be done when she
is out of sight.”

“No, no,” said Mrs. Shelby; “I’ll be in no sense accomplice or help in
this cruel business. I’ll go and see poor old Tom, God help him, in his
distress! They shall see, at any rate, that their mistress can feel for
and with them. As to Eliza, I dare not think about it. The Lord forgive
us! What have we done, that this cruel necessity should come on us?”

There was one listener to this conversation whom Mr. and Mrs. Shelby
little suspected.

Communicating with their apartment was a large closet, opening by a
door into the outer passage. When Mrs. Shelby had dismissed Eliza for
the night, her feverish and excited mind had suggested the idea of this
closet; and she had hidden herself there, and, with her ear pressed
close against the crack of the door, had lost not a word of the
conversation.

When the voices died into silence, she rose and crept stealthily away.
Pale, shivering, with rigid features and compressed lips, she looked an
entirely altered being from the soft and timid creature she had been
hitherto. She moved cautiously along the entry, paused one moment at
her mistress’ door, and raised her hands in mute appeal to Heaven, and
then turned and glided into her own room. It was a quiet, neat
apartment, on the same floor with her mistress. There was the pleasant
sunny window, where she had often sat singing at her sewing; there a
little case of books, and various little fancy articles, ranged by
them, the gifts of Christmas holidays; there was her simple wardrobe in
the closet and in the drawers:—here was, in short, her home; and, on
the whole, a happy one it had been to her. But there, on the bed, lay
her slumbering boy, his long curls falling negligently around his
unconscious face, his rosy mouth half open, his little fat hands thrown
out over the bedclothes, and a smile spread like a sunbeam over his
whole face.

“Poor boy! poor fellow!” said Eliza; “they have sold you! but your
mother will save you yet!”

No tear dropped over that pillow; in such straits as these, the heart
has no tears to give,—it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in
silence. She took a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote, hastily,

“O, Missis! dear Missis! don’t think me ungrateful,—don’t think hard of
me, any way,—I heard all you and master said tonight. I am going to try
to save my boy—you will not blame me! God bless and reward you for all
your kindness!”

Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer and made up a
little package of clothing for her boy, which she tied with a
handkerchief firmly round her waist; and, so fond is a mother’s
remembrance, that, even in the terrors of that hour, she did not forget
to put in the little package one or two of his favorite toys, reserving
a gayly painted parrot to amuse him, when she should be called on to
awaken him. It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but,
after some effort, he sat up, and was playing with his bird, while his
mother was putting on her bonnet and shawl.

“Where are you going, mother?” said he, as she drew near the bed, with
his little coat and cap.

His mother drew near, and looked so earnestly into his eyes, that he at
once divined that something unusual was the matter.

“Hush, Harry,” she said; “mustn’t speak loud, or they will hear us. A
wicked man was coming to take little Harry away from his mother, and
carry him ’way off in the dark; but mother won’t let him—she’s going to
put on her little boy’s cap and coat, and run off with him, so the ugly
man can’t catch him.”

Saying these words, she had tied and buttoned on the child’s simple
outfit, and, taking him in her arms, she whispered to him to be very
still; and, opening a door in her room which led into the outer
verandah, she glided noiselessly out.

It was a sparkling, frosty, starlight night, and the mother wrapped the
shawl close round her child, as, perfectly quiet with vague terror, he
clung round her neck.

Old Bruno, a great Newfoundland, who slept at the end of the porch,
rose, with a low growl, as she came near. She gently spoke his name,
and the animal, an old pet and playmate of hers, instantly, wagging his
tail, prepared to follow her, though apparently revolving much, in his
simple dog’s head, what such an indiscreet midnight promenade might
mean. Some dim ideas of imprudence or impropriety in the measure seemed
to embarrass him considerably; for he often stopped, as Eliza glided
forward, and looked wistfully, first at her and then at the house, and
then, as if reassured by reflection, he pattered along after her again.
A few minutes brought them to the window of Uncle Tom’s cottage, and
Eliza, stopping, tapped lightly on the window-pane.

The prayer-meeting at Uncle Tom’s had, in the order of hymn-singing,
been protracted to a very late hour; and, as Uncle Tom had indulged
himself in a few lengthy solos afterwards, the consequence was, that,
although it was now between twelve and one o’clock, he and his worthy
helpmeet were not yet asleep.

“Good Lord! what’s that?” said Aunt Chloe, starting up and hastily
drawing the curtain. “My sakes alive, if it an’t Lizy! Get on your
clothes, old man, quick!—there’s old Bruno, too, a pawin’ round; what on
airth! I’m gwine to open the door.”

And suiting the action to the word, the door flew open, and the light
of the tallow candle, which Tom had hastily lighted, fell on the
haggard face and dark, wild eyes of the fugitive.

“Lord bless you!—I’m skeered to look at ye, Lizy! Are ye tuck sick, or
what’s come over ye?”

“I’m running away—Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe—carrying off my child—Master
sold him!”


[Illustration: Eliza comes to tell Uncle Tom that he is sold, and that
she is running away to save her child.]

“Sold him?” echoed both, lifting up their hands in dismay.

“Yes, sold him!” said Eliza, firmly; “I crept into the closet by
Mistress’ door tonight, and I heard Master tell Missis that he had sold
my Harry, and you, Uncle Tom, both, to a trader; and that he was going
off this morning on his horse, and that the man was to take possession
today.”

Tom had stood, during this speech, with his hands raised, and his eyes
dilated, like a man in a dream. Slowly and gradually, as its meaning
came over him, he collapsed, rather than seated himself, on his old
chair, and sunk his head down upon his knees.

“The good Lord have pity on us!” said Aunt Chloe. “O! it don’t seem as
if it was true! What has he done, that Mas’r should sell _him_?”

“He hasn’t done anything,—it isn’t for that. Master don’t want to sell,
and Missis she’s always good. I heard her plead and beg for us; but he
told her ’t was no use; that he was in this man’s debt, and that this
man had got the power over him; and that if he didn’t pay him off
clear, it would end in his having to sell the place and all the people,
and move off. Yes, I heard him say there was no choice between selling
these two and selling all, the man was driving him so hard. Master said
he was sorry; but oh, Missis—you ought to have heard her talk! If she
an’t a Christian and an angel, there never was one. I’m a wicked girl
to leave her so; but, then, I can’t help it. She said, herself, one
soul was worth more than the world; and this boy has a soul, and if I
let him be carried off, who knows what’ll become of it? It must be
right: but, if it an’t right, the Lord forgive me, for I can’t help
doing it!”

“Well, old man!” said Aunt Chloe, “why don’t you go, too? Will you wait
to be toted down river, where they kill niggers with hard work and
starving? I’d a heap rather die than go there, any day! There’s time
for ye,—be off with Lizy,—you’ve got a pass to come and go any time.
Come, bustle up, and I’ll get your things together.”

Tom slowly raised his head, and looked sorrowfully but quietly around,
and said,

“No, no—I an’t going. Let Eliza go—it’s her right! I wouldn’t be the
one to say no—‘t an’t in _natur_ for her to stay; but you heard what
she said! If I must be sold, or all the people on the place, and
everything go to rack, why, let me be sold. I s’pose I can b’ar it as
well as any on ’em,” he added, while something like a sob and a sigh
shook his broad, rough chest convulsively. “Mas’r always found me on
the spot—he always will. I never have broke trust, nor used my pass no
ways contrary to my word, and I never will. It’s better for me alone
to go, than to break up the place and sell all. Mas’r an’t to blame,
Chloe, and he’ll take care of you and the poor—”

Here he turned to the rough trundle bed full of little woolly heads,
and broke fairly down. He leaned over the back of the chair, and
covered his face with his large hands. Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud,
shook the chair, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor;
just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your
first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries
of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man,—and you are but another
man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a
woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one
sorrow!

“And now,” said Eliza, as she stood in the door, “I saw my husband only
this afternoon, and I little knew then what was to come. They have
pushed him to the very last standing place, and he told me, today, that
he was going to run away. Do try, if you can, to get word to him. Tell
him how I went, and why I went; and tell him I’m going to try and find
Canada. You must give my love to him, and tell him, if I never see him
again,” she turned away, and stood with her back to them for a moment,
and then added, in a husky voice, “tell him to be as good as he can,
and try and meet me in the kingdom of heaven.”

“Call Bruno in there,” she added. “Shut the door on him, poor beast! He
mustn’t go with me!”

A few last words and tears, a few simple adieus and blessings, and
clasping her wondering and affrighted child in her arms, she glided
noiselessly away.




CHAPTER VI
Discovery


Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, after their protracted discussion of the night
before, did not readily sink to repose, and, in consequence, slept
somewhat later than usual, the ensuing morning.

“I wonder what keeps Eliza,” said Mrs. Shelby, after giving her bell
repeated pulls, to no purpose.

Mr. Shelby was standing before his dressing-glass, sharpening his
razor; and just then the door opened, and a colored boy entered, with
his shaving-water.

“Andy,” said his mistress, “step to Eliza’s door, and tell her I have
rung for her three times. Poor thing!” she added, to herself, with a
sigh.

Andy soon returned, with eyes very wide in astonishment.

“Lor, Missis! Lizy’s drawers is all open, and her things all lying
every which way; and I believe she’s just done clared out!”

The truth flashed upon Mr. Shelby and his wife at the same moment. He
exclaimed,

“Then she suspected it, and she’s off!”

“The Lord be thanked!” said Mrs. Shelby. “I trust she is.”

“Wife, you talk like a fool! Really, it will be something pretty
awkward for me, if she is. Haley saw that I hesitated about selling
this child, and he’ll think I connived at it, to get him out of the
way. It touches my honor!” And Mr. Shelby left the room hastily.

There was great running and ejaculating, and opening and shutting of
doors, and appearance of faces in all shades of color in different
places, for about a quarter of an hour. One person only, who might have
shed some light on the matter, was entirely silent, and that was the
head cook, Aunt Chloe. Silently, and with a heavy cloud settled down
over her once joyous face, she proceeded making out her breakfast
biscuits, as if she heard and saw nothing of the excitement around her.

Very soon, about a dozen young imps were roosting, like so many crows,
on the verandah railings, each one determined to be the first one to
apprize the strange Mas’r of his ill luck.

“He’ll be rael mad, I’ll be bound,” said Andy.

“_Won’t_ he swar!” said little black Jake.

“Yes, for he _does_ swar,” said woolly-headed Mandy. “I hearn him
yesterday, at dinner. I hearn all about it then, ’cause I got into the
closet where Missis keeps the great jugs, and I hearn every word.” And
Mandy, who had never in her life thought of the meaning of a word she
had heard, more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, and
strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually coiled up
among the jugs at the time specified, she had been fast asleep all the
time.

When, at last, Haley appeared, booted and spurred, he was saluted with
the bad tidings on every hand. The young imps on the verandah were not
disappointed in their hope of hearing him “swar,” which he did with a
fluency and fervency which delighted them all amazingly, as they ducked
and dodged hither and thither, to be out of the reach of his
riding-whip; and, all whooping off together, they tumbled, in a pile of
immeasurable giggle, on the withered turf under the verandah, where
they kicked up their heels and shouted to their full satisfaction.

“If I had the little devils!” muttered Haley, between his teeth.

“But you ha’nt got ’em, though!” said Andy, with a triumphant flourish,
and making a string of indescribable mouths at the unfortunate trader’s
back, when he was fairly beyond hearing.

“I say now, Shelby, this yer ’s a most extro’rnary business!” said
Haley, as he abruptly entered the parlor. “It seems that gal ’s off,
with her young un.”

“Mr. Haley, Mrs. Shelby is present,” said Mr. Shelby.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said Haley, bowing slightly, with a still
lowering brow; “but still I say, as I said before, this yer’s a
sing’lar report. Is it true, sir?”

“Sir,” said Mr. Shelby, “if you wish to communicate with me, you must
observe something of the decorum of a gentleman. Andy, take Mr. Haley’s
hat and riding-whip. Take a seat, sir. Yes, sir; I regret to say that
the young woman, excited by overhearing, or having reported to her,
something of this business, has taken her child in the night, and made
off.”

“I did expect fair dealing in this matter, I confess,” said Haley.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Shelby, turning sharply round upon him, “what am
I to understand by that remark? If any man calls my honor in question,
I have but one answer for him.”

The trader cowered at this, and in a somewhat lower tone said that “it
was plaguy hard on a fellow, that had made a fair bargain, to be gulled
that way.”

“Mr. Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “if I did not think you had some cause
for disappointment, I should not have borne from you the rude and
unceremonious style of your entrance into my parlor this morning. I say
thus much, however, since appearances call for it, that I shall allow
of no insinuations cast upon me, as if I were at all partner to any
unfairness in this matter. Moreover, I shall feel bound to give you
every assistance, in the use of horses, servants, &c., in the recovery
of your property. So, in short, Haley,” said he, suddenly dropping from
the tone of dignified coolness to his ordinary one of easy frankness,
“the best way for you is to keep good-natured and eat some breakfast,
and we will then see what is to be done.”

Mrs. Shelby now rose, and said her engagements would prevent her being
at the breakfast-table that morning; and, deputing a very respectable
mulatto woman to attend to the gentlemen’s coffee at the side-board,
she left the room.

“Old lady don’t like your humble servant, over and above,” said Haley,
with an uneasy effort to be very familiar.

“I am not accustomed to hear my wife spoken of with such freedom,” said
Mr. Shelby, dryly.

“Beg pardon; of course, only a joke, you know,” said Haley, forcing a
laugh.

“Some jokes are less agreeable than others,” rejoined Shelby.

“Devilish free, now I’ve signed those papers, cuss him!” muttered Haley
to himself; “quite grand, since yesterday!”

Never did fall of any prime minister at court occasion wider surges of
sensation than the report of Tom’s fate among his compeers on the
place. It was the topic in every mouth, everywhere; and nothing was
done in the house or in the field, but to discuss its probable results.
Eliza’s flight—an unprecedented event on the place—was also a great
accessory in stimulating the general excitement.

Black Sam, as he was commonly called, from his being about three shades
blacker than any other son of ebony on the place, was revolving the
matter profoundly in all its phases and bearings, with a
comprehensiveness of vision and a strict lookout to his own personal
well-being, that would have done credit to any white patriot in
Washington.

“It’s an ill wind dat blow nowhar,—dat ar a fact,” said Sam,
sententiously, giving an additional hoist to his pantaloons, and
adroitly substituting a long nail in place of a missing
suspender-button, with which effort of mechanical genius he seemed
highly delighted.

“Yes, it’s an ill wind blows nowhar,” he repeated. “Now, dar, Tom’s
down—wal, course der’s room for some nigger to be up—and why not dis
nigger?—dat’s de idee. Tom, a ridin’ round de country—boots
blacked—pass in his pocket—all grand as Cuffee—but who he? Now, why
shouldn’t Sam?—dat’s what I want to know.”

“Halloo, Sam—O Sam! Mas’r wants you to cotch Bill and Jerry,” said
Andy, cutting short Sam’s soliloquy.

“High! what’s afoot now, young un?”

“Why, you don’t know, I s’pose, that Lizy’s cut stick, and clared out,
with her young un?”

“You teach your granny!” said Sam, with infinite contempt; “knowed it a
heap sight sooner than you did; this nigger an’t so green, now!”

“Well, anyhow, Mas’r wants Bill and Jerry geared right up; and you and
I ’s to go with Mas’r Haley, to look arter her.”

“Good, now! dat’s de time o’ day!” said Sam. “It’s Sam dat’s called for
in dese yer times. He’s de nigger. See if I don’t cotch her, now;
Mas’r’ll see what Sam can do!”

“Ah! but, Sam,” said Andy, “you’d better think twice; for Missis don’t
want her cotched, and she’ll be in yer wool.”

“High!” said Sam, opening his eyes. “How you know dat?”

“Heard her say so, my own self, dis blessed mornin’, when I bring in
Mas’r’s shaving-water. She sent me to see why Lizy didn’t come to dress
her; and when I telled her she was off, she jest ris up, and ses she,
‘The Lord be praised;’ and Mas’r, he seemed rael mad, and ses he,
‘Wife, you talk like a fool.’ But Lor! she’ll bring him to! I knows
well enough how that’ll be,—it’s allers best to stand Missis’ side the
fence, now I tell yer.”

Black Sam, upon this, scratched his woolly pate, which, if it did not
contain very profound wisdom, still contained a great deal of a
particular species much in demand among politicians of all complexions
and countries, and vulgarly denominated “knowing which side the bread
is buttered;” so, stopping with grave consideration, he again gave a
hitch to his pantaloons, which was his regularly organized method of
assisting his mental perplexities.

“Der an’t no saying’—never—‘bout no kind o’ thing in _dis_ yer world,”
he said, at last. Sam spoke like a philosopher, emphasizing _this_—as
if he had had a large experience in different sorts of worlds, and
therefore had come to his conclusions advisedly.

“Now, sartin I’d a said that Missis would a scoured the varsal world
after Lizy,” added Sam, thoughtfully.

“So she would,” said Andy; “but can’t ye see through a ladder, ye black
nigger? Missis don’t want dis yer Mas’r Haley to get Lizy’s boy; dat’s
de go!”

“High!” said Sam, with an indescribable intonation, known only to those
who have heard it among the negroes.

“And I’ll tell yer more ’n all,” said Andy; “I specs you’d better be
making tracks for dem hosses,—mighty sudden, too,—-for I hearn Missis
’quirin’ arter yer,—so you’ve stood foolin’ long enough.”

Sam, upon this, began to bestir himself in real earnest, and after a
while appeared, bearing down gloriously towards the house, with Bill
and Jerry in a full canter, and adroitly throwing himself off before
they had any idea of stopping, he brought them up alongside of the
horse-post like a tornado. Haley’s horse, which was a skittish young
colt, winced, and bounced, and pulled hard at his halter.

“Ho, ho!” said Sam, “skeery, ar ye?” and his black visage lighted up
with a curious, mischievous gleam. “I’ll fix ye now!” said he.

There was a large beech-tree overshadowing the place, and the small,
sharp, triangular beech-nuts lay scattered thickly on the ground. With
one of these in his fingers, Sam approached the colt, stroked and
patted, and seemed apparently busy in soothing his agitation. On
pretence of adjusting the saddle, he adroitly slipped under it the
sharp little nut, in such a manner that the least weight brought upon
the saddle would annoy the nervous sensibilities of the animal, without
leaving any perceptible graze or wound.

“Dar!” he said, rolling his eyes with an approving grin; “me fix ’em!”

At this moment Mrs. Shelby appeared on the balcony, beckoning to him.
Sam approached with as good a determination to pay court as did ever
suitor after a vacant place at St. James’ or Washington.

“Why have you been loitering so, Sam? I sent Andy to tell you to
hurry.”

“Lord bless you, Missis!” said Sam, “horses won’t be cotched all in a
minit; they’d done clared out way down to the south pasture, and the
Lord knows whar!”

“Sam, how often must I tell you not to say ‘Lord bless you, and the
Lord knows,’ and such things? It’s wicked.”

“O, Lord bless my soul! I done forgot, Missis! I won’t say nothing of
de sort no more.”

“Why, Sam, you just _have_ said it again.”

“Did I? O, Lord! I mean—I didn’t go fur to say it.”

“You must be _careful_, Sam.”

“Just let me get my breath, Missis, and I’ll start fair. I’ll be bery
careful.”

“Well, Sam, you are to go with Mr. Haley, to show him the road, and
help him. Be careful of the horses, Sam; you know Jerry was a little
lame last week; _don’t ride them too fast_.”

Mrs. Shelby spoke the last words with a low voice, and strong emphasis.

“Let dis child alone for dat!” said Sam, rolling up his eyes with a
volume of meaning. “Lord knows! High! Didn’t say dat!” said he,
suddenly catching his breath, with a ludicrous flourish of
apprehension, which made his mistress laugh, spite of herself. “Yes,
Missis, I’ll look out for de hosses!”

“Now, Andy,” said Sam, returning to his stand under the beech-trees,
“you see I wouldn’t be ’t all surprised if dat ar gen’lman’s crittur
should gib a fling, by and by, when he comes to be a gettin’ up. You
know, Andy, critturs _will_ do such things;” and therewith Sam poked
Andy in the side, in a highly suggestive manner.

“High!” said Andy, with an air of instant appreciation.

“Yes, you see, Andy, Missis wants to make time,—dat ar’s clar to der
most or’nary ’bserver. I jis make a little for her. Now, you see, get
all dese yer hosses loose, caperin’ permiscus round dis yer lot and
down to de wood dar, and I spec Mas’r won’t be off in a hurry.”

Andy grinned.

“Yer see,” said Sam, “yer see, Andy, if any such thing should happen as
that Mas’r Haley’s horse _should_ begin to act contrary, and cut up,
you and I jist lets go of our’n to help him, and _we’ll help him_—oh
yes!” And Sam and Andy laid their heads back on their shoulders, and
broke into a low, immoderate laugh, snapping their fingers and
flourishing their heels with exquisite delight.

At this instant, Haley appeared on the verandah. Somewhat mollified by
certain cups of very good coffee, he came out smiling and talking, in
tolerably restored humor. Sam and Andy, clawing for certain fragmentary
palm-leaves, which they were in the habit of considering as hats, flew
to the horseposts, to be ready to “help Mas’r.”

Sam’s palm-leaf had been ingeniously disentangled from all pretensions
to braid, as respects its brim; and the slivers starting apart, and
standing upright, gave it a blazing air of freedom and defiance, quite
equal to that of any Fejee chief; while the whole brim of Andy’s being
departed bodily, he rapped the crown on his head with a dexterous
thump, and looked about well pleased, as if to say, “Who says I haven’t
got a hat?”

“Well, boys,” said Haley, “look alive now; we must lose no time.”

“Not a bit of him, Mas’r!” said Sam, putting Haley’s rein in his hand,
and holding his stirrup, while Andy was untying the other two horses.

The instant Haley touched the saddle, the mettlesome creature bounded
from the earth with a sudden spring, that threw his master sprawling,
some feet off, on the soft, dry turf. Sam, with frantic ejaculations,
made a dive at the reins, but only succeeded in brushing the blazing
palm-leaf afore-named into the horse’s eyes, which by no means tended
to allay the confusion of his nerves. So, with great vehemence, he
overturned Sam, and, giving two or three contemptuous snorts,
flourished his heels vigorously in the air, and was soon prancing away
towards the lower end of the lawn, followed by Bill and Jerry, whom
Andy had not failed to let loose, according to contract, speeding them
off with various direful ejaculations. And now ensued a miscellaneous
scene of confusion. Sam and Andy ran and shouted,—dogs barked here and
there,—and Mike, Mose, Mandy, Fanny, and all the smaller specimens on
the place, both male and female, raced, clapped hands, whooped, and
shouted, with outrageous officiousness and untiring zeal.

Haley’s horse, which was a white one, and very fleet and spirited,
appeared to enter into the spirit of the scene with great gusto; and
having for his coursing ground a lawn of nearly half a mile in extent,
gently sloping down on every side into indefinite woodland, he appeared
to take infinite delight in seeing how near he could allow his pursuers
to approach him, and then, when within a hand’s breadth, whisk off with
a start and a snort, like a mischievous beast as he was and career far
down into some alley of the wood-lot. Nothing was further from Sam’s
mind than to have any one of the troop taken until such season as
should seem to him most befitting,—and the exertions that he made were
certainly most heroic. Like the sword of Coeur De Lion, which always
blazed in the front and thickest of the battle, Sam’s palm-leaf was to
be seen everywhere when there was the least danger that a horse could
be caught; there he would bear down full tilt, shouting, “Now for it!
cotch him! cotch him!” in a way that would set everything to
indiscriminate rout in a moment.

Haley ran up and down, and cursed and swore and stamped
miscellaneously. Mr. Shelby in vain tried to shout directions from the
balcony, and Mrs. Shelby from her chamber window alternately laughed
and wondered,—not without some inkling of what lay at the bottom of all
this confusion.

At last, about twelve o’clock, Sam appeared triumphant, mounted on
Jerry, with Haley’s horse by his side, reeking with sweat, but with
flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, showing that the spirit of freedom
had not yet entirely subsided.

“He’s cotched!” he exclaimed, triumphantly. “If ’t hadn’t been for me,
they might a bust themselves, all on ’em; but I cotched him!”

“You!” growled Haley, in no amiable mood. “If it hadn’t been for you,
this never would have happened.”

“Lord bless us, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a tone of the deepest concern,
“and me that has been racin’ and chasin’ till the sweat jest pours off
me!”

“Well, well!” said Haley, “you’ve lost me near three hours, with your
cursed nonsense. Now let’s be off, and have no more fooling.”

“Why, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a deprecating tone, “I believe you mean to
kill us all clar, horses and all. Here we are all just ready to drop
down, and the critters all in a reek of sweat. Why, Mas’r won’t think
of startin’ on now till arter dinner. Mas’r’s hoss wants rubben down;
see how he splashed hisself; and Jerry limps too; don’t think Missis
would be willin’ to have us start dis yer way, no how. Lord bless you,
Mas’r, we can ketch up, if we do stop. Lizy never was no great of a
walker.”

Mrs. Shelby, who, greatly to her amusement, had overheard this
conversation from the verandah, now resolved to do her part. She came
forward, and, courteously expressing her concern for Haley’s accident,
pressed him to stay to dinner, saying that the cook should bring it on
the table immediately.

Thus, all things considered, Haley, with rather an equivocal grace,
proceeded to the parlor, while Sam, rolling his eyes after him with
unutterable meaning, proceeded gravely with the horses to the
stable-yard.

“Did yer see him, Andy? _did_ yer see him?” said Sam, when he had got
fairly beyond the shelter of the barn, and fastened the horse to a
post. “O, Lor, if it warn’t as good as a meetin’, now, to see him a
dancin’ and kickin’ and swarin’ at us. Didn’t I hear him? Swar away,
ole fellow (says I to myself ); will yer have yer hoss now, or wait
till you cotch him? (says I). Lor, Andy, I think I can see him now.”
And Sam and Andy leaned up against the barn and laughed to their
hearts’ content.

“Yer oughter seen how mad he looked, when I brought the hoss up. Lord,
he’d a killed me, if he durs’ to; and there I was a standin’ as
innercent and as humble.”

“Lor, I seed you,” said Andy; “an’t you an old hoss, Sam?”

“Rather specks I am,” said Sam; “did yer see Missis up stars at the
winder? I seed her laughin’.”

“I’m sure, I was racin’ so, I didn’t see nothing,” said Andy.

“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s
pony, “I ’se ’quired what yer may call a habit _o’ bobservation_, Andy.
It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy; and I ’commend yer to be cultivatin’
it, now yer young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer see, Andy, it’s
_bobservation_ makes all de difference in niggers. Didn’t I see which
way the wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see what Missis wanted,
though she never let on? Dat ar’s bobservation, Andy. I ’spects it’s
what you may call a faculty. Faculties is different in different
peoples, but cultivation of ’em goes a great way.”

“I guess if I hadn’t helped your bobservation dis mornin’, yer wouldn’t
have seen your way so smart,” said Andy.

“Andy,” said Sam, “you’s a promisin’ child, der an’t no manner o’
doubt. I thinks lots of yer, Andy; and I don’t feel no ways ashamed to
take idees from you. We oughtenter overlook nobody, Andy, cause the
smartest on us gets tripped up sometimes. And so, Andy, let’s go up to
the house now. I’ll be boun’ Missis’ll give us an uncommon good bite,
dis yer time.”




CHAPTER VII
The Mother’s Struggle


It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate
and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom’s
cabin.

Her husband’s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all
blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she
was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting
loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then
there was the parting from every familiar object,—the place where she
had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where
she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her
young husband,—everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight,
seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go
from a home like that?

But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of
frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough
to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only
have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out
of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a
convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.

The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the
sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward
to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself
at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the
weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of
fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while
from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to
a Friend above—“Lord, help! Lord, save me!”

If it were _your_ Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be
torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the
man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had
only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how
fast could _you_ walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief
hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your
shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?

For the child slept. At first, the novelty and alarm kept him waking;
but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so
assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him,
that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself
sinking to sleep,

“Mother, I don’t need to keep awake, do I?”

“No, my darling; sleep, if you want to.”

“But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won’t let him get me?”

“No! so may God help me!” said his mother, with a paler cheek, and a
brighter light in her large dark eyes.

“You’re _sure_, an’t you, mother?”

“Yes, _sure_!” said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for
it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her;
and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon
asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that
came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements! It
seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams, from
every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child.
Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time,
can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel,
so that the weak become so mighty.

The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her
dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar
object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening
daylight found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar
objects upon the open highway.

She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections, in
the little village of T——, not far from the Ohio river, and knew the
road well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio river, were the
first hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that, she could
only hope in God.

When horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that
alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to
be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and
distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore
put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she
walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the
preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a
store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening
the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when
the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often
repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.

After a while, they came to a thick patch of woodland, through which
murmured a clear brook. As the child complained of hunger and thirst,
she climbed over the fence with him; and, sitting down behind a large
rock which concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast out
of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved that she could not
eat; and when, putting his arms round her neck, he tried to wedge some
of his cake into her mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her
throat would choke her.

“No, no, Harry darling! mother can’t eat till you are safe! We must go
on—on—till we come to the river!” And she hurried again into the road,
and again constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly forward.

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.

It was now early spring, and the river was swollen and turbulent; great
cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid
waters. Owing to the peculiar form of the shore on the Kentucky side,
the land bending far out into the water, the ice had been lodged and
detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round
the bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming a
temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and formed a
great, undulating raft, filling up the whole river, and extending
almost to the Kentucky shore.

Eliza stood, for a moment, contemplating this unfavorable aspect of
things, which she saw at once must prevent the usual ferry-boat from
running, and then turned into a small public house on the bank, to make
a few inquiries.

The hostess, who was busy in various fizzing and stewing operations
over the fire, preparatory to the evening meal, stopped, with a fork in
her hand, as Eliza’s sweet and plaintive voice arrested her.

“What is it?” she said.

“Isn’t there any ferry or boat, that takes people over to B——, now?”
she said.

“No, indeed!” said the woman; “the boats has stopped running.”

Eliza’s look of dismay and disappointment struck the woman, and she
said, inquiringly,

“May be you’re wanting to get over?—anybody sick? Ye seem mighty
anxious?”

“I’ve got a child that’s very dangerous,” said Eliza. “I never heard of
it till last night, and I’ve walked quite a piece today, in hopes to
get to the ferry.”

“Well, now, that’s onlucky,” said the woman, whose motherly sympathies
were much aroused; “I’m re’lly consarned for ye. Solomon!” she called,
from the window, towards a small back building. A man, in leather apron
and very dirty hands, appeared at the door.

“I say, Sol,” said the woman, “is that ar man going to tote them bar’ls
over tonight?”

“He said he should try, if ’t was any way prudent,” said the man.

“There’s a man a piece down here, that’s going over with some truck
this evening, if he durs’ to; he’ll be in here to supper tonight, so
you’d better set down and wait. That’s a sweet little fellow,” added
the woman, offering him a cake.

But the child, wholly exhausted, cried with weariness.

“Poor fellow! he isn’t used to walking, and I’ve hurried him on so,”
said Eliza.

“Well, take him into this room,” said the woman, opening into a small
bed-room, where stood a comfortable bed. Eliza laid the weary boy upon
it, and held his hands in hers till he was fast asleep. For her there
was no rest. As a fire in her bones, the thought of the pursuer urged
her on; and she gazed with longing eyes on the sullen, surging waters
that lay between her and liberty.

Here we must take our leave of her for the present, to follow the
course of her pursuers.


Though Mrs. Shelby had promised that the dinner should be hurried on
table, yet it was soon seen, as the thing has often been seen before,
that it required more than one to make a bargain. So, although the
order was fairly given out in Haley’s hearing, and carried to Aunt
Chloe by at least half a dozen juvenile messengers, that dignitary only
gave certain very gruff snorts, and tosses of her head, and went on
with every operation in an unusually leisurely and circumstantial
manner.

For some singular reason, an impression seemed to reign among the
servants generally that Missis would not be particularly disobliged by
delay; and it was wonderful what a number of counter accidents occurred
constantly, to retard the course of things. One luckless wight
contrived to upset the gravy; and then gravy had to be got up _de
novo_, with due care and formality, Aunt Chloe watching and stirring
with dogged precision, answering shortly, to all suggestions of haste,
that she “warn’t a going to have raw gravy on the table, to help
nobody’s catchings.” One tumbled down with the water, and had to go to
the spring for more; and another precipitated the butter into the path
of events; and there was from time to time giggling news brought into
the kitchen that “Mas’r Haley was mighty oneasy, and that he couldn’t
sit in his cheer no ways, but was a walkin’ and stalkin’ to the winders
and through the porch.”

“Sarves him right!” said Aunt Chloe, indignantly. “He’ll get wus nor
oneasy, one of these days, if he don’t mend his ways. _His_ master’ll
be sending for him, and then see how he’ll look!”

“He’ll go to torment, and no mistake,” said little Jake.

“He desarves it!” said Aunt Chloe, grimly; “he’s broke a many, many,
many hearts,—I tell ye all!” she said, stopping, with a fork uplifted
in her hands; “it’s like what Mas’r George reads in Ravelations,—souls
a callin’ under the altar! and a callin’ on the Lord for vengeance on
sich!—and by and by the Lord he’ll hear ’em—so he will!”

Aunt Chloe, who was much revered in the kitchen, was listened to with
open mouth; and, the dinner being now fairly sent in, the whole kitchen
was at leisure to gossip with her, and to listen to her remarks.

“Sich’ll be burnt up forever, and no mistake; won’t ther?” said Andy.

“I’d be glad to see it, I’ll be boun’,” said little Jake.

“Chil’en!” said a voice, that made them all start. It was Uncle Tom,
who had come in, and stood listening to the conversation at the door.

“Chil’en!” he said, “I’m afeard you don’t know what ye’re sayin’.
Forever is a _dre’ful_ word, chil’en; it’s awful to think on ’t. You
oughtenter wish that ar to any human crittur.”

“We wouldn’t to anybody but the soul-drivers,” said Andy; “nobody can
help wishing it to them, they ’s so awful wicked.”

“Don’t natur herself kinder cry out on ’em?” said Aunt Chloe. “Don’t
dey tear der suckin’ baby right off his mother’s breast, and sell him,
and der little children as is crying and holding on by her
clothes,—don’t dey pull ’em off and sells ’em? Don’t dey tear wife and
husband apart?” said Aunt Chloe, beginning to cry, “when it’s jest
takin’ the very life on ’em?—and all the while does they feel one bit,
don’t dey drink and smoke, and take it oncommon easy? Lor, if the devil
don’t get them, what’s he good for?” And Aunt Chloe covered her face
with her checked apron, and began to sob in good earnest.

“Pray for them that ’spitefully use you, the good book says,” says Tom.

“Pray for ’em!” said Aunt Chloe; “Lor, it’s too tough! I can’t pray for
’em.”

“It’s natur, Chloe, and natur ’s strong,” said Tom, “but the Lord’s
grace is stronger; besides, you oughter think what an awful state a
poor crittur’s soul ’s in that’ll do them ar things,—you oughter thank
God that you an’t _like_ him, Chloe. I’m sure I’d rather be sold, ten
thousand times over, than to have all that ar poor crittur’s got to
answer for.”

“So ’d I, a heap,” said Jake. “Lor, _shouldn’t_ we cotch it, Andy?”

Andy shrugged his shoulders, and gave an acquiescent whistle.

“I’m glad Mas’r didn’t go off this morning, as he looked to,” said Tom;
“that ar hurt me more than sellin’, it did. Mebbe it might have been
natural for him, but ’t would have come desp’t hard on me, as has known
him from a baby; but I’ve seen Mas’r, and I begin ter feel sort o’
reconciled to the Lord’s will now. Mas’r couldn’t help hisself; he did
right, but I’m feared things will be kinder goin’ to rack, when I’m
gone Mas’r can’t be spected to be a pryin’ round everywhar, as I’ve
done, a keepin’ up all the ends. The boys all means well, but they ’s
powerful car’less. That ar troubles me.”

The bell here rang, and Tom was summoned to the parlor.

“Tom,” said his master, kindly, “I want you to notice that I give this
gentleman bonds to forfeit a thousand dollars if you are not on the
spot when he wants you; he’s going today to look after his other
business, and you can have the day to yourself. Go anywhere you like,
boy.”

“Thank you, Mas’r,” said Tom.

“And mind yourself,” said the trader, “and don’t come it over your
master with any o’ yer nigger tricks; for I’ll take every cent out of
him, if you an’t thar. If he’d hear to me, he wouldn’t trust any on
ye—slippery as eels!”

“Mas’r,” said Tom,—and he stood very straight,—“I was jist eight years
old when ole Missis put you into my arms, and you wasn’t a year old.
‘Thar,’ says she, ‘Tom, that’s to be _your_ young Mas’r; take good care
on him,’ says she. And now I jist ask you, Mas’r, have I ever broke
word to you, or gone contrary to you, ’specially since I was a
Christian?”

Mr. Shelby was fairly overcome, and the tears rose to his eyes.

“My good boy,” said he, “the Lord knows you say but the truth; and if I
was able to help it, all the world shouldn’t buy you.”

“And sure as I am a Christian woman,” said Mrs. Shelby, “you shall be
redeemed as soon as I can any way bring together means. Sir,” she said
to Haley, “take good account of who you sell him to, and let me know.”

“Lor, yes, for that matter,” said the trader, “I may bring him up in a
year, not much the wuss for wear, and trade him back.”

“I’ll trade with you then, and make it for your advantage,” said Mrs.
Shelby.

“Of course,” said the trader, “all ’s equal with me; li’ves trade ’em
up as down, so I does a good business. All I want is a livin’, you
know, ma’am; that’s all any on us wants, I, s’pose.”

Mr. and Mrs. Shelby both felt annoyed and degraded by the familiar
impudence of the trader, and yet both saw the absolute necessity of
putting a constraint on their feelings. The more hopelessly sordid and
insensible he appeared, the greater became Mrs. Shelby’s dread of his
succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the
greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice. She
therefore graciously smiled, assented, chatted familiarly, and did all
she could to make time pass imperceptibly.

At two o’clock Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts,
apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the
morning.

Sam was there new oiled from dinner, with an abundance of zealous and
ready officiousness. As Haley approached, he was boasting, in
flourishing style, to Andy, of the evident and eminent success of the
operation, now that he had “farly come to it.”

“Your master, I s’pose, don’t keep no dogs,” said Haley, thoughtfully,
as he prepared to mount.

“Heaps on ’em,” said Sam, triumphantly; “thar’s Bruno—he’s a roarer!
and, besides that, ’bout every nigger of us keeps a pup of some natur
or uther.”

“Poh!” said Haley,—and he said something else, too, with regard to the
said dogs, at which Sam muttered,

“I don’t see no use cussin’ on ’em, no way.”

“But your master don’t keep no dogs (I pretty much know he don’t) for
trackin’ out niggers.”

Sam knew exactly what he meant, but he kept on a look of earnest and
desperate simplicity.

“Our dogs all smells round considable sharp. I spect they’s the kind,
though they han’t never had no practice. They ’s _far_ dogs, though, at
most anything, if you’d get ’em started. Here, Bruno,” he called,
whistling to the lumbering Newfoundland, who came pitching tumultuously
toward them.

“You go hang!” said Haley, getting up. “Come, tumble up now.”

Sam tumbled up accordingly, dexterously contriving to tickle Andy as he
did so, which occasioned Andy to split out into a laugh, greatly to
Haley’s indignation, who made a cut at him with his riding-whip.

“I ’s ’stonished at yer, Andy,” said Sam, with awful gravity. “This
yer’s a seris bisness, Andy. Yer mustn’t be a makin’ game. This yer
an’t no way to help Mas’r.”

“I shall take the straight road to the river,” said Haley, decidedly,
after they had come to the boundaries of the estate. “I know the way of
all of ’em,—they makes tracks for the underground.”

“Sartin,” said Sam, “dat’s de idee. Mas’r Haley hits de thing right in
de middle. Now, der’s two roads to de river,—de dirt road and der
pike,—which Mas’r mean to take?”

Andy looked up innocently at Sam, surprised at hearing this new
geographical fact, but instantly confirmed what he said, by a vehement
reiteration.

“Cause,” said Sam, “I’d rather be ’clined to ’magine that Lizy ’d take
de dirt road, bein’ it’s the least travelled.”

Haley, notwithstanding that he was a very old bird, and naturally
inclined to be suspicious of chaff, was rather brought up by this view
of the case.

“If yer warn’t both on yer such cussed liars, now!” he said,
contemplatively as he pondered a moment.

The pensive, reflective tone in which this was spoken appeared to amuse
Andy prodigiously, and he drew a little behind, and shook so as
apparently to run a great risk of failing off his horse, while Sam’s
face was immovably composed into the most doleful gravity.

“Course,” said Sam, “Mas’r can do as he’d ruther, go de straight road,
if Mas’r thinks best,—it’s all one to us. Now, when I study ’pon it, I
think de straight road de best, _deridedly_.”

“She would naturally go a lonesome way,” said Haley, thinking aloud,
and not minding Sam’s remark.

“Dar an’t no sayin’,” said Sam; “gals is pecular; they never does
nothin’ ye thinks they will; mose gen’lly the contrary. Gals is nat’lly
made contrary; and so, if you thinks they’ve gone one road, it is
sartin you’d better go t’ other, and then you’ll be sure to find ’em.
Now, my private ’pinion is, Lizy took der road; so I think we’d better
take de straight one.”

This profound generic view of the female sex did not seem to dispose
Haley particularly to the straight road, and he announced decidedly
that he should go the other, and asked Sam when they should come to it.

“A little piece ahead,” said Sam, giving a wink to Andy with the eye
which was on Andy’s side of the head; and he added, gravely, “but I’ve
studded on de matter, and I’m quite clar we ought not to go dat ar way.
I nebber been over it no way. It’s despit lonesome, and we might lose
our way,—whar we’d come to, de Lord only knows.”

“Nevertheless,” said Haley, “I shall go that way.”

“Now I think on ’t, I think I hearn ’em tell that dat ar road was all
fenced up and down by der creek, and thar, an’t it, Andy?”

Andy wasn’t certain; he’d only “hearn tell” about that road, but never
been over it. In short, he was strictly noncommittal.

Haley, accustomed to strike the balance of probabilities between lies
of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it lay in favor of the
dirt road aforesaid. The mention of the thing he thought he perceived
was involuntary on Sam’s part at first, and his confused attempts to
dissuade him he set down to a desperate lying on second thoughts, as
being unwilling to implicate Liza.

When, therefore, Sam indicated the road, Haley plunged briskly into it,
followed by Sam and Andy.

Now, the road, in fact, was an old one, that had formerly been a
thoroughfare to the river, but abandoned for many years after the
laying of the new pike. It was open for about an hour’s ride, and after
that it was cut across by various farms and fences. Sam knew this fact
perfectly well,—indeed, the road had been so long closed up, that Andy
had never heard of it. He therefore rode along with an air of dutiful
submission, only groaning and vociferating occasionally that ’t was
“desp’t rough, and bad for Jerry’s foot.”

“Now, I jest give yer warning,” said Haley, “I know yer; yer won’t get
me to turn off this road, with all yer fussin’—so you shet up!”

“Mas’r will go his own way!” said Sam, with rueful submission, at the
same time winking most portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very
near the explosive point.

Sam was in wonderful spirits,—professed to keep a very brisk
lookout,—at one time exclaiming that he saw “a gal’s bonnet” on the top
of some distant eminence, or calling to Andy “if that thar wasn’t
’Lizy’ down in the hollow;” always making these exclamations in some
rough or craggy part of the road, where the sudden quickening of speed
was a special inconvenience to all parties concerned, and thus keeping
Haley in a state of constant commotion.

After riding about an hour in this way, the whole party made a
precipitate and tumultuous descent into a barn-yard belonging to a
large farming establishment. Not a soul was in sight, all the hands
being employed in the fields; but, as the barn stood conspicuously and
plainly square across the road, it was evident that their journey in
that direction had reached a decided finale.

“Wan’t dat ar what I telled Mas’r?” said Sam, with an air of injured
innocence. “How does strange gentleman spect to know more about a
country dan de natives born and raised?”

“You rascal!” said Haley, “you knew all about this.”

“Didn’t I tell yer I _knowd_, and yer wouldn’t believe me? I telled
Mas’r ’t was all shet up, and fenced up, and I didn’t spect we could
get through,—Andy heard me.”

It was all too true to be disputed, and the unlucky man had to pocket
his wrath with the best grace he was able, and all three faced to the
right about, and took up their line of march for the highway.

In consequence of all the various delays, it was about three-quarters
of an hour after Eliza had laid her child to sleep in the village
tavern that the party came riding into the same place. Eliza was
standing by the window, looking out in another direction, when Sam’s
quick eye caught a glimpse of her. Haley and Andy were two yards
behind. At this crisis, Sam contrived to have his hat blown off, and
uttered a loud and characteristic ejaculation, which startled her at
once; she drew suddenly back; the whole train swept by the window,
round to the front door.

A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza.
Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child, and
sprang down the steps towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of
her just as she was disappearing down the bank; and throwing himself
from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was after her
like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment her feet to her scarce
seemed to touch the ground, and a moment brought her to the water’s
edge. Right on behind they came; and, nerved with strength such as God
gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she
vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of
ice beyond. It was a desperate leap—impossible to anything but madness
and despair; and Haley, Sam, and Andy, instinctively cried out, and
lifted up their hands, as she did it.

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 stockings cut from 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.

“Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!” said the man, with an oath.

Eliza recognized the voice and face for a man who owned a farm not far
from her old home.

“O, Mr. Symmes!—save me—do save me—do hide me!” said Elia.

“Why, what’s this?” said the man. “Why, if ’tan’t Shelby’s gal!”

“My child!—this boy!—he’d sold him! There is his Mas’r,” said she,
pointing to the Kentucky shore. “O, Mr. Symmes, you’ve got a little
boy!”

“So I have,” said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the
steep bank. “Besides, you’re a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I
see it.”

When they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused.

“I’d be glad to do something for ye,” said he; “but then there’s nowhar
I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go _thar_,” said
he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main
street of the village. “Go thar; they’re kind folks. Thar’s no kind o’
danger but they’ll help you,—they’re up to all that sort o’ thing.”

“The Lord bless you!” said Eliza, earnestly.

“No ’casion, no ’casion in the world,” said the man. “What I’ve done’s
of no ’count.”

“And, oh, surely, sir, you won’t tell any one!”

“Go to thunder, gal! What do you take a feller for? In course not,”
said the man. “Come, now, go along like a likely, sensible gal, as you
are. You’ve arnt your liberty, and you shall have it, for all me.”

The woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked firmly and swiftly
away. The man stood and looked after her.

“Shelby, now, mebbe won’t think this yer the most neighborly thing in
the world; but what’s a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals in
the same fix, he’s welcome to pay back. Somehow I never could see no
kind o’ critter a strivin’ and pantin’, and trying to clar theirselves,
with the dogs arter ’em and go agin ’em. Besides, I don’t see no kind
of ’casion for me to be hunter and catcher for other folks, neither.”

So spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed
in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into
acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better
situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do.

Haley had stood a perfectly amazed spectator of the scene, till Eliza
had disappeared up the bank, when he turned a blank, inquiring look on
Sam and Andy.

“That ar was a tolable fair stroke of business,” said Sam.

“The gal ’s got seven devils in her, I believe!” said Haley. “How like
a wildcat she jumped!”

“Wal, now,” said Sam, scratching his head, “I hope Mas’r’ll ’scuse us
trying dat ar road. Don’t think I feel spry enough for dat ar, no way!”
and Sam gave a hoarse chuckle.

“_You_ laugh!” said the trader, with a growl.

“Lord bless you, Mas’r, I couldn’t help it now,” said Sam, giving way
to the long pent-up delight of his soul. “She looked so curi’s, a
leapin’ and springin’—ice a crackin’—and only to hear her,—plump! ker
chunk! ker splash! Spring! Lord! how she goes it!” and Sam and Andy
laughed till the tears rolled down their cheeks.

“I’ll make ye laugh t’ other side yer mouths!” said the trader, laying
about their heads with his riding-whip.

Both ducked, and ran shouting up the bank, and were on their horses
before he was up.

“Good-evening, Mas’r!” said Sam, with much gravity. “I berry much spect
Missis be anxious ’bout Jerry. Mas’r Haley won’t want us no longer.
Missis wouldn’t hear of our ridin’ the critters over Lizy’s bridge
tonight;” and, with a facetious poke into Andy’s ribs, he started off,
followed by the latter, at full speed,—their shouts of laughter coming
faintly on the wind.




CHAPTER VIII
Eliza’s Escape


Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in the dusk of
twilight. The gray mist of evening, rising slowly from the river,
enveloped her as she disappeared up the bank, and the swollen current
and floundering masses of ice presented a hopeless barrier between her
and her pursuer. Haley therefore slowly and discontentedly returned to
the little tavern, to ponder further what was to be done. The woman
opened to him the door of a little parlor, covered with a rag carpet,
where stood a table with a very shining black oil-cloth, sundry lank,
high-backed wood chairs, with some plaster images in resplendent colors
on the mantel-shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood
settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat
him down to meditate on the instability of human hopes and happiness in
general.

“What did I want with the little cuss, now,” he said to himself, “that
I should have got myself treed like a coon, as I am, this yer way?” and
Haley relieved himself by repeating over a not very select litany of
imprecations on himself, which, though there was the best possible
reason to consider them as true, we shall, as a matter of taste, omit.

He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man who was
apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to the window.

“By the land! if this yer an’t the nearest, now, to what I’ve heard
folks call Providence,” said Haley. “I do b’lieve that ar’s Tom Loker.”

Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner of the room, was
a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in height, and broad in
proportion. He was dressed in a coat of buffalo-skin, made with the
hair outward, which gave him a shaggy and fierce appearance, perfectly
in keeping with the whole air of his physiognomy. In the head and face
every organ and lineament expressive of brutal and unhesitating
violence was in a state of the highest possible development. Indeed,
could our readers fancy a bull-dog come unto man’s estate, and walking
about in a hat and coat, they would have no unapt idea of the general
style and effect of his physique. He was accompanied by a travelling
companion, in many respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short
and slender, lithe and catlike in his motions, and had a peering,
mousing expression about his keen black eyes, with which every feature
of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran
out as if it was eager to bore into the nature of things in general;
his sleek, thin, black hair was stuck eagerly forward, and all his
motions and evolutions expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great
man poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped it
down without a word. The little man stood tiptoe, and putting his head
first to one side and then the other, and snuffing considerately in the
directions of the various bottles, ordered at last a mint julep, in a
thin and quivering voice, and with an air of great circumspection. When
poured out, he took it and looked at it with a sharp, complacent air,
like a man who thinks he has done about the right thing, and hit the
nail on the head, and proceeded to dispose of it in short and
well-advised sips.

“Wal, now, who’d a thought this yer luck ’ad come to me? Why, Loker,
how are ye?” said Haley, coming forward, and extending his hand to the
big man.

“The devil!” was the civil reply. “What brought you here, Haley?”

The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly stopped his
sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked shrewdly on the new
acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks at a moving dry leaf, or some
other possible object of pursuit.

“I say, Tom, this yer’s the luckiest thing in the world. I’m in a devil
of a hobble, and you must help me out.”

“Ugh? aw! like enough!” grunted his complacent acquaintance. “A body
may be pretty sure of that, when _you’re_ glad to see ’em; something to
be made off of ’em. What’s the blow now?”

“You’ve got a friend here?” said Haley, looking doubtfully at Marks;
“partner, perhaps?”

“Yes, I have. Here, Marks! here’s that ar feller that I was in with in
Natchez.”

“Shall be pleased with his acquaintance,” said Marks, thrusting out a
long, thin hand, like a raven’s claw. “Mr. Haley, I believe?”

“The same, sir,” said Haley. “And now, gentlemen, seein’ as we’ve met
so happily, I think I’ll stand up to a small matter of a treat in this
here parlor. So, now, old coon,” said he to the man at the bar, “get us
hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the _real stuff_ and
we’ll have a blow-out.”

Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to the burning
point in the grate, and our three worthies seated round a table, well
spread with all the accessories to good fellowship enumerated before.

Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles. Loker shut up
his mouth, and listened to him with gruff and surly attention. Marks,
who was anxiously and with much fidgeting compounding a tumbler of
punch to his own peculiar taste, occasionally looked up from his
employment, and, poking his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley’s
face, gave the most earnest heed to the whole narrative. The conclusion
of it appeared to amuse him extremely, for he shook his shoulders and
sides in silence, and perked up his thin lips with an air of great
internal enjoyment.

“So, then, ye’r fairly sewed up, an’t ye?” he said; “he! he! he! It’s
neatly done, too.”

“This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the trade,” said
Haley, dolefully.

“If we could get a breed of gals that didn’t care, now, for their young
uns,” said Marks; “tell ye, I think ’t would be ’bout the greatest
mod’rn improvement I knows on,”—and Marks patronized his joke by a
quiet introductory sniggle.

“Jes so,” said Haley; “I never couldn’t see into it; young uns is heaps
of trouble to ’em; one would think, now, they’d be glad to get clar on
’em; but they arn’t. And the more trouble a young un is, and the more
good for nothing, as a gen’l thing, the tighter they sticks to ’em.”

“Wal, Mr. Haley,” said Marks, “‘est pass the hot water. Yes, sir, you
say ’est what I feel and all’us have. Now, I bought a gal once, when I
was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite
considerable smart,—and she had a young un that was mis’able sickly; it
had a crooked back, or something or other; and I jest gin ’t away to a
man that thought he’d take his chance raising on ’t, being it didn’t
cost nothin’;—never thought, yer know, of the gal’s takin’ on about
it,—but, Lord, yer oughter seen how she went on. Why, re’lly, she did
seem to me to valley the child more ’cause _”t was_ sickly and cross,
and plagued her; and she warn’t making b’lieve, neither,—cried about
it, she did, and lopped round, as if she’d lost every friend she had.
It re’lly was droll to think on ’t. Lord, there ain’t no end to women’s
notions.”

“Wal, jest so with me,” said Haley. “Last summer, down on Red River, I
got a gal traded off on me, with a likely lookin’ child enough, and his
eyes looked as bright as yourn; but, come to look, I found him stone
blind. Fact—he was stone blind. Wal, ye see, I thought there warn’t no
harm in my jest passing him along, and not sayin’ nothin’; and I’d got
him nicely swapped off for a keg o’ whiskey; but come to get him away
from the gal, she was jest like a tiger. So ’t was before we started,
and I hadn’t got my gang chained up; so what should she do but ups on a
cotton-bale, like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands,
and, I tell ye, she made all fly for a minit, till she saw ’t wan’t no
use; and she jest turns round, and pitches head first, young un and
all, into the river,—went down plump, and never ris.”

“Bah!” said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with
ill-repressed disgust,—“shif’less, both on ye! _my_ gals don’t cut up
no such shines, I tell ye!”

“Indeed! how do you help it?” said Marks, briskly.

“Help it? why, I buys a gal, and if she’s got a young un to be sold, I
jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says, ‘Look here, now,
if you give me one word out of your head, I’ll smash yer face in. I
won’t hear one word—not the beginning of a word.’ I says to ’em, ‘This
yer young un’s mine, and not yourn, and you’ve no kind o’ business with
it. I’m going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don’t cut up none o’
yer shines about it, or I’ll make ye wish ye’d never been born.’ I tell
ye, they sees it an’t no play, when I gets hold. I makes ’em as whist
as fishes; and if one on ’em begins and gives a yelp, why,—” and Mr.
Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the
hiatus.

“That ar’s what ye may call _emphasis_,” said Marks, poking Haley in
the side, and going into another small giggle. “An’t Tom peculiar? he!
he! I say, Tom, I s’pect you make ’em _understand_, for all niggers’
heads is woolly. They don’t never have no doubt o’ your meaning, Tom.
If you an’t the devil, Tom, you ’s his twin brother, I’ll say that for
ye!”

Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began to look as
affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says, “with his doggish
nature.”

Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of the evening,
began to feel a sensible elevation and enlargement of his moral
faculties,—a phenomenon not unusual with gentlemen of a serious and
reflective turn, under similar circumstances.

“Wal, now, Tom,” he said, “ye re’lly is too bad, as I al’ays have told
ye; ye know, Tom, you and I used to talk over these yer matters down in
Natchez, and I used to prove to ye that we made full as much, and was
as well off for this yer world, by treatin’ on ’em well, besides
keepin’ a better chance for comin’ in the kingdom at last, when wust
comes to wust, and thar an’t nothing else left to get, ye know.”

“Boh!” said Tom, “_don’t_ I know?—don’t make me too sick with any yer
stuff,—my stomach is a leetle riled now;” and Tom drank half a glass of
raw brandy.

“I say,” said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and gesturing
impressively, “I’ll say this now, I al’ays meant to drive my trade so
as to make money on ’t _fust and foremost_, as much as any man; but,
then, trade an’t everything, and money an’t everything, ’cause we ’s
all got souls. I don’t care, now, who hears me say it,—and I think a
cussed sight on it,—so I may as well come out with it. I b’lieve in
religion, and one of these days, when I’ve got matters tight and snug,
I calculates to tend to my soul and them ar matters; and so what’s the
use of doin’ any more wickedness than ’s re’lly necessary?—it don’t
seem to me it’s ’t all prudent.”

“Tend to yer soul!” repeated Tom, contemptuously; “take a bright
lookout to find a soul in you,—save yourself any care on that score. If
the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won’t find one.”

“Why, Tom, you’re cross,” said Haley; “why can’t ye take it pleasant,
now, when a feller’s talking for your good?”

“Stop that ar jaw o’ yourn, there,” said Tom, gruffly. “I can stand
most any talk o’ yourn but your pious talk,—that kills me right up.
After all, what’s the odds between me and you? ’Tan’t that you care one
bit more, or have a bit more feelin’—it’s clean, sheer, dog meanness,
wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin; don’t I see through
it? And your ‘gettin’ religion,’ as you call it, arter all, is too
p’isin mean for any crittur;—run up a bill with the devil all your
life, and then sneak out when pay time comes! Bob!”

“Come, come, gentlemen, I say; this isn’t business,” said Marks.
“There’s different ways, you know, of looking at all subjects. Mr.
Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and has his own conscience; and,
Tom, you have your ways, and very good ones, too, Tom; but quarrelling,
you know, won’t answer no kind of purpose. Let’s go to business. Now,
Mr. Haley, what is it?—you want us to undertake to catch this yer gal?”

“The gal’s no matter of mine,—she’s Shelby’s; it’s only the boy. I was
a fool for buying the monkey!”

“You’re generally a fool!” said Tom, gruffly.

“Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs,” said Marks, licking his lips;
“you see, Mr. Haley ’s a puttin’ us in a way of a good job, I reckon;
just hold still—these yer arrangements is my forte. This yer gal, Mr.
Haley, how is she? what is she?”

“Wal! white and handsome—well brought up. I’d a gin Shelby eight
hundred or a thousand, and then made well on her.”

“White and handsome—well brought up!” said Marks, his sharp eyes, nose
and mouth, all alive with enterprise. “Look here, now, Loker, a
beautiful opening. We’ll do a business here on our own account;—we does
the catchin’; the boy, of course, goes to Mr. Haley,—we takes the gal
to Orleans to speculate on. An’t it beautiful?”

Tom, whose great heavy mouth had stood ajar during this communication,
now suddenly snapped it together, as a big dog closes on a piece of
meat, and seemed to be digesting the idea at his leisure.

“Ye see,” said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he did so, “ye
see, we has justices convenient at all p’ints along shore, that does up
any little jobs in our line quite reasonable. Tom, he does the knockin’
down and that ar; and I come in all dressed up—shining boots—everything
first chop, when the swearin’ ’s to be done. You oughter see, now,”
said Marks, in a glow of professional pride, “how I can tone it off.
One day, I’m Mr. Twickem, from New Orleans; ’nother day, I’m just come
from my plantation on Pearl River, where I works seven hundred niggers;
then, again, I come out a distant relation of Henry Clay, or some old
cock in Kentuck. Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom’s roarer when
there’s any thumping or fighting to be done; but at lying he an’t good,
Tom an’t,—ye see it don’t come natural to him; but, Lord, if thar’s a
feller in the country that can swear to anything and everything, and
put in all the circumstances and flourishes with a long face, and carry
’t through better ’n I can, why, I’d like to see him, that’s all! I
b’lieve my heart, I could get along and snake through, even if justices
were more particular than they is. Sometimes I rather wish they was
more particular; ’t would be a heap more relishin’ if they was,—more
fun, yer know.”

Tom Loker, who, as we have made it appear, was a man of slow thoughts
and movements, here interrupted Marks by bringing his heavy fist down
on the table, so as to make all ring again, _“It’ll do!”_ he said.

“Lord bless ye, Tom, ye needn’t break all the glasses!” said Marks;
“save your fist for time o’ need.”

“But, gentlemen, an’t I to come in for a share of the profits?” said
Haley.

“An’t it enough we catch the boy for ye?” said Loker. “What do ye
want?”

“Wal,” said Haley, “if I gives you the job, it’s worth something,—say
ten per cent. on the profits, expenses paid.”

“Now,” said Loker, with a tremendous oath, and striking the table with
his heavy fist, “don’t I know _you_, Dan Haley? Don’t you think to come
it over me! Suppose Marks and I have taken up the catchin’ trade, jest
to ’commodate gentlemen like you, and get nothin’ for ourselves?—Not by
a long chalk! we’ll have the gal out and out, and you keep quiet, or,
ye see, we’ll have both,—what’s to hinder? Han’t you show’d us the
game? It’s as free to us as you, I hope. If you or Shelby wants to
chase us, look where the partridges was last year; if you find them or
us, you’re quite welcome.”

“O, wal, certainly, jest let it go at that,” said Haley, alarmed; “you
catch the boy for the job;—you allers did trade _far_ with me, Tom, and
was up to yer word.”

“Ye know that,” said Tom; “I don’t pretend none of your snivelling
ways, but I won’t lie in my ’counts with the devil himself. What I ses
I’ll do, I will do,—you know _that_, Dan Haley.”

“Jes so, jes so,—I said so, Tom,” said Haley; “and if you’d only
promise to have the boy for me in a week, at any point you’ll name,
that’s all I want.”

“But it an’t all I want, by a long jump,” said Tom. “Ye don’t think I
did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing, Haley; I’ve
learned to hold an eel, when I catch him. You’ve got to fork over fifty
dollars, flat down, or this child don’t start a peg. I know yer.”

“Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a clean profit of
somewhere about a thousand or sixteen hundred, why, Tom, you’re
onreasonable,” said Haley.

“Yes, and hasn’t we business booked for five weeks to come,—all we can
do? And suppose we leaves all, and goes to bush-whacking round arter
yer young uns, and finally doesn’t catch the gal,—and gals allers is
the devil _to_ catch,—what’s then? would you pay us a cent—would you? I
think I see you a doin’ it—ugh! No, no; flap down your fifty. If we get
the job, and it pays, I’ll hand it back; if we don’t, it’s for our
trouble,—that’s _far_, an’t it, Marks?”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Marks, with a conciliatory tone; “it’s
only a retaining fee, you see,—he! he! he!—we lawyers, you know. Wal,
we must all keep good-natured,—keep easy, yer know. Tom’ll have the boy
for yer, anywhere ye’ll name; won’t ye, Tom?”

“If I find the young un, I’ll bring him on to Cincinnati, and leave him
at Granny Belcher’s, on the landing,” said Loker.

Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and taking a long
paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his keen black eyes on it,
began mumbling over its contents: “Barnes—Shelby County—boy Jim, three
hundred dollars for him, dead or alive.

“Edwards—Dick and Lucy—man and wife, six hundred dollars; wench Polly
and two children—six hundred for her or her head.

“I’m jest a runnin’ over our business, to see if we can take up this
yer handily. Loker,” he said, after a pause, “we must set Adams and
Springer on the track of these yer; they’ve been booked some time.”

“They’ll charge too much,” said Tom.

“I’ll manage that ar; they ’s young in the business, and must spect to
work cheap,” said Marks, as he continued to read. “Ther’s three on ’em
easy cases, ’cause all you’ve got to do is to shoot ’em, or swear they
is shot; they couldn’t, of course, charge much for that. Them other
cases,” he said, folding the paper, “will bear puttin’ off a spell. So
now let’s come to the particulars. Now, Mr. Haley, you saw this yer gal
when she landed?”

“To be sure,—plain as I see you.”

“And a man helpin’ on her up the bank?” said Loker.

“To be sure, I did.”

“Most likely,” said Marks, “she’s took in somewhere; but where, ’s a
question. Tom, what do you say?”

“We must cross the river tonight, no mistake,” said Tom.

“But there’s no boat about,” said Marks. “The ice is running awfully,
Tom; an’t it dangerous?”

“Don’no nothing ’bout that,—only it’s got to be done,” said Tom,
decidedly.

“Dear me,” said Marks, fidgeting, “it’ll be—I say,” he said, walking to
the window, “it’s dark as a wolf’s mouth, and, Tom—”

“The long and short is, you’re scared, Marks; but I can’t help
that,—you’ve got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a day or two, till
the gal ’s been carried on the underground line up to Sandusky or so,
before you start.”

“O, no; I an’t a grain afraid,” said Marks, “only—”

“Only what?” said Tom.

“Well, about the boat. Yer see there an’t any boat.”

“I heard the woman say there was one coming along this evening, and
that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck or nothing, we must go
with him,” said Tom.

“I s’pose you’ve got good dogs,” said Haley.

“First rate,” said Marks. “But what’s the use? you han’t got nothin’ o’
hers to smell on.”

“Yes, I have,” said Haley, triumphantly. “Here’s her shawl she left on
the bed in her hurry; she left her bonnet, too.”

“That ar’s lucky,” said Loker; “fork over.”

“Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on her unawars,”
said Haley.

“That ar’s a consideration,” said Marks. “Our dogs tore a feller half
to pieces, once, down in Mobile, ’fore we could get ’em off.”

“Well, ye see, for this sort that’s to be sold for their looks, that ar
won’t answer, ye see,” said Haley.

“I do see,” said Marks. “Besides, if she’s got took in, ’tan’t no go,
neither. Dogs is no ’count in these yer up states where these critters
gets carried; of course, ye can’t get on their track. They only does
down in plantations, where niggers, when they runs, has to do their own
running, and don’t get no help.”

“Well,” said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar to make some
inquiries, “they say the man’s come with the boat; so, Marks—”

That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters he was
leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few words of
further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed over the
fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated for the night.

If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the society into
which this scene introduces them, let us beg them to begin and conquer
their prejudices in time. The catching business, we beg to remind them,
is rising to the dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession. If all
the broad land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one
great market for bodies and souls, and human property retains the
locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, the trader and
catcher may yet be among our aristocracy.


While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy, in a state
of high felicitation, pursued their way home.

Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his exultation
by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by divers odd
motions and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes he would sit
backward, with his face to the horse’s tail and sides, and then, with a
whoop and a somerset, come right side up in his place again, and,
drawing on a grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding tones
for laughing and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his sides with his
arms, he would burst forth in peals of laughter, that made the old
woods ring as they passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to
keep the horses up to the top of their speed, until, between ten and
eleven, their heels resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony.
Mrs. Shelby flew to the railings.

“Is that you, Sam? Where are they?”

“Mas’r Haley ’s a-restin’ at the tavern; he’s drefful fatigued,
Missis.”

“And Eliza, Sam?”

“Wal, she’s clar ’cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o’
Canaan.”

“Why, Sam, what _do_ you mean?” said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and
almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.

“Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy’s done gone over the
river into ’Hio, as ’markably as if de Lord took her over in a charrit
of fire and two hosses.”

Sam’s vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress’
presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.

“Come up here, Sam,” said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the
verandah, “and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,”
said he, passing his arm round her, “you are cold and all in a shiver;
you allow yourself to feel too much.”

“Feel too much! Am not I a woman,—a mother? Are we not both responsible
to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this sin to our charge.”

“What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we were
obliged to.”

“There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,” said Mrs. Shelby.
“I can’t reason it away.”

“Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!” called Sam, under the verandah;
“take these yer hosses to der barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?” and
Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.

“Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was,” said Mr. Shelby.
“Where is Eliza, if you know?”

“Wal, Mas’r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin’ on the floatin’
ice. She crossed most ’markably; it wasn’t no less nor a miracle; and I
saw a man help her up the ’Hio side, and then she was lost in the
dusk.”

“Sam, I think this rather apocryphal,—this miracle. Crossing on
floating ice isn’t so easily done,” said Mr. Shelby.

“Easy! couldn’t nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now,” said Sam,
“‘t was jist dis yer way. Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to
de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead,—(I’s so
zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizy, that I couldn’t hold in, no way),—and
when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in
plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and
sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges
back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she
clared out de side door; she went down de river bank;—Mas’r Haley he
seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter.
Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet
wide by the shore, and over t’ other side ice a sawin’ and a jiggling
up and down, kinder as ’t were a great island. We come right behind
her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough,—when she gin sich
a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’ other side
of the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a
jumpin’,—the ice went crack! c’wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a
boundin’ like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal’s got in her an’t
common, I’m o’ ’pinion.”

Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told
his story.

“God be praised, she isn’t dead!” she said; “but where is the poor
child now?”

“De Lord will pervide,” said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. “As I’ve
been a sayin’, dis yer ’s a providence and no mistake, as Missis has
allers been a instructin’ on us. Thar’s allers instruments ris up to do
de Lord’s will. Now, if ’t hadn’t been for me today, she’d a been took
a dozen times. Warn’t it I started off de hosses, dis yer mornin’ and
kept ’em chasin’ till nigh dinner time? And didn’t I car Mas’r Haley
night five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he’d a come up
with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer ’s all providences.”

“They are a kind of providences that you’ll have to be pretty sparing
of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,”
said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command, under the
circumstances.

Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than
with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case,
through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise
disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful
gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most
penitential style.

“Mas’r quite right,—quite; it was ugly on me,—there’s no disputin’ that
ar; and of course Mas’r and Missis wouldn’t encourage no such works.
I’m sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me ’s ’mazin’ tempted to
act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar
Mas’r Haley; he an’t no gen’l’man no way; anybody’s been raised as I’ve
been can’t help a seein’ dat ar.”

“Well, Sam,” said Mrs. Shelby, “as you appear to have a proper sense of
your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of
that cold ham that was left of dinner today. You and Andy must be
hungry.”

“Missis is a heap too good for us,” said Sam, making his bow with
alacrity, and departing.

It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that Master Sam had
a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised him to eminence in
political life,—a talent of making capital out of everything that
turned up, to be invested for his own especial praise and glory; and
having done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the
satisfaction of the parlor, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, with
a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of
Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing largely in the kitchen.

“I’ll speechify these yer niggers,” said Sam to himself, “now I’ve got
a chance. Lord, I’ll reel it off to make ’em stare!”

It must be observed that one of Sam’s especial delights had been to
ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of political gatherings,
where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched aloft in some tree, he
would sit watching the orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and
then, descending among the various brethren of his own color, assembled
on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with the most
ludicrous burlesques and imitations, all delivered with the most
imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; and though the auditors
immediately about him were generally of his own color, it not
infrequently happened that they were fringed pretty deeply with those
of a fairer complexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam’s
great self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his
vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his office.

Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times,
a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was
meditating something in the provision department, as the necessary and
obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present
occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although
“Missis’ orders” would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he
should gain a considerable deal by enlisting the spirit also. He
therefore appeared before Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued,
resigned expression, like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships
in behalf of a persecuted fellow-creature,—enlarged upon the fact that
Missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be
wanting to make up the balance in his solids and fluids,—and thus
unequivocally acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking
department, and all thereto pertaining.

The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever
cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more
ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam’s suavities; and if he
had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been overwhelmed
with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated,
happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of _olla
podrida_ of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days
past. Savory morsels of ham, golden blocks of corn-cake, fragments of
pie of every conceivable mathematical figure, chicken wings, gizzards,
and drumsticks, all appeared in picturesque confusion; and Sam, as
monarch of all he surveyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly
to one side, and patronizing Andy at his right hand.

The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and crowded
in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination of the day’s
exploits. Now was Sam’s hour of glory. The story of the day was
rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing which might be
necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some of our fashionable
dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any of its gilding by passing
through his hands. Roars of laughter attended the narration, and were
taken up and prolonged by all the smaller fry, who were lying, in any
quantity, about on the floor, or perched in every corner. In the height
of the uproar and laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable
gravity, only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his
auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the
sententious elevation of his oratory.

“Yer see, fellow-countrymen,” said Sam, elevating a turkey’s leg, with
energy, “yer see, now what dis yer chile ’s up ter, for fendin’ yer
all,—yes, all on yer. For him as tries to get one o’ our people is as
good as tryin’ to get all; yer see the principle ’s de same,—dat ar’s
clar. And any one o’ these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter
any our people, why, he’s got _me_ in his way; _I’m_ the feller he’s
got to set in with,—I’m the feller for yer all to come to,
bredren,—I’ll stand up for yer rights,—I’ll fend ’em to the last
breath!”

“Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin’, that you’d help this
yer Mas’r to cotch Lizy; seems to me yer talk don’t hang together,”
said Andy.

“I tell you now, Andy,” said Sam, with awful superiority, “don’t yer be
a talkin’ ’bout what yer don’t know nothin’ on; boys like you, Andy,
means well, but they can’t be spected to collusitate the great
principles of action.”

Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word collusitate, which
most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider as a
settler in the case, while Sam proceeded.

“Dat ar was _conscience_, Andy; when I thought of gwine arter Lizy, I
railly spected Mas’r was sot dat way. When I found Missis was sot the
contrar, dat ar was conscience _more yet_,—cause fellers allers gets
more by stickin’ to Missis’ side,—so yer see I ’s persistent either
way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes,
_principles_,” said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken’s
neck,—“what’s principles good for, if we isn’t persistent, I wanter
know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone,—tan’t picked quite clean.”

Sam’s audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he could not but
proceed.

“Dis yer matter ’bout persistence, feller-niggers,” said Sam, with the
air of one entering into an abstruse subject, “dis yer ’sistency ’s a
thing what an’t seed into very clar, by most anybody. Now, yer see,
when a feller stands up for a thing one day and night, de contrar de
next, folks ses (and nat’rally enough dey ses), why he an’t
persistent,—hand me dat ar bit o’ corn-cake, Andy. But let’s look inter
it. I hope the gen’lmen and der fair sex will scuse my usin’ an or’nary
sort o’ ’parison. Here! I’m a trying to get top o’ der hay. Wal, I puts
up my larder dis yer side; ’tan’t no go;—den, cause I don’t try dere no
more, but puts my larder right de contrar side, an’t I persistent? I’m
persistent in wantin’ to get up which ary side my larder is; don’t you
see, all on yer?”

“It’s the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord knows!” muttered
Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather restive; the merriment of the
evening being to her somewhat after the Scripture comparison,—like
“vinegar upon nitre.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Sam, rising, full of supper and glory, for a
closing effort. “Yes, my feller-citizens and ladies of de other sex in
general, I has principles,—I’m proud to ’oon ’em,—they ’s perquisite to
dese yer times, and ter _all_ times. I has principles, and I sticks to
’em like forty,—jest anything that I thinks is principle, I goes in to
’t;—I wouldn’t mind if dey burnt me ’live,—I’d walk right up to de
stake, I would, and say, here I comes to shed my last blood fur my
principles, fur my country, fur de gen’l interests of society.”

“Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “one o’ yer principles will have to be to get
to bed some time tonight, and not be a keepin’ everybody up till
mornin’; now, every one of you young uns that don’t want to be cracked,
had better be scase, mighty sudden.”

“Niggers! all on yer,” said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with benignity,
“I give yer my blessin’; go to bed now, and be good boys.”

And, with this pathetic benediction, the assembly dispersed.




CHAPTER IX
In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man


The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosey
parlor, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups and well-brightened
tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to
inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife
had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird,
looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the
arrangements of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory remarks to
a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were effervescing in all those
modes of untold gambol and mischief that have astonished mothers ever
since the flood.

“Tom, let the door-knob alone,—there’s a man! Mary! Mary! don’t pull
the cat’s tail,—poor pussy! Jim, you mustn’t climb on that table,—no,
no!—You don’t know, my dear, what a surprise it is to us all, to see
you here tonight!” said she, at last, when she found a space to say
something to her husband.

“Yes, yes, I thought I’d just make a run down, spend the night, and
have a little comfort at home. I’m tired to death, and my head aches!”

Mrs. Bird cast a glance at a camphor-bottle, which stood in the
half-open closet, and appeared to meditate an approach to it, but her
husband interposed.

“No, no, Mary, no doctoring! a cup of your good hot tea, and some of
our good home living, is what I want. It’s a tiresome business, this
legislating!”

And the senator smiled, as if he rather liked the idea of considering
himself a sacrifice to his country.

“Well,” said his wife, after the business of the tea-table was getting
rather slack, “and what have they been doing in the Senate?”

Now, it was a very unusual thing for gentle little Mrs. Bird ever to
trouble her head with what was going on in the house of the state, very
wisely considering that she had enough to do to mind her own. Mr. Bird,
therefore, opened his eyes in surprise, and said,

“Not very much of importance.”

“Well; but is it true that they have been passing a law forbidding
people to give meat and drink to those poor colored folks that come
along? I heard they were talking of some such law, but I didn’t think
any Christian legislature would pass it!”

“Why, Mary, you are getting to be a politician, all at once.”

“No, nonsense! I wouldn’t give a fig for all your politics, generally,
but I think this is something downright cruel and unchristian. I hope,
my dear, no such law has been passed.”

“There has been a law passed forbidding people to help off the slaves
that come over from Kentucky, my dear; so much of that thing has been
done by these reckless Abolitionists, that our brethren in Kentucky are
very strongly excited, and it seems necessary, and no more than
Christian and kind, that something should be done by our state to quiet
the excitement.”

“And what is the law? It don’t forbid us to shelter those poor
creatures a night, does it, and to give ’em something comfortable to
eat, and a few old clothes, and send them quietly about their
business?”

“Why, yes, my dear; that would be aiding and abetting, you know.”

Mrs. Bird was a timid, blushing little woman, of about four feet in
height, and with mild blue eyes, and a peach-blow complexion, and the
gentlest, sweetest voice in the world;—as for courage, a moderate-sized
cock-turkey had been known to put her to rout at the very first gobble,
and a stout house-dog, of moderate capacity, would bring her into
subjection merely by a show of his teeth. Her husband and children were
her entire world, and in these she ruled more by entreaty and
persuasion than by command or argument. There was only one thing that
was capable of arousing her, and that provocation came in on the side
of her unusually gentle and sympathetic nature;—anything in the shape
of cruelty would throw her into a passion, which was the more alarming
and inexplicable in proportion to the general softness of her nature.
Generally the most indulgent and easy to be entreated of all mothers,
still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement
chastisement she once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued
with several graceless boys of the neighborhood, stoning a defenceless
kitten.

“I’ll tell you what,” Master Bill used to say, “I was scared that time.
Mother came at me so that I thought she was crazy, and I was whipped
and tumbled off to bed, without any supper, before I could get over
wondering what had come about; and, after that, I heard mother crying
outside the door, which made me feel worse than all the rest. I’ll tell
you what,” he’d say, “we boys never stoned another kitten!”

On the present occasion, Mrs. Bird rose quickly, with very red cheeks,
which quite improved her general appearance, and walked up to her
husband, with quite a resolute air, and said, in a determined tone,

“Now, John, I want to know if you think such a law as that is right and
Christian?”

“You won’t shoot me, now, Mary, if I say I do!”

“I never could have thought it of you, John; you didn’t vote for it?”

“Even so, my fair politician.”

“You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures!
It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one,
the first time I get a chance; and I hope I _shall_ have a chance, I
do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm
supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are
slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor
things!”

“But, Mary, just listen to me. Your feelings are all quite right, dear,
and interesting, and I love you for them; but, then, dear, we mustn’t
suffer our feelings to run away with our judgment; you must consider
it’s a matter of private feeling,—there are great public interests
involved,—there is such a state of public agitation rising, that we
must put aside our private feelings.”

“Now, John, I don’t know anything about politics, but I can read my
Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.”

“But in cases where your doing so would involve a great public evil—”

“Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t. It’s always
safest, all round, to _do as He_ bids us.

“Now, listen to me, Mary, and I can state to you a very clear argument,
to show—”

“O, nonsense, John! you can talk all night, but you wouldn’t do it. I
put it to you, John,—would _you_ now turn away a poor, shivering,
hungry creature from your door, because he was a runaway? _Would_ you,
now?”

Now, if the truth must be told, our senator had the misfortune to be a
man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature, and turning
away anybody that was in trouble never had been his forte; and what was
worse for him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that his
wife knew it, and, of course was making an assault on rather an
indefensible point. So he had recourse to the usual means of gaining
time for such cases made and provided; he said “ahem,” and coughed
several times, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began to wipe his
glasses. Mrs. Bird, seeing the defenceless condition of the enemy’s
territory, had no more conscience than to push her advantage.

“I should like to see you doing that, John—I really should! Turning a
woman out of doors in a snowstorm, for instance; or may be you’d take
her up and put her in jail, wouldn’t you? You would make a great hand
at that!”

“Of course, it would be a very painful duty,” began Mr. Bird, in a
moderate tone.

“Duty, John! don’t use that word! You know it isn’t a duty—it can’t be
a duty! If folks want to keep their slaves from running away, let ’em
treat ’em well,—that’s my doctrine. If I had slaves (as I hope I never
shall have), I’d risk their wanting to run away from me, or you either,
John. I tell you folks don’t run away when they are happy; and when
they do run, poor creatures! they suffer enough with cold and hunger
and fear, without everybody’s turning against them; and, law or no law,
I never will, so help me God!”

“Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you.”

“I hate reasoning, John,—especially reasoning on such subjects. There’s
a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right
thing; and you don’t believe in it yourselves, when it comes to
practice. I know _you_ well enough, John. You don’t believe it’s right
any more than I do; and you wouldn’t do it any sooner than I.”

At this critical juncture, old Cudjoe, the black man-of-all-work, put
his head in at the door, and wished “Missis would come into the
kitchen;” and our senator, tolerably relieved, looked after his little
wife with a whimsical mixture of amusement and vexation, and, seating
himself in the arm-chair, began to read the papers.

After a moment, his wife’s voice was heard at the door, in a quick,
earnest tone,—“John! John! I do wish you’d come here, a moment.”

He laid down his paper, and went into the kitchen, and started, quite
amazed at the sight that presented itself:—A young and slender woman,
with garments torn and frozen, with one shoe gone, and the stocking
torn away from the cut and bleeding foot, was laid back in a deadly
swoon upon two chairs. There was the impress of the despised race on
her face, yet none could help feeling its mournful and pathetic beauty,
while its stony sharpness, its cold, fixed, deathly aspect, struck a
solemn chill over him. He drew his breath short, and stood in silence.
His wife, and their only colored domestic, old Aunt Dinah, were busily
engaged in restorative measures; while old Cudjoe had got the boy on
his knee, and was busy pulling off his shoes and stockings, and chafing
his little cold feet.

“Sure, now, if she an’t a sight to behold!” said old Dinah,
compassionately; “‘pears like ’t was the heat that made her faint. She
was tol’able peart when she cum in, and asked if she couldn’t warm
herself here a spell; and I was just a-askin’ her where she cum from,
and she fainted right down. Never done much hard work, guess, by the
looks of her hands.”

“Poor creature!” said Mrs. Bird, compassionately, as the woman slowly
unclosed her large, dark eyes, and looked vacantly at her. Suddenly an
expression of agony crossed her face, and she sprang up, saying, “O, my
Harry! Have they got him?”

The boy, at this, jumped from Cudjoe’s knee, and running to her side
put up his arms. “O, he’s here! he’s here!” she exclaimed.

“O, ma’am!” said she, wildly, to Mrs. Bird, “do protect us! don’t let
them get him!”

“Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman,” said Mrs. Bird,
encouragingly. “You are safe; don’t be afraid.”

“God bless you!” said the woman, covering her face and sobbing; while
the little boy, seeing her crying, tried to get into her lap.

With many gentle and womanly offices, which none knew better how to
render than Mrs. Bird, the poor woman was, in time, rendered more calm.
A temporary bed was provided for her on the settle, near the fire; and,
after a short time, she fell into a heavy slumber, with the child, who
seemed no less weary, soundly sleeping on her arm; for the mother
resisted, with nervous anxiety, the kindest attempts to take him from
her; and, even in sleep, her arm encircled him with an unrelaxing
clasp, as if she could not even then be beguiled of her vigilant hold.

Mr. and Mrs. Bird had gone back to the parlor, where, strange as it may
appear, no reference was made, on either side, to the preceding
conversation; but Mrs. Bird busied herself with her knitting-work, and
Mr. Bird pretended to be reading the paper.

“I wonder who and what she is!” said Mr. Bird, at last, as he laid it
down.

“When she wakes up and feels a little rested, we will see,” said Mrs.
Bird.

“I say, wife!” said Mr. Bird after musing in silence over his
newspaper.

“Well, dear!”

“She couldn’t wear one of your gowns, could she, by any letting down,
or such matter? She seems to be rather larger than you are.”

A quite perceptible smile glimmered on Mrs. Bird’s face, as she
answered, “We’ll see.”

Another pause, and Mr. Bird again broke out,

“I say, wife!”

“Well! What now?”

“Why, there’s that old bombazin cloak, that you keep on purpose to put
over me when I take my afternoon’s nap; you might as well give her
that,—she needs clothes.”

At this instant, Dinah looked in to say that the woman was awake, and
wanted to see Missis.

Mr. and Mrs. Bird went into the kitchen, followed by the two eldest
boys, the smaller fry having, by this time, been safely disposed of in
bed.

The woman was now sitting up on the settle, by the fire. She was
looking steadily into the blaze, with a calm, heart-broken expression,
very different from her former agitated wildness.

“Did you want me?” said Mrs. Bird, in gentle tones. “I hope you feel
better now, poor woman!”

A long-drawn, shivering sigh was the only answer; but she lifted her
dark eyes, and fixed them on her with such a forlorn and imploring
expression, that the tears came into the little woman’s eyes.

“You needn’t be afraid of anything; we are friends here, poor woman!
Tell me where you came from, and what you want,” said she.

“I came from Kentucky,” said the woman.

“When?” said Mr. Bird, taking up the interogatory.

“Tonight.”

“How did you come?”

“I crossed on the ice.”

“Crossed on the ice!” said every one present.

“Yes,” said the woman, slowly, “I did. God helping me, I crossed on the
ice; for they were behind me—right behind—and there was no other way!”

“Law, Missis,” said Cudjoe, “the ice is all in broken-up blocks, a
swinging and a tetering up and down in the water!”

“I know it was—I know it!” said she, wildly; “but I did it! I wouldn’t
have thought I could,—I didn’t think I should get over, but I didn’t
care! I could but die, if I didn’t. The Lord helped me; nobody knows
how much the Lord can help ’em, till they try,” said the woman, with a
flashing eye.

“Were you a slave?” said Mr. Bird.

“Yes, sir; I belonged to a man in Kentucky.”

“Was he unkind to you?”

“No, sir; he was a good master.”

“And was your mistress unkind to you?”

“No, sir—no! my mistress was always good to me.”

“What could induce you to leave a good home, then, and run away, and go
through such dangers?”

The woman looked up at Mrs. Bird, with a keen, scrutinizing glance, and
it did not escape her that she was dressed in deep mourning.

“Ma’am,” she said, suddenly, “have you ever lost a child?”

The question was unexpected, and it was thrust on a new wound; for it
was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in
the grave.

Mr. Bird turned around and walked to the window, and Mrs. Bird burst
into tears; but, recovering her voice, she said,

“Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one.”

“Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another,—left
’em buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I
never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort
and pride, day and night; and, ma’am, they were going to take him away
from me,—to _sell_ him,—sell him down south, ma’am, to go all alone,—a
baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn’t
stand it, ma’am. I knew I never should be good for anything, if they
did; and when I knew the papers the papers were signed, and he was
sold, I took him and came off in the night; and they chased me,—the man
that bought him, and some of Mas’r’s folks,—and they were coming down
right behind me, and I heard ’em. I jumped right on to the ice; and how
I got across, I don’t know,—but, first I knew, a man was helping me up
the bank.”

The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears are
dry; but every one around her was, in some way characteristic of
themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.

The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their pockets, in
search of those pocket-handkerchiefs which mothers know are never to be
found there, had thrown themselves disconsolately into the skirts of
their mother’s gown, where they were sobbing, and wiping their eyes and
noses, to their hearts’ content;—Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden
in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down
her black, honest face, was ejaculating, “Lord have mercy on us!” with
all the fervor of a camp-meeting;—while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes
very hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry
faces, occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervor. Our
senator was a statesman, and of course could not be expected to cry,
like other mortals; and so he turned his back to the company, and
looked out of the window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his
throat and wiping his spectacle-glasses, occasionally blowing his nose
in a manner that was calculated to excite suspicion, had any one been
in a state to observe critically.

“How came you to tell me you had a kind master?” he suddenly exclaimed,
gulping down very resolutely some kind of rising in his throat, and
turning suddenly round upon the woman.

“Because he _was_ a kind master; I’ll say that of him, any way;—and my
mistress was kind; but they couldn’t help themselves. They were owing
money; and there was some way, I can’t tell how, that a man had a hold
on them, and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and
heard him telling mistress that, and she begging and pleading for
me,—and he told her he couldn’t help himself, and that the papers were
all drawn;—and then it was I took him and left my home, and came away.
I knew ’t was no use of my trying to live, if they did it; for ’t
’pears like this child is all I have.”

“Have you no husband?”

“Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is real hard to him,
and won’t let him come to see me, hardly ever; and he’s grown harder
and harder upon us, and he threatens to sell him down south;—it’s like
I’ll never see _him_ again!”

The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led
a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but
there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that
spoke of something far otherwise.

“And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?” said Mrs. Bird.

“To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off, is
Canada?” said she, looking up, with a simple, confiding air, to Mrs.
Bird’s face.

“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Bird, involuntarily.

“Is ’t a very great way off, think?” said the woman, earnestly.

“Much further than you think, poor child!” said Mrs. Bird; “but we will
try to think what can be done for you. Here, Dinah, make her up a bed
in your own room, close by the kitchen, and I’ll think what to do for
her in the morning. Meanwhile, never fear, poor woman; put your trust
in God; he will protect you.”

Mrs. Bird and her husband reentered the parlor. She sat down in her
little rocking-chair before the fire, swaying thoughtfully to and fro.
Mr. Bird strode up and down the room, grumbling to himself, “Pish!
pshaw! confounded awkward business!” At length, striding up to his
wife, he said,

“I say, wife, she’ll have to get away from here, this very night. That
fellow will be down on the scent bright and early tomorrow morning: if
’t was only the woman, she could lie quiet till it was over; but that
little chap can’t be kept still by a troop of horse and foot, I’ll
warrant me; he’ll bring it all out, popping his head out of some window
or door. A pretty kettle of fish it would be for me, too, to be caught
with them both here, just now! No; they’ll have to be got off tonight.”

“Tonight! How is it possible?—where to?”

“Well, I know pretty well where to,” said the senator, beginning to put
on his boots, with a reflective air; and, stopping when his leg was
half in, he embraced his knee with both hands, and seemed to go off in
deep meditation.

“It’s a confounded awkward, ugly business,” said he, at last, beginning
to tug at his boot-straps again, “and that’s a fact!” After one boot
was fairly on, the senator sat with the other in his hand, profoundly
studying the figure of the carpet. “It will have to be done, though,
for aught I see,—hang it all!” and he drew the other boot anxiously on,
and looked out of the window.

Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman,—a woman who never in her
life said, “I told you so!” and, on the present occasion, though pretty
well aware of the shape her husband’s meditations were taking, she very
prudently forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her
chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord’s intentions, when
he should think proper to utter them.

“You see,” he said, “there’s my old client, Van Trompe, has come over
from Kentucky, and set all his slaves free; and he has bought a place
seven miles up the creek, here, back in the woods, where nobody goes,
unless they go on purpose; and it’s a place that isn’t found in a
hurry. There she’d be safe enough; but the plague of the thing is,
nobody could drive a carriage there tonight, but _me_.”

“Why not? Cudjoe is an excellent driver.”

“Ay, ay, but here it is. The creek has to be crossed twice; and the
second crossing is quite dangerous, unless one knows it as I do. I have
crossed it a hundred times on horseback, and know exactly the turns to
take. And so, you see, there’s no help for it. Cudjoe must put in the
horses, as quietly as may be, about twelve o’clock, and I’ll take her
over; and then, to give color to the matter, he must carry me on to the
next tavern to take the stage for Columbus, that comes by about three
or four, and so it will look as if I had had the carriage only for
that. I shall get into business bright and early in the morning. But
I’m thinking I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that’s been
said and done; but, hang it, I can’t help it!”

“Your heart is better than your head, in this case, John,” said the
wife, laying her little white hand on his. “Could I ever have loved
you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?” And the little
woman looked so handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that
the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a
pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him; and so, what
could he do but walk off soberly, to see about the carriage. At the
door, however, he stopped a moment, and then coming back, he said, with
some hesitation.

“Mary, I don’t know how you’d feel about it, but there’s that drawer
full of things—of—of—poor little Henry’s.” So saying, he turned quickly
on his heel, and shut the door after him.

His wife opened the little bed-room door adjoining her room and, taking
the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small
recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer,
and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy like, had followed
close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at
their mother. And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in
your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you
like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you
are, if it has not been so.

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a
form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and
even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping
from the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a
ball,—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break! She
sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands over it,
wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then
suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the
plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a
bundle.

“Mamma,” said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, “you going to
give away _those_ things?”

“My dear boys,” she said, softly and earnestly, “if our dear, loving
little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do
this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common
person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more
heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his
blessings with them!”

There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into
joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many
tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the
desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits
there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the
memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer.

After a while, Mrs. Bird opened a wardrobe, and, taking from thence a
plain, serviceable dress or two, she sat down busily to her work-table,
and, with needle, scissors, and thimble, at hand, quietly commenced the
“letting down” process which her husband had recommended, and continued
busily at it till the old clock in the corner struck twelve, and she
heard the low rattling of wheels at the door.

“Mary,” said her husband, coming in, with his overcoat in his hand,
“you must wake her up now; we must be off.”

Mrs. Bird hastily deposited the various articles she had collected in a
small plain trunk, and locking it, desired her husband to see it in the
carriage, and then proceeded to call the woman. Soon, arrayed in a
cloak, bonnet, and shawl, that had belonged to her benefactress, she
appeared at the door with her child in her arms. Mr. Bird hurried her
into the carriage, and Mrs. Bird pressed on after her to the carriage
steps. Eliza leaned out of the carriage, and put out her hand,—a hand
as soft and beautiful as was given in return. She fixed her large, dark
eyes, full of earnest meaning, on Mrs. Bird’s face, and seemed going to
speak. Her lips moved,—she tried once or twice, but there was no
sound,—and pointing upward, with a look never to be forgotten, she fell
back in the seat, and covered her face. The door was shut, and the
carriage drove on.

What a situation, now, for a patriotic senator, that had been all the
week before spurring up the legislature of his native state to pass
more stringent resolutions against escaping fugitives, their harborers
and abettors!

Our good senator in his native state had not been exceeded by any of
his brethren at Washington, in the sort of eloquence which has won for
them immortal renown! How sublimely he had sat with his hands in his
pockets, and scouted all sentimental weakness of those who would put
the welfare of a few miserable fugitives before great state interests!

He was as bold as a lion about it, and “mightily convinced” not only
himself, but everybody that heard him;—but then his idea of a fugitive
was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or at the most,
the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and
bundle with “Ran away from the subscriber” under it. The magic of the
real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail,
trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he
had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a
hapless mother, a defenceless child,—like that one which was now
wearing his lost boy’s little well-known cap; and so, as our poor
senator was not stone or steel,—as he was a man, and a downright
noble-hearted one, too,—he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case
for his patriotism. And you need not exult over him, good brother of
the Southern States; for we have some inklings that many of you, under
similar circumstances, would not do much better. We have reason to
know, in Kentucky, as in Mississippi, are noble and generous hearts, to
whom never was tale of suffering told in vain. Ah, good brother! is it
fair for you to expect of us services which your own brave, honorable
heart would not allow you to render, were you in our place?

Be that as it may, if our good senator was a political sinner, he was
in a fair way to expiate it by his night’s penance. There had been a
long continuous period of rainy weather, and the soft, rich earth of
Ohio, as every one knows, is admirably suited to the manufacture of
mud—and the road was an Ohio railroad of the good old times.

“And pray, what sort of a road may that be?” says some eastern
traveller, who has been accustomed to connect no ideas with a railroad,
but those of smoothness or speed.

Know, then, innocent eastern friend, that in benighted regions of the
west, where the mud is of unfathomable and sublime depth, roads are
made of round rough logs, arranged transversely side by side, and
coated over in their pristine freshness with earth, turf, and
whatsoever may come to hand, and then the rejoicing native calleth it a
road, and straightway essayeth to ride thereupon. In process of time,
the rains wash off all the turf and grass aforesaid, move the logs
hither and thither, in picturesque positions, up, down and crosswise,
with divers chasms and ruts of black mud intervening.

Over such a road as this our senator went stumbling along, making moral
reflections as continuously as under the circumstances could be
expected,—the carriage proceeding along much as follows,—bump! bump!
bump! slush! down in the mud!—the senator, woman and child, reversing
their positions so suddenly as to come, without any very accurate
adjustment, against the windows of the down-hill side. Carriage sticks
fast, while Cudjoe on the outside is heard making a great muster among
the horses. After various ineffectual pullings and twitchings, just as
the senator is losing all patience, the carriage suddenly rights itself
with a bounce,—two front wheels go down into another abyss, and
senator, woman, and child, all tumble promiscuously on to the front
seat,—senator’s hat is jammed over his eyes and nose quite
unceremoniously, and he considers himself fairly extinguished;—child
cries, and Cudjoe on the outside delivers animated addresses to the
horses, who are kicking, and floundering, and straining under repeated
cracks of the whip. Carriage springs up, with another bounce,—down go
the hind wheels,—senator, woman, and child, fly over on to the back
seat, his elbows encountering her bonnet, and both her feet being
jammed into his hat, which flies off in the concussion. After a few
moments the “slough” is passed, and the horses stop, panting;—the
senator finds his hat, the woman straightens her bonnet and hushes her
child, and they brace themselves for what is yet to come.

For a while only the continuous bump! bump! intermingled, just by way
of variety, with divers side plunges and compound shakes; and they
begin to flatter themselves that they are not so badly off, after all.
At last, with a square plunge, which puts all on to their feet and then
down into their seats with incredible quickness, the carriage
stops,—and, after much outside commotion, Cudjoe appears at the door.

“Please, sir, it’s powerful bad spot, this’ yer. I don’t know how we’s
to get clar out. I’m a thinkin’ we’ll have to be a gettin’ rails.”

The senator despairingly steps out, picking gingerly for some firm
foothold; down goes one foot an immeasurable depth,—he tries to pull it
up, loses his balance, and tumbles over into the mud, and is fished
out, in a very despairing condition, by Cudjoe.

But we forbear, out of sympathy to our readers’ bones. Western
travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting
process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud
holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our
unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent tear, and pass on.

It was full late in the night when the carriage emerged, dripping and
bespattered, out of the creek, and stood at the door of a large
farmhouse.

It took no inconsiderable perseverance to arouse the inmates; but at
last the respectable proprietor appeared, and undid the door. He was a
great, tall, bristling Orson of a fellow, full six feet and some inches
in his stockings, and arrayed in a red flannel hunting-shirt. A very
heavy mat of sandy hair, in a decidedly tousled condition, and a beard
of some days’ growth, gave the worthy man an appearance, to say the
least, not particularly prepossessing. He stood for a few minutes
holding the candle aloft, and blinking on our travellers with a dismal
and mystified expression that was truly ludicrous. It cost some effort
of our senator to induce him to comprehend the case fully; and while he
is doing his best at that, we shall give him a little introduction to
our readers.

Honest old John Van Trompe was once quite a considerable land-owner and
slave-owner in the State of Kentucky. Having “nothing of the bear about
him but the skin,” and being gifted by nature with a great, honest,
just heart, quite equal to his gigantic frame, he had been for some
years witnessing with repressed uneasiness the workings of a system
equally bad for oppressor and oppressed. At last, one day, John’s great
heart had swelled altogether too big to wear his bonds any longer; so
he just took his pocket-book out of his desk, and went over into Ohio,
and bought a quarter of a township of good, rich land, made out free
papers for all his people,—men, women, and children,—packed them up in
wagons, and sent them off to settle down; and then honest John turned
his face up the creek, and sat quietly down on a snug, retired farm, to
enjoy his conscience and his reflections.

“Are you the man that will shelter a poor woman and child from
slave-catchers?” said the senator, explicitly.

“I rather think I am,” said honest John, with some considerable
emphasis.

“I thought so,” said the senator.

“If there’s anybody comes,” said the good man, stretching his tall,
muscular form upward, “why here I’m ready for him: and I’ve got seven
sons, each six foot high, and they’ll be ready for ’em. Give our
respects to ’em,” said John; “tell ’em it’s no matter how soon they
call,—make no kinder difference to us,” said John, running his fingers
through the shock of hair that thatched his head, and bursting out into
a great laugh.

Weary, jaded, and spiritless, Eliza dragged herself up to the door,
with her child lying in a heavy sleep on her arm. The rough man held
the candle to her face, and uttering a kind of compassionate grunt,
opened the door of a small bed-room adjoining to the large kitchen
where they were standing, and motioned her to go in. He took down a
candle, and lighting it, set it upon the table, and then addressed
himself to Eliza.

“Now, I say, gal, you needn’t be a bit afeard, let who will come here.
I’m up to all that sort o’ thing,” said he, pointing to two or three
goodly rifles over the mantel-piece; “and most people that know me know
that ’t wouldn’t be healthy to try to get anybody out o’ my house when
I’m agin it. So _now_ you jist go to sleep now, as quiet as if yer
mother was a rockin’ ye,” said he, as he shut the door.

“Why, this is an uncommon handsome un,” he said to the senator. “Ah,
well; handsome uns has the greatest cause to run, sometimes, if they
has any kind o’ feelin, such as decent women should. I know all about
that.”

The senator, in a few words, briefly explained Eliza’s history.

“O! ou! aw! now, I want to know?” said the good man, pitifully; “sho!
now sho! That’s natur now, poor crittur! hunted down now like a
deer,—hunted down, jest for havin’ natural feelin’s, and doin’ what no
kind o’ mother could help a doin’! I tell ye what, these yer things
make me come the nighest to swearin’, now, o’ most anything,” said
honest John, as he wiped his eyes with the back of a great, freckled,
yellow hand. “I tell yer what, stranger, it was years and years before
I’d jine the church, ’cause the ministers round in our parts used to
preach that the Bible went in for these ere cuttings up,—and I couldn’t
be up to ’em with their Greek and Hebrew, and so I took up agin ’em,
Bible and all. I never jined the church till I found a minister that
was up to ’em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the
contrary; and then I took right hold, and jined the church,—I did now,
fact,” said John, who had been all this time uncorking some very frisky
bottled cider, which at this juncture he presented.

“Ye’d better jest put up here, now, till daylight,” said he, heartily,
“and I’ll call up the old woman, and have a bed got ready for you in no
time.”

“Thank you, my good friend,” said the senator, “I must be along, to
take the night stage for Columbus.”

“Ah! well, then, if you must, I’ll go a piece with you, and show you a
cross road that will take you there better than the road you came on.
That road’s mighty bad.”

John equipped himself, and, with a lantern in hand, was soon seen
guiding the senator’s carriage towards a road that ran down in a
hollow, back of his dwelling. When they parted, the senator put into
his hand a ten-dollar bill.

“It’s for her,” he said, briefly.

“Ay, ay,” said John, with equal conciseness.

They shook hands, and parted.




CHAPTER X
The Property Is Carried Off


The February morning looked gray and drizzling through the window of
Uncle Tom’s cabin. It looked on downcast faces, the images of mournful
hearts. The little table stood out before the fire, covered with an
ironing-cloth; a coarse but clean shirt or two, fresh from the iron,
hung on the back of a chair by the fire, and Aunt Chloe had another
spread out before her on the table. Carefully she rubbed and ironed
every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous exactness, every now
and then raising her hand to her face to wipe off the tears that were
coursing down her cheeks.

Tom sat by, with his Testament open on his knee, and his head leaning
upon his hand;—but neither spoke. It was yet early, and the children
lay all asleep together in their little rude trundle-bed.

Tom, who had, to the full, the gentle, domestic heart, which woe for
them! has been a peculiar characteristic of his unhappy race, got up
and walked silently to look at his children.

“It’s the last time,” he said.

Aunt Chloe did not answer, only rubbed away over and over on the coarse
shirt, already as smooth as hands could make it; and finally setting
her iron suddenly down with a despairing plunge, she sat down to the
table, and “lifted up her voice and wept.”

“S’pose we must be resigned; but oh Lord! how ken I? If I know’d
anything whar you ’s goin’, or how they’d sarve you! Missis says she’ll
try and ’deem ye, in a year or two; but Lor! nobody never comes up that
goes down thar! They kills ’em! I’ve hearn ’em tell how dey works ’em
up on dem ar plantations.”

“There’ll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here.”

“Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “s’pose dere will; but de Lord lets drefful
things happen, sometimes. I don’t seem to get no comfort dat way.”

“I’m in the Lord’s hands,” said Tom; “nothin’ can go no furder than he
lets it;—and thar’s _one_ thing I can thank him for. It’s _me_ that’s
sold and going down, and not you nur the chil’en. Here you’re
safe;—what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he’ll help me,—I
know he will.”

Ah, brave, manly heart,—smothering thine own sorrow, to comfort thy
beloved ones! Tom spoke with a thick utterance, and with a bitter
choking in his throat,—but he spoke brave and strong.

“Let’s think on our marcies!” he added, tremulously, as if he was quite
sure he needed to think on them very hard indeed.

“Marcies!” said Aunt Chloe; “don’t see no marcy in ’t! ’tan’t right!
tan’t right it should be so! Mas’r never ought ter left it so that ye
_could_ be took for his debts. Ye’ve arnt him all he gets for ye, twice
over. He owed ye yer freedom, and ought ter gin ’t to yer years ago.
Mebbe he can’t help himself now, but I feel it’s wrong. Nothing can’t
beat that ar out o’ me. Sich a faithful crittur as ye’ve been,—and
allers sot his business ’fore yer own every way,—and reckoned on him
more than yer own wife and chil’en! Them as sells heart’s love and
heart’s blood, to get out thar scrapes, de Lord’ll be up to ’em!”

“Chloe! now, if ye love me, ye won’t talk so, when perhaps jest the
last time we’ll ever have together! And I’ll tell ye, Chloe, it goes
agin me to hear one word agin Mas’r. Wan’t he put in my arms a
baby?—it’s natur I should think a heap of him. And he couldn’t be
spected to think so much of poor Tom. Mas’rs is used to havin’ all
these yer things done for ’em, and nat’lly they don’t think so much on
’t. They can’t be spected to, no way. Set him ’longside of other
Mas’rs—who’s had the treatment and livin’ I’ve had? And he never would
have let this yer come on me, if he could have seed it aforehand. I
know he wouldn’t.”

“Wal, any way, thar’s wrong about it _somewhar_,” said Aunt Chloe, in
whom a stubborn sense of justice was a predominant trait; “I can’t jest
make out whar ’t is, but thar’s wrong somewhar, I’m _clar_ o’ that.”

“Yer ought ter look up to the Lord above—he’s above all—thar don’t a
sparrow fall without him.”

“It don’t seem to comfort me, but I spect it orter,” said Aunt Chloe.
“But dar’s no use talkin’; I’ll jes wet up de corn-cake, and get ye one
good breakfast, ’cause nobody knows when you’ll get another.”

In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes sold south, it
must be remembered that all the instinctive affections of that race are
peculiarly strong. Their local attachments are very abiding. They are
not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and
affectionate. Add to this all the terrors with which ignorance invests
the unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is set
before the negro from childhood as the last severity of punishment. The
threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind is the
threat of being sent down river. We have ourselves heard this feeling
expressed by them, and seen the unaffected horror with which they will
sit in their gossipping hours, and tell frightful stories of that “down
river,” which to them is

“That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.”[1]


 [1] A slightly inaccurate quotation from _Hamlet_, Act III, scene I,
 lines 369-370.


A missionary figure among the fugitives in Canada told us that many of
the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively
kind masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape,
in almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded
being sold south,—a doom which was hanging either over themselves or
their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African,
naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and
leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness,
and the more dread penalties of recapture.

The simple morning meal now smoked on the table, for Mrs. Shelby had
excused Aunt Chloe’s attendance at the great house that morning. The
poor soul had expended all her little energies on this farewell
feast,—had killed and dressed her choicest chicken, and prepared her
corn-cake with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband’s taste, and
brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantel-piece, some preserves
that were never produced except on extreme occasions.

“Lor, Pete,” said Mose, triumphantly, “han’t we got a buster of a
breakfast!” at the same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.

Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. “Thar now! crowing over
the last breakfast yer poor daddy’s gwine to have to home!”

“O, Chloe!” said Tom, gently.

“Wal, I can’t help it,” said Aunt Chloe, hiding her face in her apron;
“I ’s so tossed about it, it makes me act ugly.”

The boys stood quite still, looking first at their father and then at
their mother, while the baby, climbing up her clothes, began an
imperious, commanding cry.

“Thar!” said Aunt Chloe, wiping her eyes and taking up the baby; “now
I’s done, I hope,—now do eat something. This yer’s my nicest chicken.
Thar, boys, ye shall have some, poor critturs! Yer mammy’s been cross
to yer.”

The boys needed no second invitation, and went in with great zeal for
the eatables; and it was well they did so, as otherwise there would
have been very little performed to any purpose by the party.

“Now,” said Aunt Chloe, bustling about after breakfast, “I must put up
yer clothes. Jest like as not, he’ll take ’em all away. I know thar
ways—mean as dirt, they is! Wal, now, yer flannels for rhumatis is in
this corner; so be careful, ’cause there won’t nobody make ye no more.
Then here’s yer old shirts, and these yer is new ones. I toed off these
yer stockings last night, and put de ball in ’em to mend with. But Lor!
who’ll ever mend for ye?” and Aunt Chloe, again overcome, laid her head
on the box side, and sobbed. “To think on ’t! no crittur to do for ye,
sick or well! I don’t railly think I ought ter be good now!”

The boys, having eaten everything there was on the breakfast-table,
began now to take some thought of the case; and, seeing their mother
crying, and their father looking very sad, began to whimper and put
their hands to their eyes. Uncle Tom had the baby on his knee, and was
letting her enjoy herself to the utmost extent, scratching his face and
pulling his hair, and occasionally breaking out into clamorous
explosions of delight, evidently arising out of her own internal
reflections.

“Ay, crow away, poor crittur!” said Aunt Chloe; “ye’ll have to come to
it, too! ye’ll live to see yer husband sold, or mebbe be sold yerself;
and these yer boys, they’s to be sold, I s’pose, too, jest like as not,
when dey gets good for somethin’; an’t no use in niggers havin’
nothin’!”

Here one of the boys called out, “Thar’s Missis a-comin’ in!”

“She can’t do no good; what’s she coming for?” said Aunt Chloe.

Mrs. Shelby entered. Aunt Chloe set a chair for her in a manner
decidedly gruff and crusty. She did not seem to notice either the
action or the manner. She looked pale and anxious.

“Tom,” she said, “I come to—” and stopping suddenly, and regarding the
silent group, she sat down in the chair, and, covering her face with
her handkerchief, began to sob.

“Lor, now, Missis, don’t—don’t!” said Aunt Chloe, bursting out in her
turn; and for a few moments they all wept in company. And in those
tears they all shed together, the high and the lowly, melted away all
the heart-burnings and anger of the oppressed. O, ye who visit the
distressed, do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with a
cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real sympathy?

“My good fellow,” said Mrs. Shelby, “I can’t give you anything to do
you any good. If I give you money, it will only be taken from you. But
I tell you solemnly, and before God, that I will keep trace of you, and
bring you back as soon as I can command the money;—and, till then,
trust in God!”

Here the boys called out that Mas’r Haley was coming, and then an
unceremonious kick pushed open the door. Haley stood there in very ill
humor, having ridden hard the night before, and being not at all
pacified by his ill success in recapturing his prey.

“Come,” said he, “ye nigger, ye’r ready? Servant, ma’am!” said he,
taking off his hat, as he saw Mrs. Shelby.

Aunt Chloe shut and corded the box, and, getting up, looked gruffly on
the trader, her tears seeming suddenly turned to sparks of fire.

Tom rose up meekly, to follow his new master, and raised up his heavy
box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby in her arms to go with him
to the wagon, and the children, still crying, trailed on behind.

Mrs. Shelby, walking up to the trader, detained him for a few moments,
talking with him in an earnest manner; and while she was thus talking,
the whole family party proceeded to a wagon, that stood ready harnessed
at the door. A crowd of all the old and young hands on the place stood
gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had
been looked up to, both as a head servant and a Christian teacher, by
all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him,
particularly among the women.

“Why, Chloe, you bar it better ’n we do!” said one of the women, who
had been weeping freely, noticing the gloomy calmness with which Aunt
Chloe stood by the wagon.

“I’s done _my_ tears!” she said, looking grimly at the trader, who was
coming up. “I does not feel to cry ’fore dat ar old limb, no how!”

“Get in!” said Haley to Tom, as he strode through the crowd of
servants, who looked at him with lowering brows.

Tom got in, and Haley, drawing out from under the wagon seat a heavy
pair of shackles, made them fast around each ankle.

A smothered groan of indignation ran through the whole circle, and Mrs.
Shelby spoke from the verandah,—“Mr. Haley, I assure you that
precaution is entirely unnecessary.”

“Don’ know, ma’am; I’ve lost one five hundred dollars from this yer
place, and I can’t afford to run no more risks.”

“What else could she spect on him?” said Aunt Chloe, indignantly, while
the two boys, who now seemed to comprehend at once their father’s
destiny, clung to her gown, sobbing and groaning vehemently.

“I’m sorry,” said Tom, “that Mas’r George happened to be away.”

George had gone to spend two or three days with a companion on a
neighboring estate, and having departed early in the morning, before
Tom’s misfortune had been made public, had left without hearing of it.

“Give my love to Mas’r George,” he said, earnestly.

Haley whipped up the horse, and, with a steady, mournful look, fixed to
the last on the old place, Tom was whirled away.

Mr. Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold Tom under the spur
of a driving necessity, to get out of the power of a man whom he
dreaded,—and his first feeling, after the consummation of the bargain,
had been that of relief. But his wife’s expostulations awoke his
half-slumbering regrets; and Tom’s manly disinterestedness increased
the unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said to
himself that he had a _right_ to do it,—that everybody did it,—and that
some did it without even the excuse of necessity;—he could not satisfy
his own feelings; and that he might not witness the unpleasant scenes
of the consummation, he had gone on a short business tour up the
country, hoping that all would be over before he returned.

Tom and Haley rattled on along the dusty road, whirling past every old
familiar spot, until the bounds of the estate were fairly passed, and
they found themselves out on the open pike. After they had ridden about
a mile, Haley suddenly drew up at the door of a blacksmith’s shop,
when, taking out with him a pair of handcuffs, he stepped into the
shop, to have a little alteration in them.

“These yer ’s a little too small for his build,” said Haley, showing
the fetters, and pointing out to Tom.

“Lor! now, if thar an’t Shelby’s Tom. He han’t sold him, now?” said the
smith.

“Yes, he has,” said Haley.

“Now, ye don’t! well, reely,” said the smith, “who’d a thought it! Why,
ye needn’t go to fetterin’ him up this yer way. He’s the faithfullest,
best crittur—”

“Yes, yes,” said Haley; “but your good fellers are just the critturs to
want ter run off. Them stupid ones, as doesn’t care whar they go, and
shifless, drunken ones, as don’t care for nothin’, they’ll stick by,
and like as not be rather pleased to be toted round; but these yer
prime fellers, they hates it like sin. No way but to fetter ’em; got
legs,—they’ll use ’em,—no mistake.”

“Well,” said the smith, feeling among his tools, “them plantations down
thar, stranger, an’t jest the place a Kentuck nigger wants to go to;
they dies thar tol’able fast, don’t they?”

“Wal, yes, tol’able fast, ther dying is; what with the ’climating and
one thing and another, they dies so as to keep the market up pretty
brisk,” said Haley.

“Wal, now, a feller can’t help thinkin’ it’s a mighty pity to have a
nice, quiet, likely feller, as good un as Tom is, go down to be fairly
ground up on one of them ar sugar plantations.”

“Wal, he’s got a fa’r chance. I promised to do well by him. I’ll get
him in house-servant in some good old family, and then, if he stands
the fever and ’climating, he’ll have a berth good as any nigger ought
ter ask for.”

“He leaves his wife and chil’en up here, s’pose?”

“Yes; but he’ll get another thar. Lord, thar’s women enough everywhar,”
said Haley.

Tom was sitting very mournfully on the outside of the shop while this
conversation was going on. Suddenly he heard the quick, short click of
a horse’s hoof behind him; and, before he could fairly awake from his
surprise, young Master George sprang into the wagon, threw his arms
tumultuously round his neck, and was sobbing and scolding with energy.

“I declare, it’s real mean! I don’t care what they say, any of ’em!
It’s a nasty, mean shame! If I was a man, they shouldn’t do it,—they
should not, _so_!” said George, with a kind of subdued howl.

“O! Mas’r George! this does me good!” said Tom. “I couldn’t bar to go
off without seein’ ye! It does me real good, ye can’t tell!” Here Tom
made some movement of his feet, and George’s eye fell on the fetters.

“What a shame!” he exclaimed, lifting his hands. “I’ll knock that old
fellow down—I will!”

“No you won’t, Mas’r George; and you must not talk so loud. It won’t
help me any, to anger him.”

“Well, I won’t, then, for your sake; but only to think of it—isn’t it a
shame? They never sent for me, nor sent me any word, and, if it hadn’t
been for Tom Lincon, I shouldn’t have heard it. I tell you, I blew ’em
up well, all of ’em, at home!”

“That ar wasn’t right, I’m ’feard, Mas’r George.”

“Can’t help it! I say it’s a shame! Look here, Uncle Tom,” said he,
turning his back to the shop, and speaking in a mysterious tone, _“I’ve
brought you my dollar!”_

“O! I couldn’t think o’ takin’ on ’t, Mas’r George, no ways in the
world!” said Tom, quite moved.

“But you _shall_ take it!” said George; “look here—I told Aunt Chloe
I’d do it, and she advised me just to make a hole in it, and put a
string through, so you could hang it round your neck, and keep it out
of sight; else this mean scamp would take it away. I tell ye, Tom, I
want to blow him up! it would do me good!”

“No, don’t Mas’r George, for it won’t do _me_ any good.”

“Well, I won’t, for your sake,” said George, busily tying his dollar
round Tom’s neck; “but there, now, button your coat tight over it, and
keep it, and remember, every time you see it, that I’ll come down after
you, and bring you back. Aunt Chloe and I have been talking about it. I
told her not to fear; I’ll see to it, and I’ll tease father’s life out,
if he don’t do it.”

“O! Mas’r George, ye mustn’t talk so ’bout yer father!”

“Lor, Uncle Tom, I don’t mean anything bad.”

“And now, Mas’r George,” said Tom, “ye must be a good boy; ’member how
many hearts is sot on ye. Al’ays keep close to yer mother. Don’t be
gettin’ into any of them foolish ways boys has of gettin’ too big to
mind their mothers. Tell ye what, Mas’r George, the Lord gives good
many things twice over; but he don’t give ye a mother but once. Ye’ll
never see sich another woman, Mas’r George, if ye live to be a hundred
years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up, and be a comfort
to her, thar’s my own good boy,—you will now, won’t ye?”

“Yes, I will, Uncle Tom,” said George seriously.

“And be careful of yer speaking, Mas’r George. Young boys, when they
comes to your age, is wilful, sometimes—it is natur they should be. But
real gentlemen, such as I hopes you’ll be, never lets fall on words
that isn’t ’spectful to thar parents. Ye an’t ’fended, Mas’r George?”

“No, indeed, Uncle Tom; you always did give me good advice.”

“I’s older, ye know,” said Tom, stroking the boy’s fine, curly head
with his large, strong hand, but speaking in a voice as tender as a
woman’s, “and I sees all that’s bound up in you. O, Mas’r George, you
has everything,—l’arnin’, privileges, readin’, writin’,—and you’ll grow
up to be a great, learned, good man and all the people on the place and
your mother and father’ll be so proud on ye! Be a good Mas’r, like yer
father; and be a Christian, like yer mother. ’Member yer Creator in the
days o’ yer youth, Mas’r George.”

“I’ll be _real_ good, Uncle Tom, I tell you,” said George. “I’m going
to be a _first-rater_; and don’t you be discouraged. I’ll have you back
to the place, yet. As I told Aunt Chloe this morning, I’ll build our
house all over, and you shall have a room for a parlor with a carpet on
it, when I’m a man. O, you’ll have good times yet!”

Haley now came to the door, with the handcuffs in his hands.

“Look here, now, Mister,” said George, with an air of great
superiority, as he got out, “I shall let father and mother know how you
treat Uncle Tom!”

“You’re welcome,” said the trader.

“I should think you’d be ashamed to spend all your life buying men and
women, and chaining them, like cattle! I should think you’d feel mean!”
said George.

“So long as your grand folks wants to buy men and women, I’m as good as
they is,” said Haley; “‘tan’t any meaner sellin’ on ’em, that ’t is
buyin’!”

“I’ll never do either, when I’m a man,” said George; “I’m ashamed, this
day, that I’m a Kentuckian. I always was proud of it before;” and
George sat very straight on his horse, and looked round with an air, as
if he expected the state would be impressed with his opinion.

“Well, good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip,” said George.

“Good-by, Mas’r George,” said Tom, looking fondly and admiringly at
him. “God Almighty bless you! Ah! Kentucky han’t got many like you!” he
said, in the fulness of his heart, as the frank, boyish face was lost
to his view. Away he went, and Tom looked, till the clatter of his
horse’s heels died away, the last sound or sight of his home. But over
his heart there seemed to be a warm spot, where those young hands had
placed that precious dollar. Tom put up his hand, and held it close to
his heart.

“Now, I tell ye what, Tom,” said Haley, as he came up to the wagon, and
threw in the handcuffs, “I mean to start fa’r with ye, as I gen’ally do
with my niggers; and I’ll tell ye now, to begin with, you treat me
fa’r, and I’ll treat you fa’r; I an’t never hard on my niggers.
Calculates to do the best for ’em I can. Now, ye see, you’d better jest
settle down comfortable, and not be tryin’ no tricks; because nigger’s
tricks of all sorts I’m up to, and it’s no use. If niggers is quiet,
and don’t try to get off, they has good times with me; and if they
don’t, why, it’s thar fault, and not mine.”

Tom assured Haley that he had no present intentions of running off. In
fact, the exhortation seemed rather a superfluous one to a man with a
great pair of iron fetters on his feet. But Mr. Haley had got in the
habit of commencing his relations with his stock with little
exhortations of this nature, calculated, as he deemed, to inspire
cheerfulness and confidence, and prevent the necessity of any
unpleasant scenes.

And here, for the present, we take our leave of Tom, to pursue the
fortunes of other characters in our story.




CHAPTER XI
In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind


It was late in a drizzly afternoon that a traveler alighted at the door
of a small country hotel, in the village of N——, in Kentucky. In the
barroom he found assembled quite a miscellaneous company, whom stress
of weather had driven to harbor, and the place presented the usual
scenery of such reunions. Great, tall, raw-boned Kentuckians, attired
in hunting-shirts, and trailing their loose joints over a vast extent
of territory, with the easy lounge peculiar to the race,—rifles stacked
away in the corner, shot-pouches, game-bags, hunting-dogs, and little
negroes, all rolled together in the corners,—were the characteristic
features in the picture. At each end of the fireplace sat a long-legged
gentleman, with his chair tipped back, his hat on his head, and the
heels of his muddy boots reposing sublimely on the mantel-piece,—a
position, we will inform our readers, decidedly favorable to the turn
of reflection incident to western taverns, where travellers exhibit a
decided preference for this particular mode of elevating their
understandings.

Mine host, who stood behind the bar, like most of his country men, was
great of stature, good-natured and loose-jointed, with an enormous
shock of hair on his head, and a great tall hat on the top of that.

In fact, everybody in the room bore on his head this characteristic
emblem of man’s sovereignty; whether it were felt hat, palm-leaf,
greasy beaver, or fine new chapeau, there it reposed with true
republican independence. In truth, it appeared to be the characteristic
mark of every individual. Some wore them tipped rakishly to one
side—these were your men of humor, jolly, free-and-easy dogs; some had
them jammed independently down over their noses—these were your hard
characters, thorough men, who, when they wore their hats, _wanted_ to
wear them, and to wear them just as they had a mind to; there were
those who had them set far over back—wide-awake men, who wanted a clear
prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats
sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in
fact, were quite a Shakespearean study.

Divers negroes, in very free-and-easy pantaloons, and with no
redundancy in the shirt line, were scuttling about, hither and thither,
without bringing to pass any very particular results, except expressing
a generic willingness to turn over everything in creation generally for
the benefit of Mas’r and his guests. Add to this picture a jolly,
crackling, rollicking fire, going rejoicingly up a great wide
chimney,—the outer door and every window being set wide open, and the
calico window-curtain flopping and snapping in a good stiff breeze of
damp raw air,—and you have an idea of the jollities of a Kentucky
tavern.

Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the
doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. His fathers were
mighty hunters,—men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free,
open heavens, with the stars to hold their candles; and their
descendant to this day always acts as if the house were his camp,—wears
his hat at all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the
tops of chairs or mantelpieces, just as his father rolled on the green
sward, and put his upon trees and logs,—keeps all the windows and doors
open, winter and summer, that he may get air enough for his great
lungs,—calls everybody “stranger,” with nonchalant _bonhommie_, and is
altogether the frankest, easiest, most jovial creature living.

Into such an assembly of the free and easy our traveller entered. He
was a short, thick-set man, carefully dressed, with a round,
good-natured countenance, and something rather fussy and particular in
his appearance. He was very careful of his valise and umbrella,
bringing them in with his own hands, and resisting, pertinaciously, all
offers from the various servants to relieve him of them. He looked
round the barroom with rather an anxious air, and, retreating with his
valuables to the warmest corner, disposed them under his chair, sat
down, and looked rather apprehensively up at the worthy whose heels
illustrated the end of the mantel-piece, who was spitting from right to
left, with a courage and energy rather alarming to gentlemen of weak
nerves and particular habits.

“I say, stranger, how are ye?” said the aforesaid gentleman, firing an
honorary salute of tobacco-juice in the direction of the new arrival.

“Well, I reckon,” was the reply of the other, as he dodged, with some
alarm, the threatening honor.

“Any news?” said the respondent, taking out a strip of tobacco and a
large hunting-knife from his pocket.

“Not that I know of,” said the man.

“Chaw?” said the first speaker, handing the old gentleman a bit of his
tobacco, with a decidedly brotherly air.

“No, thank ye—it don’t agree with me,” said the little man, edging off.

“Don’t, eh?” said the other, easily, and stowing away the morsel in his
own mouth, in order to keep up the supply of tobacco-juice, for the
general benefit of society.

The old gentleman uniformly gave a little start whenever his long-sided
brother fired in his direction; and this being observed by his
companion, he very good-naturedly turned his artillery to another
quarter, and proceeded to storm one of the fire-irons with a degree of
military talent fully sufficient to take a city.

“What’s that?” said the old gentleman, observing some of the company
formed in a group around a large handbill.

“Nigger advertised!” said one of the company, briefly.

Mr. Wilson, for that was the old gentleman’s name, rose up, and, after
carefully adjusting his valise and umbrella, proceeded deliberately to
take out his spectacles and fix them on his nose; and, this operation
being performed, read as follows:

“Ran away from the subscriber, my mulatto boy, George. Said George six
feet in height, a very light mulatto, brown curly hair; is very
intelligent, speaks handsomely, can read and write, will probably try
to pass for a white man, is deeply scarred on his back and shoulders,
has been branded in his right hand with the letter H.
    “I will give four hundred dollars for him alive, and the same sum
    for satisfactory proof that he has been _killed.”_


The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to end in a low
voice, as if he were studying it.

The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire-iron, as
before related, now took down his cumbrous length, and rearing aloft
his tall form, walked up to the advertisement and very deliberately
spit a full discharge of tobacco-juice on it.

“There’s my mind upon that!” said he, briefly, and sat down again.

“Why, now, stranger, what’s that for?” said mine host.

“I’d do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if he was
here,” said the long man, coolly resuming his old employment of cutting
tobacco. “Any man that owns a boy like that, and can’t find any better
way o’ treating on him, _deserves_ to lose him. Such papers as these is
a shame to Kentucky; that’s my mind right out, if anybody wants to
know!”

“Well, now, that’s a fact,” said mine host, as he made an entry in his
book.

“I’ve got a gang of boys, sir,” said the long man, resuming his attack
on the fire-irons, “and I jest tells ’em—‘Boys,’ says I,—‘_run_ now!
dig! put! jest when ye want to! I never shall come to look after you!’
That’s the way I keep mine. Let ’em know they are free to run any time,
and it jest breaks up their wanting to. More ’n all, I’ve got free
papers for ’em all recorded, in case I gets keeled up any o’ these
times, and they know it; and I tell ye, stranger, there an’t a fellow
in our parts gets more out of his niggers than I do. Why, my boys have
been to Cincinnati, with five hundred dollars’ worth of colts, and
brought me back the money, all straight, time and agin. It stands to
reason they should. Treat ’em like dogs, and you’ll have dogs’ works
and dogs’ actions. Treat ’em like men, and you’ll have men’s works.”
And the honest drover, in his warmth, endorsed this moral sentiment by
firing a perfect _feu de joi_ at the fireplace.

“I think you’re altogether right, friend,” said Mr. Wilson; “and this
boy described here _is_ a fine fellow—no mistake about that. He worked
for me some half-dozen years in my bagging factory, and he was my best
hand, sir. He is an ingenious fellow, too: he invented a machine for
the cleaning of hemp—a really valuable affair; it’s gone into use in
several factories. His master holds the patent of it.”

“I’ll warrant ye,” said the drover, “holds it and makes money out of
it, and then turns round and brands the boy in his right hand. If I had
a fair chance, I’d mark him, I reckon so that he’d carry it _one_
while.”

“These yer knowin’ boys is allers aggravatin’ and sarcy,” said a
coarse-looking fellow, from the other side of the room; “that’s why
they gets cut up and marked so. If they behaved themselves, they
wouldn’t.”

“That is to say, the Lord made ’em men, and it’s a hard squeeze gettin
’em down into beasts,” said the drover, dryly.

“Bright niggers isn’t no kind of ’vantage to their masters,” continued
the other, well entrenched, in a coarse, unconscious obtuseness, from
the contempt of his opponent; “what’s the use o’ talents and them
things, if you can’t get the use on ’em yourself? Why, all the use they
make on ’t is to get round you. I’ve had one or two of these fellers,
and I jest sold ’em down river. I knew I’d got to lose ’em, first or
last, if I didn’t.”

“Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, and leave out
their souls entirely,” said the drover.

Here the conversation was interrupted by the approach of a small
one-horse buggy to the inn. It had a genteel appearance, and a
well-dressed, gentlemanly man sat on the seat, with a colored servant
driving.

The whole party examined the new comer with the interest with which a
set of loafers in a rainy day usually examine every newcomer. He was
very tall, with a dark, Spanish complexion, fine, expressive black
eyes, and close-curling hair, also of a glossy blackness. His
well-formed aquiline nose, straight thin lips, and the admirable
contour of his finely-formed limbs, impressed the whole company
instantly with the idea of something uncommon. He walked easily in
among the company, and with a nod indicated to his waiter where to
place his trunk, bowed to the company, and, with his hat in his hand,
walked up leisurely to the bar, and gave in his name as Henry Butter,
Oaklands, Shelby County. Turning, with an indifferent air, he sauntered
up to the advertisement, and read it over.

“Jim,” he said to his man, “seems to me we met a boy something like
this, up at Beman’s, didn’t we?”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Jim, “only I an’t sure about the hand.”

“Well, I didn’t look, of course,” said the stranger with a careless
yawn. Then walking up to the landlord, he desired him to furnish him
with a private apartment, as he had some writing to do immediately.

The landlord was all obsequious, and a relay of about seven negroes,
old and young, male and female, little and big, were soon whizzing
about, like a covey of partridges, bustling, hurrying, treading on each
other’s toes, and tumbling over each other, in their zeal to get
Mas’r’s room ready, while he seated himself easily on a chair in the
middle of the room, and entered into conversation with the man who sat
next to him.

The manufacturer, Mr. Wilson, from the time of the entrance of the
stranger, had regarded him with an air of disturbed and uneasy
curiosity. He seemed to himself to have met and been acquainted with
him somewhere, but he could not recollect. Every few moments, when the
man spoke, or moved, or smiled, he would start and fix his eyes on him,
and then suddenly withdraw them, as the bright, dark eyes met his with
such unconcerned coolness. At last, a sudden recollection seemed to
flash upon him, for he stared at the stranger with such an air of blank
amazement and alarm, that he walked up to him.

“Mr. Wilson, I think,” said he, in a tone of recognition, and extending
his hand. “I beg your pardon, I didn’t recollect you before. I see you
remember me,—Mr. Butler, of Oaklands, Shelby County.”

“Ye—yes—yes, sir,” said Mr. Wilson, like one speaking in a dream.

Just then a negro boy entered, and announced that Mas’r’s room was
ready.

“Jim, see to the trunks,” said the gentleman, negligently; then
addressing himself to Mr. Wilson, he added—“I should like to have a few
moments’ conversation with you on business, in my room, if you please.”

Mr. Wilson followed him, as one who walks in his sleep; and they
proceeded to a large upper chamber, where a new-made fire was
crackling, and various servants flying about, putting finishing touches
to the arrangements.

When all was done, and the servants departed, the young man
deliberately locked the door, and putting the key in his pocket, faced
about, and folding his arms on his bosom, looked Mr. Wilson full in the
face.

“George!” said Mr. Wilson.

“Yes, George,” said the young man.

“I couldn’t have thought it!”

“I am pretty well disguised, I fancy,” said the young man, with a
smile. “A little walnut bark has made my yellow skin a genteel brown,
and I’ve dyed my hair black; so you see I don’t answer to the
advertisement at all.”

“O, George! but this is a dangerous game you are playing. I could not
have advised you to it.”

“I can do it on my own responsibility,” said George, with the same
proud smile.

We remark, _en passant_, that George was, by his father’s side, of
white descent. His mother was one of those unfortunates of her race,
marked out by personal beauty to be the slave of the passions of her
possessor, and the mother of children who may never know a father. From
one of the proudest families in Kentucky he had inherited a set of fine
European features, and a high, indomitable spirit. From his mother he
had received only a slight mulatto tinge, amply compensated by its
accompanying rich, dark eye. A slight change in the tint of the skin
and the color of his hair had metamorphosed him into the
Spanish-looking fellow he then appeared; and as gracefulness of
movement and gentlemanly manners had always been perfectly natural to
him, he found no difficulty in playing the bold part he had
adopted—that of a gentleman travelling with his domestic.

Mr. Wilson, a good-natured but extremely fidgety and cautious old
gentleman, ambled up and down the room, appearing, as John Bunyan hath
it, “much tumbled up and down in his mind,” and divided between his
wish to help George, and a certain confused notion of maintaining law
and order: so, as he shambled about, he delivered himself as follows:

“Well, George, I s’pose you’re running away—leaving your lawful master,
George—(I don’t wonder at it)—at the same time, I’m sorry, George,—yes,
decidedly—I think I must say that, George—it’s my duty to tell you so.”

“Why are you sorry, sir?” said George, calmly.

“Why, to see you, as it were, setting yourself in opposition to the
laws of your country.”

“_My_ country!” said George, with a strong and bitter emphasis; “what
country have I, but the grave,—and I wish to God that I was laid
there!”

“Why, George, no—no—it won’t do; this way of talking is
wicked—unscriptural. George, you’ve got a hard master—in fact, he
is—well he conducts himself reprehensibly—I can’t pretend to defend
him. But you know how the angel commanded Hagar to return to her
mistress, and submit herself under the hand;[1] and the apostle sent
back Onesimus to his master.”[2]

 [1] Gen. 16. The angel bade the pregnant Hagar return to her mistress
 Sarai, even though Sarai had dealt harshly with her.


 [2] Phil. 1:10. Onesimus went back to his master to become no longer a
 servant but a “brother beloved.”


“Don’t quote Bible at me that way, Mr. Wilson,” said George, with a
flashing eye, “don’t! for my wife is a Christian, and I mean to be, if
ever I get to where I can; but to quote Bible to a fellow in my
circumstances, is enough to make him give it up altogether. I appeal to
God Almighty;—I’m willing to go with the case to Him, and ask Him if I
do wrong to seek my freedom.”

“These feelings are quite natural, George,” said the good-natured man,
blowing his nose. “Yes, they’re natural, but it is my duty not to
encourage ’em in you. Yes, my boy, I’m sorry for you, now; it’s a bad
case—very bad; but the apostle says, ‘Let everyone abide in the
condition in which he is called.’ We must all submit to the indications
of Providence, George,—don’t you see?”

George stood with his head drawn back, his arms folded tightly over his
broad breast, and a bitter smile curling his lips.

“I wonder, Mr. Wilson, if the Indians should come and take you a
prisoner away from your wife and children, and want to keep you all
your life hoeing corn for them, if you’d think it your duty to abide in
the condition in which you were called. I rather think that you’d think
the first stray horse you could find an indication of
Providence—shouldn’t you?”

The little old gentleman stared with both eyes at this illustration of
the case; but, though not much of a reasoner, he had the sense in which
some logicians on this particular subject do not excel,—that of saying
nothing, where nothing could be said. So, as he stood carefully
stroking his umbrella, and folding and patting down all the creases in
it, he proceeded on with his exhortations in a general way.

“You see, George, you know, now, I always have stood your friend; and
whatever I’ve said, I’ve said for your good. Now, here, it seems to me,
you’re running an awful risk. You can’t hope to carry it out. If you’re
taken, it will be worse with you than ever; they’ll only abuse you, and
half kill you, and sell you down the river.”

“Mr. Wilson, I know all this,” said George. “I _do_ run a risk, but—”
he threw open his overcoat, and showed two pistols and a bowie-knife.
“There!” he said, “I’m ready for ’em! Down south I never _will_ go. No!
if it comes to that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free
soil,—the first and last I shall ever own in Kentucky!”

“Why, George, this state of mind is awful; it’s getting really
desperate George. I’m concerned. Going to break the laws of your
country!”

“My country again! Mr. Wilson, _you_ have a country; but what country
have _I_, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are
there for us? We don’t make them,—we don’t consent to them,—we have
nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us
down. Haven’t I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don’t you tell us
all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the
consent of the governed? Can’t a fellow _think_, that hears such
things? Can’t he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?”

Mr. Wilson’s mind was one of those that may not unaptly be represented
by a bale of cotton,—downy, soft, benevolently fuzzy and confused. He
really pitied George with all his heart, and had a sort of dim and
cloudy perception of the style of feeling that agitated him; but he
deemed it his duty to go on talking _good_ to him, with infinite
pertinacity.

“George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you’d
better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very
bad, for boys in your condition,—very;” and Mr. Wilson sat down to a
table, and began nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella.

“See here, now, Mr. Wilson,” said George, coming up and sitting himself
determinately down in front of him; “look at me, now. Don’t I sit
before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my
face,—look at my hands,—look at my body,” and the young man drew
himself up proudly; “why am I _not_ a man, as much as anybody? Well,
Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father—one of your
Kentucky gentlemen—who didn’t think enough of me to keep me from being
sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I
saw my mother put up at sheriff’s sale, with her seven children. They
were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I
was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas’r, and
begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child
with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it;
and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to
his horse’s neck, to be carried off to his place.”

“Well, then?”

“My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She
was a pious, good girl,—a member of the Baptist church,—and as handsome
as my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good
manners. At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near
me. I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard
her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart,
and I couldn’t do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for
wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no
slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a
trader’s gang, to be sent to market in Orleans,—sent there for nothing
else but that,—and that’s the last I know of her. Well, I grew up,—long
years and years,—no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul
that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding,
starving. Why, sir, I’ve been so hungry that I have been glad to take
the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little
fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn’t the hunger, it
wasn’t the whipping, I cried for. No, sir, it was for _my mother_ and
_my sisters_,—it was because I hadn’t a friend to love me on earth. I
never knew what peace or comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to
me till I came to work in your factory. Mr. Wilson, you treated me
well; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and
to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for
it. Then, sir, I found my wife; you’ve seen her,—you know how beautiful
she is. When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could
believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is
beautiful. But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away
from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into
the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says,
to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he
comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live
with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in
spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn’t _one_ of all
these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister,
and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power
to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay! Do you call these the
laws of _my_ country? Sir, I haven’t any country, anymore than I have
any father. But I’m going to have one. I don’t want anything of _your_
country, except to be let alone,—to go peaceably out of it; and when I
get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, _that_ shall
be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop
me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I’ll fight for my liberty to
the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right
for them, it is right for me!”

This speech, delivered partly while sitting at the table, and partly
walking up and down the room,—delivered with tears, and flashing eyes,
and despairing gestures,—was altogether too much for the good-natured
old body to whom it was addressed, who had pulled out a great yellow
silk pocket-handkerchief, and was mopping up his face with great
energy.

“Blast ’em all!” he suddenly broke out. “Haven’t I always said so—the
infernal old cusses! I hope I an’t swearing, now. Well! go ahead,
George, go ahead; but be careful, my boy; don’t shoot anybody, George,
unless—well—you’d _better_ not shoot, I reckon; at least, I wouldn’t
_hit_ anybody, you know. Where is your wife, George?” he added, as he
nervously rose, and began walking the room.

“Gone, sir gone, with her child in her arms, the Lord only knows
where;—gone after the north star; and when we ever meet, or whether we
meet at all in this world, no creature can tell.”

“Is it possible! astonishing! from such a kind family?”

“Kind families get in debt, and the laws of _our_ country allow them to
sell the child out of its mother’s bosom to pay its master’s debts,”
said George, bitterly.

“Well, well,” said the honest old man, fumbling in his pocket: “I
s’pose, perhaps, I an’t following my judgment,—hang it, I _won’t_
follow my judgment!” he added, suddenly; “so here, George,” and, taking
out a roll of bills from his pocket-book, he offered them to George.

“No, my kind, good sir!” said George, “you’ve done a great deal for me,
and this might get you into trouble. I have money enough, I hope, to
take me as far as I need it.”

“No; but you must, George. Money is a great help everywhere;—can’t have
too much, if you get it honestly. Take it,—_do_ take it, _now_,—do, my
boy!”

“On condition, sir, that I may repay it at some future time, I will,”
said George, taking up the money.

“And now, George, how long are you going to travel in this way?—not
long or far, I hope. It’s well carried on, but too bold. And this black
fellow,—who is he?”

“A true fellow, who went to Canada more than a year ago. He heard,
after he got there, that his master was so angry at him for going off
that he had whipped his poor old mother; and he has come all the way
back to comfort her, and get a chance to get her away.”

“Has he got her?”

“Not yet; he has been hanging about the place, and found no chance yet.
Meanwhile, he is going with me as far as Ohio, to put me among friends
that helped him, and then he will come back after her.

“Dangerous, very dangerous!” said the old man.

George drew himself up, and smiled disdainfully.

The old gentleman eyed him from head to foot, with a sort of innocent
wonder.

“George, something has brought you out wonderfully. You hold up your
head, and speak and move like another man,” said Mr. Wilson.

“Because I’m a _freeman_!” said George, proudly. “Yes, sir; I’ve said
Mas’r for the last time to any man. _I’m free!”_

“Take care! You are not sure,—you may be taken.”

“All men are free and equal _in the grave_, if it comes to that, Mr.
Wilson,” said George.

“I’m perfectly dumb-founded with your boldness!” said Mr. Wilson,—“to
come right here to the nearest tavern!”

“Mr. Wilson, it is _so_ bold, and this tavern is so near, that they
will never think of it; they will look for me on ahead, and you
yourself wouldn’t know me. Jim’s master don’t live in this county; he
isn’t known in these parts. Besides, he is given up; nobody is looking
after him, and nobody will take me up from the advertisement, I think.”

“But the mark in your hand?”

George drew off his glove, and showed a newly-healed scar in his hand.

“That is a parting proof of Mr. Harris’ regard,” he said, scornfully.
“A fortnight ago, he took it into his head to give it to me, because he
said he believed I should try to get away one of these days. Looks
interesting, doesn’t it?” he said, drawing his glove on again.

“I declare, my very blood runs cold when I think of it,—your condition
and your risks!” said Mr. Wilson.

“Mine has run cold a good many years, Mr. Wilson; at present, it’s
about up to the boiling point,” said George.

“Well, my good sir,” continued George, after a few moments’ silence, “I
saw you knew me; I thought I’d just have this talk with you, lest your
surprised looks should bring me out. I leave early tomorrow morning,
before daylight; by tomorrow night I hope to sleep safe in Ohio. I
shall travel by daylight, stop at the best hotels, go to the
dinner-tables with the lords of the land. So, good-by, sir; if you hear
that I’m taken, you may know that I’m dead!”

George stood up like a rock, and put out his hand with the air of a
prince. The friendly little old man shook it heartily, and after a
little shower of caution, he took his umbrella, and fumbled his way out
of the room.

George stood thoughtfully looking at the door, as the old man closed
it. A thought seemed to flash across his mind. He hastily stepped to
it, and opening it, said,

“Mr. Wilson, one word more.”

The old gentleman entered again, and George, as before, locked the
door, and then stood for a few moments looking on the floor,
irresolutely. At last, raising his head with a sudden effort—“Mr.
Wilson, you have shown yourself a Christian in your treatment of me,—I
want to ask one last deed of Christian kindness of you.”

“Well, George.”

“Well, sir,—what you said was true. I _am_ running a dreadful risk.
There isn’t, on earth, a living soul to care if I die,” he added,
drawing his breath hard, and speaking with a great effort,—“I shall be
kicked out and buried like a dog, and nobody’ll think of it a day
after,—_only my poor wife!_ Poor soul! she’ll mourn and grieve; and if
you’d only contrive, Mr. Wilson, to send this little pin to her. She
gave it to me for a Christmas present, poor child! Give it to her, and
tell her I loved her to the last. Will you? _Will_ you?” he added,
earnestly.

“Yes, certainly—poor fellow!” said the old gentleman, taking the pin,
with watery eyes, and a melancholy quiver in his voice.

“Tell her one thing,” said George; “it’s my last wish, if she _can_ get
to Canada, to go there. No matter how kind her mistress is,—no matter
how much she loves her home; beg her not to go back,—for slavery always
ends in misery. Tell her to bring up our boy a free man, and then he
won’t suffer as I have. Tell her this, Mr. Wilson, will you?”

“Yes, George. I’ll tell her; but I trust you won’t die; take
heart,—you’re a brave fellow. Trust in the Lord, George. I wish in my
heart you were safe through, though,—that’s what I do.”

“_Is_ there a God to trust in?” said George, in such a tone of bitter
despair as arrested the old gentleman’s words. “O, I’ve seen things all
my life that have made me feel that there can’t be a God. You
Christians don’t know how these things look to us. There’s a God for
you, but is there any for us?”

“O, now, don’t—don’t, my boy!” said the old man, almost sobbing as he
spoke; “don’t feel so! There is—there is; clouds and darkness are
around about him, but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of
his throne. There’s a _God_, George,—believe it; trust in Him, and I’m
sure He’ll help you. Everything will be set right,—if not in this life,
in another.”

The real piety and benevolence of the simple old man invested him with
a temporary dignity and authority, as he spoke. George stopped his
distracted walk up and down the room, stood thoughtfully a moment, and
then said, quietly,

“Thank you for saying that, my good friend; I’ll _think of that_.”




CHAPTER XII
Select Incident of Lawful Trade


“In Ramah there was a voice heard,—weeping, and lamentation, and great
mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted.”


Jer. 31:15.


Mr. Haley and Tom jogged onward in their wagon, each, for a time,
absorbed in his own reflections. Now, the reflections of two men
sitting side by side are a curious thing,—seated on the same seat,
having the same eyes, ears, hands and organs of all sorts, and having
pass before their eyes the same objects,—it is wonderful what a variety
we shall find in these same reflections!

As, for example, Mr. Haley: he thought first of Tom’s length, and
breadth, and height, and what he would sell for, if he was kept fat and
in good case till he got him into market. He thought of how he should
make out his gang; he thought of the respective market value of certain
supposititious men and women and children who were to compose it, and
other kindred topics of the business; then he thought of himself, and
how humane he was, that whereas other men chained their “niggers” hand
and foot both, he only put fetters on the feet, and left Tom the use of
his hands, as long as he behaved well; and he sighed to think how
ungrateful human nature was, so that there was even room to doubt
whether Tom appreciated his mercies. He had been taken in so by
“niggers” whom he had favored; but still he was astonished to consider
how good-natured he yet remained!

As to Tom, he was thinking over some words of an unfashionable old
book, which kept running through his head, again and again, as follows:
“We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come; wherefore
God himself is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared
for us a city.” These words of an ancient volume, got up principally by
“ignorant and unlearned men,” have, through all time, kept up, somehow,
a strange sort of power over the minds of poor, simple fellows, like
Tom. They stir up the soul from its depths, and rouse, as with trumpet
call, courage, energy, and enthusiasm, where before was only the
blackness of despair.

Mr. Haley pulled out of his pocket sundry newspapers, and began looking
over their advertisements, with absorbed interest. He was not a
remarkably fluent reader, and was in the habit of reading in a sort of
recitative half-aloud, by way of calling in his ears to verify the
deductions of his eyes. In this tone he slowly recited the following
paragraph:

“EXECUTOR’S SALE,—NEGROES!—Agreeably to order of court, will be sold,
on Tuesday, February 20, before the Court-house door, in the town of
Washington, Kentucky, the following negroes: Hagar, aged 60; John, aged
30; Ben, aged 21; Saul, aged 25; Albert, aged 14. Sold for the benefit
of the creditors and heirs of the estate of Jesse Blutchford,


“SAMUEL MORRIS,
THOMAS FLINT,
_Executors_.”


“This yer I must look at,” said he to Tom, for want of somebody else to
talk to.

“Ye see, I’m going to get up a prime gang to take down with ye, Tom;
it’ll make it sociable and pleasant like,—good company will, ye know.
We must drive right to Washington first and foremost, and then I’ll
clap you into jail, while I does the business.”

Tom received this agreeable intelligence quite meekly; simply
wondering, in his own heart, how many of these doomed men had wives and
children, and whether they would feel as he did about leaving them. It
is to be confessed, too, that the naive, off-hand information that he
was to be thrown into jail by no means produced an agreeable impression
on a poor fellow who had always prided himself on a strictly honest and
upright course of life. Yes, Tom, we must confess it, was rather proud
of his honesty, poor fellow,—not having very much else to be proud
of;—if he had belonged to some of the higher walks of society, he,
perhaps, would never have been reduced to such straits. However, the
day wore on, and the evening saw Haley and Tom comfortably accommodated
in Washington,—the one in a tavern, and the other in a jail.

About eleven o’clock the next day, a mixed throng was gathered around
the court-house steps,—smoking, chewing, spitting, swearing, and
conversing, according to their respective tastes and turns,—waiting for
the auction to commence. The men and women to be sold sat in a group
apart, talking in a low tone to each other. The woman who had been
advertised by the name of Hagar was a regular African in feature and
figure. She might have been sixty, but was older than that by hard work
and disease, was partially blind, and somewhat crippled with
rheumatism. By her side stood her only remaining son, Albert, a
bright-looking little fellow of fourteen years. The boy was the only
survivor of a large family, who had been successively sold away from
her to a southern market. The mother held on to him with both her
shaking hands, and eyed with intense trepidation every one who walked
up to examine him.


[Illustration: THE AUCTION SALE.]


“Don’t be feard, Aunt Hagar,” said the oldest of the men, “I spoke to
Mas’r Thomas ’bout it, and he thought he might manage to sell you in a
lot both together.”

“Dey needn’t call me worn out yet,” said she, lifting her shaking
hands. “I can cook yet, and scrub, and scour,—I’m wuth a buying, if I
do come cheap;—tell em dat ar,—you _tell_ em,” she added, earnestly.

Haley here forced his way into the group, walked up to the old man,
pulled his mouth open and looked in, felt of his teeth, made him stand
and straighten himself, bend his back, and perform various evolutions
to show his muscles; and then passed on to the next, and put him
through the same trial. Walking up last to the boy, he felt of his
arms, straightened his hands, and looked at his fingers, and made him
jump, to show his agility.

“He an’t gwine to be sold widout me!” said the old woman, with
passionate eagerness; “he and I goes in a lot together; I ’s rail
strong yet, Mas’r and can do heaps o’ work,—heaps on it, Mas’r.”

“On plantation?” said Haley, with a contemptuous glance. “Likely
story!” and, as if satisfied with his examination, he walked out and
looked, and stood with his hands in his pocket, his cigar in his mouth,
and his hat cocked on one side, ready for action.

“What think of ’em?” said a man who had been following Haley’s
examination, as if to make up his own mind from it.

“Wal,” said Haley, spitting, “I shall put in, I think, for the
youngerly ones and the boy.”

“They want to sell the boy and the old woman together,” said the man.

“Find it a tight pull;—why, she’s an old rack o’ bones,—not worth her
salt.”

“You wouldn’t then?” said the man.

“Anybody ’d be a fool ’t would. She’s half blind, crooked with
rheumatis, and foolish to boot.”

“Some buys up these yer old critturs, and ses there’s a sight more wear
in ’em than a body ’d think,” said the man, reflectively.

“No go, ’t all,” said Haley; “wouldn’t take her for a
present,—fact,—I’ve _seen_, now.”

“Wal, ’t is kinder pity, now, not to buy her with her son,—her heart
seems so sot on him,—s’pose they fling her in cheap.”

“Them that’s got money to spend that ar way, it’s all well enough. I
shall bid off on that ar boy for a plantation-hand;—wouldn’t be
bothered with her, no way, not if they’d give her to me,” said Haley.

“She’ll take on desp’t,” said the man.

“Nat’lly, she will,” said the trader, coolly.

The conversation was here interrupted by a busy hum in the audience;
and the auctioneer, a short, bustling, important fellow, elbowed his
way into the crowd. The old woman drew in her breath, and caught
instinctively at her son.

“Keep close to yer mammy, Albert,—close,—dey’ll put us up togedder,”
she said.

“O, mammy, I’m feard they won’t,” said the boy.

“Dey must, child; I can’t live, no ways, if they don’t” said the old
creature, vehemently.

The stentorian tones of the auctioneer, calling out to clear the way,
now announced that the sale was about to commence. A place was cleared,
and the bidding began. The different men on the list were soon knocked
off at prices which showed a pretty brisk demand in the market; two of
them fell to Haley.

“Come, now, young un,” said the auctioneer, giving the boy a touch with
his hammer, “be up and show your springs, now.”

“Put us two up togedder, togedder,—do please, Mas’r,” said the old
woman, holding fast to her boy.

“Be off,” said the man, gruffly, pushing her hands away; “you come
last. Now, darkey, spring;” and, with the word, he pushed the boy
toward the block, while a deep, heavy groan rose behind him. The boy
paused, and looked back; but there was no time to stay, and, dashing
the tears from his large, bright eyes, he was up in a moment.

His fine figure, alert limbs, and bright face, raised an instant
competition, and half a dozen bids simultaneously met the ear of the
auctioneer. Anxious, half-frightened, he looked from side to side, as
he heard the clatter of contending bids,—now here, now there,—till the
hammer fell. Haley had got him. He was pushed from the block toward his
new master, but stopped one moment, and looked back, when his poor old
mother, trembling in every limb, held out her shaking hands toward him.

“Buy me too, Mas’r, for de dear Lord’s sake!—buy me,—I shall die if you
don’t!”

“You’ll die if I do, that’s the kink of it,” said Haley,—“no!” And he
turned on his heel.

The bidding for the poor old creature was summary. The man who had
addressed Haley, and who seemed not destitute of compassion, bought her
for a trifle, and the spectators began to disperse.

The poor victims of the sale, who had been brought up in one place
together for years, gathered round the despairing old mother, whose
agony was pitiful to see.

“Couldn’t dey leave me one? Mas’r allers said I should have one,—he
did,” she repeated over and over, in heart-broken tones.

“Trust in the Lord, Aunt Hagar,” said the oldest of the men,
sorrowfully.

“What good will it do?” said she, sobbing passionately.

“Mother, mother,—don’t! don’t!” said the boy. “They say you ’s got a
good master.”

“I don’t care,—I don’t care. O, Albert! oh, my boy! you ’s my last
baby. Lord, how ken I?”

“Come, take her off, can’t some of ye?” said Haley, dryly; “don’t do no
good for her to go on that ar way.”

The old men of the company, partly by persuasion and partly by force,
loosed the poor creature’s last despairing hold, and, as they led her
off to her new master’s wagon, strove to comfort her.

“Now!” said Haley, pushing his three purchases together, and producing
a bundle of handcuffs, which he proceeded to put on their wrists; and
fastening each handcuff to a long chain, he drove them before him to
the jail.

A few days saw Haley, with his possessions, safely deposited on one of
the Ohio boats. It was the commencement of his gang, to be augmented,
as the boat moved on, by various other merchandise of the same kind,
which he, or his agent, had stored for him in various points along
shore.

The La Belle Riviere, as brave and beautiful a boat as ever walked the
waters of her namesake river, was floating gayly down the stream, under
a brilliant sky, the stripes and stars of free America waving and
fluttering over head; the guards crowded with well-dressed ladies and
gentlemen walking and enjoying the delightful day. All was full of
life, buoyant and rejoicing;—all but Haley’s gang, who were stored,
with other freight, on the lower deck, and who, somehow, did not seem
to appreciate their various privileges, as they sat in a knot, talking
to each other in low tones.

“Boys,” said Haley, coming up, briskly, “I hope you keep up good heart,
and are cheerful. Now, no sulks, ye see; keep stiff upper lip, boys; do
well by me, and I’ll do well by you.”

The boys addressed responded the invariable “Yes, Mas’r,” for ages the
watchword of poor Africa; but it’s to be owned they did not look
particularly cheerful; they had their various little prejudices in
favor of wives, mothers, sisters, and children, seen for the last
time,—and though “they that wasted them required of them mirth,” it was
not instantly forthcoming.

“I’ve got a wife,” spoke out the article enumerated as “John, aged
thirty,” and he laid his chained hand on Tom’s knee,—“and she don’t
know a word about this, poor girl!”

“Where does she live?” said Tom.

“In a tavern a piece down here,” said John; “I wish, now, I _could_ see
her once more in this world,” he added.

Poor John! It _was_ rather natural; and the tears that fell, as he
spoke, came as naturally as if he had been a white man. Tom drew a long
breath from a sore heart, and tried, in his poor way, to comfort him.

And over head, in the cabin, sat fathers and mothers, husbands and
wives; and merry, dancing children moved round among them, like so many
little butterflies, and everything was going on quite easy and
comfortable.

“O, mamma,” said a boy, who had just come up from below, “there’s a
negro trader on board, and he’s brought four or five slaves down
there.”

“Poor creatures!” said the mother, in a tone between grief and
indignation.

“What’s that?” said another lady.

“Some poor slaves below,” said the mother.

“And they’ve got chains on,” said the boy.

“What a shame to our country that such sights are to be seen!” said
another lady.

“O, there’s a great deal to be said on both sides of the subject,” said
a genteel woman, who sat at her state-room door sewing, while her
little girl and boy were playing round her. “I’ve been south, and I
must say I think the negroes are better off than they would be to be
free.”

“In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant,” said the lady
to whose remark she had answered. “The most dreadful part of slavery,
to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections,—the
separating of families, for example.”

“That _is_ a bad thing, certainly,” said the other lady, holding up a
baby’s dress she had just completed, and looking intently on its
trimmings; “but then, I fancy, it don’t occur often.”

“O, it does,” said the first lady, eagerly; “I’ve lived many years in
Kentucky and Virginia both, and I’ve seen enough to make any one’s
heart sick. Suppose, ma’am, your two children, there, should be taken
from you, and sold?”

“We can’t reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons,”
said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds on her lap.

“Indeed, ma’am, you can know nothing of them, if you say so,” answered
the first lady, warmly. “I was born and brought up among them. I know
they _do_ feel, just as keenly,—even more so, perhaps,—as we do.”

The lady said “Indeed!” yawned, and looked out the cabin window, and
finally repeated, for a finale, the remark with which she had
begun,—“After all, I think they are better off than they would be to be
free.”

“It’s undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race
should be servants,—kept in a low condition,” said a grave-looking
gentleman in black, a clergyman, seated by the cabin door. “‘Cursed be
Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be,’ the scripture says.”[1]

 [1] Gen. 9:25. his is what Noah says when he wakes out of drunkenness
 and realizes that his youngest son, Ham, father of Canaan, has seen
 him naked.


“I say, stranger, is that ar what that text means?” said a tall man,
standing by.

“Undoubtedly. It pleased Providence, for some inscrutable reason, to
doom the race to bondage, ages ago; and we must not set up our opinion
against that.”

“Well, then, we’ll all go ahead and buy up niggers,” said the man, “if
that’s the way of Providence,—won’t we, Squire?” said he, turning to
Haley, who had been standing, with his hands in his pockets, by the
stove and intently listening to the conversation.

“Yes,” continued the tall man, “we must all be resigned to the decrees
of Providence. Niggers must be sold, and trucked round, and kept under;
it’s what they’s made for. ’Pears like this yer view ’s quite
refreshing, an’t it, stranger?” said he to Haley.

“I never thought on ’t,” said Haley, “I couldn’t have said as much,
myself; I ha’nt no larning. I took up the trade just to make a living;
if ’tan’t right, I calculated to ’pent on ’t in time, ye know.”

“And now you’ll save yerself the trouble, won’t ye?” said the tall man.
“See what ’t is, now, to know scripture. If ye’d only studied yer
Bible, like this yer good man, ye might have know’d it before, and
saved ye a heap o’ trouble. Ye could jist have said, ’Cussed be’—what’s
his name?—‘and ’t would all have come right.’” And the stranger, who
was no other than the honest drover whom we introduced to our readers
in the Kentucky tavern, sat down, and began smoking, with a curious
smile on his long, dry face.

A tall, slender young man, with a face expressive of great feeling and
intelligence, here broke in, and repeated the words, “‘All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them.’ I suppose,” he added, “_that_ is scripture, as much as ’Cursed
be Canaan.’”

“Wal, it seems quite _as_ plain a text, stranger,” said John the
drover, “to poor fellows like us, now;” and John smoked on like a
volcano.

The young man paused, looked as if he was going to say more, when
suddenly the boat stopped, and the company made the usual steamboat
rush, to see where they were landing.

“Both them ar chaps parsons?” said John to one of the men, as they were
going out.

The man nodded.

As the boat stopped, a black woman came running wildly up the plank,
darted into the crowd, flew up to where the slave gang sat, and threw
her arms round that unfortunate piece of merchandise before
enumerate—“John, aged thirty,” and with sobs and tears bemoaned him as
her husband.

But what needs tell the story, told too oft,—every day told,—of
heart-strings rent and broken,—the weak broken and torn for the profit
and convenience of the strong! It needs not to be told;—every day is
telling it,—telling it, too, in the ear of One who is not deaf, though
he be long silent.

The young man who had spoken for the cause of humanity and God before
stood with folded arms, looking on this scene. He turned, and Haley was
standing at his side. “My friend,” he said, speaking with thick
utterance, “how can you, how dare you, carry on a trade like this? Look
at those poor creatures! Here I am, rejoicing in my heart that I am
going home to my wife and child; and the same bell which is a signal to
carry me onward towards them will part this poor man and his wife
forever. Depend upon it, God will bring you into judgment for this.”

The trader turned away in silence.

“I say, now,” said the drover, touching his elbow, “there’s differences
in parsons, an’t there? ’Cussed be Canaan’ don’t seem to go down with
this ’un, does it?”

Haley gave an uneasy growl.

“And that ar an’t the worst on ’t,” said John; “mabbee it won’t go down
with the Lord, neither, when ye come to settle with Him, one o’ these
days, as all on us must, I reckon.”

Haley walked reflectively to the other end of the boat.

“If I make pretty handsomely on one or two next gangs,” he thought, “I
reckon I’ll stop off this yer; it’s really getting dangerous.” And he
took out his pocket-book, and began adding over his accounts,—a process
which many gentlemen besides Mr. Haley have found a specific for an
uneasy conscience.

The boat swept proudly away from the shore, and all went on merrily, as
before. Men talked, and loafed, and read, and smoked. Women sewed, and
children played, and the boat passed on her way.

One day, when she lay to for a while at a small town in Kentucky, Haley
went up into the place on a little matter of business.

Tom, whose fetters did not prevent his taking a moderate circuit, had
drawn near the side of the boat, and stood listlessly gazing over the
railing. After a time, he saw the trader returning, with an alert step,
in company with a colored woman, bearing in her arms a young child. She
was dressed quite respectably, and a colored man followed her, bringing
along a small trunk. The woman came cheerfully onward, talking, as she
came, with the man who bore her trunk, and so passed up the plank into
the boat. The bell rung, the steamer whizzed, the engine groaned and
coughed, and away swept the boat down the river.

The woman walked forward among the boxes and bales of the lower deck,
and, sitting down, busied herself with chirruping to her baby.

Haley made a turn or two about the boat, and then, coming up, seated
himself near her, and began saying something to her in an indifferent
undertone.

Tom soon noticed a heavy cloud passing over the woman’s brow; and that
she answered rapidly, and with great vehemence.

“I don’t believe it,—I won’t believe it!” he heard her say. “You’re
jist a foolin’ with me.”

“If you won’t believe it, look here!” said the man, drawing out a
paper; “this yer’s the bill of sale, and there’s your master’s name to
it; and I paid down good solid cash for it, too, I can tell you,—so,
now!”

“I don’t believe Mas’r would cheat me so; it can’t be true!” said the
woman, with increasing agitation.

“You can ask any of these men here, that can read writing. Here!” he
said, to a man that was passing by, “jist read this yer, won’t you!
This yer gal won’t believe me, when I tell her what ’t is.”

“Why, it’s a bill of sale, signed by John Fosdick,” said the man,
“making over to you the girl Lucy and her child. It’s all straight
enough, for aught I see.”

The woman’s passionate exclamations collected a crowd around her, and
the trader briefly explained to them the cause of the agitation.

“He told me that I was going down to Louisville, to hire out as cook to
the same tavern where my husband works,—that’s what Mas’r told me, his
own self; and I can’t believe he’d lie to me,” said the woman.

“But he has sold you, my poor woman, there’s no doubt about it,” said a
good-natured looking man, who had been examining the papers; “he has
done it, and no mistake.”

“Then it’s no account talking,” said the woman, suddenly growing quite
calm; and, clasping her child tighter in her arms, she sat down on her
box, turned her back round, and gazed listlessly into the river.

“Going to take it easy, after all!” said the trader. “Gal’s got grit, I
see.”

The woman looked calm, as the boat went on; and a beautiful soft summer
breeze passed like a compassionate spirit over her head,—the gentle
breeze, that never inquires whether the brow is dusky or fair that it
fans. And she saw sunshine sparkling on the water, in golden ripples,
and heard gay voices, full of ease and pleasure, talking around her
everywhere; but her heart lay as if a great stone had fallen on it. Her
baby raised himself up against her, and stroked her cheeks with his
little hands; and, springing up and down, crowing and chatting, seemed
determined to arouse her. She strained him suddenly and tightly in her
arms, and slowly one tear after another fell on his wondering,
unconscious face; and gradually she seemed, and little by little, to
grow calmer, and busied herself with tending and nursing him.

The child, a boy of ten months, was uncommonly large and strong of his
age, and very vigorous in his limbs. Never, for a moment, still, he
kept his mother constantly busy in holding him, and guarding his
springing activity.

“That’s a fine chap!” said a man, suddenly stopping opposite to him,
with his hands in his pockets. “How old is he?”

“Ten months and a half,” said the mother.

The man whistled to the boy, and offered him part of a stick of candy,
which he eagerly grabbed at, and very soon had it in a baby’s general
depository, to wit, his mouth.

“Rum fellow!” said the man “Knows what’s what!” and he whistled, and
walked on. When he had got to the other side of the boat, he came
across Haley, who was smoking on top of a pile of boxes.

The stranger produced a match, and lighted a cigar, saying, as he did
so,

“Decentish kind o’ wench you’ve got round there, stranger.”

“Why, I reckon she _is_ tol’able fair,” said Haley, blowing the smoke
out of his mouth.

“Taking her down south?” said the man.

Haley nodded, and smoked on.

“Plantation hand?” said the man.

“Wal,” said Haley, “I’m fillin’ out an order for a plantation, and I
think I shall put her in. They telled me she was a good cook; and they
can use her for that, or set her at the cotton-picking. She’s got the
right fingers for that; I looked at ’em. Sell well, either way;” and
Haley resumed his cigar.

“They won’t want the young ’un on the plantation,” said the man.

“I shall sell him, first chance I find,” said Haley, lighting another
cigar.

“S’pose you’d be selling him tol’able cheap,” said the stranger,
mounting the pile of boxes, and sitting down comfortably.

“Don’t know ’bout that,” said Haley; “he’s a pretty smart young ’un,
straight, fat, strong; flesh as hard as a brick!”

“Very true, but then there’s the bother and expense of raisin’.”

“Nonsense!” said Haley; “they is raised as easy as any kind of critter
there is going; they an’t a bit more trouble than pups. This yer chap
will be running all around, in a month.”

“I’ve got a good place for raisin’, and I thought of takin’ in a little
more stock,” said the man. “One cook lost a young ’un last week,—got
drownded in a washtub, while she was a hangin’ out the clothes,—and I
reckon it would be well enough to set her to raisin’ this yer.”

Haley and the stranger smoked a while in silence, neither seeming
willing to broach the test question of the interview. At last the man
resumed:

“You wouldn’t think of wantin’ more than ten dollars for that ar chap,
seeing you _must_ get him off yer hand, any how?”

Haley shook his head, and spit impressively.

“That won’t do, no ways,” he said, and began his smoking again.

“Well, stranger, what will you take?”

“Well, now,” said Haley, “I _could_ raise that ar chap myself, or get
him raised; he’s oncommon likely and healthy, and he’d fetch a hundred
dollars, six months hence; and, in a year or two, he’d bring two
hundred, if I had him in the right spot; I shan’t take a cent less nor
fifty for him now.”

“O, stranger! that’s rediculous, altogether,” said the man.

“Fact!” said Haley, with a decisive nod of his head.

“I’ll give thirty for him,” said the stranger, “but not a cent more.”

“Now, I’ll tell ye what I will do,” said Haley, spitting again, with
renewed decision. “I’ll split the difference, and say forty-five; and
that’s the most I will do.”

“Well, agreed!” said the man, after an interval.

“Done!” said Haley. “Where do you land?”

“At Louisville,” said the man.

“Louisville,” said Haley. “Very fair, we get there about dusk. Chap
will be asleep,—all fair,—get him off quietly, and no
screaming,—happens beautiful,—I like to do everything quietly,—I hates
all kind of agitation and fluster.” And so, after a transfer of certain
bills had passed from the man’s pocket-book to the trader’s, he resumed
his cigar.

It was a bright, tranquil evening when the boat stopped at the wharf at
Louisville. The woman had been sitting with her baby in her arms, now
wrapped in a heavy sleep. When she heard the name of the place called
out, she hastily laid the child down in a little cradle formed by the
hollow among the boxes, first carefully spreading under it her cloak;
and then she sprung to the side of the boat, in hopes that, among the
various hotel-waiters who thronged the wharf, she might see her
husband. In this hope, she pressed forward to the front rails, and,
stretching far over them, strained her eyes intently on the moving
heads on the shore, and the crowd pressed in between her and the child.

“Now’s your time,” said Haley, taking the sleeping child up, and
handing him to the stranger. “Don’t wake him up, and set him to crying,
now; it would make a devil of a fuss with the gal.” The man took the
bundle carefully, and was soon lost in the crowd that went up the
wharf.

When the boat, creaking, and groaning, and puffing, had loosed from the
wharf, and was beginning slowly to strain herself along, the woman
returned to her old seat. The trader was sitting there,—the child was
gone!

“Why, why,—where?” she began, in bewildered surprise.

“Lucy,” said the trader, “your child’s gone; you may as well know it
first as last. You see, I know’d you couldn’t take him down south; and
I got a chance to sell him to a first-rate family, that’ll raise him
better than you can.”

The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and political
perfection which has been recommended by some preachers and politicians
of the north, lately, in which he had completely overcome every humane
weakness and prejudice. His heart was exactly where yours, sir, and
mine could be brought, with proper effort and cultivation. The wild
look of anguish and utter despair that the woman cast on him might have
disturbed one less practised; but he was used to it. He had seen that
same look hundreds of times. You can get used to such things, too, my
friend; and it is the great object of recent efforts to make our whole
northern community used to them, for the glory of the Union. So the
trader only regarded the mortal anguish which he saw working in those
dark features, those clenched hands, and suffocating breathings, as
necessary incidents of the trade, and merely calculated whether she was
going to scream, and get up a commotion on the boat; for, like other
supporters of our peculiar institution, he decidedly disliked
agitation.

But the woman did not scream. The shot had passed too straight and
direct through the heart, for cry or tear.

Dizzily she sat down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by her side. Her
eyes looked straight forward, but she saw nothing. All the noise and
hum of the boat, the groaning of the machinery, mingled dreamily to her
bewildered ear; and the poor, dumb-stricken heart had neither cry not
tear to show for its utter misery. She was quite calm.

The trader, who, considering his advantages, was almost as humane as
some of our politicians, seemed to feel called on to administer such
consolation as the case admitted of.

“I know this yer comes kinder hard, at first, Lucy,” said he; “but such
a smart, sensible gal as you are, won’t give way to it. You see it’s
_necessary_, and can’t be helped!”

“O! don’t, Mas’r, don’t!” said the woman, with a voice like one that is
smothering.

“You’re a smart wench, Lucy,” he persisted; “I mean to do well by ye,
and get ye a nice place down river; and you’ll soon get another
husband,—such a likely gal as you—”

“O! Mas’r, if you _only_ won’t talk to me now,” said the woman, in a
voice of such quick and living anguish that the trader felt that there
was something at present in the case beyond his style of operation. He
got up, and the woman turned away, and buried her head in her cloak.

The trader walked up and down for a time, and occasionally stopped and
looked at her.

“Takes it hard, rather,” he soliloquized, “but quiet, tho’;—let her
sweat a while; she’ll come right, by and by!”

Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last, and had a
perfect understanding of its results. To him, it looked like something
unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor, ignorant black soul! he
had not learned to generalize, and to take enlarged views. If he had
only been instructed by certain ministers of Christianity, he might
have thought better of it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a
lawful trade; a trade which is the vital support of an institution
which an American divine[2] tells us has _“no evils but such as are
inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic life_.” But
Tom, as we see, being a poor, ignorant fellow, whose reading had been
confined entirely to the New Testament, could not comfort and solace
himself with views like these. His very soul bled within him for what
seemed to him the _wrongs_ of the poor suffering thing that lay like a
crushed reed on the boxes; the feeling, living, bleeding, yet immortal
_thing_, which American state law coolly classes with the bundles, and
bales, and boxes, among which she is lying.

 [2] Dr. Joel Parker of Philadelphia. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.] Presbyterian
 clergyman (1798-1873), a friend of the Beecher family. Mrs. Stowe
 attempted unsuccessfully to have this identifying note removed from
 the stereotype-plate of the first edition.


Tom drew near, and tried to say something; but she only groaned.
Honestly, and with tears running down his own cheeks, he spoke of a
heart of love in the skies, of a pitying Jesus, and an eternal home;
but the ear was deaf with anguish, and the palsied heart could not
feel.

Night came on,—night calm, unmoved, and glorious, shining down with her
innumerable and solemn angel eyes, twinkling, beautiful, but silent.
There was no speech nor language, no pitying voice or helping hand,
from that distant sky. One after another, the voices of business or
pleasure died away; all on the boat were sleeping, and the ripples at
the prow were plainly heard. Tom stretched himself out on a box, and
there, as he lay, he heard, ever and anon, a smothered sob or cry from
the prostrate creature,—“O! what shall I do? O Lord! O good Lord, do
help me!” and so, ever and anon, until the murmur died away in silence.

At midnight, Tom waked, with a sudden start. Something black passed
quickly by him to the side of the boat, and he heard a splash in the
water. No one else saw or heard anything. He raised his head,—the
woman’s place was vacant! He got up, and sought about him in vain. The
poor bleeding heart was still, at last, and the river rippled and
dimpled just as brightly as if it had not closed above it.

Patience! patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like
these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed, is
forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient,
generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in
patience, and labor in love; for sure as he is God, “the year of his
redeemed _shall_ come.”

The trader waked up bright and early, and came out to see to his live
stock. It was now his turn to look about in perplexity.

“Where alive is that gal?” he said to Tom.

Tom, who had learned the wisdom of keeping counsel, did not feel called
upon to state his observations and suspicions, but said he did not
know.

“She surely couldn’t have got off in the night at any of the landings,
for I was awake, and on the lookout, whenever the boat stopped. I never
trust these yer things to other folks.”

This speech was addressed to Tom quite confidentially, as if it was
something that would be specially interesting to him. Tom made no
answer.

The trader searched the boat from stem to stern, among boxes, bales and
barrels, around the machinery, by the chimneys, in vain.

“Now, I say, Tom, be fair about this yer,” he said, when, after a
fruitless search, he came where Tom was standing. “You know something
about it, now. Don’t tell me,—I know you do. I saw the gal stretched
out here about ten o’clock, and ag’in at twelve, and ag’in between one
and two; and then at four she was gone, and you was a sleeping right
there all the time. Now, you know something,—you can’t help it.”

“Well, Mas’r,” said Tom, “towards morning something brushed by me, and
I kinder half woke; and then I hearn a great splash, and then I clare
woke up, and the gal was gone. That’s all I know on ’t.”

The trader was not shocked nor amazed; because, as we said before, he
was used to a great many things that you are not used to. Even the
awful presence of Death struck no solemn chill upon him. He had seen
Death many times,—met him in the way of trade, and got acquainted with
him,—and he only thought of him as a hard customer, that embarrassed
his property operations very unfairly; and so he only swore that the
gal was a baggage, and that he was devilish unlucky, and that, if
things went on in this way, he should not make a cent on the trip. In
short, he seemed to consider himself an ill-used man, decidedly; but
there was no help for it, as the woman had escaped into a state which
_never will_ give up a fugitive,—not even at the demand of the whole
glorious Union. The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly down, with
his little account-book, and put down the missing body and soul under
the head of _losses!_

“He’s a shocking creature, isn’t he,—this trader? so unfeeling! It’s
dreadful, really!”

“O, but nobody thinks anything of these traders! They are universally
despised,—never received into any decent society.”

But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame? The enlightened,
cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the system of which the
trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself? You make
the public statement that calls for his trade, that debauches and
depraves him, till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you better
than he?

Are you educated and he ignorant, you high and he low, you refined and
he coarse, you talented and he simple?

In the day of a future judgment, these very considerations may make it
more tolerable for him than for you.

In concluding these little incidents of lawful trade, we must beg the
world not to think that American legislators are entirely destitute of
humanity, as might, perhaps, be unfairly inferred from the great
efforts made in our national body to protect and perpetuate this
species of traffic.

Who does not know how our great men are outdoing themselves, in
declaiming against the _foreign_ slave-trade. There are a perfect host
of Clarksons and Wilberforces[3] risen up among us on that subject,
most edifying to hear and behold. Trading negroes from Africa, dear
reader, is so horrid! It is not to be thought of! But trading them from
Kentucky,—that’s quite another thing!

 [3] Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) and William Wilberforce (1759- 1833),
 English philanthropists and anti-slavery agitators who helped to
 secure passage of the Emancipation Bill by Parliament in 1833.




CHAPTER XIII
The Quaker Settlement


A quiet scene now rises before us. A large, roomy, neatly-painted
kitchen, its yellow floor glossy and smooth, and without a particle of
dust; a neat, well-blacked cooking-stove; rows of shining tin,
suggestive of unmentionable good things to the appetite; glossy green
wood chairs, old and firm; a small flag-bottomed rocking-chair, with a
patch-work cushion in it, neatly contrived out of small pieces of
different colored woollen goods, and a larger sized one, motherly and
old, whose wide arms breathed hospitable invitation, seconded by the
solicitation of its feather cushions,—a real comfortable, persuasive
old chair, and worth, in the way of honest, homely enjoyment, a dozen
of your plush or _brochetelle_ drawing-room gentry; and in the chair,
gently swaying back and forward, her eyes bent on some fine sewing, sat
our fine old friend Eliza. Yes, there she is, paler and thinner than in
her Kentucky home, with a world of quiet sorrow lying under the shadow
of her long eyelashes, and marking the outline of her gentle mouth! It
was plain to see how old and firm the girlish heart was grown under the
discipline of heavy sorrow; and when, anon, her large dark eye was
raised to follow the gambols of her little Harry, who was sporting,
like some tropical butterfly, hither and thither over the floor, she
showed a depth of firmness and steady resolve that was never there in
her earlier and happier days.

By her side sat a woman with a bright tin pan in her lap, into which
she was carefully sorting some dried peaches. She might be fifty-five
or sixty; but hers was one of those faces that time seems to touch only
to brighten and adorn. The snowy lisse crape cap, made after the strait
Quaker pattern,—the plain white muslin handkerchief, lying in placid
folds across her bosom,—the drab shawl and dress,—showed at once the
community to which she belonged. Her face was round and rosy, with a
healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe peach. Her hair,
partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high placid
forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on
earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear,
honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them,
to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever
throbbed in woman’s bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful
young girls, why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women? If
any want to get up an inspiration under this head, we refer them to our
good friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sits there in her little
rocking-chair. It had a turn for quacking and squeaking,—that chair
had,—either from having taken cold in early life, or from some
asthmatic affection, or perhaps from nervous derangement; but, as she
gently swung backward and forward, the chair kept up a kind of subdued
“creechy crawchy,” that would have been intolerable in any other chair.
But old Simeon Halliday often declared it was as good as any music to
him, and the children all avowed that they wouldn’t miss of hearing
mother’s chair for anything in the world. For why? for twenty years or
more, nothing but loving words, and gentle moralities, and motherly
loving kindness, had come from that chair;—head-aches and heart-aches
innumerable had been cured there,—difficulties spiritual and temporal
solved there,—all by one good, loving woman, God bless her!

“And so thee still thinks of going to Canada, Eliza?” she said, as she
was quietly looking over her peaches.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Eliza, firmly. “I must go onward. I dare not stop.”

“And what’ll thee do, when thee gets there? Thee must think about that,
my daughter.”

“My daughter” came naturally from the lips of Rachel Halliday; for hers
was just the face and form that made “mother” seem the most natural
word in the world.

Eliza’s hands trembled, and some tears fell on her fine work; but she
answered, firmly,

“I shall do—anything I can find. I hope I can find something.”

“Thee knows thee can stay here, as long as thee pleases,” said Rachel.

“O, thank you,” said Eliza, “but”—she pointed to Harry—“I can’t sleep
nights; I can’t rest. Last night I dreamed I saw that man coming into
the yard,” she said, shuddering.

“Poor child!” said Rachel, wiping her eyes; “but thee mustn’t feel so.
The Lord hath ordered it so that never hath a fugitive been stolen from
our village. I trust thine will not be the first.”

The door here opened, and a little short, round, pin-cushiony woman
stood at the door, with a cheery, blooming face, like a ripe apple. She
was dressed, like Rachel, in sober gray, with the muslin folded neatly
across her round, plump little chest.

“Ruth Stedman,” said Rachel, coming joyfully forward; “how is thee,
Ruth? she said, heartily taking both her hands.

“Nicely,” said Ruth, taking off her little drab bonnet, and dusting it
with her handkerchief, displaying, as she did so, a round little head,
on which the Quaker cap sat with a sort of jaunty air, despite all the
stroking and patting of the small fat hands, which were busily applied
to arranging it. Certain stray locks of decidedly curly hair, too, had
escaped here and there, and had to be coaxed and cajoled into their
place again; and then the new comer, who might have been
five-and-twenty, turned from the small looking-glass, before which she
had been making these arrangements, and looked well pleased,—as most
people who looked at her might have been,—for she was decidedly a
wholesome, whole-hearted, chirruping little woman, as ever gladdened
man’s heart withal.

“Ruth, this friend is Eliza Harris; and this is the little boy I told
thee of.”

“I am glad to see thee, Eliza,—very,” said Ruth, shaking hands, as if
Eliza were an old friend she had long been expecting; “and this is thy
dear boy,—I brought a cake for him,” she said, holding out a little
heart to the boy, who came up, gazing through his curls, and accepted
it shyly.

“Where’s thy baby, Ruth?” said Rachel.

“O, he’s coming; but thy Mary caught him as I came in, and ran off with
him to the barn, to show him to the children.”

At this moment, the door opened, and Mary, an honest, rosy-looking
girl, with large brown eyes, like her mother’s, came in with the baby.

“Ah! ha!” said Rachel, coming up, and taking the great, white, fat
fellow in her arms, “how good he looks, and how he does grow!”

“To be sure, he does,” said little bustling Ruth, as she took the
child, and began taking off a little blue silk hood, and various layers
and wrappers of outer garments; and having given a twitch here, and a
pull there, and variously adjusted and arranged him, and kissed him
heartily, she set him on the floor to collect his thoughts. Baby seemed
quite used to this mode of proceeding, for he put his thumb in his
mouth (as if it were quite a thing of course), and seemed soon absorbed
in his own reflections, while the mother seated herself, and taking out
a long stocking of mixed blue and white yarn, began to knit with
briskness.

“Mary, thee’d better fill the kettle, hadn’t thee?” gently suggested
the mother.

Mary took the kettle to the well, and soon reappearing, placed it over
the stove, where it was soon purring and steaming, a sort of censer of
hospitality and good cheer. The peaches, moreover, in obedience to a
few gentle whispers from Rachel, were soon deposited, by the same hand,
in a stew-pan over the fire.

Rachel now took down a snowy moulding-board, and, tying on an apron,
proceeded quietly to making up some biscuits, first saying to
Mary,—“Mary, hadn’t thee better tell John to get a chicken ready?” and
Mary disappeared accordingly.

“And how is Abigail Peters?” said Rachel, as she went on with her
biscuits.

“O, she’s better,” said Ruth; “I was in, this morning; made the bed,
tidied up the house. Leah Hills went in, this afternoon, and baked
bread and pies enough to last some days; and I engaged to go back to
get her up, this evening.”

“I will go in tomorrow, and do any cleaning there may be, and look over
the mending,” said Rachel.

“Ah! that is well,” said Ruth. “I’ve heard,” she added, “that Hannah
Stanwood is sick. John was up there, last night,—I must go there
tomorrow.”

“John can come in here to his meals, if thee needs to stay all day,”
suggested Rachel.

“Thank thee, Rachel; will see, tomorrow; but, here comes Simeon.”

Simeon Halliday, a tall, straight, muscular man, in drab coat and
pantaloons, and broad-brimmed hat, now entered.

“How is thee, Ruth?” he said, warmly, as he spread his broad open hand
for her little fat palm; “and how is John?”

“O! John is well, and all the rest of our folks,” said Ruth, cheerily.

“Any news, father?” said Rachel, as she was putting her biscuits into
the oven.

“Peter Stebbins told me that they should be along tonight, with
_friends_,” said Simeon, significantly, as he was washing his hands at
a neat sink, in a little back porch.

“Indeed!” said Rachel, looking thoughtfully, and glancing at Eliza.

“Did thee say thy name was Harris?” said Simeon to Eliza, as he
reentered.

Rachel glanced quickly at her husband, as Eliza tremulously answered
“yes;” her fears, ever uppermost, suggesting that possibly there might
be advertisements out for her.

“Mother!” said Simeon, standing in the porch, and calling Rachel out.

“What does thee want, father?” said Rachel, rubbing her floury hands,
as she went into the porch.

“This child’s husband is in the settlement, and will be here tonight,”
said Simeon.

“Now, thee doesn’t say that, father?” said Rachel, all her face radiant
with joy.

“It’s really true. Peter was down yesterday, with the wagon, to the
other stand, and there he found an old woman and two men; and one said
his name was George Harris; and from what he told of his history, I am
certain who he is. He is a bright, likely fellow, too.”

“Shall we tell her now?” said Simeon.

“Let’s tell Ruth,” said Rachel. “Here, Ruth,—come here.”

Ruth laid down her knitting-work, and was in the back porch in a
moment.

“Ruth, what does thee think?” said Rachel. “Father says Eliza’s husband
is in the last company, and will be here tonight.”

A burst of joy from the little Quakeress interrupted the speech. She
gave such a bound from the floor, as she clapped her little hands, that
two stray curls fell from under her Quaker cap, and lay brightly on her
white neckerchief.

“Hush thee, dear!” said Rachel, gently; “hush, Ruth! Tell us, shall we
tell her now?”

“Now! to be sure,—this very minute. Why, now, suppose ’t was my John,
how should I feel? Do tell her, right off.”

“Thee uses thyself only to learn how to love thy neighbor, Ruth,” said
Simeon, looking, with a beaming face, on Ruth.

“To be sure. Isn’t it what we are made for? If I didn’t love John and
the baby, I should not know how to feel for her. Come, now do tell
her,—do!” and she laid her hands persuasively on Rachel’s arm. “Take
her into thy bed-room, there, and let me fry the chicken while thee
does it.”

Rachel came out into the kitchen, where Eliza was sewing, and opening
the door of a small bed-room, said, gently, “Come in here with me, my
daughter; I have news to tell thee.”

The blood flushed in Eliza’s pale face; she rose, trembling with
nervous anxiety, and looked towards her boy.

“No, no,” said little Ruth, darting up, and seizing her hands. “Never
thee fear; it’s good news, Eliza,—go in, go in!” And she gently pushed
her to the door which closed after her; and then, turning round, she
caught little Harry in her arms, and began kissing him.

“Thee’ll see thy father, little one. Does thee know it? Thy father is
coming,” she said, over and over again, as the boy looked wonderingly
at her.

Meanwhile, within the door, another scene was going on. Rachel Halliday
drew Eliza toward her, and said, “The Lord hath had mercy on thee,
daughter; thy husband hath escaped from the house of bondage.”

The blood flushed to Eliza’s cheek in a sudden glow, and went back to
her heart with as sudden a rush. She sat down, pale and faint.

“Have courage, child,” said Rachel, laying her hand on her head. “He is
among friends, who will bring him here tonight.”

“Tonight!” Eliza repeated, “tonight!” The words lost all meaning to
her; her head was dreamy and confused; all was mist for a moment.


When she awoke, she found herself snugly tucked up on the bed, with a
blanket over her, and little Ruth rubbing her hands with camphor. She
opened her eyes in a state of dreamy, delicious languor, such as one
who has long been bearing a heavy load, and now feels it gone, and
would rest. The tension of the nerves, which had never ceased a moment
since the first hour of her flight, had given way, and a strange
feeling of security and rest came over her; and as she lay, with her
large, dark eyes open, she followed, as in a quiet dream, the motions
of those about her. She saw the door open into the other room; saw the
supper-table, with its snowy cloth; heard the dreamy murmur of the
singing tea-kettle; saw Ruth tripping backward and forward, with plates
of cake and saucers of preserves, and ever and anon stopping to put a
cake into Harry’s hand, or pat his head, or twine his long curls round
her snowy fingers. She saw the ample, motherly form of Rachel, as she
ever and anon came to the bedside, and smoothed and arranged something
about the bedclothes, and gave a tuck here and there, by way of
expressing her good-will; and was conscious of a kind of sunshine
beaming down upon her from her large, clear, brown eyes. She saw Ruth’s
husband come in,—saw her fly up to him, and commence whispering very
earnestly, ever and anon, with impressive gesture, pointing her little
finger toward the room. She saw her, with the baby in her arms, sitting
down to tea; she saw them all at table, and little Harry in a high
chair, under the shadow of Rachel’s ample wing; there were low murmurs
of talk, gentle tinkling of tea-spoons, and musical clatter of cups and
saucers, and all mingled in a delightful dream of rest; and Eliza
slept, as she had not slept before, since the fearful midnight hour
when she had taken her child and fled through the frosty starlight.

She dreamed of a beautiful country,—a land, it seemed to her, of
rest,—green shores, pleasant islands, and beautifully glittering water;
and there, in a house which kind voices told her was a home, she saw
her boy playing, free and happy child. She heard her husband’s
footsteps; she felt him coming nearer; his arms were around her, his
tears falling on her face, and she awoke! It was no dream. The daylight
had long faded; her child lay calmly sleeping by her side; a candle was
burning dimly on the stand, and her husband was sobbing by her pillow.


The next morning was a cheerful one at the Quaker house. “Mother” was
up betimes, and surrounded by busy girls and boys, whom we had scarce
time to introduce to our readers yesterday, and who all moved
obediently to Rachel’s gentle “Thee had better,” or more gentle “Hadn’t
thee better?” in the work of getting breakfast; for a breakfast in the
luxurious valleys of Indiana is a thing complicated and multiform, and,
like picking up the rose-leaves and trimming the bushes in Paradise,
asking other hands than those of the original mother. While, therefore,
John ran to the spring for fresh water, and Simeon the second sifted
meal for corn-cakes, and Mary ground coffee, Rachel moved gently, and
quietly about, making biscuits, cutting up chicken, and diffusing a
sort of sunny radiance over the whole proceeding generally. If there
was any danger of friction or collision from the ill-regulated zeal of
so many young operators, her gentle “Come! come!” or “I wouldn’t, now,”
was quite sufficient to allay the difficulty. Bards have written of the
cestus of Venus, that turned the heads of all the world in successive
generations. We had rather, for our part, have the cestus of Rachel
Halliday, that kept heads from being turned, and made everything go on
harmoniously. We think it is more suited to our modern days, decidedly.

While all other preparations were going on, Simeon the elder stood in
his shirt-sleeves before a little looking-glass in the corner, engaged
in the anti-patriarchal operation of shaving. Everything went on so
sociably, so quietly, so harmoniously, in the great kitchen,—it seemed
so pleasant to every one to do just what they were doing, there was
such an atmosphere of mutual confidence and good fellowship
everywhere,—even the knives and forks had a social clatter as they went
on to the table; and the chicken and ham had a cheerful and joyous
fizzle in the pan, as if they rather enjoyed being cooked than
otherwise;—and when George and Eliza and little Harry came out, they
met such a hearty, rejoicing welcome, no wonder it seemed to them like
a dream.

At last, they were all seated at breakfast, while Mary stood at the
stove, baking griddle-cakes, which, as they gained the true exact
golden-brown tint of perfection, were transferred quite handily to the
table.

Rachel never looked so truly and benignly happy as at the head of her
table. There was so much motherliness and full-heartedness even in the
way she passed a plate of cakes or poured a cup of coffee, that it
seemed to put a spirit into the food and drink she offered.

It was the first time that ever George had sat down on equal terms at
any white man’s table; and he sat down, at first, with some constraint
and awkwardness; but they all exhaled and went off like fog, in the
genial morning rays of this simple, overflowing kindness.

This, indeed, was a home,—_home_,—a word that George had never yet
known a meaning for; and a belief in God, and trust in his providence,
began to encircle his heart, as, with a golden cloud of protection and
confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining atheistic doubts, and fierce
despair, melted away before the light of a living Gospel, breathed in
living faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and good
will, which, like the cup of cold water given in the name of a
disciple, shall never lose their reward.

“Father, what if thee should get found out again?” said Simeon second,
as he buttered his cake.

“I should pay my fine,” said Simeon, quietly.

“But what if they put thee in prison?”

“Couldn’t thee and mother manage the farm?” said Simeon, smiling.

“Mother can do almost everything,” said the boy. “But isn’t it a shame
to make such laws?”

“Thee mustn’t speak evil of thy rulers, Simeon,” said his father,
gravely. “The Lord only gives us our worldly goods that we may do
justice and mercy; if our rulers require a price of us for it, we must
deliver it up.

“Well, I hate those old slaveholders!” said the boy, who felt as
unchristian as became any modern reformer.

“I am surprised at thee, son,” said Simeon; “thy mother never taught
thee so. I would do even the same for the slaveholder as for the slave,
if the Lord brought him to my door in affliction.”

Simeon second blushed scarlet; but his mother only smiled, and said,
“Simeon is my good boy; he will grow older, by and by, and then he will
be like his father.”

“I hope, my good sir, that you are not exposed to any difficulty on our
account,” said George, anxiously.

“Fear nothing, George, for therefore are we sent into the world. If we
would not meet trouble for a good cause, we were not worthy of our
name.”

“But, for _me_,” said George, “I could not bear it.”

“Fear not, then, friend George; it is not for thee, but for God and
man, we do it,” said Simeon. “And now thou must lie by quietly this
day, and tonight, at ten o’clock, Phineas Fletcher will carry thee
onward to the next stand,—thee and the rest of thy company. The
pursuers are hard after thee; we must not delay.”

“If that is the case, why wait till evening?” said George.

“Thou art safe here by daylight, for every one in the settlement is a
Friend, and all are watching. It has been found safer to travel by
night.”




CHAPTER XIV
Evangeline


“A young star! which shone
O’er life—too sweet an image, for such glass!
A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded;
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”


The Mississippi! How, as by an enchanted wand, have its scenes been
changed, since Chateaubriand wrote his prose-poetic description of
it,[1] as a river of mighty, unbroken solitudes, rolling amid undreamed
wonders of vegetable and animal existence.

 [1] _In Atala; or the Love and Constantcy of Two Savages in the
 Desert_ (1801) by Francois Auguste Rene, Vicomte de Chateaubriand
 (1768-1848).


But as in an hour, this river of dreams and wild romance has emerged to
a reality scarcely less visionary and splendid. What other river of the
world bears on its bosom to the ocean the wealth and enterprise of such
another country?—a country whose products embrace all between the
tropics and the poles! Those turbid waters, hurrying, foaming, tearing
along, an apt resemblance of that headlong tide of business which is
poured along its wave by a race more vehement and energetic than any
the old world ever saw. Ah! would that they did not also bear along a
more fearful freight,—the tears of the oppressed, the sighs of the
helpless, the bitter prayers of poor, ignorant hearts to an unknown
God—unknown, unseen and silent, but who will yet “come out of his place
to save all the poor of the earth!”

The slanting light of the setting sun quivers on the sea-like expanse
of the river; the shivery canes, and the tall, dark cypress, hung with
wreaths of dark, funereal moss, glow in the golden ray, as the
heavily-laden steamboat marches onward.

Piled with cotton-bales, from many a plantation, up over deck and
sides, till she seems in the distance a square, massive block of gray,
she moves heavily onward to the nearing mart. We must look some time
among its crowded decks before we shall find again our humble friend
Tom. High on the upper deck, in a little nook among the everywhere
predominant cotton-bales, at last we may find him.

Partly from confidence inspired by Mr. Shelby’s representations, and
partly from the remarkably inoffensive and quiet character of the man,
Tom had insensibly won his way far into the confidence even of such a
man as Haley.

At first he had watched him narrowly through the day, and never allowed
him to sleep at night unfettered; but the uncomplaining patience and
apparent contentment of Tom’s manner led him gradually to discontinue
these restraints, and for some time Tom had enjoyed a sort of parole of
honor, being permitted to come and go freely where he pleased on the
boat.

Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready to lend a hand in every
emergency which occurred among the workmen below, he had won the good
opinion of all the hands, and spent many hours in helping them with as
hearty a good will as ever he worked on a Kentucky farm.

When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he would climb to a nook
among the cotton-bales of the upper deck, and busy himself in studying
over his Bible,—and it is there we see him now.

For a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the river is higher than
the surrounding country, and rolls its tremendous volume between
massive levees twenty feet in height. The traveller from the deck of
the steamer, as from some floating castle top, overlooks the whole
country for miles and miles around. Tom, therefore, had spread out full
before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the life to which
he was approaching.

He saw the distant slaves at their toil; he saw afar their villages of
huts gleaming out in long rows on many a plantation, distant from the
stately mansions and pleasure-grounds of the master;—and as the moving
picture passed on, his poor, foolish heart would be turning backward to
the Kentucky farm, with its old shadowy beeches,—to the master’s house,
with its wide, cool halls, and, near by, the little cabin overgrown
with the multiflora and bignonia. There he seemed to see familiar faces
of comrades who had grown up with him from infancy; he saw his busy
wife, bustling in her preparations for his evening meals; he heard the
merry laugh of his boys at their play, and the chirrup of the baby at
his knee; and then, with a start, all faded, and he saw again the
canebrakes and cypresses and gliding plantations, and heard again the
creaking and groaning of the machinery, all telling him too plainly
that all that phase of life had gone by forever.

In such a case, you write to your wife, and send messages to your
children; but Tom could not write,—the mail for him had no existence,
and the gulf of separation was unbridged by even a friendly word or
signal.

Is it strange, then, that some tears fall on the pages of his Bible, as
he lays it on the cotton-bale, and, with patient finger, threading his
slow way from word to word, traces out its promises? Having learned
late in life, Tom was but a slow reader, and passed on laboriously from
verse to verse. Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on
was one which slow reading cannot injure,—nay, one whose words, like
ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the
mind may take in their priceless value. Let us follow him a moment, as,
pointing to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads,

“Let—not—your—heart—be—troubled.
In—my—Father’s—house—are—many—mansions.
I—go—to—prepare—a—place—for—you.”

Cicero, when he buried his darling and only daughter, had a heart as
full of honest grief as poor Tom’s,—perhaps no fuller, for both were
only men;—but Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope,
and look to no such future reunion; and if he _had_ seen them, ten to
one he would not have believed,—he must fill his head first with a
thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of
translation. But, to poor Tom, there it lay, just what he needed, so
evidently true and divine that the possibility of a question never
entered his simple head. It must be true; for, if not true, how could
he live?

As for Tom’s Bible, though it had no annotations and helps in margin
from learned commentators, still it had been embellished with certain
way-marks and guide-boards of Tom’s own invention, and which helped him
more than the most learned expositions could have done. It had been his
custom to get the Bible read to him by his master’s children, in
particular by young Master George; and, as they read, he would
designate, by bold, strong marks and dashes, with pen and ink, the
passages which more particularly gratified his ear or affected his
heart. His Bible was thus marked through, from one end to the other,
with a variety of styles and designations; so he could in a moment
seize upon his favorite passages, without the labor of spelling out
what lay between them;—and while it lay there before him, every passage
breathing of some old home scene, and recalling some past enjoyment,
his Bible seemed to him all of this life that remained, as well as the
promise of a future one.

Among the passengers on the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and
family, resident in New Orleans, who bore the name of St. Clare. He had
with him a daughter between five and six years of age, together with a
lady who seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little
one especially under her charge.

Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,—for she was one of
those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one
place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze,—nor was she one that, once
seen, could be easily forgotten.

Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual
chubbiness and squareness of outline. There was about it an undulating
and aerial grace, such as one might dream of for some mythic and
allegorical being. Her face was remarkable less for its perfect beauty
of feature than for a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression,
which made the ideal start when they looked at her, and by which the
dullest and most literal were impressed, without exactly knowing why.
The shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust was peculiarly
noble, and the long golden-brown hair that floated like a cloud around
it, the deep spiritual gravity of her violet blue eyes, shaded by heavy
fringes of golden brown,—all marked her out from other children, and
made every one turn and look after her, as she glided hither and
thither on the boat. Nevertheless, the little one was not what you
would have called either a grave child or a sad one. On the contrary,
an airy and innocent playfulness seemed to flicker like the shadow of
summer leaves over her childish face, and around her buoyant figure.
She was always in motion, always with a half smile on her rosy mouth,
flying hither and thither, with an undulating and cloud-like tread,
singing to herself as she moved as in a happy dream. Her father and
female guardian were incessantly busy in pursuit of her,—but, when
caught, she melted from them again like a summer cloud; and as no word
of chiding or reproof ever fell on her ear for whatever she chose to
do, she pursued her own way all over the boat. Always dressed in white,
she seemed to move like a shadow through all sorts of places, without
contracting spot or stain; and there was not a corner or nook, above or
below, where those fairy footsteps had not glided, and that visionary
golden head, with its deep blue eyes, fleeted along.

The fireman, as he looked up from his sweaty toil, sometimes found
those eyes looking wonderingly into the raging depths of the furnace,
and fearfully and pityingly at him, as if she thought him in some
dreadful danger. Anon the steersman at the wheel paused and smiled, as
the picture-like head gleamed through the window of the round house,
and in a moment was gone again. A thousand times a day rough voices
blessed her, and smiles of unwonted softness stole over hard faces, as
she passed; and when she tripped fearlessly over dangerous places,
rough, sooty hands were stretched involuntarily out to save her, and
smooth her path.

Tom, who had the soft, impressible nature of his kindly race, ever
yearning toward the simple and childlike, watched the little creature
with daily increasing interest. To him she seemed something almost
divine; and whenever her golden head and deep blue eyes peered out upon
him from behind some dusky cotton-bale, or looked down upon him over
some ridge of packages, he half believed that he saw one of the angels
stepped out of his New Testament.

Often and often she walked mournfully round the place where Haley’s
gang of men and women sat in their chains. She would glide in among
them, and look at them with an air of perplexed and sorrowful
earnestness; and sometimes she would lift their chains with her slender
hands, and then sigh wofully, as she glided away. Several times she
appeared suddenly among them, with her hands full of candy, nuts, and
oranges, which she would distribute joyfully to them, and then be gone
again.

Tom watched the little lady a great deal, before he ventured on any
overtures towards acquaintanceship. He knew an abundance of simple acts
to propitiate and invite the approaches of the little people, and he
resolved to play his part right skilfully. He could cut cunning little
baskets out of cherry-stones, could make grotesque faces on
hickory-nuts, or odd-jumping figures out of elder-pith, and he was a
very Pan in the manufacture of whistles of all sizes and sorts. His
pockets were full of miscellaneous articles of attraction, which he had
hoarded in days of old for his master’s children, and which he now
produced, with commendable prudence and economy, one by one, as
overtures for acquaintance and friendship.

The little one was shy, for all her busy interest in everything going
on, and it was not easy to tame her. For a while, she would perch like
a canary-bird on some box or package near Tom, while busy in the little
arts afore-named, and take from him, with a kind of grave bashfulness,
the little articles he offered. But at last they got on quite
confidential terms.

“What’s little missy’s name?” said Tom, at last, when he thought
matters were ripe to push such an inquiry.

“Evangeline St. Clare,” said the little one, “though papa and everybody
else call me Eva. Now, what’s your name?”

“My name’s Tom; the little chil’en used to call me Uncle Tom, way back
thar in Kentuck.”

“Then I mean to call you Uncle Tom, because, you see, I like you,” said
Eva. “So, Uncle Tom, where are you going?”

“I don’t know, Miss Eva.”

“Don’t know?” said Eva.

“No, I am going to be sold to somebody. I don’t know who.”

“My papa can buy you,” said Eva, quickly; “and if he buys you, you will
have good times. I mean to ask him, this very day.”

“Thank you, my little lady,” said Tom.

The boat here stopped at a small landing to take in wood, and Eva,
hearing her father’s voice, bounded nimbly away. Tom rose up, and went
forward to offer his service in wooding, and soon was busy among the
hands.

Eva and her father were standing together by the railings to see the
boat start from the landing-place, the wheel had made two or three
revolutions in the water, when, by some sudden movement, the little one
suddenly lost her balance and fell sheer over the side of the boat into
the water. Her father, scarce knowing what he did, was plunging in
after her, but was held back by some behind him, who saw that more
efficient aid had followed his child.

Tom was standing just under her on the lower deck, as she fell. He saw
her strike the water, and sink, and was after her in a moment. A
broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, it was nothing for him to keep
afloat in the water, till, in a moment or two the child rose to the
surface, and he caught her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the
boat-side, handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of
hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were stretched
eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, and her father bore
her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies’ cabin, where, as is usual
in cases of the kind, there ensued a very well-meaning and kind-hearted
strife among the female occupants generally, as to who should do the
most things to make a disturbance, and to hinder her recovery in every
way possible.


It was a sultry, close day, the next day, as the steamer drew near to
New Orleans. A general bustle of expectation and preparation was spread
through the boat; in the cabin, one and another were gathering their
things together, and arranging them, preparatory to going ashore. The
steward and chambermaid, and all, were busily engaged in cleaning,
furbishing, and arranging the splendid boat, preparatory to a grand
entree.

On the lower deck sat our friend Tom, with his arms folded, and
anxiously, from time to time, turning his eyes towards a group on the
other side of the boat.

There stood the fair Evangeline, a little paler than the day before,
but otherwise exhibiting no traces of the accident which had befallen
her. A graceful, elegantly-formed young man stood by her, carelessly
leaning one elbow on a bale of cotton while a large pocket-book lay
open before him. It was quite evident, at a glance, that the gentleman
was Eva’s father. There was the same noble cast of head, the same large
blue eyes, the same golden-brown hair; yet the expression was wholly
different. In the large, clear blue eyes, though in form and color
exactly similar, there was wanting that misty, dreamy depth of
expression; all was clear, bold, and bright, but with a light wholly of
this world: the beautifully cut mouth had a proud and somewhat
sarcastic expression, while an air of free-and-easy superiority sat not
ungracefully in every turn and movement of his fine form. He was
listening, with a good-humored, negligent air, half comic, half
contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly expatiating on the quality
of the article for which they were bargaining.

“All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black Morocco, complete!”
he said, when Haley had finished. “Well, now, my good fellow, what’s
the damage, as they say in Kentucky; in short, what’s to be paid out
for this business? How much are you going to cheat me, now? Out with
it!”

“Wal,” said Haley, “if I should say thirteen hundred dollars for that
ar fellow, I shouldn’t but just save myself; I shouldn’t, now, re’ly.”

“Poor fellow!” said the young man, fixing his keen, mocking blue eye on
him; “but I suppose you’d let me have him for that, out of a particular
regard for me.”

“Well, the young lady here seems to be sot on him, and nat’lly enough.”

“O! certainly, there’s a call on your benevolence, my friend. Now, as a
matter of Christian charity, how cheap could you afford to let him go,
to oblige a young lady that’s particular sot on him?”

“Wal, now, just think on ’t,” said the trader; “just look at them
limbs,—broad-chested, strong as a horse. Look at his head; them high
forrads allays shows calculatin niggers, that’ll do any kind o’ thing.
I’ve, marked that ar. Now, a nigger of that ar heft and build is worth
considerable, just as you may say, for his body, supposin he’s stupid;
but come to put in his calculatin faculties, and them which I can show
he has oncommon, why, of course, it makes him come higher. Why, that ar
fellow managed his master’s whole farm. He has a strornary talent for
business.”

“Bad, bad, very bad; knows altogether too much!” said the young man,
with the same mocking smile playing about his mouth. “Never will do, in
the world. Your smart fellows are always running off, stealing horses,
and raising the devil generally. I think you’ll have to take off a
couple of hundred for his smartness.”

“Wal, there might be something in that ar, if it warnt for his
character; but I can show recommends from his master and others, to
prove he is one of your real pious,—the most humble, prayin, pious
crittur ye ever did see. Why, he’s been called a preacher in them parts
he came from.”

“And I might use him for a family chaplain, possibly,” added the young
man, dryly. “That’s quite an idea. Religion is a remarkably scarce
article at our house.”

“You’re joking, now.”

“How do you know I am? Didn’t you just warrant him for a preacher? Has
he been examined by any synod or council? Come, hand over your papers.”

If the trader had not been sure, by a certain good-humored twinkle in
the large eye, that all this banter was sure, in the long run, to turn
out a cash concern, he might have been somewhat out of patience; as it
was, he laid down a greasy pocket-book on the cotton-bales, and began
anxiously studying over certain papers in it, the young man standing
by, the while, looking down on him with an air of careless, easy
drollery.

“Papa, do buy him! it’s no matter what you pay,” whispered Eva, softly,
getting up on a package, and putting her arm around her father’s neck.
“You have money enough, I know. I want him.”

“What for, pussy? Are you going to use him for a rattle-box, or a
rocking-horse, or what?

“I want to make him happy.”

“An original reason, certainly.”

Here the trader handed up a certificate, signed by Mr. Shelby, which
the young man took with the tips of his long fingers, and glanced over
carelessly.

“A gentlemanly hand,” he said, “and well spelt, too. Well, now, but I’m
not sure, after all, about this religion,” said he, the old wicked
expression returning to his eye; “the country is almost ruined with
pious white people; such pious politicians as we have just before
elections,—such pious goings on in all departments of church and state,
that a fellow does not know who’ll cheat him next. I don’t know,
either, about religion’s being up in the market, just now. I have not
looked in the papers lately, to see how it sells. How many hundred
dollars, now, do you put on for this religion?”

“You like to be jokin, now,” said the trader; “but, then, there’s
_sense_ under all that ar. I know there’s differences in religion. Some
kinds is mis’rable: there’s your meetin pious; there’s your singin,
roarin pious; them ar an’t no account, in black or white;—but these
rayly is; and I’ve seen it in niggers as often as any, your rail
softly, quiet, stiddy, honest, pious, that the hull world couldn’t
tempt ’em to do nothing that they thinks is wrong; and ye see in this
letter what Tom’s old master says about him.”

“Now,” said the young man, stooping gravely over his book of bills, “if
you can assure me that I really can buy _this_ kind of pious, and that
it will be set down to my account in the book up above, as something
belonging to me, I wouldn’t care if I did go a little extra for it. How
d’ye say?”

“Wal, raily, I can’t do that,” said the trader. “I’m a thinkin that
every man’ll have to hang on his own hook, in them ar quarters.”

“Rather hard on a fellow that pays extra on religion, and can’t trade
with it in the state where he wants it most, an’t it, now?” said the
young man, who had been making out a roll of bills while he was
speaking. “There, count your money, old boy!” he added, as he handed
the roll to the trader.

“All right,” said Haley, his face beaming with delight; and pulling out
an old inkhorn, he proceeded to fill out a bill of sale, which, in a
few moments, he handed to the young man.

“I wonder, now, if I was divided up and inventoried,” said the latter
as he ran over the paper, “how much I might bring. Say so much for the
shape of my head, so much for a high forehead, so much for arms, and
hands, and legs, and then so much for education, learning, talent,
honesty, religion! Bless me! there would be small charge on that last,
I’m thinking. But come, Eva,” he said; and taking the hand of his
daughter, he stepped across the boat, and carelessly putting the tip of
his finger under Tom’s chin, said, good-humoredly, “Look-up, Tom, and
see how you like your new master.”

Tom looked up. It was not in nature to look into that gay, young,
handsome face, without a feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears
start in his eyes as he said, heartily, “God bless you, Mas’r!”

“Well, I hope he will. What’s your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it
for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses, Tom?”

“I’ve been allays used to horses,” said Tom. “Mas’r Shelby raised heaps
of ’em.”

“Well, I think I shall put you in coachy, on condition that you won’t
be drunk more than once a week, unless in cases of emergency, Tom.”

Tom looked surprised, and rather hurt, and said, “I never drink,
Mas’r.”

“I’ve heard that story before, Tom; but then we’ll see. It will be a
special accommodation to all concerned, if you don’t. Never mind, my
boy,” he added, good-humoredly, seeing Tom still looked grave; “I don’t
doubt you mean to do well.”

“I sartin do, Mas’r,” said Tom.

“And you shall have good times,” said Eva. “Papa is very good to
everybody, only he always will laugh at them.”

“Papa is much obliged to you for his recommendation,” said St. Clare,
laughing, as he turned on his heel and walked away.




CHAPTER XV
Of Tom’s New Master, and Various Other Matters


Since the thread of our humble hero’s life has now become interwoven
with that of higher ones, it is necessary to give some brief
introduction to them.

Augustine St. Clare was the son of a wealthy planter of Louisiana. The
family had its origin in Canada. Of two brothers, very similar in
temperament and character, one had settled on a flourishing farm in
Vermont, and the other became an opulent planter in Louisiana. The
mother of Augustine was a Huguenot French lady, whose family had
emigrated to Louisiana during the days of its early settlement.
Augustine and another brother were the only children of their parents.
Having inherited from his mother an exceeding delicacy of constitution,
he was, at the instance of physicians, during many years of his
boyhood, sent to the care of his uncle in Vermont, in order that his
constitution might be strengthened by the cold of a more bracing
climate.

In childhood, he was remarkable for an extreme and marked sensitiveness
of character, more akin to the softness of woman than the ordinary
hardness of his own sex. Time, however, overgrew this softness with the
rough bark of manhood, and but few knew how living and fresh it still
lay at the core. His talents were of the very first order, although his
mind showed a preference always for the ideal and the æsthetic, and
there was about him that repugnance to the actual business of life
which is the common result of this balance of the faculties. Soon after
the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into
one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour
came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that
star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of
dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he saw and won
the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern
states, and they were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements
for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned
to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating to him
that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung
to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the
whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to
supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl
of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal
letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and
as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband of a fine
figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars;
and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow.

The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and entertaining a
brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa, near Lake
Pontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought to him in _that_
well-remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide
of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He
turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his
composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at
the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after,
was missed from the circle. In his room, alone, he opened and read the
letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her,
giving a long account of a persecution to which she had been exposed by
her guardian’s family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: and
she related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to arrive; how
she had written time and again, till she became weary and doubtful; how
her health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she had
discovered the whole fraud which had been practised on them both. The
letter ended with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions
of undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the unhappy
young man. He wrote to her immediately:

“I have received yours,—but too late. I believed all I heard. I was
desperate. _I am married_, and all is over. Only forget,—it is all that
remains for either of us.”

And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St.
Clare. But the _real_ remained,—the _real_, like the flat, bare, oozy
tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding
boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has
gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,—exceedingly real.

Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is
the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life
we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a
most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking,
visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what
is commonly called _living_, yet to be gone through; and this yet
remained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman, she might yet
have done something—as woman can—to mend the broken threads of life,
and weave again into a tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could
not even see that they had been broken. As before stated, she consisted
of a fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand
dollars; and none of these items were precisely the ones to minister to
a mind diseased.

When Augustine, pale as death, was found lying on the sofa, and pleaded
sudden sick-headache as the cause of his distress, she recommended to
him to smell of hartshorn; and when the paleness and headache came on
week after week, she only said that she never thought Mr. St. Clare was
sickly; but it seems he was very liable to sick-headaches, and that it
was a very unfortunate thing for her, because he didn’t enjoy going
into company with her, and it seemed odd to go so much alone, when they
were just married. Augustine was glad in his heart that he had married
so undiscerning a woman; but as the glosses and civilities of the
honeymoon wore away, he discovered that a beautiful young woman, who
has lived all her life to be caressed and waited on, might prove quite
a hard mistress in domestic life. Marie never had possessed much
capability of affection, or much sensibility, and the little that she
had, had been merged into a most intense and unconscious selfishness; a
selfishness the more hopeless, from its quiet obtuseness, its utter
ignorance of any claims but her own. From her infancy, she had been
surrounded with servants, who lived only to study her caprices; the
idea that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her,
even in distant perspective. Her father, whose only child she had been,
had never denied her anything that lay within the compass of human
possibility; and when she entered life, beautiful, accomplished, and an
heiress, she had, of course, all the eligibles and non-eligibles of the
other sex sighing at her feet, and she had no doubt that Augustine was
a most fortunate man in having obtained her. It is a great mistake to
suppose that a woman with no heart will be an easy creditor in the
exchange of affection. There is not on earth a more merciless exactor
of love from others than a thoroughly selfish woman; and the more
unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she exacts
love, to the uttermost farthing. When, therefore, St. Clare began to
drop off those gallantries and small attentions which flowed at first
through the habitude of courtship, he found his sultana no way ready to
resign her slave; there were abundance of tears, poutings, and small
tempests, there were discontents, pinings, upbraidings. St. Clare was
good-natured and self-indulgent, and sought to buy off with presents
and flatteries; and when Marie became mother to a beautiful daughter,
he really felt awakened, for a time, to something like tenderness.

St. Clare’s mother had been a woman of uncommon elevation and purity of
character, and he gave to his child his mother’s name, fondly fancying
that she would prove a reproduction of her image. The thing had been
remarked with petulant jealousy by his wife, and she regarded her
husband’s absorbing devotion to the child with suspicion and dislike;
all that was given to her seemed so much taken from herself. From the
time of the birth of this child, her health gradually sunk. A life of
constant inaction, bodily and mental,—the friction of ceaseless ennui
and discontent, united to the ordinary weakness which attended the
period of maternity,—in course of a few years changed the blooming
young belle into a yellow faded, sickly woman, whose time was divided
among a variety of fanciful diseases, and who considered herself, in
every sense, the most ill-used and suffering person in existence.

There was no end of her various complaints; but her principal forte
appeared to lie in sick-headache, which sometimes would confine her to
her room three days out of six. As, of course, all family arrangements
fell into the hands of servants, St. Clare found his menage anything
but comfortable. His only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he
feared that, with no one to look after her and attend to her, her
health and life might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother’s
inefficiency. He had taken her with him on a tour to Vermont, and had
persuaded his cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with him to his
southern residence; and they are now returning on this boat, where we
have introduced them to our readers.

And now, while the distant domes and spires of New Orleans rise to our
view, there is yet time for an introduction to Miss Ophelia.

Whoever has travelled in the New England States will remember, in some
cool village, the large farmhouse, with its clean-swept grassy yard,
shaded by the dense and massive foliage of the sugar maple; and
remember the air of order and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging
repose, that seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost, or
out of order; not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle of litter
in the turfy yard, with its clumps of lilac bushes growing up under the
windows. Within, he will remember wide, clean rooms, where nothing ever
seems to be doing or going to be done, where everything is once and
forever rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements move
with the punctual exactness of the old clock in the corner. In the
family “keeping-room,” as it is termed, he will remember the staid,
respectable old book-case, with its glass doors, where Rollin’s
History,[1] Milton’s Paradise Lost, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and
Scott’s Family Bible,[2] stand side by side in decorous order, with
multitudes of other books, equally solemn and respectable. There are no
servants in the house, but the lady in the snowy cap, with the
spectacles, who sits sewing every afternoon among her daughters, as if
nothing ever had been done, or were to be done,—she and her girls, in
some long-forgotten fore part of the day, “_did up the work_,” and for
the rest of the time, probably, at all hours when you would see them,
it is “_done up_.” The old kitchen floor never seems stained or
spotted; the tables, the chairs, and the various cooking utensils,
never seem deranged or disordered; though three and sometimes four
meals a day are got there, though the family washing and ironing is
there performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in some
silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence.

 [1] _The Ancient History_, ten volumes (1730-1738), by the French
 historian Charles Rollin (1661-1741).


 [2] _Scott’s Family Bible_ (1788-1792), edited with notes by the
 English Biblical commentator, Thomas Scott (1747-1821).


On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had spent a
quiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin invited her
to visit his southern mansion. The eldest of a large family, she was
still considered by her father and mother as one of “the children,” and
the proposal that she should go to _Orleans_ was a most momentous one
to the family circle. The old gray-headed father took down Morse’s
Atlas[3] out of the book-case, and looked out the exact latitude and
longitude; and read Flint’s Travels in the South and West,[4] to make
up his own mind as to the nature of the country.

 [3] _The Cerographic Atlas of the United States_ (1842-1845), by
 Sidney Edwards Morse (1794-1871), son of the geographer, Jedidiah
 Morse, and brother of the painter-inventor, Samuel F. B. Morse.


 [4] _Recollections of the Last Ten Years_ (1826) by Timothy Flint
 (1780-1840), missionary of Presbyterianism to the trans-Allegheny
 West.


The good mother inquired, anxiously, “if Orleans wasn’t an awful wicked
place,” saying, “that it seemed to her most equal to going to the
Sandwich Islands, or anywhere among the heathen.”

It was known at the minister’s and at the doctor’s, and at Miss
Peabody’s milliner shop, that Ophelia St. Clare was “talking about”
going away down to Orleans with her cousin; and of course the whole
village could do no less than help this very important process of
_talking about_ the matter. The minister, who inclined strongly to
abolitionist views, was quite doubtful whether such a step might not
tend somewhat to encourage the southerners in holding on to their
slaves; while the doctor, who was a stanch colonizationist, inclined to
the opinion that Miss Ophelia ought to go, to show the Orleans people
that we don’t think hardly of them, after all. He was of opinion, in
fact, that southern people needed encouraging. When however, the fact
that she had resolved to go was fully before the public mind, she was
solemnly invited out to tea by all her friends and neighbors for the
space of a fortnight, and her prospects and plans duly canvassed and
inquired into. Miss Moseley, who came into the house to help to do the
dress-making, acquired daily accessions of importance from the
developments with regard to Miss Ophelia’s wardrobe which she had been
enabled to make. It was credibly ascertained that Squire Sinclare, as
his name was commonly contracted in the neighborhood, had counted out
fifty dollars, and given them to Miss Ophelia, and told her to buy any
clothes she thought best; and that two new silk dresses, and a bonnet,
had been sent for from Boston. As to the propriety of this
extraordinary outlay, the public mind was divided,—some affirming that
it was well enough, all things considered, for once in one’s life, and
others stoutly affirming that the money had better have been sent to
the missionaries; but all parties agreed that there had been no such
parasol seen in those parts as had been sent on from New York, and that
she had one silk dress that might fairly be trusted to stand alone,
whatever might be said of its mistress. There were credible rumors,
also, of a hemstitched pocket-handkerchief; and report even went so far
as to state that Miss Ophelia had one pocket-handkerchief with lace all
around it,—it was even added that it was worked in the corners; but
this latter point was never satisfactorily ascertained, and remains, in
fact, unsettled to this day.

Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, in a very
shining brown linen travelling-dress, tall, square-formed, and angular.
Her face was thin, and rather sharp in its outlines; the lips
compressed, like those of a person who is in the habit of making up her
mind definitely on all subjects; while the keen, dark eyes had a
peculiarly searching, advised movement, and travelled over everything,
as if they were looking for something to take care of.

All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic; and, though she
was never much of a talker, her words were remarkably direct, and to
the purpose, when she did speak.

In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method, and
exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock, and as
inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most decided contempt
and abomination anything of a contrary character.

The great sin of sins, in her eyes,—the sum of all evils,—was expressed
by one very common and important word in her
vocabulary—“shiftlessness.” Her finale and ultimatum of contempt
consisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of the word “shiftless;” and
by this she characterized all modes of procedure which had not a direct
and inevitable relation to accomplishment of some purpose then
definitely had in mind. People who did nothing, or who did not know
exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most direct
way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of her
entire contempt,—a contempt shown less frequently by anything she said,
than by a kind of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anything
about the matter.

As to mental cultivation,—she had a clear, strong, active mind, was
well and thoroughly read in history and the older English classics, and
thought with great strength within certain narrow limits. Her
theological tenets were all made up, labelled in most positive and
distinct forms, and put by, like the bundles in her patch trunk; there
were just so many of them, and there were never to be any more. So,
also, were her ideas with regard to most matters of practical
life,—such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the various
political relations of her native village. And, underlying all, deeper
than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle of
her being—conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant and
all-absorbing as with New England women. It is the granite formation,
which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops of the highest
mountains.

Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond-slave of the “_ought_.” Once make
her certain that the “path of duty,” as she commonly phrased it, lay in
any given direction, and fire and water could not keep her from it. She
would walk straight down into a well, or up to a loaded cannon’s mouth,
if she were only quite sure that there the path lay. Her standard of
right was so high, so all-embracing, so minute, and making so few
concessions to human frailty, that, though she strove with heroic ardor
to reach it, she never actually did so, and of course was burdened with
a constant and often harassing sense of deficiency;—this gave a severe
and somewhat gloomy cast to her religious character.

But, how in the world can Miss Ophelia get along with Augustine St.
Clare,—gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, sceptical,—in short,—walking
with impudent and nonchalant freedom over every one of her most
cherished habits and opinions?

To tell the truth, then, Miss Ophelia loved him. When a boy, it had
been hers to teach him his catechism, mend his clothes, comb his hair,
and bring him up generally in the way he should go; and her heart
having a warm side to it, Augustine had, as he usually did with most
people, monopolized a large share of it for himself, and therefore it
was that he succeeded very easily in persuading her that the “path of
duty” lay in the direction of New Orleans, and that she must go with
him to take care of Eva, and keep everything from going to wreck and
ruin during the frequent illnesses of his wife. The idea of a house
without anybody to take care of it went to her heart; then she loved
the lovely little girl, as few could help doing; and though she
regarded Augustine as very much of a heathen, yet she loved him,
laughed at his jokes, and forbore with his failings, to an extent which
those who knew him thought perfectly incredible. But what more or other
is to be known of Miss Ophelia our reader must discover by a personal
acquaintance.

There she is, sitting now in her state-room, surrounded by a mixed
multitude of little and big carpet-bags, boxes, baskets, each
containing some separate responsibility which she is tying, binding up,
packing, or fastening, with a face of great earnestness.

“Now, Eva, have you kept count of your things? Of course you
haven’t,—children never do: there’s the spotted carpet-bag and the
little blue band-box with your best bonnet,—that’s two; then the India
rubber satchel is three; and my tape and needle box is four; and my
band-box, five; and my collar-box; and that little hair trunk, seven.
What have you done with your sunshade? Give it to me, and let me put a
paper round it, and tie it to my umbrella with my shade;—there, now.”

“Why, aunty, we are only going up home;—what is the use?”

“To keep it nice, child; people must take care of their things, if they
ever mean to have anything; and now, Eva, is your thimble put up?”

“Really, aunty, I don’t know.”

“Well, never mind; I’ll look your box over,—thimble, wax, two spools,
scissors, knife, tape-needle; all right,—put it in here. What did you
ever do, child, when you were coming on with only your papa. I should
have thought you’d a lost everything you had.”

“Well, aunty, I did lose a great many; and then, when we stopped
anywhere, papa would buy some more of whatever it was.”

“Mercy on us, child,—what a way!”

“It was a very easy way, aunty,” said Eva.

“It’s a dreadful shiftless one,” said aunty.

“Why, aunty, what’ll you do now?” said Eva; “that trunk is too full to
be shut down.”

“It _must_ shut down,” said aunty, with the air of a general, as she
squeezed the things in, and sprung upon the lid;—still a little gap
remained about the mouth of the trunk.

“Get up here, Eva!” said Miss Ophelia, courageously; “what has been
done can be done again. This trunk has _got to be_ shut and
locked—there are no two ways about it.”

And the trunk, intimidated, doubtless, by this resolute statement, gave
in. The hasp snapped sharply in its hole, and Miss Ophelia turned the
key, and pocketed it in triumph.

“Now we’re ready. Where’s your papa? I think it time this baggage was
set out. Do look out, Eva, and see if you see your papa.”

“O, yes, he’s down the other end of the gentlemen’s cabin, eating an
orange.”

“He can’t know how near we are coming,” said aunty; “hadn’t you better
run and speak to him?”

“Papa never is in a hurry about anything,” said Eva, “and we haven’t
come to the landing. Do step on the guards, aunty. Look! there’s our
house, up that street!”

The boat now began, with heavy groans, like some vast, tired monster,
to prepare to push up among the multiplied steamers at the levee. Eva
joyously pointed out the various spires, domes, and way-marks, by which
she recognized her native city.

“Yes, yes, dear; very fine,” said Miss Ophelia. “But mercy on us! the
boat has stopped! where is your father?”

And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing—waiters running twenty ways
at once—men tugging trunks, carpet-bags, boxes—women anxiously calling
to their children, and everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank
towards the landing.

Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately vanquished trunk,
and marshalling all her goods and chattels in fine military order,
seemed resolved to defend them to the last.

“Shall I take your trunk, ma’am?” “Shall I take your baggage?” “Let me
’tend to your baggage, Missis?” “Shan’t I carry out these yer, Missis?”
rained down upon her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, upright
as a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of umbrella
and parasols, and replying with a determination that was enough to
strike dismay even into a hackman, wondering to Eva, in each interval,
“what upon earth her papa could be thinking of; he couldn’t have fallen
over, now,—but something must have happened;”—and just as she had begun
to work herself into a real distress, he came up, with his usually
careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the orange he was eating,
said,

“Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready.”

“I’ve been ready, waiting, nearly an hour,” said Miss Ophelia; “I began
to be really concerned about you.

“That’s a clever fellow, now,” said he. “Well, the carriage is waiting,
and the crowd are now off, so that one can walk out in a decent and
Christian manner, and not be pushed and shoved. Here,” he added to a
driver who stood behind him, “take these things.”

“I’ll go and see to his putting them in,” said Miss Ophelia.

“O, pshaw, cousin, what’s the use?” said St. Clare.

“Well, at any rate, I’ll carry this, and this, and this,” said Miss
Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small carpet-bag.

“My dear Miss Vermont, positively you mustn’t come the Green Mountains
over us that way. You must adopt at least a piece of a southern
principle, and not walk out under all that load. They’ll take you for a
waiting-maid; give them to this fellow; he’ll put them down as if they
were eggs, now.”

Miss Ophelia looked despairingly as her cousin took all her treasures
from her, and rejoiced to find herself once more in the carriage with
them, in a state of preservation.

“Where’s Tom?” said Eva.

“O, he’s on the outside, Pussy. I’m going to take Tom up to mother for
a peace-offering, to make up for that drunken fellow that upset the
carriage.”

“O, Tom will make a splendid driver, I know,” said Eva; “he’ll never
get drunk.”

The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built in that odd
mixture of Spanish and French style, of which there are specimens in
some parts of New Orleans. It was built in the Moorish fashion,—a
square building enclosing a court-yard, into which the carriage drove
through an arched gateway. The court, in the inside, had evidently been
arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality. Wide
galleries ran all around the four sides, whose Moorish arches, slender
pillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the mind back, as in a dream,
to the reign of oriental romance in Spain. In the middle of the court,
a fountain threw high its silvery water, falling in a never-ceasing
spray into a marble basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant
violets. The water in the fountain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with
myriads of gold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting through it
like so many living jewels. Around the fountain ran a walk, paved with
a mosaic of pebbles, laid in various fanciful patterns; and this,
again, was surrounded by turf, smooth as green velvet, while a
carriage-drive enclosed the whole. Two large orange-trees, now fragrant
with blossoms, threw a delicious shade; and, ranged in a circle round
upon the turf, were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing the
choicest flowering plants of the tropics. Huge pomegranate trees, with
their glossy leaves and flame-colored flowers, dark-leaved Arabian
jessamines, with their silvery stars, geraniums, luxuriant roses
bending beneath their heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines,
lemon-scented verbenum, all united their bloom and fragrance, while
here and there a mystic old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat
looking like some old enchanter, sitting in weird grandeur among the
more perishable bloom and fragrance around it.

The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned with a curtain
of some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be drawn down at pleasure, to
exclude the beams of the sun. On the whole, the appearance of the place
was luxurious and romantic.

As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like a bird ready to burst from a
cage, with the wild eagerness of her delight.

“O, isn’t it beautiful, lovely! my own dear, darling home!” she said to
Miss Ophelia. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“’T is a pretty place,” said Miss Ophelia, as she alighted; “though it
looks rather old and heathenish to me.”

Tom got down from the carriage, and looked about with an air of calm,
still enjoyment. The negro, it must be remembered, is an exotic of the
most gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has, deep in
his heart, a passion for all that is splendid, rich, and fanciful; a
passion which, rudely indulged by an untrained taste, draws on them the
ridicule of the colder and more correct white race.

St. Clare, who was in heart a poetical voluptuary, smiled as Miss
Ophelia made her remark on his premises, and, turning to Tom, who was
standing looking round, his beaming black face perfectly radiant with
admiration, he said,

“Tom, my boy, this seems to suit you.”

“Yes, Mas’r, it looks about the right thing,” said Tom.

All this passed in a moment, while trunks were being hustled off,
hackman paid, and while a crowd, of all ages and sizes,—men, women, and
children,—came running through the galleries, both above and below to
see Mas’r come in. Foremost among them was a highly-dressed young
mulatto man, evidently a very _distingue_ personage, attired in the
ultra extreme of the mode, and gracefully waving a scented cambric
handkerchief in his hand.

This personage had been exerting himself, with great alacrity, in
driving all the flock of domestics to the other end of the verandah.

“Back! all of you. I am ashamed of you,” he said, in a tone of
authority. “Would you intrude on Master’s domestic relations, in the
first hour of his return?”

All looked abashed at this elegant speech, delivered with quite an air,
and stood huddled together at a respectful distance, except two stout
porters, who came up and began conveying away the baggage.

Owing to Mr. Adolph’s systematic arrangements, when St. Clare turned
round from paying the hackman, there was nobody in view but Mr. Adolph
himself, conspicuous in satin vest, gold guard-chain, and white pants,
and bowing with inexpressible grace and suavity.

“Ah, Adolph, is it you?” said his master, offering his hand to him;
“how are you, boy?” while Adolph poured forth, with great fluency, an
extemporary speech, which he had been preparing, with great care, for a
fortnight before.

“Well, well,” said St. Clare, passing on, with his usual air of
negligent drollery, “that’s very well got up, Adolph. See that the
baggage is well bestowed. I’ll come to the people in a minute;” and, so
saying, he led Miss Ophelia to a large parlor that opened on the
verandah.

While this had been passing, Eva had flown like a bird, through the
porch and parlor, to a little boudoir opening likewise on the verandah.

A tall, dark-eyed, sallow woman, half rose from a couch on which she
was reclining.

“Mamma!” said Eva, in a sort of a rapture, throwing herself on her
neck, and embracing her over and over again.

“That’ll do,—take care, child,—don’t, you make my head ache,” said the
mother, after she had languidly kissed her.

St. Clare came in, embraced his wife in true, orthodox, husbandly
fashion, and then presented to her his cousin. Marie lifted her large
eyes on her cousin with an air of some curiosity, and received her with
languid politeness. A crowd of servants now pressed to the entry door,
and among them a middle-aged mulatto woman, of very respectable
appearance, stood foremost, in a tremor of expectation and joy, at the
door.

“O, there’s Mammy!” said Eva, as she flew across the room; and,
throwing herself into her arms, she kissed her repeatedly.

This woman did not tell her that she made her head ache, but, on the
contrary, she hugged her, and laughed, and cried, till her sanity was a
thing to be doubted of; and when released from her, Eva flew from one
to another, shaking hands and kissing, in a way that Miss Ophelia
afterwards declared fairly turned her stomach.

“Well!” said Miss Ophelia, “you southern children can do something that
_I_ couldn’t.”

“What, now, pray?” said St. Clare.

“Well, I want to be kind to everybody, and I wouldn’t have anything
hurt; but as to kissing—”

“Niggers,” said St. Clare, “that you’re not up to,—hey?”

“Yes, that’s it. How can she?”

St. Clare laughed, as he went into the passage. “Halloa, here, what’s
to pay out here? Here, you all—Mammy, Jimmy, Polly, Sukey—glad to see
Mas’r?” he said, as he went shaking hands from one to another. “Look
out for the babies!” he added, as he stumbled over a sooty little
urchin, who was crawling upon all fours. “If I step upon anybody, let
’em mention it.”

There was an abundance of laughing and blessing Mas’r, as St. Clare
distributed small pieces of change among them.

“Come, now, take yourselves off, like good boys and girls,” he said;
and the whole assemblage, dark and light, disappeared through a door
into a large verandah, followed by Eva, who carried a large satchel,
which she had been filling with apples, nuts, candy, ribbons, laces,
and toys of every description, during her whole homeward journey.

As St. Clare turned to go back his eye fell upon Tom, who was standing
uneasily, shifting from one foot to the other, while Adolph stood
negligently leaning against the banisters, examining Tom through an
opera-glass, with an air that would have done credit to any dandy
living.

“Puh! you puppy,” said his master, striking down the opera glass; “is
that the way you treat your company? Seems to me, Dolph,” he added,
laying his finger on the elegant figured satin vest that Adolph was
sporting, “seems to me that’s _my_ vest.”

“O! Master, this vest all stained with wine; of course, a gentleman in
Master’s standing never wears a vest like this. I understood I was to
take it. It does for a poor nigger-fellow, like me.”

And Adolph tossed his head, and passed his fingers through his scented
hair, with a grace.

“So, that’s it, is it?” said St. Clare, carelessly. “Well, here, I’m
going to show this Tom to his mistress, and then you take him to the
kitchen; and mind you don’t put on any of your airs to him. He’s worth
two such puppies as you.”

“Master always will have his joke,” said Adolph, laughing. “I’m
delighted to see Master in such spirits.”

“Here, Tom,” said St. Clare, beckoning.

Tom entered the room. He looked wistfully on the velvet carpets, and
the before unimagined splendors of mirrors, pictures, statues, and
curtains, and, like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon, there was no
more spirit in him. He looked afraid even to set his feet down.

“See here, Marie,” said St. Clare to his wife, “I’ve bought you a
coachman, at last, to order. I tell you, he’s a regular hearse for
blackness and sobriety, and will drive you like a funeral, if you want.
Open your eyes, now, and look at him. Now, don’t say I never think
about you when I’m gone.”

Marie opened her eyes, and fixed them on Tom, without rising.

“I know he’ll get drunk,” she said.

“No, he’s warranted a pious and sober article.”

“Well, I hope he may turn out well,” said the lady; “it’s more than I
expect, though.”

“Dolph,” said St. Clare, “show Tom down stairs; and, mind yourself,” he
added; “remember what I told you.”

Adolph tripped gracefully forward, and Tom, with lumbering tread, went
after.

“He’s a perfect behemoth!” said Marie.

“Come, now, Marie,” said St. Clare, seating himself on a stool beside
her sofa, “be gracious, and say something pretty to a fellow.”

“You’ve been gone a fortnight beyond the time,” said the lady, pouting.

“Well, you know I wrote you the reason.”

“Such a short, cold letter!” said the lady.

“Dear me! the mail was just going, and it had to be that or nothing.”

“That’s just the way, always,” said the lady; “always something to make
your journeys long, and letters short.”

“See here, now,” he added, drawing an elegant velvet case out of his
pocket, and opening it, “here’s a present I got for you in New York.”

It was a daguerreotype, clear and soft as an engraving, representing
Eva and her father sitting hand in hand.

Marie looked at it with a dissatisfied air.

“What made you sit in such an awkward position?” she said.

“Well, the position may be a matter of opinion; but what do you think
of the likeness?”

“If you don’t think anything of my opinion in one case, I suppose you
wouldn’t in another,” said the lady, shutting the daguerreotype.

“Hang the woman!” said St. Clare, mentally; but aloud he added, “Come,
now, Marie, what do you think of the likeness? Don’t be nonsensical,
now.”

“It’s very inconsiderate of you, St. Clare,” said the lady, “to insist
on my talking and looking at things. You know I’ve been lying all day
with the sick-headache; and there’s been such a tumult made ever since
you came, I’m half dead.”

“You’re subject to the sick-headache, ma’am!” said Miss Ophelia,
suddenly rising from the depths of the large arm-chair, where she had
sat quietly, taking an inventory of the furniture, and calculating its
expense.

“Yes, I’m a perfect martyr to it,” said the lady.

“Juniper-berry tea is good for sick-headache,” said Miss Ophelia; “at
least, Auguste, Deacon Abraham Perry’s wife, used to say so; and she
was a great nurse.”

“I’ll have the first juniper-berries that get ripe in our garden by the
lake brought in for that special purpose,” said St. Clare, gravely
pulling the bell as he did so; “meanwhile, cousin, you must be wanting
to retire to your apartment, and refresh yourself a little, after your
journey. Dolph,” he added, “tell Mammy to come here.” The decent
mulatto woman whom Eva had caressed so rapturously soon entered; she
was dressed neatly, with a high red and yellow turban on her head, the
recent gift of Eva, and which the child had been arranging on her head.
“Mammy,” said St. Clare, “I put this lady under your care; she is
tired, and wants rest; take her to her chamber, and be sure she is made
comfortable,” and Miss Ophelia disappeared in the rear of Mammy.




CHAPTER XVI
Tom’s Mistress and Her Opinions


“And now, Marie,” said St. Clare, “your golden days are dawning. Here
is our practical, business-like New England cousin, who will take the
whole budget of cares off your shoulders, and give you time to refresh
yourself, and grow young and handsome. The ceremony of delivering the
keys had better come off forthwith.”

This remark was made at the breakfast-table, a few mornings after Miss
Ophelia had arrived.

“I’m sure she’s welcome,” said Marie, leaning her head languidly on her
hand. “I think she’ll find one thing, if she does, and that is, that
it’s we mistresses that are the slaves, down here.”

“O, certainly, she will discover that, and a world of wholesome truths
besides, no doubt,” said St. Clare.

“Talk about our keeping slaves, as if we did it for our _convenience_,”
said Marie. “I’m sure, if we consulted _that_, we might let them all go
at once.”

Evangeline fixed her large, serious eyes on her mother’s face, with an
earnest and perplexed expression, and said, simply, “What do you keep
them for, mamma?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, except for a plague; they are the plague of my
life. I believe that more of my ill health is caused by them than by
any one thing; and ours, I know, are the very worst that ever anybody
was plagued with.”

“O, come, Marie, you’ve got the blues, this morning,” said St. Clare.
“You know ’t isn’t so. There’s Mammy, the best creature living,—what
could you do without her?”

“Mammy is the best I ever knew,” said Marie; “and yet Mammy, now, is
selfish—dreadfully selfish; it’s the fault of the whole race.”

“Selfishness _is_ a dreadful fault,” said St. Clare, gravely.

“Well, now, there’s Mammy,” said Marie, “I think it’s selfish of her to
sleep so sound nights; she knows I need little attentions almost every
hour, when my worst turns are on, and yet she’s so hard to wake. I
absolutely am worse, this very morning, for the efforts I had to make
to wake her last night.”

“Hasn’t she sat up with you a good many nights, lately, mamma?” said
Eva.

“How should you know that?” said Marie, sharply; “she’s been
complaining, I suppose.”

“She didn’t complain; she only told me what bad nights you’d had,—so
many in succession.”

“Why don’t you let Jane or Rosa take her place, a night or two,” said
St. Clare, “and let her rest?”

“How can you propose it?” said Marie. “St. Clare, you really are
inconsiderate. So nervous as I am, the least breath disturbs me; and a
strange hand about me would drive me absolutely frantic. If Mammy felt
the interest in me she ought to, she’d wake easier,—of course, she
would. I’ve heard of people who had such devoted servants, but it never
was _my_ luck;” and Marie sighed.

Miss Ophelia had listened to this conversation with an air of shrewd,
observant gravity; and she still kept her lips tightly compressed, as
if determined fully to ascertain her longitude and position, before she
committed herself.

“Now, Mammy has a _sort_ of goodness,” said Marie; “she’s smooth and
respectful, but she’s selfish at heart. Now, she never will be done
fidgeting and worrying about that husband of hers. You see, when I was
married and came to live here, of course, I had to bring her with me,
and her husband my father couldn’t spare. He was a blacksmith, and, of
course, very necessary; and I thought and said, at the time, that Mammy
and he had better give each other up, as it wasn’t likely to be
convenient for them ever to live together again. I wish, now, I’d
insisted on it, and married Mammy to somebody else; but I was foolish
and indulgent, and didn’t want to insist. I told Mammy, at the time,
that she mustn’t ever expect to see him more than once or twice in her
life again, for the air of father’s place doesn’t agree with my health,
and I can’t go there; and I advised her to take up with somebody else;
but no—she wouldn’t. Mammy has a kind of obstinacy about her, in spots,
that everybody don’t see as I do.”

“Has she children?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Yes; she has two.”

“I suppose she feels the separation from them?”

“Well, of course, I couldn’t bring them. They were little dirty
things—I couldn’t have them about; and, besides, they took up too much
of her time; but I believe that Mammy has always kept up a sort of
sulkiness about this. She won’t marry anybody else; and I do believe,
now, though she knows how necessary she is to me, and how feeble my
health is, she would go back to her husband tomorrow, if she only
could. I _do_, indeed,” said Marie; “they are just so selfish, now, the
best of them.”

“It’s distressing to reflect upon,” said St. Clare, dryly.

Miss Ophelia looked keenly at him, and saw the flush of mortification
and repressed vexation, and the sarcastic curl of the lip, as he spoke.

“Now, Mammy has always been a pet with me,” said Marie. “I wish some of
your northern servants could look at her closets of dresses,—silks and
muslins, and one real linen cambric, she has hanging there. I’ve worked
sometimes whole afternoons, trimming her caps, and getting her ready to
go to a party. As to abuse, she don’t know what it is. She never was
whipped more than once or twice in her whole life. She has her strong
coffee or her tea every day, with white sugar in it. It’s abominable,
to be sure; but St. Clare will have high life below-stairs, and they
every one of them live just as they please. The fact is, our servants
are over-indulged. I suppose it is partly our fault that they are
selfish, and act like spoiled children; but I’ve talked to St. Clare
till I am tired.”

“And I, too,” said St. Clare, taking up the morning paper.

Eva, the beautiful Eva, had stood listening to her mother, with that
expression of deep and mystic earnestness which was peculiar to her.
She walked softly round to her mother’s chair, and put her arms round
her neck.

“Well, Eva, what now?” said Marie.

“Mamma, couldn’t I take care of you one night—just one? I know I
shouldn’t make you nervous, and I shouldn’t sleep. I often lie awake
nights, thinking—”

“O, nonsense, child—nonsense!” said Marie; “you are such a strange
child!”

“But may I, mamma? I think,” she said, timidly, “that Mammy isn’t well.
She told me her head ached all the time, lately.”

“O, that’s just one of Mammy’s fidgets! Mammy is just like all the rest
of them—makes such a fuss about every little headache or finger-ache;
it’ll never do to encourage it—never! I’m principled about this
matter,” said she, turning to Miss Ophelia; “you’ll find the necessity
of it. If you encourage servants in giving way to every little
disagreeable feeling, and complaining of every little ailment, you’ll
have your hands full. I never complain myself—nobody knows what I
endure. I feel it a duty to bear it quietly, and I do.”

Miss Ophelia’s round eyes expressed an undisguised amazement at this
peroration, which struck St. Clare as so supremely ludicrous, that he
burst into a loud laugh.

“St. Clare always laughs when I make the least allusion to my ill
health,” said Marie, with the voice of a suffering martyr. “I only hope
the day won’t come when he’ll remember it!” and Marie put her
handkerchief to her eyes.

Of course, there was rather a foolish silence. Finally, St. Clare got
up, looked at his watch, and said he had an engagement down street. Eva
tripped away after him, and Miss Ophelia and Marie remained at the
table alone.

“Now, that’s just like St. Clare!” said the latter, withdrawing her
handkerchief with somewhat of a spirited flourish when the criminal to
be affected by it was no longer in sight. “He never realizes, never
can, never will, what I suffer, and have, for years. If I was one of
the complaining sort, or ever made any fuss about my ailments, there
would be some reason for it. Men do get tired, naturally, of a
complaining wife. But I’ve kept things to myself, and borne, and borne,
till St. Clare has got in the way of thinking I can bear anything.”

Miss Ophelia did not exactly know what she was expected to answer to
this.

While she was thinking what to say, Marie gradually wiped away her
tears, and smoothed her plumage in a general sort of way, as a dove
might be supposed to make toilet after a shower, and began a
housewifely chat with Miss Ophelia, concerning cupboards, closets,
linen-presses, store-rooms, and other matters, of which the latter was,
by common understanding, to assume the direction,—giving her so many
cautious directions and charges, that a head less systematic and
business-like than Miss Ophelia’s would have been utterly dizzied and
confounded.

“And now,” said Marie, “I believe I’ve told you everything; so that,
when my next sick turn comes on, you’ll be able to go forward entirely,
without consulting me;—only about Eva,—she requires watching.”

“She seems to be a good child, very,” said Miss Ophelia; “I never saw a
better child.”

“Eva’s peculiar,” said her mother, “very. There are things about her so
singular; she isn’t like me, now, a particle;” and Marie sighed, as if
this was a truly melancholy consideration.

Miss Ophelia in her own heart said, “I hope she isn’t,” but had
prudence enough to keep it down.

“Eva always was disposed to be with servants; and I think that well
enough with some children. Now, I always played with father’s little
negroes—it never did me any harm. But Eva somehow always seems to put
herself on an equality with every creature that comes near her. It’s a
strange thing about the child. I never have been able to break her of
it. St. Clare, I believe, encourages her in it. The fact is, St. Clare
indulges every creature under this roof but his own wife.”

Again Miss Ophelia sat in blank silence.

“Now, there’s no way with servants,” said Marie, “but to _put them
down_, and keep them down. It was always natural to me, from a child.
Eva is enough to spoil a whole house-full. What she will do when she
comes to keep house herself, I’m sure I don’t know. I hold to being
_kind_ to servants—I always am; but you must make ’em _know their
place_. Eva never does; there’s no getting into the child’s head the
first beginning of an idea what a servant’s place is! You heard her
offering to take care of me nights, to let Mammy sleep! That’s just a
specimen of the way the child would be doing all the time, if she was
left to herself.”

“Why,” said Miss Ophelia, bluntly, “I suppose you think your servants
are human creatures, and ought to have some rest when they are tired.”

“Certainly, of course. I’m very particular in letting them have
everything that comes convenient,—anything that doesn’t put one at all
out of the way, you know. Mammy can make up her sleep, some time or
other; there’s no difficulty about that. She’s the sleepiest concern
that ever I saw; sewing, standing, or sitting, that creature will go to
sleep, and sleep anywhere and everywhere. No danger but Mammy gets
sleep enough. But this treating servants as if they were exotic
flowers, or china vases, is really ridiculous,” said Marie, as she
plunged languidly into the depths of a voluminous and pillowy lounge,
and drew towards her an elegant cut-glass vinaigrette.

“You see,” she continued, in a faint and lady-like voice, like the last
dying breath of an Arabian jessamine, or something equally ethereal,
“you see, Cousin Ophelia, I don’t often speak of myself. It isn’t my
_habit_; ’t isn’t agreeable to me. In fact, I haven’t strength to do
it. But there are points where St. Clare and I differ. St. Clare never
understood me, never appreciated me. I think it lies at the root of all
my ill health. St. Clare means well, I am bound to believe; but men are
constitutionally selfish and inconsiderate to woman. That, at least, is
my impression.”

Miss Ophelia, who had not a small share of the genuine New England
caution, and a very particular horror of being drawn into family
difficulties, now began to foresee something of this kind impending;
so, composing her face into a grim neutrality, and drawing out of her
pocket about a yard and a quarter of stocking, which she kept as a
specific against what Dr. Watts asserts to be a personal habit of Satan
when people have idle hands, she proceeded to knit most energetically,
shutting her lips together in a way that said, as plain as words could,
“You needn’t try to make me speak. I don’t want anything to do with
your affairs,”—in fact, she looked about as sympathizing as a stone
lion. But Marie didn’t care for that. She had got somebody to talk to,
and she felt it her duty to talk, and that was enough; and reinforcing
herself by smelling again at her vinaigrette, she went on.

“You see, I brought my own property and servants into the connection,
when I married St. Clare, and I am legally entitled to manage them my
own way. St. Clare had his fortune and his servants, and I’m well
enough content he should manage them his way; but St. Clare will be
interfering. He has wild, extravagant notions about things,
particularly about the treatment of servants. He really does act as if
he set his servants before me, and before himself, too; for he lets
them make him all sorts of trouble, and never lifts a finger. Now,
about some things, St. Clare is really frightful—he frightens
me—good-natured as he looks, in general. Now, he has set down his foot
that, come what will, there shall not be a blow struck in this house,
except what he or I strike; and he does it in a way that I really dare
not cross him. Well, you may see what that leads to; for St. Clare
wouldn’t raise his hand, if every one of them walked over him, and
I—you see how cruel it would be to require me to make the exertion.
Now, you know these servants are nothing but grown-up children.”

“I don’t know anything about it, and I thank the Lord that I don’t!”
said Miss Ophelia, shortly.

“Well, but you will have to know something, and know it to your cost,
if you stay here. You don’t know what a provoking, stupid, careless,
unreasonable, childish, ungrateful set of wretches they are.”

Marie seemed wonderfully supported, always, when she got upon this
topic; and she now opened her eyes, and seemed quite to forget her
languor.

“You don’t know, and you can’t, the daily, hourly trials that beset a
housekeeper from them, everywhere and every way. But it’s no use to
complain to St. Clare. He talks the strangest stuff. He says we have
made them what they are, and ought to bear with them. He says their
faults are all owing to us, and that it would be cruel to make the
fault and punish it too. He says we shouldn’t do any better, in their
place; just as if one could reason from them to us, you know.”

“Don’t you believe that the Lord made them of one blood with us?” said
Miss Ophelia, shortly.

“No, indeed not I! A pretty story, truly! They are a degraded race.”

“Don’t you think they’ve got immortal souls?” said Miss Ophelia, with
increasing indignation.

“O, well,” said Marie, yawning, “that, of course—nobody doubts that.
But as to putting them on any sort of equality with us, you know, as if
we could be compared, why, it’s impossible! Now, St. Clare really has
talked to me as if keeping Mammy from her husband was like keeping me
from mine. There’s no comparing in this way. Mammy couldn’t have the
feelings that I should. It’s a different thing altogether,—of course,
it is,—and yet St. Clare pretends not to see it. And just as if Mammy
could love her little dirty babies as I love Eva! Yet St. Clare once
really and soberly tried to persuade me that it was my duty, with my
weak health, and all I suffer, to let Mammy go back, and take somebody
else in her place. That was a little too much even for _me_ to bear. I
don’t often show my feelings, I make it a principle to endure
everything in silence; it’s a wife’s hard lot, and I bear it. But I did
break out, that time; so that he has never alluded to the subject
since. But I know by his looks, and little things that he says, that he
thinks so as much as ever; and it’s so trying, so provoking!”

Miss Ophelia looked very much as if she was afraid she should say
something; but she rattled away with her needles in a way that had
volumes of meaning in it, if Marie could only have understood it.

“So, you just see,” she continued, “what you’ve got to manage. A
household without any rule; where servants have it all their own way,
do what they please, and have what they please, except so far as I,
with my feeble health, have kept up government. I keep my cowhide
about, and sometimes I do lay it on; but the exertion is always too
much for me. If St. Clare would only have this thing done as others
do—”

“And how’s that?”

“Why, send them to the calaboose, or some of the other places to be
flogged. That’s the only way. If I wasn’t such a poor, feeble piece, I
believe I should manage with twice the energy that St. Clare does.”

“And how does St. Clare contrive to manage?” said Miss Ophelia. “You
say he never strikes a blow.”

“Well, men have a more commanding way, you know; it is easier for them;
besides, if you ever looked full in his eye, it’s peculiar,—that
eye,—and if he speaks decidedly, there’s a kind of flash. I’m afraid of
it, myself; and the servants know they must mind. I couldn’t do as much
by a regular storm and scolding as St. Clare can by one turn of his
eye, if once he is in earnest. O, there’s no trouble about St. Clare;
that’s the reason he’s no more feeling for me. But you’ll find, when
you come to manage, that there’s no getting along without
severity,—they are so bad, so deceitful, so lazy.”

“The old tune,” said St. Clare, sauntering in. “What an awful account
these wicked creatures will have to settle, at last, especially for
being lazy! You see, cousin,” said he, as he stretched himself at full
length on a lounge opposite to Marie, “it’s wholly inexcusable in them,
in the light of the example that Marie and I set them,—this laziness.”

“Come, now, St. Clare, you are too bad!” said Marie.

“Am I, now? Why, I thought I was talking good, quite remarkably for me.
I try to enforce your remarks, Marie, always.”

“You know you meant no such thing, St. Clare,” said Marie.

“O, I must have been mistaken, then. Thank you, my dear, for setting me
right.”

“You do really try to be provoking,” said Marie.

“O, come, Marie, the day is growing warm, and I have just had a long
quarrel with Dolph, which has fatigued me excessively; so, pray be
agreeable, now, and let a fellow repose in the light of your smile.”

“What’s the matter about Dolph?” said Marie. “That fellow’s impudence
has been growing to a point that is perfectly intolerable to me. I only
wish I had the undisputed management of him a while. I’d bring him
down!”

“What you say, my dear, is marked with your usual acuteness and good
sense,” said St. Clare. “As to Dolph, the case is this: that he has so
long been engaged in imitating my graces and perfections, that he has,
at last, really mistaken himself for his master; and I have been
obliged to give him a little insight into his mistake.”

“How?” said Marie.

“Why, I was obliged to let him understand explicitly that I preferred
to keep _some_ of my clothes for my own personal wearing; also, I put
his magnificence upon an allowance of cologne-water, and actually was
so cruel as to restrict him to one dozen of my cambric handkerchiefs.
Dolph was particularly huffy about it, and I had to talk to him like a
father, to bring him round.”

“O! St. Clare, when will you learn how to treat your servants? It’s
abominable, the way you indulge them!” said Marie.

“Why, after all, what’s the harm of the poor dog’s wanting to be like
his master; and if I haven’t brought him up any better than to find his
chief good in cologne and cambric handkerchiefs, why shouldn’t I give
them to him?”

“And why haven’t you brought him up better?” said Miss Ophelia, with
blunt determination.

“Too much trouble,—laziness, cousin, laziness,—which ruins more souls
than you can shake a stick at. If it weren’t for laziness, I should
have been a perfect angel, myself. I’m inclined to think that laziness
is what your old Dr. Botherem, up in Vermont, used to call the ‘essence
of moral evil.’ It’s an awful consideration, certainly.”

“I think you slaveholders have an awful responsibility upon you,” said
Miss Ophelia. “I wouldn’t have it, for a thousand worlds. You ought to
educate your slaves, and treat them like reasonable creatures,—like
immortal creatures, that you’ve got to stand before the bar of God
with. That’s my mind,” said the good lady, breaking suddenly out with a
tide of zeal that had been gaining strength in her mind all the
morning.

“O! come, come,” said St. Clare, getting up quickly; “what do you know
about us?” And he sat down to the piano, and rattled a lively piece of
music. St. Clare had a decided genius for music. His touch was
brilliant and firm, and his fingers flew over the keys with a rapid and
bird-like motion, airy, and yet decided. He played piece after piece,
like a man who is trying to play himself into a good humor. After
pushing the music aside, he rose up, and said, gayly, “Well, now,
cousin, you’ve given us a good talk and done your duty; on the whole, I
think the better of you for it. I make no manner of doubt that you
threw a very diamond of truth at me, though you see it hit me so
directly in the face that it wasn’t exactly appreciated, at first.”

“For my part, I don’t see any use in such sort of talk,” said Marie.
“I’m sure, if anybody does more for servants than we do, I’d like to
know who; and it don’t do ’em a bit good,—not a particle,—they get
worse and worse. As to talking to them, or anything like that, I’m sure
I have talked till I was tired and hoarse, telling them their duty, and
all that; and I’m sure they can go to church when they like, though
they don’t understand a word of the sermon, more than so many pigs,—so
it isn’t of any great use for them to go, as I see; but they do go, and
so they have every chance; but, as I said before, they are a degraded
race, and always will be, and there isn’t any help for them; you can’t
make anything of them, if you try. You see, Cousin Ophelia, I’ve tried,
and you haven’t; I was born and bred among them, and I know.”

Miss Ophelia thought she had said enough, and therefore sat silent. St.
Clare whistled a tune.

“St. Clare, I wish you wouldn’t whistle,” said Marie; “it makes my head
worse.”

“I won’t,” said St. Clare. “Is there anything else you wouldn’t wish me
to do?”

“I wish you _would_ have some kind of sympathy for my trials; you never
have any feeling for me.”

“My dear accusing angel!” said St. Clare.

“It’s provoking to be talked to in that way.”

“Then, how will you be talked to? I’ll talk to order,—any way you’ll
mention,—only to give satisfaction.”

A gay laugh from the court rang through the silken curtains of the
verandah. St. Clare stepped out, and lifting up the curtain, laughed
too.

“What is it?” said Miss Ophelia, coming to the railing.

There sat Tom, on a little mossy seat in the court, every one of his
button-holes stuck full of cape jessamines, and Eva, gayly laughing,
was hanging a wreath of roses round his neck; and then she sat down on
his knee, like a chip-sparrow, still laughing.

“O, Tom, you look so funny!”

Tom had a sober, benevolent smile, and seemed, in his quiet way, to be
enjoying the fun quite as much as his little mistress. He lifted his
eyes, when he saw his master, with a half-deprecating, apologetic air.

“How can you let her?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Why not?” said St. Clare.

“Why, I don’t know, it seems so dreadful!”

“You would think no harm in a child’s caressing a large dog, even if he
was black; but a creature that can think, and reason, and feel, and is
immortal, you shudder at; confess it, cousin. I know the feeling among
some of you northerners well enough. Not that there is a particle of
virtue in our not having it; but custom with us does what Christianity
ought to do,—obliterates the feeling of personal prejudice. I have
often noticed, in my travels north, how much stronger this was with you
than with us. You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you
are indignant at their wrongs. You would not have them abused; but you
don’t want to have anything to do with them yourselves. You would send
them to Africa, out of your sight and smell, and then send a missionary
or two to do up all the self-denial of elevating them compendiously.
Isn’t that it?”

“Well, cousin,” said Miss Ophelia, thoughtfully, “there may be some
truth in this.”

“What would the poor and lowly do, without children?” said St. Clare,
leaning on the railing, and watching Eva, as she tripped off, leading
Tom with her. “Your little child is your only true democrat. Tom, now
is a hero to Eva; his stories are wonders in her eyes, his songs and
Methodist hymns are better than an opera, and the traps and little bits
of trash in his pocket a mine of jewels, and he the most wonderful Tom
that ever wore a black skin. This is one of the roses of Eden that the
Lord has dropped down expressly for the poor and lowly, who get few
enough of any other kind.”

“It’s strange, cousin,” said Miss Ophelia, “one might almost think you
were a _professor_, to hear you talk.”

“A professor?” said St. Clare.

“Yes; a professor of religion.”

“Not at all; not a professor, as your town-folks have it; and, what is
worse, I’m afraid, not a _practiser_, either.”

“What makes you talk so, then?”

“Nothing is easier than talking,” said St. Clare. “I believe
Shakespeare makes somebody say, ’I could sooner show twenty what were
good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow my own
showing.‘[1] Nothing like division of labor. My forte lies in talking,
and yours, cousin, lies in doing.”

 [1] _The Merchant of Venice_, Act 1, scene 2, lines 17-18.



In Tom’s external situation, at this time, there was, as the world
says, nothing to complain of Little Eva’s fancy for him—the instinctive
gratitude and loveliness of a noble nature—had led her to petition her
father that he might be her especial attendant, whenever she needed the
escort of a servant, in her walks or rides; and Tom had general orders
to let everything else go, and attend to Miss Eva whenever she wanted
him,—orders which our readers may fancy were far from disagreeable to
him. He was kept well dressed, for St. Clare was fastidiously
particular on this point. His stable services were merely a sinecure,
and consisted simply in a daily care and inspection, and directing an
under-servant in his duties; for Marie St. Clare declared that she
could not have any smell of the horses about him when he came near her,
and that he must positively not be put to any service that would make
him unpleasant to her, as her nervous system was entirely inadequate to
any trial of that nature; one snuff of anything disagreeable being,
according to her account, quite sufficient to close the scene, and put
an end to all her earthly trials at once. Tom, therefore, in his
well-brushed broadcloth suit, smooth beaver, glossy boots, faultless
wristbands and collar, with his grave, good-natured black face, looked
respectable enough to be a Bishop of Carthage, as men of his color
were, in other ages.

Then, too, he was in a beautiful place, a consideration to which his
sensitive race was never indifferent; and he did enjoy with a quiet joy
the birds, the flowers, the fountains, the perfume, and light and
beauty of the court, the silken hangings, and pictures, and lustres,
and statuettes, and gilding, that made the parlors within a kind of
Aladdin’s palace to him.

If ever Africa shall show an elevated and cultivated race,—and come it
must, some time, her turn to figure in the great drama of human
improvement.—life will awake there with a gorgeousness and splendor of
which our cold western tribes faintly have conceived. In that far-off
mystic land of gold, and gems, and spices, and waving palms, and
wondrous flowers, and miraculous fertility, will awake new forms of
art, new styles of splendor; and the negro race, no longer despised and
trodden down, will, perhaps, show forth some of the latest and most
magnificent revelations of human life. Certainly they will, in their
gentleness, their lowly docility of heart, their aptitude to repose on
a superior mind and rest on a higher power, their childlike simplicity
of affection, and facility of forgiveness. In all these they will
exhibit the highest form of the peculiarly _Christian life_, and,
perhaps, as God chasteneth whom he loveth, he hath chosen poor Africa
in the furnace of affliction, to make her the highest and noblest in
that kingdom which he will set up, when every other kingdom has been
tried, and failed; for the first shall be last, and the last first.

Was this what Marie St. Clare was thinking of, as she stood, gorgeously
dressed, on the verandah, on Sunday morning, clasping a diamond
bracelet on her slender wrist? Most likely it was. Or, if it wasn’t
that, it was something else; for Marie patronized good things, and she
was going now, in full force,—diamonds, silk, and lace, and jewels, and
all,—to a fashionable church, to be very religious. Marie always made a
point to be very pious on Sundays. There she stood, so slender, so
elegant, so airy and undulating in all her motions, her lace scarf
enveloping her like a mist. She looked a graceful creature, and she
felt very good and very elegant indeed. Miss Ophelia stood at her side,
a perfect contrast. It was not that she had not as handsome a silk
dress and shawl, and as fine a pocket-handkerchief; but stiffness and
squareness, and bolt-uprightness, enveloped her with as indefinite yet
appreciable a presence as did grace her elegant neighbor; not the grace
of God, however,—that is quite another thing!

“Where’s Eva?” said Marie.

“The child stopped on the stairs, to say something to Mammy.”

And what was Eva saying to Mammy on the stairs? Listen, reader, and you
will hear, though Marie does not.

“Dear Mammy, I know your head is aching dreadfully.”

“Lord bless you, Miss Eva! my head allers aches lately. You don’t need
to worry.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re going out; and here,”—and the little girl threw
her arms around her,—“Mammy, you shall take my vinaigrette.”

“What! your beautiful gold thing, thar, with them diamonds! Lor, Miss,
’t wouldn’t be proper, no ways.”

“Why not? You need it, and I don’t. Mamma always uses it for headache,
and it’ll make you feel better. No, you shall take it, to please me,
now.”

“Do hear the darlin talk!” said Mammy, as Eva thrust it into her bosom,
and kissing her, ran down stairs to her mother.

“What were you stopping for?”

“I was just stopping to give Mammy my vinaigrette, to take to church
with her.”

“Eva” said Marie, stamping impatiently,—“your gold vinaigrette to
_Mammy!_ When will you learn what’s _proper_? Go right and take it back
this moment!”

Eva looked downcast and aggrieved, and turned slowly.

“I say, Marie, let the child alone; she shall do as she pleases,” said
St. Clare.

“St. Clare, how will she ever get along in the world?” said Marie.

“The Lord knows,” said St. Clare, “but she’ll get along in heaven
better than you or I.”

“O, papa, don’t,” said Eva, softly touching his elbow; “it troubles
mother.”

“Well, cousin, are you ready to go to meeting?” said Miss Ophelia,
turning square about on St. Clare.

“I’m not going, thank you.”

“I do wish St. Clare ever would go to church,” said Marie; “but he
hasn’t a particle of religion about him. It really isn’t respectable.”

“I know it,” said St. Clare. “You ladies go to church to learn how to
get along in the world, I suppose, and your piety sheds respectability
on us. If I did go at all, I would go where Mammy goes; there’s
something to keep a fellow awake there, at least.”

“What! those shouting Methodists? Horrible!” said Marie.

“Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, Marie.
Positively, it’s too much to ask of a man. Eva, do you like to go?
Come, stay at home and play with me.”

“Thank you, papa; but I’d rather go to church.”

“Isn’t it dreadful tiresome?” said St. Clare.

“I think it is tiresome, some,” said Eva, “and I am sleepy, too, but I
try to keep awake.”

“What do you go for, then?”

“Why, you know, papa,” she said, in a whisper, “cousin told me that God
wants to have us; and he gives us everything, you know; and it isn’t
much to do it, if he wants us to. It isn’t so very tiresome after all.”

“You sweet, little obliging soul!” said St. Clare, kissing her; “go
along, that’s a good girl, and pray for me.”

“Certainly, I always do,” said the child, as she sprang after her
mother into the carriage.

St. Clare stood on the steps and kissed his hand to her, as the
carriage drove away; large tears were in his eyes.

“O, Evangeline! rightly named,” he said; “hath not God made thee an
evangel to me?”

So he felt a moment; and then he smoked a cigar, and read the Picayune,
and forgot his little gospel. Was he much unlike other folks?

“You see, Evangeline,” said her mother, “it’s always right and proper
to be kind to servants, but it isn’t proper to treat them _just_ as we
would our relations, or people in our own class of life. Now, if Mammy
was sick, you wouldn’t want to put her in your own bed.”

“I should feel just like it, mamma,” said Eva, “because then it would
be handier to take care of her, and because, you know, my bed is better
than hers.”

Marie was in utter despair at the entire want of moral perception
evinced in this reply.

“What can I do to make this child understand me?” she said.

“Nothing,” said Miss Ophelia, significantly.

Eva looked sorry and disconcerted for a moment; but children, luckily,
do not keep to one impression long, and in a few moments she was
merrily laughing at various things which she saw from the
coach-windows, as it rattled along.


“Well, ladies,” said St. Clare, as they were comfortably seated at the
dinner-table, “and what was the bill of fare at church today?”

“O, Dr. G—— preached a splendid sermon,” said Marie. “It was just such
a sermon as you ought to hear; it expressed all my views exactly.”

“It must have been very improving,” said St. Clare. “The subject must
have been an extensive one.”

“Well, I mean all my views about society, and such things,” said Marie.
“The text was, ‘He hath made everything beautiful in its season;’ and
he showed how all the orders and distinctions in society came from God;
and that it was so appropriate, you know, and beautiful, that some
should be high and some low, and that some were born to rule and some
to serve, and all that, you know; and he applied it so well to all this
ridiculous fuss that is made about slavery, and he proved distinctly
that the Bible was on our side, and supported all our institutions so
convincingly. I only wish you’d heard him.”

“O, I didn’t need it,” said St. Clare. “I can learn what does me as
much good as that from the Picayune, any time, and smoke a cigar
besides; which I can’t do, you know, in a church.”

“Why,” said Miss Ophelia, “don’t you believe in these views?”

“Who,—I? You know I’m such a graceless dog that these religious aspects
of such subjects don’t edify me much. If I was to say anything on this
slavery matter, I would say out, fair and square, ‘We’re in for it;
we’ve got ’em, and mean to keep ’em,—it’s for our convenience and our
interest;’ for that’s the long and short of it,—that’s just the whole
of what all this sanctified stuff amounts to, after all; and I think
that it will be intelligible to everybody, everywhere.”

“I do think, Augustine, you are so irreverent!” said Marie. “I think
it’s shocking to hear you talk.”

“Shocking! it’s the truth. This religious talk on such matters,—why
don’t they carry it a little further, and show the beauty, in its
season, of a fellow’s taking a glass too much, and sitting a little too
late over his cards, and various providential arrangements of that
sort, which are pretty frequent among us young men;—we’d like to hear
that those are right and godly, too.”

“Well,” said Miss Ophelia, “do you think slavery right or wrong?”

“I’m not going to have any of your horrid New England directness,
cousin,” said St. Clare, gayly. “If I answer that question, I know
you’ll be at me with half a dozen others, each one harder than the
last; and I’m not a going to define my position. I am one of the sort
that lives by throwing stones at other people’s glass houses, but I
never mean to put up one for them to stone.”

“That’s just the way he’s always talking,” said Marie; “you can’t get
any satisfaction out of him. I believe it’s just because he don’t like
religion, that he’s always running out in this way he’s been doing.”

“Religion!” said St. Clare, in a tone that made both ladies look at
him. “Religion! Is what you hear at church, religion? Is that which can
bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of
selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less
scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than
even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a
religion, I must look for something above me, and not something
beneath.”

“Then you don’t believe that the Bible justifies slavery,” said Miss
Ophelia.

“The Bible was my _mother’s_ book,” said St. Clare. “By it she lived
and died, and I would be very sorry to think it did. I’d as soon desire
to have it proved that my mother could drink brandy, chew tobacco, and
swear, by way of satisfying me that I did right in doing the same. It
wouldn’t make me at all more satisfied with these things in myself, and
it would take from me the comfort of respecting her; and it really is a
comfort, in this world, to have anything one can respect. In short, you
see,” said he, suddenly resuming his gay tone, “all I want is that
different things be kept in different boxes. The whole frame-work of
society, both in Europe and America, is made up of various things which
will not stand the scrutiny of any very ideal standard of morality.
It’s pretty generally understood that men don’t aspire after the
absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world.
Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary
to us, we can’t get along without it, we should be beggared if we give
it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it,—this is strong, clear,
well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and,
if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear
us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle,
and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn’t much better than he
should be.”

“You are very uncharitable,” said Marie.

“Well,” said St. Clare, “suppose that something should bring down the
price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a
drug in the market, don’t you think we should soon have another version
of the Scripture doctrine? What a flood of light would pour into the
church, all at once, and how immediately it would be discovered that
everything in the Bible and reason went the other way!”

“Well, at any rate,” said Marie, as she reclined herself on a lounge,
“I’m thankful I’m born where slavery exists; and I believe it’s
right,—indeed, I feel it must be; and, at any rate, I’m sure I couldn’t
get along without it.”

“I say, what do you think, Pussy?” said her father to Eva, who came in
at this moment, with a flower in her hand.

“What about, papa?”

“Why, which do you like the best,—to live as they do at your uncle’s,
up in Vermont, or to have a house-full of servants, as we do?”

“O, of course, our way is the pleasantest,” said Eva.

“Why so?” said St. Clare, stroking her head.

“Why, it makes so many more round you to love, you know,” said Eva,
looking up earnestly.

“Now, that’s just like Eva,” said Marie; “just one of her odd
speeches.”

“Is it an odd speech, papa?” said Eva, whisperingly, as she got upon
his knee.

“Rather, as this world goes, Pussy,” said St. Clare. “But where has my
little Eva been, all dinner-time?”

“O, I’ve been up in Tom’s room, hearing him sing, and Aunt Dinah gave
me my dinner.”

“Hearing Tom sing, hey?”

“O, yes! he sings such beautiful things about the New Jerusalem, and
bright angels, and the land of Canaan.”

“I dare say; it’s better than the opera, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and he’s going to teach them to me.”

“Singing lessons, hey?—you _are_ coming on.”

“Yes, he sings for me, and I read to him in my Bible; and he explains
what it means, you know.”

“On my word,” said Marie, laughing, “that is the latest joke of the
season.”

“Tom isn’t a bad hand, now, at explaining Scripture, I’ll dare swear,”
said St. Clare. “Tom has a natural genius for religion. I wanted the
horses out early, this morning, and I stole up to Tom’s cubiculum
there, over the stables, and there I heard him holding a meeting by
himself; and, in fact, I haven’t heard anything quite so savory as
Tom’s prayer, this some time. He put in for me, with a zeal that was
quite apostolic.”

“Perhaps he guessed you were listening. I’ve heard of that trick
before.”

“If he did, he wasn’t very polite; for he gave the Lord his opinion of
me, pretty freely. Tom seemed to think there was decidedly room for
improvement in me, and seemed very earnest that I should be converted.”

“I hope you’ll lay it to heart,” said Miss Ophelia.

“I suppose you are much of the same opinion,” said St. Clare. “Well, we
shall see,—shan’t we, Eva?”




CHAPTER XVII
The Freeman’s Defence


There was a gentle bustle at the Quaker house, as the afternoon drew to
a close. Rachel Halliday moved quietly to and fro, collecting from her
household stores such needments as could be arranged in the smallest
compass, for the wanderers who were to go forth that night. The
afternoon shadows stretched eastward, and the round red sun stood
thoughtfully on the horizon, and his beams shone yellow and calm into
the little bed-room where George and his wife were sitting. He was
sitting with his child on his knee, and his wife’s hand in his. Both
looked thoughtful and serious and traces of tears were on their cheeks.

“Yes, Eliza,” said George, “I know all you say is true. You are a good
child,—a great deal better than I am; and I will try to do as you say.
I’ll try to act worthy of a free man. I’ll try to feel like a
Christian. God Almighty knows that I’ve meant to do well,—tried hard to
do well,—when everything has been against me; and now I’ll forget all
the past, and put away every hard and bitter feeling, and read my
Bible, and learn to be a good man.”

“And when we get to Canada,” said Eliza, “I can help you. I can do
dress-making very well; and I understand fine washing and ironing; and
between us we can find something to live on.”

“Yes, Eliza, so long as we have each other and our boy. O! Eliza, if
these people only knew what a blessing it is for a man to feel that his
wife and child belong to _him_! I’ve often wondered to see men that
could call their wives and children _their own_ fretting and worrying
about anything else. Why, I feel rich and strong, though we have
nothing but our bare hands. I feel as if I could scarcely ask God for
any more. Yes, though I’ve worked hard every day, till I am twenty-five
years old, and have not a cent of money, nor a roof to cover me, nor a
spot of land to call my own, yet, if they will only let me alone now, I
will be satisfied,—thankful; I will work, and send back the money for
you and my boy. As to my old master, he has been paid five times over
for all he ever spent for me. I don’t owe him anything.”

“But yet we are not quite out of danger,” said Eliza; “we are not yet
in Canada.”

“True,” said George, “but it seems as if I smelt the free air, and it
makes me strong.”

At this moment, voices were heard in the outer apartment, in earnest
conversation, and very soon a rap was heard on the door. Eliza started
and opened it.

Simeon Halliday was there, and with him a Quaker brother, whom he
introduced as Phineas Fletcher. Phineas was tall and lathy, red-haired,
with an expression of great acuteness and shrewdness in his face. He
had not the placid, quiet, unworldly air of Simeon Halliday; on the
contrary, a particularly wide-awake and _au fait_ appearance, like a
man who rather prides himself on knowing what he is about, and keeping
a bright lookout ahead; peculiarities which sorted rather oddly with
his broad brim and formal phraseology.

“Our friend Phineas hath discovered something of importance to the
interests of thee and thy party, George,” said Simeon; “it were well
for thee to hear it.”

“That I have,” said Phineas, “and it shows the use of a man’s always
sleeping with one ear open, in certain places, as I’ve always said.
Last night I stopped at a little lone tavern, back on the road. Thee
remembers the place, Simeon, where we sold some apples, last year, to
that fat woman, with the great ear-rings. Well, I was tired with hard
driving; and, after my supper I stretched myself down on a pile of bags
in the corner, and pulled a buffalo over me, to wait till my bed was
ready; and what does I do, but get fast asleep.”

“With one ear open, Phineas?” said Simeon, quietly.

“No; I slept, ears and all, for an hour or two, for I was pretty well
tired; but when I came to myself a little, I found that there were some
men in the room, sitting round a table, drinking and talking; and I
thought, before I made much muster, I’d just see what they were up to,
especially as I heard them say something about the Quakers. ‘So,’ says
one, ‘they are up in the Quaker settlement, no doubt,’ says he. Then I
listened with both ears, and I found that they were talking about this
very party. So I lay and heard them lay off all their plans. This young
man, they said, was to be sent back to Kentucky, to his master, who was
going to make an example of him, to keep all niggers from running away;
and his wife two of them were going to run down to New Orleans to sell,
on their own account, and they calculated to get sixteen or eighteen
hundred dollars for her; and the child, they said, was going to a
trader, who had bought him; and then there was the boy, Jim, and his
mother, they were to go back to their masters in Kentucky. They said
that there were two constables, in a town a little piece ahead, who
would go in with ’em to get ’em taken up, and the young woman was to be
taken before a judge; and one of the fellows, who is small and
smooth-spoken, was to swear to her for his property, and get her
delivered over to him to take south. They’ve got a right notion of the
track we are going tonight; and they’ll be down after us, six or eight
strong. So now, what’s to be done?”

The group that stood in various attitudes, after this communication,
were worthy of a painter. Rachel Halliday, who had taken her hands out
of a batch of biscuit, to hear the news, stood with them upraised and
floury, and with a face of the deepest concern. Simeon looked
profoundly thoughtful; Eliza had thrown her arms around her husband,
and was looking up to him. George stood with clenched hands and glowing
eyes, and looking as any other man might look, whose wife was to be
sold at auction, and son sent to a trader, all under the shelter of a
Christian nation’s laws.

“What _shall_ we do, George?” said Eliza faintly.

“I know what _I_ shall do,” said George, as he stepped into the little
room, and began examining pistols.

“Ay, ay,” said Phineas, nodding his head to Simeon; “thou seest,
Simeon, how it will work.”

“I see,” said Simeon, sighing; “I pray it come not to that.”

“I don’t want to involve any one with or for me,” said George. “If you
will lend me your vehicle and direct me, I will drive alone to the next
stand. Jim is a giant in strength, and brave as death and despair, and
so am I.”

“Ah, well, friend,” said Phineas, “but thee’ll need a driver, for all
that. Thee’s quite welcome to do all the fighting, thee knows; but I
know a thing or two about the road, that thee doesn’t.”

“But I don’t want to involve you,” said George.

“Involve,” said Phineas, with a curious and keen expression of face,
“When thee does involve me, please to let me know.”

“Phineas is a wise and skilful man,” said Simeon. “Thee does well,
George, to abide by his judgment; and,” he added, laying his hand
kindly on George’s shoulder, and pointing to the pistols, “be not over
hasty with these,—young blood is hot.”

“I will attack no man,” said George. “All I ask of this country is to
be let alone, and I will go out peaceably; but,”—he paused, and his
brow darkened and his face worked,—“I’ve had a sister sold in that New
Orleans market. I know what they are sold for; and am I going to stand
by and see them take my wife and sell her, when God has given me a pair
of strong arms to defend her? No; God help me! I’ll fight to the last
breath, before they shall take my wife and son. Can you blame me?”

“Mortal man cannot blame thee, George. Flesh and blood could not do
otherwise,” said Simeon. “Woe unto the world because of offences, but
woe unto them through whom the offence cometh.”

“Would not even you, sir, do the same, in my place?”

“I pray that I be not tried,” said Simeon; “the flesh is weak.”

“I think my flesh would be pretty tolerable strong, in such a case,”
said Phineas, stretching out a pair of arms like the sails of a
windmill. “I an’t sure, friend George, that I shouldn’t hold a fellow
for thee, if thee had any accounts to settle with him.”

“If man should _ever_ resist evil,” said Simeon, “then George should
feel free to do it now: but the leaders of our people taught a more
excellent way; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of
God; but it goes sorely against the corrupt will of man, and none can
receive it save they to whom it is given. Let us pray the Lord that we
be not tempted.”

“And so _I_ do,” said Phineas; “but if we are tempted too much—why, let
them look out, that’s all.”

“It’s quite plain thee wasn’t born a Friend,” said Simeon, smiling.
“The old nature hath its way in thee pretty strong as yet.”

To tell the truth, Phineas had been a hearty, two-fisted backwoodsman,
a vigorous hunter, and a dead shot at a buck; but, having wooed a
pretty Quakeress, had been moved by the power of her charms to join the
society in his neighborhood; and though he was an honest, sober, and
efficient member, and nothing particular could be alleged against him,
yet the more spiritual among them could not but discern an exceeding
lack of savor in his developments.

“Friend Phineas will ever have ways of his own,” said Rachel Halliday,
smiling; “but we all think that his heart is in the right place, after
all.”

“Well,” said George, “isn’t it best that we hasten our flight?”

“I got up at four o’clock, and came on with all speed, full two or
three hours ahead of them, if they start at the time they planned. It
isn’t safe to start till dark, at any rate; for there are some evil
persons in the villages ahead, that might be disposed to meddle with
us, if they saw our wagon, and that would delay us more than the
waiting; but in two hours I think we may venture. I will go over to
Michael Cross, and engage him to come behind on his swift nag, and keep
a bright lookout on the road, and warn us if any company of men come
on. Michael keeps a horse that can soon get ahead of most other horses;
and he could shoot ahead and let us know, if there were any danger. I
am going out now to warn Jim and the old woman to be in readiness, and
to see about the horse. We have a pretty fair start, and stand a good
chance to get to the stand before they can come up with us. So, have
good courage, friend George; this isn’t the first ugly scrape that I’ve
been in with thy people,” said Phineas, as he closed the door.

“Phineas is pretty shrewd,” said Simeon. “He will do the best that can
be done for thee, George.”

“All I am sorry for,” said George, “is the risk to you.”

“Thee’ll much oblige us, friend George, to say no more about that. What
we do we are conscience bound to do; we can do no other way. And now,
mother,” said he, turning to Rachel, “hurry thy preparations for these
friends, for we must not send them away fasting.”

And while Rachel and her children were busy making corn-cake, and
cooking ham and chicken, and hurrying on the _et ceteras_ of the
evening meal, George and his wife sat in their little room, with their
arms folded about each other, in such talk as husband and wife have
when they know that a few hours may part them forever.

“Eliza,” said George, “people that have friends, and houses, and lands,
and money, and all those things _can’t_ love as we do, who have nothing
but each other. Till I knew you, Eliza, no creature had loved me, but
my poor, heart-broken mother and sister. I saw poor Emily that morning
the trader carried her off. She came to the corner where I was lying
asleep, and said, ’Poor George, your last friend is going. What will
become of you, poor boy?’ And I got up and threw my arms round her, and
cried and sobbed, and she cried too; and those were the last kind words
I got for ten long years; and my heart all withered up, and felt as dry
as ashes, till I met you. And your loving me,—why, it was almost like
raising one from the dead! I’ve been a new man ever since! And now,
Eliza, I’ll give my last drop of blood, but they _shall not_ take you
from me. Whoever gets you must walk over my dead body.”

“O, Lord, have mercy!” said Eliza, sobbing. “If he will only let us get
out of this country together, that is all we ask.”

“Is God on their side?” said George, speaking less to his wife than
pouring out his own bitter thoughts. “Does he see all they do? Why does
he let such things happen? And they tell us that the Bible is on their
side; certainly all the power is. They are rich, and healthy, and
happy; they are members of churches, expecting to go to heaven; and
they get along so easy in the world, and have it all their own way; and
poor, honest, faithful Christians,—Christians as good or better than
they,—are lying in the very dust under their feet. They buy ’em and
sell ’em, and make trade of their heart’s blood, and groans and
tears,—and God _lets_ them.”

“Friend George,” said Simeon, from the kitchen, “listen to this Psalm;
it may do thee good.”

George drew his seat near the door, and Eliza, wiping her tears, came
forward also to listen, while Simeon read as follows:

“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh
slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. They are not in trouble like other men, neither are they
plagued like other men. Therefore, pride compasseth them as a chain;
violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness;
they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak
wickedly concerning oppression; they speak loftily. Therefore his
people return, and the waters of a full cup are wrung out to them, and
they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?”

“Is not that the way thee feels, George?”

“It is so indeed,” said George,—“as well as I could have written it
myself.”

“Then, hear,” said Simeon: “When I thought to know this, it was too
painful for me until I went unto the sanctuary of God. Then understood
I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou
castedst them down to destruction. As a dream when one awaketh, so, oh
Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. Nevertheless I
am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou
shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. It
is good for me to draw near unto God. I have put my trust in the Lord
God.”[1]

 [1] Ps. 73, “The End of the Wicked contrasted with that of the
 Righteous.”


The words of holy trust, breathed by the friendly old man, stole like
sacred music over the harassed and chafed spirit of George; and after
he ceased, he sat with a gentle and subdued expression on his fine
features.

“If this world were all, George,” said Simeon, “thee might, indeed, ask
where is the Lord? But it is often those who have least of all in this
life whom he chooseth for the kingdom. Put thy trust in him and, no
matter what befalls thee here, he will make all right hereafter.”

If these words had been spoken by some easy, self-indulgent exhorter,
from whose mouth they might have come merely as pious and rhetorical
flourish, proper to be used to people in distress, perhaps they might
not have had much effect; but coming from one who daily and calmly
risked fine and imprisonment for the cause of God and man, they had a
weight that could not but be felt, and both the poor, desolate
fugitives found calmness and strength breathing into them from it.

And now Rachel took Eliza’s hand kindly, and led the way to the
supper-table. As they were sitting down, a light tap sounded at the
door, and Ruth entered.

“I just ran in,” she said, “with these little stockings for the
boy,—three pair, nice, warm woollen ones. It will be so cold, thee
knows, in Canada. Does thee keep up good courage, Eliza?” she added,
tripping round to Eliza’s side of the table, and shaking her warmly by
the hand, and slipping a seed-cake into Harry’s hand. “I brought a
little parcel of these for him,” she said, tugging at her pocket to get
out the package. “Children, thee knows, will always be eating.”

“O, thank you; you are too kind,” said Eliza.

“Come, Ruth, sit down to supper,” said Rachel.

“I couldn’t, any way. I left John with the baby, and some biscuits in
the oven; and I can’t stay a moment, else John will burn up all the
biscuits, and give the baby all the sugar in the bowl. That’s the way
he does,” said the little Quakeress, laughing. “So, good-by, Eliza;
good-by, George; the Lord grant thee a safe journey;” and, with a few
tripping steps, Ruth was out of the apartment.

A little while after supper, a large covered-wagon drew up before the
door; the night was clear starlight; and Phineas jumped briskly down
from his seat to arrange his passengers. George walked out of the door,
with his child on one arm and his wife on the other. His step was firm,
his face settled and resolute. Rachel and Simeon came out after them.

“You get out, a moment,” said Phineas to those inside, “and let me fix
the back of the wagon, there, for the women-folks and the boy.”

“Here are the two buffaloes,” said Rachel. “Make the seats as
comfortable as may be; it’s hard riding all night.”

Jim came out first, and carefully assisted out his old mother, who
clung to his arm, and looked anxiously about, as if she expected the
pursuer every moment.

“Jim, are your pistols all in order?” said George, in a low, firm
voice.

“Yes, indeed,” said Jim.

“And you’ve no doubt what you shall do, if they come?”

“I rather think I haven’t,” said Jim, throwing open his broad chest,
and taking a deep breath. “Do you think I’ll let them get mother
again?”

During this brief colloquy, Eliza had been taking her leave of her kind
friend, Rachel, and was handed into the carriage by Simeon, and,
creeping into the back part with her boy, sat down among the
buffalo-skins. The old woman was next handed in and seated and George
and Jim placed on a rough board seat front of them, and Phineas mounted
in front.

“Farewell, my friends,” said Simeon, from without.

“God bless you!” answered all from within.

And the wagon drove off, rattling and jolting over the frozen road.

There was no opportunity for conversation, on account of the roughness
of the way and the noise of the wheels. The vehicle, therefore, rumbled
on, through long, dark stretches of woodland,—over wide dreary
plains,—up hills, and down valleys,—and on, on, on they jogged, hour
after hour. The child soon fell asleep, and lay heavily in his mother’s
lap. The poor, frightened old woman at last forgot her fears; and, even
Eliza, as the night waned, found all her anxieties insufficient to keep
her eyes from closing. Phineas seemed, on the whole, the briskest of
the company, and beguiled his long drive with whistling certain very
unquaker-like songs, as he went on.

But about three o’clock George’s ear caught the hasty and decided click
of a horse’s hoof coming behind them at some distance and jogged
Phineas by the elbow. Phineas pulled up his horses, and listened.

“That must be Michael,” he said; “I think I know the sound of his
gallop;” and he rose up and stretched his head anxiously back over the
road.

A man riding in hot haste was now dimly descried at the top of a
distant hill.

“There he is, I do believe!” said Phineas. George and Jim both sprang
out of the wagon before they knew what they were doing. All stood
intensely silent, with their faces turned towards the expected
messenger. On he came. Now he went down into a valley, where they could
not see him; but they heard the sharp, hasty tramp, rising nearer and
nearer; at last they saw him emerge on the top of an eminence, within
hail.

“Yes, that’s Michael!” said Phineas; and, raising his voice, “Halloa,
there, Michael!”

“Phineas! is that thee?”

“Yes; what news—they coming?”

“Right on behind, eight or ten of them, hot with brandy, swearing and
foaming like so many wolves.”

And, just as he spoke, a breeze brought the faint sound of galloping
horsemen towards them.

“In with you,—quick, boys, _in!_” said Phineas. “If you must fight,
wait till I get you a piece ahead.” And, with the word, both jumped in,
and Phineas lashed the horses to a run, the horseman keeping close
beside them. The wagon rattled, jumped, almost flew, over the frozen
ground; but plainer, and still plainer, came the noise of pursuing
horsemen behind. The women heard it, and, looking anxiously out, saw,
far in the rear, on the brow of a distant hill, a party of men looming
up against the red-streaked sky of early dawn. Another hill, and their
pursuers had evidently caught sight of their wagon, whose white
cloth-covered top made it conspicuous at some distance, and a loud yell
of brutal triumph came forward on the wind. Eliza sickened, and
strained her child closer to her bosom; the old woman prayed and
groaned, and George and Jim clenched their pistols with the grasp of
despair. The pursuers gained on them fast; the carriage made a sudden
turn, and brought them near a ledge of a steep overhanging rock, that
rose in an isolated ridge or clump in a large lot, which was, all
around it, quite clear and smooth. This isolated pile, or range of
rocks, rose up black and heavy against the brightening sky, and seemed
to promise shelter and concealment. It was a place well known to
Phineas, who had been familiar with the spot in his hunting days; and
it was to gain this point he had been racing his horses.

“Now for it!” said he, suddenly checking his horses, and springing from
his seat to the ground. “Out with you, in a twinkling, every one, and
up into these rocks with me. Michael, thee tie thy horse to the wagon,
and drive ahead to Amariah’s and get him and his boys to come back and
talk to these fellows.”

In a twinkling they were all out of the carriage.

“There,” said Phineas, catching up Harry, “you, each of you, see to the
women; and run, _now_ if you ever _did_ run!”

They needed no exhortation. Quicker than we can say it, the whole party
were over the fence, making with all speed for the rocks, while
Michael, throwing himself from his horse, and fastening the bridle to
the wagon, began driving it rapidly away.

“Come ahead,” said Phineas, as they reached the rocks, and saw in the
mingled starlight and dawn, the traces of a rude but plainly marked
foot-path leading up among them; “this is one of our old hunting-dens.
Come up!”

Phineas went before, springing up the rocks like a goat, with the boy
in his arms. Jim came second, bearing his trembling old mother over his
shoulder, and George and Eliza brought up the rear. The party of
horsemen came up to the fence, and, with mingled shouts and oaths, were
dismounting, to prepare to follow them. A few moments’ scrambling
brought them to the top of the ledge; the path then passed between a
narrow defile, where only one could walk at a time, till suddenly they
came to a rift or chasm more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which
lay a pile of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full
thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as those of a
castle. Phineas easily leaped the chasm, and sat down the boy on a
smooth, flat platform of crisp white moss, that covered the top of the
rock.

“Over with you!” he called; “spring, now, once, for your lives!” said
he, as one after another sprang across. Several fragments of loose
stone formed a kind of breast-work, which sheltered their position from
the observation of those below.

“Well, here we all are,” said Phineas, peeping over the stone
breast-work to watch the assailants, who were coming tumultuously up
under the rocks. “Let ’em get us, if they can. Whoever comes here has
to walk single file between those two rocks, in fair range of your
pistols, boys, d’ye see?”

“I do see,” said George! “and now, as this matter is ours, let us take
all the risk, and do all the fighting.”

“Thee’s quite welcome to do the fighting, George,” said Phineas,
chewing some checkerberry-leaves as he spoke; “but I may have the fun
of looking on, I suppose. But see, these fellows are kinder debating
down there, and looking up, like hens when they are going to fly up on
to the roost. Hadn’t thee better give ’em a word of advice, before they
come up, just to tell ’em handsomely they’ll be shot if they do?”

The party beneath, now more apparent in the light of the dawn,
consisted of our old acquaintances, Tom Loker and Marks, with two
constables, and a posse consisting of such rowdies at the last tavern
as could be engaged by a little brandy to go and help the fun of
trapping a set of niggers.

“Well, Tom, yer coons are farly treed,” said one.

“Yes, I see ’em go up right here,” said Tom; “and here’s a path. I’m
for going right up. They can’t jump down in a hurry, and it won’t take
long to ferret ’em out.”

“But, Tom, they might fire at us from behind the rocks,” said Marks.
“That would be ugly, you know.”

“Ugh!” said Tom, with a sneer. “Always for saving your skin, Marks! No
danger! niggers are too plaguy scared!”

“I don’t know why I _shouldn’t_ save my skin,” said Marks. “It’s the
best I’ve got; and niggers _do_ fight like the devil, sometimes.”

At this moment, George appeared on the top of a rock above them, and,
speaking in a calm, clear voice, said,

“Gentlemen, who are you, down there, and what do you want?”

“We want a party of runaway niggers,” said Tom Loker. “One George
Harris, and Eliza Harris, and their son, and Jim Selden, and an old
woman. We’ve got the officers, here, and a warrant to take ’em; and
we’re going to have ’em, too. D’ye hear? An’t you George Harris, that
belongs to Mr. Harris, of Shelby county, Kentucky?”

“I am George Harris. A Mr. Harris, of Kentucky, did call me his
property. But now I’m a free man, standing on God’s free soil; and my
wife and my child I claim as mine. Jim and his mother are here. We have
arms to defend ourselves, and we mean to do it. You can come up, if you
like; but the first one of you that comes within the range of our
bullets is a dead man, and the next, and the next; and so on till the
last.”

“O, come! come!” said a short, puffy man, stepping forward, and blowing
his nose as he did so. “Young man, this an’t no kind of talk at all for
you. You see, we’re officers of justice. We’ve got the law on our side,
and the power, and so forth; so you’d better give up peaceably, you
see; for you’ll certainly have to give up, at last.”

“I know very well that you’ve got the law on your side, and the power,”
said George, bitterly. “You mean to take my wife to sell in New
Orleans, and put my boy like a calf in a trader’s pen, and send Jim’s
old mother to the brute that whipped and abused her before, because he
couldn’t abuse her son. You want to send Jim and me back to be whipped
and tortured, and ground down under the heels of them that you call
masters; and your laws _will_ bear you out in it,—more shame for you
and them! But you haven’t got us. We don’t own your laws; we don’t own
your country; we stand here as free, under God’s sky, as you are; and,
by the great God that made us, we’ll fight for our liberty till we
die.”

George stood out in fair sight, on the top of the rock, as he made his
declaration of independence; the glow of dawn gave a flush to his
swarthy cheek, and bitter indignation and despair gave fire to his dark
eye; and, as if appealing from man to the justice of God, he raised his
hand to heaven as he spoke.

If it had been only a Hungarian youth, now bravely defending in some
mountain fastness the retreat of fugitives escaping from Austria into
America, this would have been sublime heroism; but as it was a youth of
African descent, defending the retreat of fugitives through America
into Canada, of course we are too well instructed and patriotic to see
any heroism in it; and if any of our readers do, they must do it on
their own private responsibility. When despairing Hungarian fugitives
make their way, against all the search-warrants and authorities of
their lawful government, to America, press and political cabinet ring
with applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives do the
same thing,—it is—what _is_ it?

Be it as it may, it is certain that the attitude, eye, voice, manner,
of the speaker for a moment struck the party below to silence. There is
something in boldness and determination that for a time hushes even the
rudest nature. Marks was the only one who remained wholly untouched. He
was deliberately cocking his pistol, and, in the momentary silence that
followed George’s speech, he fired at him.


[Illustration: THE FREEMAN’S DEFENCE.]


“Ye see ye get jist as much for him dead as alive in Kentucky,” he said
coolly, as he wiped his pistol on his coat-sleeve.

George sprang backward,—Eliza uttered a shriek,—the ball had passed
close to his hair, had nearly grazed the cheek of his wife, and struck
in the tree above.

“It’s nothing, Eliza,” said George, quickly.

“Thee’d better keep out of sight, with thy speechifying,” said Phineas;
“they’re mean scamps.”

“Now, Jim,” said George, “look that your pistols are all right, and
watch that pass with me. The first man that shows himself I fire at;
you take the second, and so on. It won’t do, you know, to waste two
shots on one.”

“But what if you don’t hit?”

“I _shall_ hit,” said George, coolly.

“Good! now, there’s stuff in that fellow,” muttered Phineas, between
his teeth.

The party below, after Marks had fired, stood, for a moment, rather
undecided.

“I think you must have hit some on ’em,” said one of the men. “I heard
a squeal!”

“I’m going right up for one,” said Tom. “I never was afraid of niggers,
and I an’t going to be now. Who goes after?” he said, springing up the
rocks.

George heard the words distinctly. He drew up his pistol, examined it,
pointed it towards that point in the defile where the first man would
appear.

One of the most courageous of the party followed Tom, and, the way
being thus made, the whole party began pushing up the rock,—the
hindermost pushing the front ones faster than they would have gone of
themselves. On they came, and in a moment the burly form of Tom
appeared in sight, almost at the verge of the chasm.

George fired,—the shot entered his side,—but, though wounded, he would
not retreat, but, with a yell like that of a mad bull, he was leaping
right across the chasm into the party.

“Friend,” said Phineas, suddenly stepping to the front, and meeting him
with a push from his long arms, “thee isn’t wanted here.”

Down he fell into the chasm, crackling down among trees, bushes, logs,
loose stones, till he lay bruised and groaning thirty feet below. The
fall might have killed him, had it not been broken and moderated by his
clothes catching in the branches of a large tree; but he came down with
some force, however,—more than was at all agreeable or convenient.

“Lord help us, they are perfect devils!” said Marks, heading the
retreat down the rocks with much more of a will than he had joined the
ascent, while all the party came tumbling precipitately after him,—the
fat constable, in particular, blowing and puffing in a very energetic
manner.

“I say, fellers,” said Marks, “you jist go round and pick up Tom,
there, while I run and get on to my horse to go back for help,—that’s
you;” and, without minding the hootings and jeers of his company, Marks
was as good as his word, and was soon seen galloping away.

“Was ever such a sneaking varmint?” said one of the men; “to come on
his business, and he clear out and leave us this yer way!”

“Well, we must pick up that feller,” said another. “Cuss me if I much
care whether he is dead or alive.”

The men, led by the groans of Tom, scrambled and crackled through
stumps, logs and bushes, to where that hero lay groaning and swearing
with alternate vehemence.

“Ye keep it agoing pretty loud, Tom,” said one. “Ye much hurt?”

“Don’t know. Get me up, can’t ye? Blast that infernal Quaker! If it
hadn’t been for him, I’d a pitched some on ’em down here, to see how
they liked it.”

With much labor and groaning, the fallen hero was assisted to rise;
and, with one holding him up under each shoulder, they got him as far
as the horses.

“If you could only get me a mile back to that ar tavern. Give me a
handkerchief or something, to stuff into this place, and stop this
infernal bleeding.”

George looked over the rocks, and saw them trying to lift the burly
form of Tom into the saddle. After two or three ineffectual attempts,
he reeled, and fell heavily to the ground.

“O, I hope he isn’t killed!” said Eliza, who, with all the party, stood
watching the proceeding.

“Why not?” said Phineas; “serves him right.”

“Because after death comes the judgment,” said Eliza.

“Yes,” said the old woman, who had been groaning and praying, in her
Methodist fashion, during all the encounter, “it’s an awful case for
the poor crittur’s soul.”

“On my word, they’re leaving him, I do believe,” said Phineas.

It was true; for after some appearance of irresolution and
consultation, the whole party got on their horses and rode away. When
they were quite out of sight, Phineas began to bestir himself.

“Well, we must go down and walk a piece,” he said. “I told Michael to
go forward and bring help, and be along back here with the wagon; but
we shall have to walk a piece along the road, I reckon, to meet them.
The Lord grant he be along soon! It’s early in the day; there won’t be
much travel afoot yet a while; we an’t much more than two miles from
our stopping-place. If the road hadn’t been so rough last night, we
could have outrun ’em entirely.”

As the party neared the fence, they discovered in the distance, along
the road, their own wagon coming back, accompanied by some men on
horseback.

“Well, now, there’s Michael, and Stephen and Amariah,” exclaimed
Phineas, joyfully. “Now we _are_ made—as safe as if we’d got there.”

“Well, do stop, then,” said Eliza, “and do something for that poor man;
he’s groaning dreadfully.”

“It would be no more than Christian,” said George; “let’s take him up
and carry him on.”

“And doctor him up among the Quakers!” said Phineas; “pretty well,
that! Well, I don’t care if we do. Here, let’s have a look at him;” and
Phineas, who in the course of his hunting and backwoods life had
acquired some rude experience of surgery, kneeled down by the wounded
man, and began a careful examination of his condition.

“Marks,” said Tom, feebly, “is that you, Marks?”

“No; I reckon ’tan’t friend,” said Phineas. “Much Marks cares for thee,
if his own skin’s safe. He’s off, long ago.”

“I believe I’m done for,” said Tom. “The cussed sneaking dog, to leave
me to die alone! My poor old mother always told me ’t would be so.”

“La sakes! jist hear the poor crittur. He’s got a mammy, now,” said the
old negress. “I can’t help kinder pityin’ on him.”

“Softly, softly; don’t thee snap and snarl, friend,” said Phineas, as
Tom winced and pushed his hand away. “Thee has no chance, unless I stop
the bleeding.” And Phineas busied himself with making some off-hand
surgical arrangements with his own pocket-handkerchief, and such as
could be mustered in the company.

“You pushed me down there,” said Tom, faintly.

“Well if I hadn’t thee would have pushed us down, thee sees,” said
Phineas, as he stooped to apply his bandage. “There, there,—let me fix
this bandage. We mean well to thee; we bear no malice. Thee shall be
taken to a house where they’ll nurse thee first rate, well as thy own
mother could.”

Tom groaned, and shut his eyes. In men of his class, vigor and
resolution are entirely a physical matter, and ooze out with the
flowing of the blood; and the gigantic fellow really looked piteous in
his helplessness.

The other party now came up. The seats were taken out of the wagon. The
buffalo-skins, doubled in fours, were spread all along one side, and
four men, with great difficulty, lifted the heavy form of Tom into it.
Before he was gotten in, he fainted entirely. The old negress, in the
abundance of her compassion, sat down on the bottom, and took his head
in her lap. Eliza, George and Jim, bestowed themselves, as well as they
could, in the remaining space and the whole party set forward.

“What do you think of him?” said George, who sat by Phineas in front.

“Well it’s only a pretty deep flesh-wound; but, then, tumbling and
scratching down that place didn’t help him much. It has bled pretty
freely,—pretty much drained him out, courage and all,—but he’ll get
over it, and may be learn a thing or two by it.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” said George. “It would always be a heavy
thought to me, if I’d caused his death, even in a just cause.”

“Yes,” said Phineas, “killing is an ugly operation, any way they’ll fix
it,—man or beast. I’ve seen a buck that was shot down and a dying, look
that way on a feller with his eye, that it reely most made a feller
feel wicked for killing on him; and human creatures is a more serious
consideration yet, bein’, as thy wife says, that the judgment comes to
’em after death. So I don’t know as our people’s notions on these
matters is too strict; and, considerin’ how I was raised, I fell in
with them pretty considerably.”

“What shall you do with this poor fellow?” said George.

“O, carry him along to Amariah’s. There’s old Grandmam Stephens
there,—Dorcas, they call her,—she’s most an amazin’ nurse. She takes to
nursing real natural, and an’t never better suited than when she gets a
sick body to tend. We may reckon on turning him over to her for a
fortnight or so.”

A ride of about an hour more brought the party to a neat farmhouse,
where the weary travellers were received to an abundant breakfast. Tom
Loker was soon carefully deposited in a much cleaner and softer bed
than he had ever been in the habit of occupying. His wound was
carefully dressed and bandaged, and he lay languidly opening and
shutting his eyes on the white window-curtains and gently-gliding
figures of his sick room, like a weary child. And here, for the
present, we shall take our leave of one party.




CHAPTER XVIII
Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions


Our friend Tom, in his own simple musings, often compared his more
fortunate lot, in the bondage into which he was cast, with that of
Joseph in Egypt; and, in fact, as time went on, and he developed more
and more under the eye of his master, the strength of the parallel
increased.

St. Clare was indolent and careless of money. Hitherto the providing
and marketing had been principally done by Adolph, who was, to the
full, as careless and extravagant as his master; and, between them
both, they had carried on the dispersing process with great alacrity.
Accustomed, for many years, to regard his master’s property as his own
care, Tom saw, with an uneasiness he could scarcely repress, the
wasteful expenditure of the establishment; and, in the quiet, indirect
way which his class often acquire, would sometimes make his own
suggestions.

St. Clare at first employed him occasionally; but, struck with his
soundness of mind and good business capacity, he confided in him more
and more, till gradually all the marketing and providing for the family
were intrusted to him.

“No, no, Adolph,” he said, one day, as Adolph was deprecating the
passing of power out of his hands; “let Tom alone. You only understand
what you want; Tom understands cost and come to; and there may be some
end to money, bye and bye if we don’t let somebody do that.”

Trusted to an unlimited extent by a careless master, who handed him a
bill without looking at it, and pocketed the change without counting
it, Tom had every facility and temptation to dishonesty; and nothing
but an impregnable simplicity of nature, strengthened by Christian
faith, could have kept him from it. But, to that nature, the very
unbounded trust reposed in him was bond and seal for the most
scrupulous accuracy.

With Adolph the case had been different. Thoughtless and
self-indulgent, and unrestrained by a master who found it easier to
indulge than to regulate, he had fallen into an absolute confusion as
to _meum tuum_ with regard to himself and his master, which sometimes
troubled even St. Clare. His own good sense taught him that such a
training of his servants was unjust and dangerous. A sort of chronic
remorse went with him everywhere, although not strong enough to make
any decided change in his course; and this very remorse reacted again
into indulgence. He passed lightly over the most serious faults,
because he told himself that, if he had done his part, his dependents
had not fallen into them.

Tom regarded his gay, airy, handsome young master with an odd mixture
of fealty, reverence, and fatherly solicitude. That he never read the
Bible; never went to church; that he jested and made free with any and
every thing that came in the way of his wit; that he spent his Sunday
evenings at the opera or theatre; that he went to wine parties, and
clubs, and suppers, oftener than was at all expedient,—were all things
that Tom could see as plainly as anybody, and on which he based a
conviction that “Mas’r wasn’t a Christian;”—a conviction, however,
which he would have been very slow to express to any one else, but on
which he founded many prayers, in his own simple fashion, when he was
by himself in his little dormitory. Not that Tom had not his own way of
speaking his mind occasionally, with something of the tact often
observable in his class; as, for example, the very day after the
Sabbath we have described, St. Clare was invited out to a convivial
party of choice spirits, and was helped home, between one and two
o’clock at night, in a condition when the physical had decidedly
attained the upper hand of the intellectual. Tom and Adolph assisted to
get him composed for the night, the latter in high spirits, evidently
regarding the matter as a good joke, and laughing heartily at the
rusticity of Tom’s horror, who really was simple enough to lie awake
most of the rest of the night, praying for his young master.

“Well, Tom, what are you waiting for?” said St. Clare, the next day, as
he sat in his library, in dressing-gown and slippers. St. Clare had
just been entrusting Tom with some money, and various commissions.
“Isn’t all right there, Tom?” he added, as Tom still stood waiting.

“I’m ’fraid not, Mas’r,” said Tom, with a grave face.

St. Clare laid down his paper, and set down his coffee-cup, and looked
at Tom.

“Why Tom, what’s the case? You look as solemn as a coffin.”

“I feel very bad, Mas’r. I allays have thought that Mas’r would be good
to everybody.”

“Well, Tom, haven’t I been? Come, now, what do you want? There’s
something you haven’t got, I suppose, and this is the preface.”

“Mas’r allays been good to me. I haven’t nothing to complain of on that
head. But there is one that Mas’r isn’t good to.”

“Why, Tom, what’s got into you? Speak out; what do you mean?”

“Last night, between one and two, I thought so. I studied upon the
matter then. Mas’r isn’t good to _himself_.”

Tom said this with his back to his master, and his hand on the
door-knob. St. Clare felt his face flush crimson, but he laughed.

“O, that’s all, is it?” he said, gayly.

“All!” said Tom, turning suddenly round and falling on his knees. “O,
my dear young Mas’r; I’m ’fraid it will be _loss of all—all_—body and
soul. The good Book says, ’it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like
an adder!’ my dear Mas’r!”

Tom’s voice choked, and the tears ran down his cheeks.

“You poor, silly fool!” said St. Clare, with tears in his own eyes.
“Get up, Tom. I’m not worth crying over.”

But Tom wouldn’t rise, and looked imploring.

“Well, I won’t go to any more of their cursed nonsense, Tom,” said St.
Clare; “on my honor, I won’t. I don’t know why I haven’t stopped long
ago. I’ve always despised _it_, and myself for it,—so now, Tom, wipe up
your eyes, and go about your errands. Come, come,” he added, “no
blessings. I’m not so wonderfully good, now,” he said, as he gently
pushed Tom to the door. “There, I’ll pledge my honor to you, Tom, you
don’t see me so again,” he said; and Tom went off, wiping his eyes,
with great satisfaction.

“I’ll keep my faith with him, too,” said St. Clare, as he closed the
door.

And St. Clare did so,—for gross sensualism, in any form, was not the
peculiar temptation of his nature.

But, all this time, who shall detail the tribulations manifold of our
friend Miss Ophelia, who had begun the labors of a Southern
housekeeper?

There is all the difference in the world in the servants of Southern
establishments, according to the character and capacity of the
mistresses who have brought them up.

South as well as north, there are women who have an extraordinary
talent for command, and tact in educating. Such are enabled, with
apparent ease, and without severity, to subject to their will, and
bring into harmonious and systematic order, the various members of
their small estate,—to regulate their peculiarities, and so balance and
compensate the deficiencies of one by the excess of another, as to
produce a harmonious and orderly system.

Such a housekeeper was Mrs. Shelby, whom we have already described; and
such our readers may remember to have met with. If they are not common
at the South, it is because they are not common in the world. They are
to be found there as often as anywhere; and, when existing, find in
that peculiar state of society a brilliant opportunity to exhibit their
domestic talent.

Such a housekeeper Marie St. Clare was not, nor her mother before her.
Indolent and childish, unsystematic and improvident, it was not to be
expected that servants trained under her care should not be so
likewise; and she had very justly described to Miss Ophelia the state
of confusion she would find in the family, though she had not ascribed
it to the proper cause.

The first morning of her regency, Miss Ophelia was up at four o’clock;
and having attended to all the adjustments of her own chamber, as she
had done ever since she came there, to the great amazement of the
chambermaid, she prepared for a vigorous onslaught on the cupboards and
closets of the establishment of which she had the keys.

The store-room, the linen-presses, the china-closet, the kitchen and
cellar, that day, all went under an awful review. Hidden things of
darkness were brought to light to an extent that alarmed all the
principalities and powers of kitchen and chamber, and caused many
wonderings and murmurings about “dese yer northern ladies” from the
domestic cabinet.

Old Dinah, the head cook, and principal of all rule and authority in
the kitchen department, was filled with wrath at what she considered an
invasion of privilege. No feudal baron in _Magna Charta_ times could
have more thoroughly resented some incursion of the crown.

Dinah was a character in her own way, and it would be injustice to her
memory not to give the reader a little idea of her. She was a native
and essential cook, as much as Aunt Chloe,—cooking being an indigenous
talent of the African race; but Chloe was a trained and methodical one,
who moved in an orderly domestic harness, while Dinah was a self-taught
genius, and, like geniuses in general, was positive, opinionated and
erratic, to the last degree.

Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly scorned
logic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in intuitive
certainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No possible amount
of talent, or authority, or explanation, could ever make her believe
that any other way was better than her own, or that the course she had
pursued in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This had
been a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie’s mother; and “Miss
Marie,” as Dinah always called her young mistress, even after her
marriage, found it easier to submit than contend; and so Dinah had
ruled supreme. This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of
that diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of manner with
the utmost inflexibility as to measure.

Dinah was mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse-making, in
all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with her that the cook can do
no wrong; and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and
shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain
her own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure,
there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it; and it was the fault
undeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing
zeal.

But it was very seldom that there was any failure in Dinah’s last
results. Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meandering
and circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time and
place,—though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arranged
by a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places for
each cooking utensil as there were days in the year,—yet, if one would
have patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner in
perfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure
could find no fault.

It was now the season of incipient preparation for dinner. Dinah, who
required large intervals of reflection and repose, and was studious of
ease in all her arrangements, was seated on the kitchen floor, smoking
a short, stumpy pipe, to which she was much addicted, and which she
always kindled up, as a sort of censer, whenever she felt the need of
an inspiration in her arrangements. It was Dinah’s mode of invoking the
domestic Muses.

Seated around her were various members of that rising race with which a
Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes,
picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory
arrangements,—Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations
to give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators,
with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over
the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed
to consider them born for no earthly purpose but to “save her steps,”
as she phrased it. It was the spirit of the system under which she had
grown up, and she carried it out to its full extent.

Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all the
other parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen. Dinah had
heard, from various sources, what was going on, and resolved to stand
on defensive and conservative ground,—mentally determined to oppose and
ignore every new measure, without any actual observable contest.

The kitchen was a large brick-floored apartment, with a great
old-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it,—an arrangement
which St. Clare had vainly tried to persuade Dinah to exchange for the
convenience of a modern cook-stove. Not she. No Puseyite,[1] or
conservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached to
time-honored inconveniences than Dinah.

 [1] Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), champion of the orthodoxy of
 revealed religion, defender of the Oxford movement, and Regius
 professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.


When St. Clare had first returned from the north, impressed with the
system and order of his uncle’s kitchen arrangements, he had largely
provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and various
apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion
that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her
arrangements. He might as well have provided them for a squirrel or a
magpie. The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holes
could Dinah make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old
shoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of
_vertu_, wherein her soul delighted.

When Miss Ophelia entered the kitchen Dinah did not rise, but smoked on
in sublime tranquillity, regarding her movements obliquely out of the
corner of her eye, but apparently intent only on the operations around
her.

Miss Ophelia commenced opening a set of drawers.

“What is this drawer for, Dinah?” she said.

“It’s handy for most anything, Missis,” said Dinah. So it appeared to
be. From the variety it contained, Miss Ophelia pulled out first a fine
damask table-cloth stained with blood, having evidently been used to
envelop some raw meat.

“What’s this, Dinah? You don’t wrap up meat in your mistress’ best
table-cloths?”

“O Lor, Missis, no; the towels was all a missin’—so I jest did it. I
laid out to wash that a,—that’s why I put it thar.”

“Shif’less!” said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble over
the drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, a
Methodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn
and knitting-work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one
or two gilded china-saucers with some pomade in them, one or two thin
old shoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up enclosing some small
white onions, several damask table-napkins, some coarse crash towels,
some twine and darning-needles, and several broken papers, from which
sundry sweet herbs were sifting into the drawer.

“Where do you keep your nutmegs, Dinah?” said Miss Ophelia, with the
air of one who prayed for patience.

“Most anywhar, Missis; there’s some in that cracked tea-cup, up there,
and there’s some over in that ar cupboard.”

“Here are some in the grater,” said Miss Ophelia, holding them up.

“Laws, yes, I put ’em there this morning,—I likes to keep my things
handy,” said Dinah. “You, Jake! what are you stopping for! You’ll cotch
it! Be still, thar!” she added, with a dive of her stick at the
criminal.

“What’s this?” said Miss Ophelia, holding up the saucer of pomade.

“Laws, it’s my har _grease_;—I put it thar to have it handy.”

“Do you use your mistress’ best saucers for that?”

“Law! it was cause I was driv, and in sich a hurry;—I was gwine to
change it this very day.”

“Here are two damask table-napkins.”

“Them table-napkins I put thar, to get ’em washed out, some day.”

“Don’t you have some place here on purpose for things to be washed?”

“Well, Mas’r St. Clare got dat ar chest, he said, for dat; but I likes
to mix up biscuit and hev my things on it some days, and then it an’t
handy a liftin’ up the lid.”

“Why don’t you mix your biscuits on the pastry-table, there?”

“Law, Missis, it gets sot so full of dishes, and one thing and another,
der an’t no room, noway—”

“But you should _wash_ your dishes, and clear them away.”

“Wash my dishes!” said Dinah, in a high key, as her wrath began to rise
over her habitual respect of manner; “what does ladies know ’bout work,
I want to know? When ’d Mas’r ever get his dinner, if I vas to spend
all my time a washin’ and a puttin’ up dishes? Miss Marie never telled
me so, nohow.”

“Well, here are these onions.”

“Laws, yes!” said Dinah; “thar _is_ whar I put ’em, now. I couldn’t
’member. Them ’s particular onions I was a savin’ for dis yer very
stew. I’d forgot they was in dat ar old flannel.”

Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting papers of sweet herbs.

“I wish Missis wouldn’t touch dem ar. I likes to keep my things where I
knows whar to go to ’em,” said Dinah, rather decidedly.

“But you don’t want these holes in the papers.”

“Them ’s handy for siftin’ on ’t out,” said Dinah.

“But you see it spills all over the drawer.”

“Laws, yes! if Missis will go a tumblin’ things all up so, it will.
Missis has spilt lots dat ar way,” said Dinah, coming uneasily to the
drawers. “If Missis only will go up stars till my clarin’ up time
comes, I’ll have everything right; but I can’t do nothin’ when ladies
is round, a henderin’. You, Sam, don’t you gib the baby dat ar
sugar-bowl! I’ll crack ye over, if ye don’t mind!”

“I’m going through the kitchen, and going to put everything in order,
_once_, Dinah; and then I’ll expect you to _keep_ it so.”

“Lor, now! Miss Phelia; dat ar an’t no way for ladies to do. I never
did see ladies doin’ no sich; my old Missis nor Miss Marie never did,
and I don’t see no kinder need on ’t;” and Dinah stalked indignantly
about, while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of
scattering bowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins,
table-cloths, and towels, for washing; washing, wiping, and arranging
with her own hands, and with a speed and alacrity which perfectly
amazed Dinah.

“Lor now! if dat ar de way dem northern ladies do, dey an’t ladies,
nohow,” she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe hearing
distance. “I has things as straight as anybody, when my clarin’ up
times comes; but I don’t want ladies round, a henderin’, and getting my
things all where I can’t find ’em.”

To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxyms of
reformation and arrangement, which she called “clarin’ up times,” when
she would begin with great zeal, and turn every drawer and closet wrong
side outward, on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary
confusion seven-fold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe,
and leisurely go over her arrangements, looking things over, and
discoursing upon them; making all the young fry scour most vigorously
on the tin things, and keeping up for several hours a most energetic
state of confusion, which she would explain to the satisfaction of all
inquirers, by the remark that she was a “clarin’ up.” “She couldn’t hev
things a gwine on so as they had been, and she was gwine to make these
yer young ones keep better order;” for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged
the illusion that she, herself, was the soul of order, and it was only
the _young uns_, and the everybody else in the house, that were the
cause of anything that fell short of perfection in this respect. When
all the tins were scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and
everything that could offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners,
Dinah would dress herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high,
brilliant Madras turban, and tell all marauding “young uns” to keep out
of the kitchen, for she was gwine to have things kept nice. Indeed,
these periodic seasons were often an inconvenience to the whole
household; for Dinah would contract such an immoderate attachment to
her scoured tin, as to insist upon it that it shouldn’t be used again
for any possible purpose,—at least, till the ardor of the “clarin’ up”
period abated.

Miss Ophelia, in a few days, thoroughly reformed every department of
the house to a systematic pattern; but her labors in all departments
that depended on the cooperation of servants were like those of
Sisyphus or the Danaides. In despair, she one day appealed to St.
Clare.

“There is no such thing as getting anything like a system in this
family!”

“To be sure, there isn’t,” said St. Clare.

“Such shiftless management, such waste, such confusion, I never saw!”

“I dare say you didn’t.”

“You would not take it so coolly, if you were housekeeper.”

“My dear cousin, you may as well understand, once for all, that we
masters are divided into two classes, oppressors and oppressed. We who
are good-natured and hate severity make up our minds to a good deal of
inconvenience. If we _will keep_ a shambling, loose, untaught set in
the community, for our convenience, why, we must take the consequence.
Some rare cases I have seen, of persons, who, by a peculiar tact, can
produce order and system without severity; but I’m not one of them,—and
so I made up my mind, long ago, to let things go just as they do. I
will not have the poor devils thrashed and cut to pieces, and they know
it,—and, of course, they know the staff is in their own hands.”

“But to have no time, no place, no order,—all going on in this
shiftless way!”

“My dear Vermont, you natives up by the North Pole set an extravagant
value on time! What on earth is the use of time to a fellow who has
twice as much of it as he knows what to do with? As to order and
system, where there is nothing to be done but to lounge on the sofa and
read, an hour sooner or later in breakfast or dinner isn’t of much
account. Now, there’s Dinah gets you a capital dinner,—soup, ragout,
roast fowl, dessert, ice-creams and all,—and she creates it all out of
chaos and old night down there, in that kitchen. I think it really
sublime, the way she manages. But, Heaven bless us! if we are to go
down there, and view all the smoking and squatting about, and
hurryscurryation of the preparatory process, we should never eat more!
My good cousin, absolve yourself from that! It’s more than a Catholic
penance, and does no more good. You’ll only lose your own temper, and
utterly confound Dinah. Let her go her own way.”

“But, Augustine, you don’t know how I found things.”

“Don’t I? Don’t I know that the rolling-pin is under her bed, and the
nutmeg-grater in her pocket with her tobacco,—that there are sixty-five
different sugar-bowls, one in every hole in the house,—that she washes
dishes with a dinner-napkin one day, and with a fragment of an old
petticoat the next? But the upshot is, she gets up glorious dinners,
makes superb coffee; and you must judge her as warriors and statesmen
are judged, _by her success_.”

“But the waste,—the expense!”

“O, well! Lock everything you can, and keep the key. Give out by
driblets, and never inquire for odds and ends,—it isn’t best.”

“That troubles me, Augustine. I can’t help feeling as if these servants
were not _strictly honest_. Are you sure they can be relied on?”

Augustine laughed immoderately at the grave and anxious face with which
Miss Ophelia propounded the question.

“O, cousin, that’s too good,—_honest!_—as if that’s a thing to be
expected! Honest!—why, of course, they arn’t. Why should they be? What
upon earth is to make them so?”

“Why don’t you instruct?”

“Instruct! O, fiddlestick! What instructing do you think I should do? I
look like it! As to Marie, she has spirit enough, to be sure, to kill
off a whole plantation, if I’d let her manage; but she wouldn’t get the
cheatery out of them.”

“Are there no honest ones?”

“Well, now and then one, whom Nature makes so impracticably simple,
truthful and faithful, that the worst possible influence can’t destroy
it. But, you see, from the mother’s breast the colored child feels and
sees that there are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get
along no other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master and
missie play-fellows. Cunning and deception become necessary, inevitable
habits. It isn’t fair to expect anything else of him. He ought not to
be punished for it. As to honesty, the slave is kept in that dependent,
semi-childish state, that there is no making him realize the rights of
property, or feel that his master’s goods are not his own, if he can
get them. For my part, I don’t see how they _can_ be honest. Such a
fellow as Tom, here, is,—is a moral miracle!”

“And what becomes of their souls?” said Miss Ophelia.

“That isn’t my affair, as I know of,” said St. Clare; “I am only
dealing in facts of the present life. The fact is, that the whole race
are pretty generally understood to be turned over to the devil, for our
benefit, in this world, however it may turn out in another!”

“This is perfectly horrible!” said Miss Ophelia; “you ought to be
ashamed of yourselves!”

“I don’t know as I am. We are in pretty good company, for all that,”
said St. Clare, “as people in the broad road generally are. Look at the
high and the low, all the world over, and it’s the same story,—the
lower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper.
It is so in England; it is so everywhere; and yet all Christendom
stands aghast, with virtuous indignation, because we do the thing in a
little different shape from what they do it.”

“It isn’t so in Vermont.”

“Ah, well, in New England, and in the free States, you have the better
of us, I grant. But there’s the bell; so, Cousin, let us for a while
lay aside our sectional prejudices, and come out to dinner.”

As Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen in the latter part of the afternoon,
some of the sable children called out, “La, sakes! thar’s Prue a
coming, grunting along like she allers does.”

A tall, bony colored woman now entered the kitchen, bearing on her head
a basket of rusks and hot rolls.

“Ho, Prue! you’ve come,” said Dinah.

Prue had a peculiar scowling expression of countenance, and a sullen,
grumbling voice. She set down her basket, squatted herself down, and
resting her elbows on her knees said,

“O Lord! I wish’t I ’s dead!”

“Why do you wish you were dead?” said Miss Ophelia.

“I’d be out o’ my misery,” said the woman, gruffly, without taking her
eyes from the floor.

“What need you getting drunk, then, and cutting up, Prue?” said a
spruce quadroon chambermaid, dangling, as she spoke, a pair of coral
ear-drops.

The woman looked at her with a sour surly glance.

“Maybe you’ll come to it, one of these yer days. I’d be glad to see
you, I would; then you’ll be glad of a drop, like me, to forget your
misery.”

“Come, Prue,” said Dinah, “let’s look at your rusks. Here’s Missis will
pay for them.”

Miss Ophelia took out a couple of dozen.

“Thar’s some tickets in that ar old cracked jug on the top shelf,” said
Dinah. “You, Jake, climb up and get it down.”

“Tickets,—what are they for?” said Miss Ophelia.

“We buy tickets of her Mas’r, and she gives us bread for ’em.”

“And they counts my money and tickets, when I gets home, to see if I ’s
got the change; and if I han’t, they half kills me.”

“And serves you right,” said Jane, the pert chambermaid, “if you will
take their money to get drunk on. That’s what she does, Missis.”

“And that’s what I _will_ do,—I can’t live no other ways,—drink and
forget my misery.”

“You are very wicked and very foolish,” said Miss Ophelia, “to steal
your master’s money to make yourself a brute with.”

“It’s mighty likely, Missis; but I will do it,—yes, I will. O Lord! I
wish I ’s dead, I do,—I wish I ’s dead, and out of my misery!” and
slowly and stiffly the old creature rose, and got her basket on her
head again; but before she went out, she looked at the quadroon girl,
who still stood playing with her ear-drops.

“Ye think ye’re mighty fine with them ar, a frolickin’ and a tossin’
your head, and a lookin’ down on everybody. Well, never mind,—you may
live to be a poor, old, cut-up crittur, like me. Hope to the Lord ye
will, I do; then see if ye won’t drink,—drink,—drink,—yerself into
torment; and sarve ye right, too—ugh!” and, with a malignant howl, the
woman left the room.

“Disgusting old beast!” said Adolph, who was getting his master’s
shaving-water. “If I was her master, I’d cut her up worse than she is.”

“Ye couldn’t do that ar, no ways,” said Dinah. “Her back’s a far sight
now,—she can’t never get a dress together over it.”

“I think such low creatures ought not to be allowed to go round to
genteel families,” said Miss Jane. “What do you think, Mr. St. Clare?”
she said, coquettishly tossing her head at Adolph.

It must be observed that, among other appropriations from his master’s
stock, Adolph was in the habit of adopting his name and address; and
that the style under which he moved, among the colored circles of New
Orleans, was that of _Mr. St. Clare_.

“I’m certainly of your opinion, Miss Benoir,” said Adolph.

Benoir was the name of Marie St. Clare’s family, and Jane was one of
her servants.

“Pray, Miss Benoir, may I be allowed to ask if those drops are for the
ball, tomorrow night? They are certainly bewitching!”

“I wonder, now, Mr. St. Clare, what the impudence of you men will come
to!” said Jane, tossing her pretty head ’til the ear-drops twinkled
again. “I shan’t dance with you for a whole evening, if you go to
asking me any more questions.”

“O, you couldn’t be so cruel, now! I was just dying to know whether you
would appear in your pink tarletane,” said Adolph.

“What is it?” said Rosa, a bright, piquant little quadroon who came
skipping down stairs at this moment.

“Why, Mr. St. Clare’s so impudent!”

“On my honor,” said Adolph, “I’ll leave it to Miss Rosa now.”

“I know he’s always a saucy creature,” said Rosa, poising herself on
one of her little feet, and looking maliciously at Adolph. “He’s always
getting me so angry with him.”

“O! ladies, ladies, you will certainly break my heart, between you,”
said Adolph. “I shall be found dead in my bed, some morning, and you’ll
have it to answer for.”

“Do hear the horrid creature talk!” said both ladies, laughing
immoderately.

“Come,—clar out, you! I can’t have you cluttering up the kitchen,” said
Dinah; “in my way, foolin’ round here.”

“Aunt Dinah’s glum, because she can’t go to the ball,” said Rosa.

“Don’t want none o’ your light-colored balls,” said Dinah; “cuttin’
round, makin’ b’lieve you’s white folks. Arter all, you’s niggers, much
as I am.”

“Aunt Dinah greases her wool stiff, every day, to make it lie
straight,” said Jane.

“And it will be wool, after all,” said Rosa, maliciously shaking down
her long, silky curls.

“Well, in the Lord’s sight, an’t wool as good as har, any time?” said
Dinah. “I’d like to have Missis say which is worth the most,—a couple
such as you, or one like me. Get out wid ye, ye trumpery,—I won’t have
ye round!”

Here the conversation was interrupted in a two-fold manner. St. Clare’s
voice was heard at the head of the stairs, asking Adolph if he meant to
stay all night with his shaving-water; and Miss Ophelia, coming out of
the dining-room, said,

“Jane and Rosa, what are you wasting your time for, here? Go in and
attend to your muslins.”

Our friend Tom, who had been in the kitchen during the conversation
with the old rusk-woman, had followed her out into the street. He saw
her go on, giving every once in a while a suppressed groan. At last she
set her basket down on a doorstep, and began arranging the old, faded
shawl which covered her shoulders.

“I’ll carry your basket a piece,” said Tom, compassionately.

“Why should ye?” said the woman. “I don’t want no help.”

“You seem to be sick, or in trouble, or somethin’,” said Tom.

“I an’t sick,” said the woman, shortly.

“I wish,” said Tom, looking at her earnestly,—“I wish I could persuade
you to leave off drinking. Don’t you know it will be the ruin of ye,
body and soul?”

“I knows I’m gwine to torment,” said the woman, sullenly. “Ye don’t
need to tell me that ar. I ’s ugly, I ’s wicked,—I ’s gwine straight to
torment. O, Lord! I wish I ’s thar!”

Tom shuddered at these frightful words, spoken with a sullen,
impassioned earnestness.

“O, Lord have mercy on ye! poor crittur. Han’t ye never heard of Jesus
Christ?”

“Jesus Christ,—who’s he?”

“Why, he’s _the Lord_,” said Tom.

“I think I’ve hearn tell o’ the Lord, and the judgment and torment.
I’ve heard o’ that.”

“But didn’t anybody ever tell you of the Lord Jesus, that loved us poor
sinners, and died for us?”

“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” said the woman; “nobody han’t never
loved me, since my old man died.”

“Where was you raised?” said Tom.

“Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil’en for market, and sold ’em
as fast as they got big enough; last of all, he sold me to a
speculator, and my Mas’r got me o’ him.”

“What set you into this bad way of drinkin’?”

“To get shet o’ my misery. I had one child after I come here; and I
thought then I’d have one to raise, cause Mas’r wasn’t a speculator. It
was de peartest little thing! and Missis she seemed to think a heap on
’t, at first; it never cried,—it was likely and fat. But Missis tuck
sick, and I tended her; and I tuck the fever, and my milk all left me,
and the child it pined to skin and bone, and Missis wouldn’t buy milk
for it. She wouldn’t hear to me, when I telled her I hadn’t milk. She
said she knowed I could feed it on what other folks eat; and the child
kinder pined, and cried, and cried, and cried, day and night, and got
all gone to skin and bones, and Missis got sot agin it and she said ’t
wan’t nothin’ but crossness. She wished it was dead, she said; and she
wouldn’t let me have it o’ nights, cause, she said, it kept me awake,
and made me good for nothing. She made me sleep in her room; and I had
to put it away off in a little kind o’ garret, and thar it cried itself
to death, one night. It did; and I tuck to drinkin’, to keep its crying
out of my ears! I did,—and I will drink! I will, if I do go to torment
for it! Mas’r says I shall go to torment, and I tell him I’ve got thar
now!”

“O, ye poor crittur!” said Tom, “han’t nobody never telled ye how the
Lord Jesus loved ye, and died for ye? Han’t they telled ye that he’ll
help ye, and ye can go to heaven, and have rest, at last?”

“I looks like gwine to heaven,” said the woman; “an’t thar where white
folks is gwine? S’pose they’d have me thar? I’d rather go to torment,
and get away from Mas’r and Missis. I had _so_,” she said, as with her
usual groan, she got her basket on her head, and walked sullenly away.

Tom turned, and walked sorrowfully back to the house. In the court he
met little Eva,—a crown of tuberoses on her head, and her eyes radiant
with delight.

“O, Tom! here you are. I’m glad I’ve found you. Papa says you may get
out the ponies, and take me in my little new carriage,” she said,
catching his hand. “But what’s the matter Tom?—you look sober.”

“I feel bad, Miss Eva,” said Tom, sorrowfully. “But I’ll get the horses
for you.”

“But do tell me, Tom, what is the matter. I saw you talking to cross
old Prue.”

Tom, in simple, earnest phrase, told Eva the woman’s history. She did
not exclaim or wonder, or weep, as other children do. Her cheeks grew
pale, and a deep, earnest shadow passed over her eyes. She laid both
hands on her bosom, and sighed heavily.



VOLUME II

CHAPTER XIX
Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions Continued


“Tom, you needn’t get me the horses. I don’t want to go,” she said.

“Why not, Miss Eva?”

“These things sink into my heart, Tom,” said Eva,—“they sink into my
heart,” she repeated, earnestly. “I don’t want to go;” and she turned
from Tom, and went into the house.

A few days after, another woman came, in old Prue’s place, to bring the
rusks; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen.

“Lor!” said Dinah, “what’s got Prue?”

“Prue isn’t coming any more,” said the woman, mysteriously.

“Why not?” said Dinah, “she an’t dead, is she?”

“We doesn’t exactly know. She’s down cellar,” said the woman, glancing
at Miss Ophelia.

After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to the
door.

“What _has_ got Prue, any how?” she said.

The woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant, to speak, and answered, in
low, mysterious tone.

“Well, you mustn’t tell nobody, Prue, she got drunk agin,—and they had
her down cellar,—and thar they left her all day,—and I hearn ’em saying
that the _flies had got to her_,—and _she’s dead_!”

Dinah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her side the
spirit-like form of Evangeline, her large, mystic eyes dilated with
horror, and every drop of blood driven from her lips and cheeks.

“Lor bless us! Miss Eva’s gwine to faint away! What go us all, to let
her har such talk? Her pa’ll be rail mad.”

“I shan’t faint, Dinah,” said the child, firmly; “and why shouldn’t I
hear it? It an’t so much for me to hear it, as for poor Prue to suffer
it.”

“_Lor sakes_! it isn’t for sweet, delicate young ladies, like
you,—these yer stories isn’t; it’s enough to kill ’em!”

Eva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and melancholy step.

Miss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman’s story. Dinah gave a very
garrulous version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which he
had drawn from her that morning.

“An abominable business,—perfectly horrible!” she exclaimed, as she
entered the room where St. Clare lay reading his paper.

“Pray, what iniquity has turned up now?” said he.

“What now? why, those folks have whipped Prue to death!” said Miss
Ophelia, going on, with great strength of detail, into the story, and
enlarging on its most shocking particulars.

“I thought it would come to that, some time,” said St. Clare, going on
with his paper.

“Thought so!—an’t you going to _do_ anything about it?” said Miss
Ophelia. “Haven’t you got any _selectmen_, or anybody, to interfere and
look after such matters?”

“It’s commonly supposed that the _property_ interest is a sufficient
guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their own possessions, I
don’t know what’s to be done. It seems the poor creature was a thief
and a drunkard; and so there won’t be much hope to get up sympathy for
her.”

“It is perfectly outrageous,—it is horrid, Augustine! It will certainly
bring down vengeance upon you.”

“My dear cousin, I didn’t do it, and I can’t help it; I would, if I
could. If low-minded, brutal people will act like themselves, what am I
to do? they have absolute control; they are irresponsible despots.
There would be no use in interfering; there is no law that amounts to
anything practically, for such a case. The best we can do is to shut
our eyes and ears, and let it alone. It’s the only resource left us.”

“How can you shut your eyes and ears? How can you let such things
alone?”

“My dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole class,—debased,
uneducated, indolent, provoking,—put, without any sort of terms or
conditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority in
our world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control,
who haven’t even an enlightened regard to their own interest,—for
that’s the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a
community so organized, what can a man of honorable and humane feelings
do, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden his heart? I can’t buy
every poor wretch I see. I can’t turn knight-errant, and undertake to
redress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The most
I can do is to try and keep out of the way of it.”

St. Clare’s fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he said,

“Come, cousin, don’t stand there looking like one of the Fates; you’ve
only seen a peep through the curtain,—a specimen of what is going on,
the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and
spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to
anything. ’T is like looking too close into the details of Dinah’s
kitchen;” and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself with
his paper.

Miss Ophelia sat down, and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat there
grim with indignation. She knit and knit, but while she mused the fire
burned; at last she broke out—“I tell you, Augustine, I can’t get over
things so, if you can. It’s a perfect abomination for you to defend
such a system,—that’s _my_ mind!”

“What now?” said St. Clare, looking up. “At it again, hey?”

“I say it’s perfectly abominable for you to defend such a system!” said
Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth.

“_I_ defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend it?” said St.
Clare.

“Of course, you defend it,—you all do,—all you Southerners. What do you
have slaves for, if you don’t?”

“Are you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in this world ever
does what they don’t think is right? Don’t you, or didn’t you ever, do
anything that you did not think quite right?”

“If I do, I repent of it, I hope,” said Miss Ophelia, rattling her
needles with energy.

“So do I,” said St. Clare, peeling his orange; “I’m repenting of it all
the time.”

“What do you keep on doing it for?”

“Didn’t you ever keep on doing wrong, after you’d repented, my good
cousin?”

“Well, only when I’ve been very much tempted,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Well, I’m very much tempted,” said St. Clare; “that’s just my
difficulty.”

“But I always resolve I won’t and I try to break off.”

“Well, I have been resolving I won’t, off and on, these ten years,”
said St. Clare; “but I haven’t, some how, got clear. Have you got clear
of all your sins, cousin?”

“Cousin Augustine,” said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and laying down her
knitting-work, “I suppose I deserve that you should reprove my
short-comings. I know all you say is true enough; nobody else feels
them more than I do; but it does seem to me, after all, there is some
difference between me and you. It seems to me I would cut off my right
hand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing what I thought was
wrong. But, then, my conduct is so inconsistent with my profession, I
don’t wonder you reprove me.”

“O, now, cousin,” said Augustine, sitting down on the floor, and laying
his head back in her lap, “don’t take on so awfully serious! You know
what a good-for-nothing, saucy boy I always was. I love to poke you
up,—that’s all,—just to see you get earnest. I do think you are
desperately, distressingly good; it tires me to death to think of it.”

“But this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste,” said Miss Ophelia,
laying her hand on his forehead.

“Dismally so,” said he; “and I—well, I never want to talk seriously in
hot weather. What with mosquitos and all, a fellow can’t get himself up
to any very sublime moral flights; and I believe,” said St. Clare,
suddenly rousing himself up, “there’s a theory, now! I understand now
why northern nations are always more virtuous than southern ones,—I see
into that whole subject.”

“O, Augustine, you are a sad rattle-brain!”

“Am I? Well, so I am, I suppose; but for once I will be serious, now;
but you must hand me that basket of oranges;—you see, you’ll have to
‘stay me with flagons and comfort me with apples,’ if I’m going to make
this effort. Now,” said Augustine, drawing the basket up, “I’ll begin:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a fellow
to hold two or three dozen of his fellow-worms in captivity, a decent
regard to the opinions of society requires—”

“I don’t see that you are growing more serious,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Wait,—I’m coming on,—you’ll hear. The short of the matter is, cousin,”
said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into an earnest and
serious expression, “on this abstract question of slavery there can, as
I think, be but one opinion. Planters, who have money to make by
it,—clergymen, who have planters to please,—politicians, who want to
rule by it,—may warp and bend language and ethics to a degree that
shall astonish the world at their ingenuity; they can press nature and
the Bible, and nobody knows what else, into the service; but, after
all, neither they nor the world believe in it one particle the more. It
comes from the devil, that’s the short of it;—and, to my mind, it’s a
pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in his own line.”

Miss Ophelia stopped her knitting, and looked surprised, and St. Clare,
apparently enjoying her astonishment, went on.

“You seem to wonder; but if you will get me fairly at it, I’ll make a
clean breast of it. This cursed business, accursed of God and man, what
is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and
nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, because my brother Quashy is
ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,—because I know how,
and _can_ do it,—therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give
him only such and so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, too
dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I
don’t like work, Quashy shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy
shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend
it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over
dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the days of his
mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I
find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery _is_. I defy
anybody on earth to read our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books,
and make anything else of it. Talk of the _abuses_ of slavery! Humbug!
The _thing itself_ is the essence of all abuse! And the only reason why
the land don’t sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is because it is
_used_ in a way infinitely better than it is. For pity’s sake, for
shame’s sake, because we are men born of women, and not savage beasts,
many of us do not, and dare not,—we would _scorn_ to use the full power
which our savage laws put into our hands. And he who goes the furthest,
and does the worst, only uses within limits the power that the law
gives him.”

St. Clare had started up, and, as his manner was when excited, was
walking, with hurried steps, up and down the floor. His fine face,
classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed actually to burn with the
fervor of his feelings. His large blue eyes flashed, and he gestured
with an unconscious eagerness. Miss Ophelia had never seen him in this
mood before, and she sat perfectly silent.

“I declare to you,” said he, suddenly stopping before his cousin “(It’s
no sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject), but I declare to
you, there have been times when I have thought, if the whole country
would sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I
would willingly sink with it. When I have been travelling up and down
on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every
brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our
laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as
he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,—when I have seen
such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and
women,—I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!”

“Augustine! Augustine!” said Miss Ophelia, “I’m sure you’ve said
enough. I never, in my life, heard anything like this, even at the
North.”

“At the North!” said St. Clare, with a sudden change of expression, and
resuming something of his habitual careless tone. “Pooh! your northern
folks are cold-blooded; you are cool in everything! You can’t begin to
curse up hill and down as we can, when we get fairly at it.”

“Well, but the question is,” said Miss Ophelia.

“O, yes, to be sure, the _question is_,—and a deuce of a question it
is! How came _you_ in this state of sin and misery? Well, I shall
answer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so
by ordinary generation. My servants were my father’s, and, what is
more, my mother’s; and now they are mine, they and their increase,
which bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, you know,
came first from New England; and he was just such another man as your
father,—a regular old Roman,—upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an
iron will. Your father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks
and stones, and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled
in Louisiana, to rule over men and women, and force existence out of
them. My mother,” said St. Clare, getting up and walking to a picture
at the end of the room, and gazing upward with a face fervent with
veneration, “_she was divine!_ Don’t look at me so!—you know what I
mean! She probably was of mortal birth; but, as far as ever I could
observe, there was no trace of any human weakness or error about her;
and everybody that lives to remember her, whether bond or free,
servant, acquaintance, relation, all say the same. Why, cousin, that
mother has been all that has stood between me and utter unbelief for
years. She was a direct embodiment and personification of the New
Testament,—a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for
in no other way than by its truth. O, mother! mother!” said St. Clare,
clasping his hands, in a sort of transport; and then suddenly checking
himself, he came back, and seating himself on an ottoman, he went on:

“My brother and I were twins; and they say, you know, that twins ought
to resemble each other; but we were in all points a contrast. He had
black, fiery eyes, coal-black hair, a strong, fine Roman profile, and a
rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline,
and fair complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and
inactive. He was generous to his friends and equals, but proud,
dominant, overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever
set itself up against him. Truthful we both were; he from pride and
courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about
as boys generally do,—off and on, and in general;—he was my father’s
pet, and I my mother’s.

“There was a morbid sensitiveness and acuteness of feeling in me on all
possible subjects, of which he and my father had no kind of
understanding, and with which they could have no possible sympathy. But
mother did; and so, when I had quarreled with Alfred, and father looked
sternly on me, I used to go off to mother’s room, and sit by her. I
remember just how she used to look, with her pale cheeks, her deep,
soft, serious eyes, her white dress,—she always wore white; and I used
to think of her whenever I read in Revelations about the saints that
were arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. She had a great deal of
genius of one sort and another, particularly in music; and she used to
sit at her organ, playing fine old majestic music of the Catholic
church, and singing with a voice more like an angel than a mortal
woman; and I would lay my head down on her lap, and cry, and dream, and
feel,—oh, immeasurably!—things that I had no language to say!

“In those days, this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as it
has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it.

“My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state,
he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his
old court pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone,
though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family. My
brother was begotten in his image.

“Now, an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies,
beyond a certain line in society. In England the line is in one place,
in Burmah in another, and in America in another; but the aristocrat of
all these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship and
distress and injustice in his own class, is a cool matter of course in
another one. My father’s dividing line was that of color. _Among his
equals_, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered the
negro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate
link between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice or
generosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to be sure, if anybody had
asked him, plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, he
might have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a man
much troubled with spiritualism; religious sentiment he had none,
beyond a veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper
classes.

“Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he was an
inflexible, driving, punctilious business man; everything was to move
by system,—to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now,
if you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of
lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives,
in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but
‘shirk,’ as you Vermonters say, and you’ll see that there might
naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked
horrible and distressing to a sensitive child, like me.

“Besides all, he had an overseer,—great, tall, slab-sided, two-fisted
renegade son of Vermont—(begging your pardon),—who had gone through a
regular apprenticeship in hardness and brutality and taken his degree
to be admitted to practice. My mother never could endure him, nor I;
but he obtained an entire ascendency over my father; and this man was
the absolute despot of the estate.

“I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that I have now
for all kinds of human things,—a kind of passion for the study of
humanity, come in what shape it would. I was found in the cabins and
among the field-hands a great deal, and, of course, was a great
favorite; and all sorts of complaints and grievances were breathed in
my ear; and I told them to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort of
committee for a redress of grievances. We hindered and repressed a
great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves on doing a vast deal
of good, till, as often happens, my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained
to my father that he couldn’t manage the hands, and must resign his
position. Father was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never
flinched from anything that he thought necessary; and so he put down
his foot, like a rock, between us and the field-hands. He told my
mother, in language perfectly respectful and deferential, but quite
explicit, that over the house-servants she should be entire mistress,
but that with the field-hands he could allow no interference. He
revered and respected her above all living beings; but he would have
said it all the same to the virgin Mary herself, if she had come in the
way of his system.

“I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases with
him,—endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would listen to the most
pathetic appeals with the most discouraging politeness and equanimity.
‘It all resolves itself into this,’ he would say; ‘must I part with
Stubbs, or keep him? Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and
efficiency,—a thorough business hand, and as humane as the general run.
We can’t have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his
administration as a _whole_, even if there are, now and then, things
that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary
hardness. General rules will bear hard on particular cases.’ This last
maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of
cruelty. After he had said _that_, he commonly drew up his feet on the
sofa, like a man that has disposed of a business, and betook himself to
a nap, or the newspaper, as the case might be.

“The fact is my father showed the exact sort of talent for a statesman.
He could have divided Poland as easily as an orange, or trod on Ireland
as quietly and systematically as any man living. At last my mother gave
up, in despair. It never will be known, till the last account, what
noble and sensitive natures like hers have felt, cast, utterly
helpless, into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty,
and which seems so to nobody about them. It has been an age of long
sorrow of such natures, in such a hell-begotten sort of world as ours.
What remained for her, but to train her children in her own views and
sentiments? Well, after all you say about training, children will grow
up substantially what they _are_ by nature, and only that. From the
cradle, Alfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, all
his sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and all
mother’s exhortations went to the winds. As to me, they sunk deep into
me. She never contradicted, in form, anything my father said, or seemed
directly to differ from him; but she impressed, burnt into my very
soul, with all the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the
dignity and worth of the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face
with solemn awe, when she would point up to the stars in the evening,
and say to me, ’See there, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our
place will be living, when all these stars are gone forever,—will live
as long as God lives!’

“She had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of Jesus healing
a blind man. They were very fine, and used to impress me strongly. ‘See
there, Auguste,’ she would say; ‘the blind man was a beggar, poor and
loathsome; therefore, he would not heal him _afar off!_ He called him
to him, and put _his hands on him!_ Remember this, my boy.’ If I had
lived to grow up under her care, she might have stimulated me to I know
not what of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint, reformer,
martyr,—but, alas! alas! I went from her when I was only thirteen, and
I never saw her again!”

St. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak for some
minutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on:

“What poor, mean trash this whole business of human virtue is! A mere
matter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographical
position, acting with natural temperament. The greater part is nothing
but an accident! Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a
town where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church
member and deacon, and in due time joins an Abolition society, and
thinks us all little better than heathens. Yet he is, for all the
world, in constitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see
it leaking out in fifty different ways,—just the same strong,
overbearing, dominant spirit. You know very well how impossible it is
to persuade some of the folks in your village that Squire Sinclair does
not feel above them. The fact is, though he has fallen on democratic
times, and embraced a democratic theory, he is to the heart an
aristocrat, as much as my father, who ruled over five or six hundred
slaves.”

Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture, and was
laying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare stopped her.

“Now, I know every word you are going to say. I do not say they _were_
alike, in fact. One fell into a condition where everything acted
against the natural tendency, and the other where everything acted for
it; and so one turned out a pretty wilful, stout, overbearing old
democrat, and the other a wilful, stout old despot. If both had owned
plantations in Louisiana, they would have been as like as two old
bullets cast in the same mould.”

“What an undutiful boy you are!” said Miss Ophelia.

“I don’t mean them any disrespect,” said St. Clare. “You know reverence
is not my forte. But, to go back to my history:

“When father died, he left the whole property to us twin boys, to be
divided as we should agree. There does not breathe on God’s earth a
nobler-souled, more generous fellow, than Alfred, in all that concerns
his equals; and we got on admirably with this property question,
without a single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to work the
plantation together; and Alfred, whose outward life and capabilities
had double the strength of mine, became an enthusiastic planter, and a
wonderfully successful one.

“But two years’ trial satisfied me that I could not be a partner in
that matter. To have a great gang of seven hundred, whom I could not
know personally, or feel any individual interest in, bought and driven,
housed, fed, worked like so many horned cattle, strained up to military
precision,—the question of how little of life’s commonest enjoyments
would keep them in working order being a constantly recurring
problem,—the necessity of drivers and overseers,—the ever-necessary
whip, first, last, and only argument,—the whole thing was insufferably
disgusting and loathsome to me; and when I thought of my mother’s
estimate of one poor human soul, it became even frightful!

“It’s all nonsense to talk to me about slaves _enjoying_ all this! To
this day, I have no patience with the unutterable trash that some of
your patronizing Northerners have made up, as in their zeal to
apologize for our sins. We all know better. Tell me that any man living
wants to work all his days, from day-dawn till dark, under the constant
eye of a master, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible
volition, on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging toil, and all for
two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food
and shelter to keep him in working order! Any man who thinks that human
beings can, as a general thing, be made about as comfortable that way
as any other, I wish he might try it. I’d buy the dog, and work him,
with a clear conscience!”

“I always have supposed,” said Miss Ophelia, “that you, all of you,
approved of these things, and thought them _right_—according to
Scripture.”

“Humbug! We are not quite reduced to that yet. Alfred who is as
determined a despot as ever walked, does not pretend to this kind of
defence;—no, he stands, high and haughty, on that good old respectable
ground, _the right of the strongest_; and he says, and I think quite
sensibly, that the American planter is ‘only doing, in another form,
what the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the lower
classes;’ that is, I take it, _appropriating_ them, body and bone, soul
and spirit, to their use and convenience. He defends both,—and I think,
at least, _consistently_. He says that there can be no high
civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real.
There must, he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and
confined to an animal nature; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure
and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improvement, and
becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he reasons, because, as I
said, he is born an aristocrat;—so I don’t believe, because I was born
a democrat.”

“How in the world can the two things be compared?” said Miss Ophelia.
“The English laborer is not sold, traded, parted from his family,
whipped.”

“He is as much at the will of his employer as if he were sold to him.
The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,—the capitalist
can starve him to death. As to family security, it is hard to say which
is the worst,—to have one’s children sold, or see them starve to death
at home.”

“But it’s no kind of apology for slavery, to prove that it isn’t worse
than some other bad thing.”

“I didn’t give it for one,—nay, I’ll say, besides, that ours is the
more bold and palpable infringement of human rights; actually buying a
man up, like a horse,—looking at his teeth, cracking his joints, and
trying his paces and then paying down for him,—having speculators,
breeders, traders, and brokers in human bodies and souls,—sets the
thing before the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form,
though the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the same; that is,
appropriating one set of human beings to the use and improvement of
another without any regard to their own.”

“I never thought of the matter in this light,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Well, I’ve travelled in England some, and I’ve looked over a good many
documents as to the state of their lower classes; and I really think
there is no denying Alfred, when he says that his slaves are better off
than a large class of the population of England. You see, you must not
infer, from what I have told you, that Alfred is what is called a hard
master; for he isn’t. He is despotic, and unmerciful to
insubordination; he would shoot a fellow down with as little remorse as
he would shoot a buck, if he opposed him. But, in general, he takes a
sort of pride in having his slaves comfortably fed and accommodated.

“When I was with him, I insisted that he should do something for their
instruction; and, to please me, he did get a chaplain, and used to have
them catechized Sunday, though, I believe, in his heart, that he
thought it would do about as much good to set a chaplain over his dogs
and horses. And the fact is, that a mind stupefied and animalized by
every bad influence from the hour of birth, spending the whole of every
week-day in unreflecting toil, cannot be done much with by a few hours
on Sunday. The teachers of Sunday-schools among the manufacturing
population of England, and among plantation-hands in our country, could
perhaps testify to the same result, _there and here_. Yet some striking
exceptions there are among us, from the fact that the negro is
naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white.”

“Well,” said Miss Ophelia, “how came you to give up your plantation
life?”

“Well, we jogged on together some time, till Alfred saw plainly that I
was no planter. He thought it absurd, after he had reformed, and
altered, and improved everywhere, to suit my notions, that I still
remained unsatisfied. The fact was, it was, after all, the THING that I
hated—the using these men and women, the perpetuation of all this
ignorance, brutality and vice,—just to make money for me!

“Besides, I was always interfering in the details. Being myself one of
the laziest of mortals, I had altogether too much fellow-feeling for
the lazy; and when poor, shiftless dogs put stones at the bottom of
their cotton-baskets to make them weigh heavier, or filled their sacks
with dirt, with cotton at the top, it seemed so exactly like what I
should do if I were they, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have them flogged for
it. Well, of course, there was an end of plantation discipline; and Alf
and I came to about the same point that I and my respected father did,
years before. So he told me that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and
would never do for business life; and advised me to take the bank-stock
and the New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing poetry, and let
him manage the plantation. So we parted, and I came here.”

“But why didn’t you free your slaves?”

“Well, I wasn’t up to that. To hold them as tools for money-making, I
could not;—have them to help spend money, you know, didn’t look quite
so ugly to me. Some of them were old house-servants, to whom I was much
attached; and the younger ones were children to the old. All were well
satisfied to be as they were.” He paused, and walked reflectively up
and down the room.

“There was,” said St. Clare, “a time in my life when I had plans and
hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift. I
had vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,—to free my
native land from this spot and stain. All young men have had such
fever-fits, I suppose, some time,—but then—”

“Why didn’t you?” said Miss Ophelia;—“you ought not to put your hand to
the plough, and look back.”

“O, well, things didn’t go with me as I expected, and I got the despair
of living that Solomon did. I suppose it was a necessary incident to
wisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor and
regenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood, and have been
floating and eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me, every time we
meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,—for he really does
something; his life is a logical result of his opinions and mine is a
contemptible _non sequitur_.”

“My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your
probation?”

“Satisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it? But, then, to
come back to this point,—we were on this liberation business. I don’t
think my feelings about slavery are peculiar. I find many men who, in
their hearts, think of it just as I do. The land groans under it; and,
bad as it is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master.
It takes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious,
improvident, degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as
to themselves. The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel
that as we do, because they do not mingle with the class they degrade
as we do. They are in our homes; they are the associates of our
children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a
race that children always will cling to and assimilate with. If Eva,
now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined. We might as
well allow the small-pox to run among them, and think our children
would not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious, and
think our children will not be affected by that. Yet our laws
positively and utterly forbid any efficient general educational system,
and they do it wisely, too; for, just begin and thoroughly educate one
generation, and the whole thing would be blown sky high. If we did not
give them liberty, they would take it.”

“And what do you think will be the end of this?” said Miss Ophelia.

“I don’t know. One thing is certain,—that there is a mustering among
the masses, the world over; and there is a _dies iræ_ coming on, sooner
or later. The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this
country. My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming,
when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy. And she
taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, ’thy kingdom come.’ Sometimes I
think all this sighing, and groaning, and stirring among the dry bones
foretells what she used to tell me was coming. But who may abide the
day of His appearing?”

“Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the kingdom,” said
Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at her
cousin.

“Thank you for your good opinion, but it’s up and down with me,—up to
heaven’s gate in theory, down in earth’s dust in practice. But there’s
the teabell,—do let’s go,—and don’t say, now, I haven’t had one
downright serious talk, for once in my life.”

At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. “I suppose you’ll
think, cousin,” she said, “that we are all barbarians.”

“I think that’s a barbarous thing,” said Miss Ophelia, “but I don’t
think you are all barbarians.”

“Well, now,” said Marie, “I know it’s impossible to get along with some
of these creatures. They are so bad they ought not to live. I don’t
feel a particle of sympathy for such cases. If they’d only behave
themselves, it would not happen.”

“But, mamma,” said Eva, “the poor creature was unhappy; that’s what
made her drink.”

“O, fiddlestick! as if that were any excuse! I’m unhappy, very often. I
presume,” she said, pensively, “that I’ve had greater trials than ever
she had. It’s just because they are so bad. There’s some of them that
you cannot break in by any kind of severity. I remember father had a
man that was so lazy he would run away just to get rid of work, and lie
round in the swamps, stealing and doing all sorts of horrid things.
That man was caught and whipped, time and again, and it never did him
any good; and the last time he crawled off, though he couldn’t but just
go, and died in the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for
father’s hands were always treated kindly.”

“I broke a fellow in, once,” said St. Clare, “that all the overseers
and masters had tried their hands on in vain.”

“You!” said Marie; “well, I’d be glad to know when _you_ ever did
anything of the sort.”

“Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow,—a native-born African; and
he appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom in him to an uncommon
degree. He was a regular African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobody
could do anything with him; and he was sold round from overseer to
overseer, till at last Alfred bought him, because he thought he could
manage him. Well, one day he knocked down the overseer, and was fairly
off into the swamps. I was on a visit to Alf’s plantation, for it was
after we had dissolved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated; but
I told him that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that I
could break the man; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught him, I
should have him to experiment on. So they mustered out a party of some
six or seven, with guns and dogs, for the hunt. People, you know, can
get up as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is only
customary; in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I had only
put in as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught.

“Well, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scampered, and
finally we started him. He ran and bounded like a buck, and kept us
well in the rear for some time; but at last he got caught in an
impenetrable thicket of cane; then he turned to bay, and I tell you he
fought the dogs right gallantly. He dashed them to right and left, and
actually killed three of them with only his naked fists, when a shot
from a gun brought him down, and he fell, wounded and bleeding, almost
at my feet. The poor fellow looked up at me with manhood and despair
both in his eye. I kept back the dogs and the party, as they came
pressing up, and claimed him as my prisoner. It was all I could do to
keep them from shooting him, in the flush of success; but I persisted
in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well, I took him in hand, and
in one fortnight I had him tamed down as submissive and tractable as
heart could desire.”

“What in the world did you do to him?” said Marie.

“Well, it was quite a simple process. I took him to my own room, had a
good bed made for him, dressed his wounds, and tended him myself, until
he got fairly on his feet again. And, in process of time, I had free
papers made out for him, and told him he might go where he liked.”

“And did he go?” said Miss Ophelia.

“No. The foolish fellow tore the paper in two, and absolutely refused
to leave me. I never had a braver, better fellow,—trusty and true as
steel. He embraced Christianity afterwards, and became as gentle as a
child. He used to oversee my place on the lake, and did it capitally,
too. I lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid down his
life for me. For I was sick, almost to death; and when, through the
panic, everybody else fled, Scipio worked for me like a giant, and
actually brought me back into life again. But, poor fellow! he was
taken, right after, and there was no saving him. I never felt anybody’s
loss more.”

Eva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father, as he told the
story,—her small lips apart, her eyes wide and earnest with absorbing
interest.

As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, burst into
tears, and sobbed convulsively.

“Eva, dear child! what is the matter?” said St. Clare, as the child’s
small frame trembled and shook with the violence of her feelings. “This
child,” he added, “ought not to hear any of this kind of thing,—she’s
nervous.”

“No, papa, I’m not nervous,” said Eva, controlling herself, suddenly,
with a strength of resolution singular in such a child. “I’m not
nervous, but these things _sink into my heart_.”

“What do you mean, Eva?”

“I can’t tell you, papa, I think a great many thoughts. Perhaps some
day I shall tell you.”

“Well, think away, dear,—only don’t cry and worry your papa,” said St.
Clare, “Look here,—see what a beautiful peach I have got for you.”

Eva took it and smiled, though there was still a nervous twiching about
the corners of her mouth.

“Come, look at the gold-fish,” said St. Clare, taking her hand and
stepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and merry laughs were heard
through the silken curtains, as Eva and St. Clare were pelting each
other with roses, and chasing each other among the alleys of the court.


There is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected amid the
adventures of the higher born; but, if our readers will accompany us up
to a little loft over the stable, they may, perhaps, learn a little of
his affairs. It was a decent room, containing a bed, a chair, and a
small, rough stand, where lay Tom’s Bible and hymn-book; and where he
sits, at present, with his slate before him, intent on something that
seems to cost him a great deal of anxious thought.

The fact was, that Tom’s home-yearnings had become so strong that he
had begged a sheet of writing-paper of Eva, and, mustering up all his
small stock of literary attainment acquired by Mas’r George’s
instructions, he conceived the bold idea of writing a letter; and he
was busy now, on his slate, getting out his first draft. Tom was in a
good deal of trouble, for the forms of some of the letters he had
forgotten entirely; and of what he did remember, he did not know
exactly which to use. And while he was working, and breathing very
hard, in his earnestness, Eva alighted, like a bird, on the round of
his chair behind him, and peeped over his shoulder.

“O, Uncle Tom! what funny things you _are_ making, there!”

“I’m trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, and my little
chil’en,” said Tom, drawing the back of his hand over his eyes; “but,
some how, I’m feard I shan’t make it out.”

“I wish I could help you, Tom! I’ve learnt to write some. Last year I
could make all the letters, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”

So Eva put her golden head close to his, and the two commenced a grave
and anxious discussion, each one equally earnest, and about equally
ignorant; and, with a deal of consulting and advising over every word,
the composition began, as they both felt very sanguine, to look quite
like writing.

“Yes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful,” said Eva, gazing
delightedly on it. “How pleased your wife’ll be, and the poor little
children! O, it’s a shame you ever had to go away from them! I mean to
ask papa to let you go back, some time.”

“Missis said that she would send down money for me, as soon as they
could get it together,” said Tom. “I’m ’spectin, she will. Young Mas’r
George, he said he’d come for me; and he gave me this yer dollar as a
sign;” and Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar.

“O, he’ll certainly come, then!” said Eva. “I’m so glad!”

“And I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let ’em know whar I was,
and tell poor Chloe that I was well off,—cause she felt so drefful,
poor soul!”

“I say Tom!” said St. Clare’s voice, coming in the door at this moment.

Tom and Eva both started.

“What’s here?” said St. Clare, coming up and looking at the slate.

“O, it’s Tom’s letter. I’m helping him to write it,” said Eva; “isn’t
it nice?”

“I wouldn’t discourage either of you,” said St. Clare, “but I rather
think, Tom, you’d better get me to write your letter for you. I’ll do
it, when I come home from my ride.”

“It’s very important he should write,” said Eva, “because his mistress
is going to send down money to redeem him, you know, papa; he told me
they told him so.”

St. Clare thought, in his heart, that this was probably only one of
those things which good-natured owners say to their servants, to
alleviate their horror of being sold, without any intention of
fulfilling the expectation thus excited. But he did not make any
audible comment upon it,—only ordered Tom to get the horses out for a
ride.

Tom’s letter was written in due form for him that evening, and safely
lodged in the post-office.

Miss Ophelia still persevered in her labors in the housekeeping line.
It was universally agreed, among all the household, from Dinah down to
the youngest urchin, that Miss Ophelia was decidedly “curis,”—a term by
which a southern servant implies that his or her betters don’t exactly
suit them.

The higher circle in the family—to wit, Adolph, Jane and Rosa—agreed
that she was no lady; ladies never keep working about as she did,—that
she had no _air_ at all; and they were surprised that she should be any
relation of the St. Clares. Even Marie declared that it was absolutely
fatiguing to see Cousin Ophelia always so busy. And, in fact, Miss
Ophelia’s industry was so incessant as to lay some foundation for the
complaint. She sewed and stitched away, from daylight till dark, with
the energy of one who is pressed on by some immediate urgency; and
then, when the light faded, and the work was folded away, with one turn
out came the ever-ready knitting-work, and there she was again, going
on as briskly as ever. It really was a labor to see her.




CHAPTER XX
Topsy


One morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her domestic cares,
St. Clare’s voice was heard, calling her at the foot of the stairs.

“Come down here, Cousin, I’ve something to show you.”

“What is it?” said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her sewing in her
hand.

“I’ve made a purchase for your department,—see here,” said St. Clare;
and, with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl, about eight or
nine years of age.

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round shining eyes,
glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over
everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with astonishment at the
wonders of the new Mas’r’s parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set
of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which
stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd
mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a
kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity.
She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging;
and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, there
was something odd and goblin-like about her appearance,—something, as
Miss Ophelia afterwards said, “so heathenish,” as to inspire that good
lady with utter dismay; and turning to St. Clare, she said,

“Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?”

“For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she should go. I
thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim Crow line. Here,
Topsy,” he added, giving a whistle, as a man would to call the
attention of a dog, “give us a song, now, and show us some of your
dancing.”

The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, and
the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd negro melody, to
which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning round, clapping
her hands, knocking her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of
time, and producing in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which
distinguish the native music of her race; and finally, turning a
summerset or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, as odd and
unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly down on the
carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious
expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the
cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes.

Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement. St.
Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared to enjoy her
astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said,

“Topsy, this is your new mistress. I’m going to give you up to her; see
now that you behave yourself.”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her wicked eyes
twinkling as she spoke.

“You’re going to be good, Topsy, you understand,” said St. Clare.

“O yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands still
devoutly folded.

“Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?” said Miss Ophelia. “Your
house is so full of these little plagues, now, that a body can’t set
down their foot without treading on ’em. I get up in the morning, and
find one asleep behind the door, and see one black head poking out from
under the table, one lying on the door-mat,—and they are mopping and
mowing and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over the
kitchen floor! What on earth did you want to bring this one for?”

“For you to educate—didn’t I tell you? You’re always preaching about
educating. I thought I would make you a present of a fresh-caught
specimen, and let you try your hand on her, and bring her up in the way
she should go.”

“_I_ don’t want her, I am sure;—I have more to do with ’em now than I
want to.”

“That’s you Christians, all over!—you’ll get up a society, and get some
poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let
me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and
take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to
that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care, and so
on.”

“Augustine, you know I didn’t think of it in that light,” said Miss
Ophelia, evidently softening. “Well, it might be a real missionary
work,” said she, looking rather more favorably on the child.

St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia’s
conscientiousness was ever on the alert. “But,” she added, “I really
didn’t see the need of buying this one;—there are enough now, in your
house, to take all my time and skill.”

“Well, then, Cousin,” said St. Clare, drawing her aside, “I ought to
beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing speeches. You are so good,
after all, that there’s no sense in them. Why, the fact is, this
concern belonged to a couple of drunken creatures that keep a low
restaurant that I have to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing
her screaming, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright
and funny, too, as if something might be made of her;—so I bought her,
and I’ll give her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New
England bringing up, and see what it’ll make of her. You know I haven’t
any gift that way; but I’d like you to try.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her
new subject very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black
spider, supposing them to have benevolent designs toward it.

“She’s dreadfully dirty, and half naked,” she said.

“Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them clean and clothe her
up.”

Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions.

“Don’t see what Mas’r St. Clare wants of ’nother nigger!” said Dinah,
surveying the new arrival with no friendly air. “Won’t have her around
under _my_ feet, _I_ know!”

“Pah!” said Rosa and Jane, with supreme disgust; “let her keep out of
our way! What in the world Mas’r wanted another of these low niggers
for, I can’t see!”

“You go long! No more nigger dan you be, Miss Rosa,” said Dinah, who
felt this last remark a reflection on herself. “You seem to tink
yourself white folks. You an’t nerry one, black _nor_ white, I’d like
to be one or turrer.”

Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp that would undertake
to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new arrival; and so she
was forced to do it herself, with some very ungracious and reluctant
assistance from Jane.

It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the first toilet
of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this world, multitudes must
live and die in a state that it would be too great a shock to the
nerves of their fellow-mortals even to hear described. Miss Ophelia had
a good, strong, practical deal of resolution; and she went through all
the disgusting details with heroic thoroughness, though, it must be
confessed, with no very gracious air,—for endurance was the utmost to
which her principles could bring her. When she saw, on the back and
shoulders of the child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable
marks of the system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart
became pitiful within her.

“See there!” said Jane, pointing to the marks, “don’t that show she’s a
limb? We’ll have fine works with her, I reckon. I hate these nigger
young uns! so disgusting! I wonder that Mas’r would buy her!”

The “young un” alluded to heard all these comments with the subdued and
doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only scanning, with a keen
and furtive glance of her flickering eyes, the ornaments which Jane
wore in her ears. When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole
clothing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some
satisfaction, said she looked more Christian-like than she did, and in
her own mind began to mature some plans for her instruction.

Sitting down before her, she began to question her.

“How old are you, Topsy?”

“Dun no, Missis,” said the image, with a grin that showed all her
teeth.

“Don’t know how old you are? Didn’t anybody ever tell you? Who was your
mother?”

“Never had none!” said the child, with another grin.

“Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?”

“Never was born!” persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so
goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous, she might
have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land of
Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and
business-like, and she said, with some sternness,

“You mustn’t answer me in that way, child; I’m not playing with you.
Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were.”

“Never was born,” reiterated the creature, more emphatically; “never
had no father nor mother, nor nothin’. I was raised by a speculator,
with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us.”

The child was evidently sincere, and Jane, breaking into a short laugh,
said,

“Laws, Missis, there’s heaps of ’em. Speculators buys ’em up cheap,
when they’s little, and gets ’em raised for market.”

“How long have you lived with your master and mistress?”

“Dun no, Missis.”

“Is it a year, or more, or less?”

“Dun no, Missis.”

“Laws, Missis, those low negroes,—they can’t tell; they don’t know
anything about time,” said Jane; “they don’t know what a year is; they
don’t know their own ages.

“Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?”

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual.

“Do you know who made you?”

“Nobody, as I knows on,” said the child, with a short laugh.

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and
she added,

“I spect I grow’d. Don’t think nobody never made me.”

“Do you know how to sew?” said Miss Ophelia, who thought she would turn
her inquiries to something more tangible.

“No, Missis.”

“What can you do?—what did you do for your master and mistress?”

“Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait on folks.”

“Were they good to you?”

“Spect they was,” said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia cunningly.

Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. Clare was leaning
over the back of her chair.

“You find virgin soil there, Cousin; put in your own ideas,—you won’t
find many to pull up.”

Miss Ophelia’s ideas of education, like all her other ideas, were very
set and definite; and of the kind that prevailed in New England a
century ago, and which are still preserved in some very retired and
unsophisticated parts, where there are no railroads. As nearly as could
be expressed, they could be comprised in very few words: to teach them
to mind when they were spoken to; to teach them the catechism, sewing,
and reading; and to whip them if they told lies. And though, of course,
in the flood of light that is now poured on education, these are left
far away in the rear, yet it is an undisputed fact that our
grandmothers raised some tolerably fair men and women under this
regime, as many of us can remember and testify. At all events, Miss
Ophelia knew of nothing else to do; and, therefore, applied her mind to
her heathen with the best diligence she could command.

The child was announced and considered in the family as Miss Ophelia’s
girl; and, as she was looked upon with no gracious eye in the kitchen,
Miss Ophelia resolved to confine her sphere of operation and
instruction chiefly to her own chamber. With a self-sacrifice which
some of our readers will appreciate, she resolved, instead of
comfortably making her own bed, sweeping and dusting her own
chamber,—which she had hitherto done, in utter scorn of all offers of
help from the chambermaid of the establishment,—to condemn herself to
the martyrdom of instructing Topsy to perform these operations,—ah, woe
the day! Did any of our readers ever do the same, they will appreciate
the amount of her self-sacrifice.

Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her chamber, the first
morning, and solemnly commencing a course of instruction in the art and
mystery of bed-making.

Behold, then, Topsy, washed and shorn of all the little braided tails
wherein her heart had delighted, arrayed in a clean gown, with
well-starched apron, standing reverently before Miss Ophelia, with an
expression of solemnity well befitting a funeral.

“Now, Topsy, I’m going to show you just how my bed is to be made. I am
very particular about my bed. You must learn exactly how to do it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face of woful
earnestness.

“Now, Topsy, look here;—this is the hem of the sheet,—this is the right
side of the sheet, and this is the wrong;—will you remember?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Topsy, with another sigh.

“Well, now, the under sheet you must bring over the bolster,—so—and
tuck it clear down under the mattress nice and smooth,—so,—do you see?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Topsy, with profound attention.

“But the upper sheet,” said Miss Ophelia, “must be brought down in this
way, and tucked under firm and smooth at the foot,—so,—the narrow hem
at the foot.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Topsy, as before;—but we will add, what Miss Ophelia
did not see, that, during the time when the good lady’s back was turned
in the zeal of her manipulations, the young disciple had contrived to
snatch a pair of gloves and a ribbon, which she had adroitly slipped
into her sleeves, and stood with her hands dutifully folded, as before.

“Now, Topsy, let’s see _you_ do this,” said Miss Ophelia, pulling off
the clothes, and seating herself.

Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through the exercise
completely to Miss Ophelia’s satisfaction; smoothing the sheets,
patting out every wrinkle, and exhibiting, through the whole process, a
gravity and seriousness with which her instructress was greatly
edified. By an unlucky slip, however, a fluttering fragment of the
ribbon hung out of one of her sleeves, just as she was finishing, and
caught Miss Ophelia’s attention. Instantly, she pounced upon it.
“What’s this? You naughty, wicked child,—you’ve been stealing this!”

The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy’s own sleeve, yet was she not in the
least disconcerted; she only looked at it with an air of the most
surprised and unconscious innocence.

“Laws! why, that ar’s Miss Feely’s ribbon, an’t it? How could it a got
caught in my sleeve?

“Topsy, you naughty girl, don’t you tell me a lie,—you stole that
ribbon!”

“Missis, I declar for ’t, I didn’t;—never seed it till dis yer blessed
minnit.”

“Topsy,” said Miss Ophelia, “don’t you know it’s wicked to tell lies?”

“I never tell no lies, Miss Feely,” said Topsy, with virtuous gravity;
“it’s jist the truth I’ve been a tellin now, and an’t nothin else.”

“Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so.”

“Laws, Missis, if you’s to whip all day, couldn’t say no other way,”
said Topsy, beginning to blubber. “I never seed dat ar,—it must a got
caught in my sleeve. Miss Feeley must have left it on the bed, and it
got caught in the clothes, and so got in my sleeve.”

Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that she caught the
child and shook her.

“Don’t you tell me that again!”

The shake brought the glove on to the floor, from the other sleeve.

“There, you!” said Miss Ophelia, “will you tell me now, you didn’t
steal the ribbon?”

Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in denying the
ribbon.

“Now, Topsy,” said Miss Ophelia, “if you’ll confess all about it, I
won’t whip you this time.” Thus adjured, Topsy confessed to the ribbon
and gloves, with woful protestations of penitence.

“Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other things since you
have been in the house, for I let you run about all day yesterday. Now,
tell me if you took anything, and I shan’t whip you.”

“Laws, Missis! I took Miss Eva’s red thing she wars on her neck.”

“You did, you naughty child!—Well, what else?”

“I took Rosa’s yer-rings,—them red ones.”

“Go bring them to me this minute, both of ’em.”

“Laws, Missis! I can’t,—they ’s burnt up!”

“Burnt up!—what a story! Go get ’em, or I’ll whip you.”

Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans, declared that
she _could_ not. “They ’s burnt up,—they was.”

“What did you burn ’em for?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Cause I ’s wicked,—I is. I ’s mighty wicked, any how. I can’t help
it.”

Just at this moment, Eva came innocently into the room, with the
identical coral necklace on her neck.

“Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Get it? Why, I’ve had it on all day,” said Eva.

“Did you have it on yesterday?”

“Yes; and what is funny, Aunty, I had it on all night. I forgot to take
it off when I went to bed.”

Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered; the more so, as Rosa, at that
instant, came into the room, with a basket of newly-ironed linen poised
on her head, and the coral ear-drops shaking in her ears!

“I’m sure I can’t tell anything what to do with such a child!” she
said, in despair. “What in the world did you tell me you took those
things for, Topsy?”

“Why, Missis said I must ’fess; and I couldn’t think of nothin’ else to
’fess,” said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.

“But, of course, I didn’t want you to confess things you didn’t do,”
said Miss Ophelia; “that’s telling a lie, just as much as the other.”

“Laws, now, is it?” said Topsy, with an air of innocent wonder.

“La, there an’t any such thing as truth in that limb,” said Rosa,
looking indignantly at Topsy. “If I was Mas’r St. Clare, I’d whip her
till the blood run. I would,—I’d let her catch it!”

“No, no Rosa,” said Eva, with an air of command, which the child could
assume at times; “you mustn’t talk so, Rosa. I can’t bear to hear it.”

“La sakes! Miss Eva, you ’s so good, you don’t know nothing how to get
along with niggers. There’s no way but to cut ’em well up, I tell ye.”

“Rosa!” said Eva, “hush! Don’t you say another word of that sort!” and
the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deepened its color.

Rosa was cowed in a moment.

“Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that’s plain. She can
speak, for all the world, just like her papa,” she said, as she passed
out of the room.

Eva stood looking at Topsy.

There stood the two children representatives of the two extremes of
society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep
eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements; and her
black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor. They stood the
representatives of their races. The Saxon, born of ages of cultivation,
command, education, physical and moral eminence; the Afric, born of
ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil and vice!

Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through Eva’s mind. But
a child’s thoughts are rather dim, undefined instincts; and in Eva’s
noble nature many such were yearning and working, for which she had no
power of utterance. When Miss Ophelia expatiated on Topsy’s naughty,
wicked conduct, the child looked perplexed and sorrowful, but said,
sweetly.

“Poor Topsy, why need you steal? You’re going to be taken good care of
now. I’m sure I’d rather give you anything of mine, than have you steal
it.”

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in her life;
and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the wild, rude heart,
and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in the keen, round,
glittering eye; but it was followed by the short laugh and habitual
grin. No! the ear that has never heard anything but abuse is strangely
incredulous of anything so heavenly as kindness; and Topsy only thought
Eva’s speech something funny and inexplicable,—she did not believe it.

But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the case a
puzzler; her rules for bringing up didn’t seem to apply. She thought
she would take time to think of it; and, by the way of gaining time,
and in hopes of some indefinite moral virtues supposed to be inherent
in dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one till she had
arranged her ideas further on the subject.

“I don’t see,” said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, “how I’m going to manage
that child, without whipping her.”

“Well, whip her, then, to your heart’s content; I’ll give you full
power to do what you like.”

“Children always have to be whipped,” said Miss Ophelia; “I never heard
of bringing them up without.”

“O, well, certainly,” said St. Clare; “do as you think best. Only I’ll
make one suggestion: I’ve seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked
down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came handiest, &c. and,
seeing that she is used to that style of operation, I think your
whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression.”

“What is to be done with her, then?” said Miss Ophelia.

“You have started a serious question,” said St. Clare; “I wish you’d
answer it. What is to be done with a human being that can be governed
only by the lash,—_that_ fails,—it’s a very common state of things down
here!”

“I’m sure I don’t know; I never saw such a child as this.”

“Such children are very common among us, and such men and women, too.
How are they to be governed?” said St. Clare.

“I’m sure it’s more than I can say,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Or I either,” said St. Clare. “The horrid cruelties and outrages that
once and a while find their way into the papers,—such cases as Prue’s,
for example,—what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual
hardening process on both sides,—the owner growing more and more cruel,
as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like
laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline. I
saw this very early when I became an owner; and I resolved never to
begin, because I did not know when I should stop,—and I resolved, at
least, to protect my own moral nature. The consequence is, that my
servants act like spoiled children; but I think that better than for us
both to be brutalized together. You have talked a great deal about our
responsibilities in educating, Cousin. I really wanted you to _try_
with one child, who is a specimen of thousands among us.”

“It is your system makes such children,” said Miss Ophelia.

“I know it; but they are _made_,—they exist,—and what _is_ to be done
with them?”

“Well, I can’t say I thank you for the experiment. But, then, as it
appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and do the best I
can,” said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after this, did labor, with
a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on her new subject. She
instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to
teach her to read and sew.

In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned her letters
as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain reading; but the
sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature was as lithe as a cat,
and as active as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her
abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them slyly out of the
window, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied
her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away
altogether. Her motions were almost as quick as those of a practised
conjurer, and her command of her face quite as great; and though Miss
Ophelia could not help feeling that so many accidents could not
possibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without a
watchfulness which would leave her no time for anything else, detect
her.

Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. Her talent for
every species of drollery, grimace, and mimicry,—for dancing, tumbling,
climbing, singing, whistling, imitating every sound that hit her
fancy,—seemed inexhaustible. In her play-hours, she invariably had
every child in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with
admiration and wonder,—not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be
fascinated by her wild diablerie, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a
glittering serpent. Miss Ophelia was uneasy that Eva should fancy
Topsy’s society so much, and implored St. Clare to forbid it.

“Poh! let the child alone,” said St. Clare. “Topsy will do her good.”

“But so depraved a child,—are you not afraid she will teach her some
mischief?”

“She can’t teach her mischief; she might teach it to some children, but
evil rolls off Eva’s mind like dew off a cabbage-leaf,—not a drop sinks
in.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Miss Ophelia. “I know I’d never let a child
of mine play with Topsy.”

“Well, your children needn’t,” said St. Clare, “but mine may; if Eva
could have been spoiled, it would have been done years ago.”

Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper servants. They
soon found reason to alter their opinion. It was very soon discovered
that whoever cast an indignity on Topsy was sure to meet with some
inconvenient accident shortly after;—either a pair of ear-rings or some
cherished trinket would be missing, or an article of dress would be
suddenly found utterly ruined, or the person would stumble accidently
into a pail of hot water, or a libation of dirty slop would
unaccountably deluge them from above when in full gala dress;-and on
all these occasions, when investigation was made, there was nobody
found to stand sponsor for the indignity. Topsy was cited, and had up
before all the domestic judicatories, time and again; but always
sustained her examinations with most edifying innocence and gravity of
appearance. Nobody in the world ever doubted who did the things; but
not a scrap of any direct evidence could be found to establish the
suppositions, and Miss Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to
proceed to any length without it.

The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, as further to
shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for revenge on Rosa and Jane,
the two chamber maids, were always chosen in those seasons when (as not
unfrequently happened) they were in disgrace with their mistress, when
any complaint from them would of course meet with no sympathy. In
short, Topsy soon made the household understand the propriety of
letting her alone; and she was let alone, accordingly.

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning
everything that was taught her with surprising quickness. With a few
lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss Ophelia’s
chamber in a way with which even that particular lady could find no
fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more
accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when
she chose,—but she didn’t very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after
three or four days of careful patient supervision, was so sanguine as
to suppose that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without
over-looking, and so go off and busy herself about something else,
Topsy would hold a perfect carnival of confusion, for some one or two
hours. Instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling
off the pillowcases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it
would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in
various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head downward
from the tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment;
dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia’s night-clothes, and enact various
performances with that,—singing and whistling, and making grimaces at
herself in the looking-glass; in short, as Miss Ophelia phrased it,
“raising Cain” generally.

On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very best scarlet
India Canton crape shawl wound round her head for a turban, going on
with her rehearsals before the glass in great style,—Miss Ophelia
having, with carelessness most unheard-of in her, left the key for once
in her drawer.

“Topsy!” she would say, when at the end of all patience, “what does
make you act so?”

“Dunno, Missis,—I spects cause I ’s so wicked!”

“I don’t know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy.”

“Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers whipped me. I an’t
used to workin’ unless I gets whipped.”

“Why, Topsy, I don’t want to whip you. You can do well, if you’ve a
mind to; what is the reason you won’t?”

“Laws, Missis, I ’s used to whippin’; I spects it’s good for me.”

Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a terrible
commotion, screaming, groaning and imploring, though half an hour
afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the balcony, and
surrounded by a flock of admiring “young uns,” she would express the
utmost contempt of the whole affair.

“Law, Miss Feely whip!—wouldn’t kill a skeeter, her whippins. Oughter
see how old Mas’r made the flesh fly; old Mas’r know’d how!”

Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and enormities,
evidently considering them as something peculiarly distinguishing.

“Law, you niggers,” she would say to some of her auditors, “does you
know you ’s all sinners? Well, you is—everybody is. White folks is
sinners too,—Miss Feely says so; but I spects niggers is the biggest
ones; but lor! ye an’t any on ye up to me. I ’s so awful wicked there
can’t nobody do nothin’ with me. I used to keep old Missis a swarin’ at
me half de time. I spects I ’s the wickedest critter in the world;” and
Topsy would cut a summerset, and come up brisk and shining on to a
higher perch, and evidently plume herself on the distinction.

Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays, teaching Topsy
the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon verbal memory, and committed with
a fluency that greatly encouraged her instructress.

“What good do you expect it is going to do her?” said St. Clare.

“Why, it always has done children good. It’s what children always have
to learn, you know,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Understand it or not,” said St. Clare.

“O, children never understand it at the time; but, after they are grown
up, it’ll come to them.”

“Mine hasn’t come to me yet,” said St. Clare, “though I’ll bear
testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly when I was a boy.”’

“Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I used to have great
hopes of you,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Well, haven’t you now?” said St. Clare.

“I wish you were as good as you were when you were a boy, Augustine.”

“So do I, that’s a fact, Cousin,” said St. Clare. “Well, go ahead and
catechize Topsy; may be you’ll make out something yet.”

Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discussion, with
hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss Ophelia, went on:

“Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell
from the state wherein they were created.”

Topsy’s eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.

“What is it, Topsy?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Please, Missis, was dat ar state Kintuck?”

“What state, Topsy?”

“Dat state dey fell out of. I used to hear Mas’r tell how we came down
from Kintuck.”

St. Clare laughed.

“You’ll have to give her a meaning, or she’ll make one,” said he.
“There seems to be a theory of emigration suggested there.”

“O! Augustine, be still,” said Miss Ophelia; “how can I do anything, if
you will be laughing?”

“Well, I won’t disturb the exercises again, on my honor;” and St. Clare
took his paper into the parlor, and sat down, till Topsy had finished
her recitations. They were all very well, only that now and then she
would oddly transpose some important words, and persist in the mistake,
in spite of every effort to the contrary; and St. Clare, after all his
promises of goodness, took a wicked pleasure in these mistakes, calling
Topsy to him whenever he had a mind to amuse himself, and getting her
to repeat the offending passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia’s
remonstrances.

“How do you think I can do anything with the child, if you will go on
so, Augustine?” she would say.

“Well, it is too bad,—I won’t again; but I do like to hear the droll
little image stumble over those big words!”

“But you confirm her in the wrong way.”

“What’s the odds? One word is as good as another to her.”

“You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to remember she is
a reasonable creature, and be careful of your influence over her.”

“O, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, ’I ’s so wicked!’”

In very much this way Topsy’s training proceeded, for a year or
two,—Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with her, as a
kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became, in time, as
accustomed, as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia or sick headache.

St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child that a man might
in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. Topsy, whenever her sins
brought her into disgrace in other quarters, always took refuge behind
his chair; and St. Clare, in one way or other, would make peace for
her. From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts
and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the
children in the family; for Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured
and liberal, and only spiteful in self-defence. She is fairly
introduced into our _corps de ballet_, and will figure, from time to
time, in her turn, with other performers.




CHAPTER XXI
Kentuck


Our readers may not be unwilling to glance back, for a brief interval,
at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, on the Kentucky farm, and see what has been
transpiring among those whom he had left behind.

It was late in the summer afternoon, and the doors and windows of the
large parlor all stood open, to invite any stray breeze, that might
feel in a good humor, to enter. Mr. Shelby sat in a large hall opening
into the room, and running through the whole length of the house, to a
balcony on either end. Leisurely tipped back on one chair, with his
heels in another, he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar. Mrs. Shelby
sat in the door, busy about some fine sewing; she seemed like one who
had something on her mind, which she was seeking an opportunity to
introduce.

“Do you know,” she said, “that Chloe has had a letter from Tom?”

“Ah! has she? Tom ’s got some friend there, it seems. How is the old
boy?”

“He has been bought by a very fine family, I should think,” said Mrs.
Shelby,—“is kindly treated, and has not much to do.”

“Ah! well, I’m glad of it,—very glad,” said Mr. Shelby, heartily. “Tom,
I suppose, will get reconciled to a Southern residence;—hardly want to
come up here again.”

“On the contrary he inquires very anxiously,” said Mrs. Shelby, “when
the money for his redemption is to be raised.”

“I’m sure _I_ don’t know,” said Mr. Shelby. “Once get business running
wrong, there does seem to be no end to it. It’s like jumping from one
bog to another, all through a swamp; borrow of one to pay another, and
then borrow of another to pay one,—and these confounded notes falling
due before a man has time to smoke a cigar and turn round,—dunning
letters and dunning messages,—all scamper and hurry-scurry.”

“It does seem to me, my dear, that something might be done to
straighten matters. Suppose we sell off all the horses, and sell one of
your farms, and pay up square?”

“O, ridiculous, Emily! You are the finest woman in Kentucky; but still
you haven’t sense to know that you don’t understand business;—women
never do, and never can.

“But, at least,” said Mrs. Shelby, “could not you give me some little
insight into yours; a list of all your debts, at least, and of all that
is owed to you, and let me try and see if I can’t help you to
economize.”

“O, bother! don’t plague me, Emily!—I can’t tell exactly. I know
somewhere about what things are likely to be; but there’s no trimming
and squaring my affairs, as Chloe trims crust off her pies. You don’t
know anything about business, I tell you.”

And Mr. Shelby, not knowing any other way of enforcing his ideas,
raised his voice,—a mode of arguing very convenient and convincing,
when a gentleman is discussing matters of business with his wife.

Mrs. Shelby ceased talking, with something of a sigh. The fact was,
that though her husband had stated she was a woman, she had a clear,
energetic, practical mind, and a force of character every way superior
to that of her husband; so that it would not have been so very absurd a
supposition, to have allowed her capable of managing, as Mr. Shelby
supposed. Her heart was set on performing her promise to Tom and Aunt
Chloe, and she sighed as discouragements thickened around her.

“Don’t you think we might in some way contrive to raise that money?
Poor Aunt Chloe! her heart is so set on it!”

“I’m sorry, if it is. I think I was premature in promising. I’m not
sure, now, but it’s the best way to tell Chloe, and let her make up her
mind to it. Tom’ll have another wife, in a year or two; and she had
better take up with somebody else.”

“Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages are as sacred
as ours. I never could think of giving Chloe such advice.”

“It’s a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a morality above
their condition and prospects. I always thought so.”

“It’s only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby.”

“Well, well, Emily, I don’t pretend to interfere with your religious
notions; only they seem extremely unfitted for people in that
condition.”

“They are, indeed,” said Mrs. Shelby, “and that is why, from my soul, I
hate the whole thing. I tell you, my dear, _I_ cannot absolve myself
from the promises I make to these helpless creatures. If I can get the
money no other way I will take music-scholars;—I could get enough, I
know, and earn the money myself.”

“You wouldn’t degrade yourself that way, Emily? I never could consent
to it.”

“Degrade! would it degrade me as much as to break my faith with the
helpless? No, indeed!”

“Well, you are always heroic and transcendental,” said Mr. Shelby, “but
I think you had better think before you undertake such a piece of
Quixotism.”

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Aunt Chloe,
at the end of the verandah.

“If you please, Missis,” said she.

“Well, Chloe, what is it?” said her mistress, rising, and going to the
end of the balcony.

“If Missis would come and look at dis yer lot o’ poetry.”

Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry,—an application
of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding frequent
corrections and advisings from the young members of the family.

“La sakes!” she would say, “I can’t see; one jis good as turry,—poetry
suthin good, any how;” and so poetry Chloe continued to call it.

Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens and ducks,
over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of consideration.

“I’m a thinkin whether Missis would be a havin a chicken pie o’ dese
yer.”

“Really, Aunt Chloe, I don’t much care;—serve them any way you like.”

Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite evident that
the chickens were not what she was thinking of. At last, with the short
laugh with which her tribe often introduce a doubtful proposal, she
said,

“Laws me, Missis! what should Mas’r and Missis be a troublin
theirselves ’bout de money, and not a usin what’s right in der hands?”
and Chloe laughed again.

“I don’t understand you, Chloe,” said Mrs. Shelby, nothing doubting,
from her knowledge of Chloe’s manner, that she had heard every word of
the conversation that had passed between her and her husband.

“Why, laws me, Missis!” said Chloe, laughing again, “other folks hires
out der niggers and makes money on ’em! Don’t keep sich a tribe eatin
’em out of house and home.”

“Well, Chloe, who do you propose that we should hire out?”

“Laws! I an’t a proposin nothin; only Sam he said der was one of dese
yer _perfectioners_, dey calls ’em, in Louisville, said he wanted a
good hand at cake and pastry; and said he’d give four dollars a week to
one, he did.”

“Well, Chloe.”

“Well, laws, I ’s a thinkin, Missis, it’s time Sally was put along to
be doin’ something. Sally ’s been under my care, now, dis some time,
and she does most as well as me, considerin; and if Missis would only
let me go, I would help fetch up de money. I an’t afraid to put my
cake, nor pies nother, ’long side no _perfectioner’s_.

“Confectioner’s, Chloe.”

“Law sakes, Missis! ’tan’t no odds;—words is so curis, can’t never get
’em right!”

“But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children?”

“Laws, Missis! de boys is big enough to do day’s works; dey does well
enough; and Sally, she’ll take de baby,—she’s such a peart young un,
she won’t take no lookin arter.”

“Louisville is a good way off.”

“Law sakes! who’s afeard?—it’s down river, somer near my old man,
perhaps?” said Chloe, speaking the last in the tone of a question, and
looking at Mrs. Shelby.

“No, Chloe; it’s many a hundred miles off,” said Mrs. Shelby.

Chloe’s countenance fell.

“Never mind; your going there shall bring you nearer, Chloe. Yes, you
may go; and your wages shall every cent of them be laid aside for your
husband’s redemption.”

As when a bright sunbeam turns a dark cloud to silver, so Chloe’s dark
face brightened immediately,—it really shone.

“Laws! if Missis isn’t too good! I was thinking of dat ar very thing;
cause I shouldn’t need no clothes, nor shoes, nor nothin,—I could save
every cent. How many weeks is der in a year, Missis?”

“Fifty-two,” said Mrs. Shelby.

“Laws! now, dere is? and four dollars for each on em. Why, how much ’d
dat ar be?”

“Two hundred and eight dollars,” said Mrs. Shelby.

“Why-e!” said Chloe, with an accent of surprise and delight; “and how
long would it take me to work it out, Missis?”

“Some four or five years, Chloe; but, then, you needn’t do it all,—I
shall add something to it.”

“I wouldn’t hear to Missis’ givin lessons nor nothin. Mas’r’s quite
right in dat ar;—‘t wouldn’t do, no ways. I hope none our family ever
be brought to dat ar, while I ’s got hands.”

“Don’t fear, Chloe; I’ll take care of the honor of the family,” said
Mrs. Shelby, smiling. “But when do you expect to go?”

“Well, I want spectin nothin; only Sam, he’s a gwine to de river with
some colts, and he said I could go ’long with him; so I jes put my
things together. If Missis was willin, I’d go with Sam tomorrow
morning, if Missis would write my pass, and write me a commendation.”

“Well, Chloe, I’ll attend to it, if Mr. Shelby has no objections. I
must speak to him.”

Mrs. Shelby went up stairs, and Aunt Chloe, delighted, went out to her
cabin, to make her preparation.

“Law sakes, Mas’r George! ye didn’t know I ’s a gwine to Louisville
tomorrow!” she said to George, as entering her cabin, he found her busy
in sorting over her baby’s clothes. “I thought I’d jis look over sis’s
things, and get ’em straightened up. But I’m gwine, Mas’r George,—gwine
to have four dollars a week; and Missis is gwine to lay it all up, to
buy back my old man agin!”

“Whew!” said George, “here’s a stroke of business, to be sure! How are
you going?”

“Tomorrow, wid Sam. And now, Mas’r George, I knows you’ll jis sit down
and write to my old man, and tell him all about it,—won’t ye?”

“To be sure,” said George; “Uncle Tom’ll be right glad to hear from us.
I’ll go right in the house, for paper and ink; and then, you know, Aunt
Chloe, I can tell about the new colts and all.”

“Sartin, sartin, Mas’r George; you go ’long, and I’ll get ye up a bit
o’ chicken, or some sich; ye won’t have many more suppers wid yer poor
old aunty.”




CHAPTER XXII
“The Grass Withereth—the Flower Fadeth”


Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with our friend
Tom, till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul held
dear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he never
positively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of human
feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can
wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review
appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that
each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so
that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable.

Tom read, in his only literary cabinet, of one who had “learned in
whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content.” It seemed to him
good and reasonable doctrine, and accorded well with the settled and
thoughtful habit which he had acquired from the reading of that same
book.

His letter homeward, as we related in the last chapter, was in due time
answered by Master George, in a good, round, school-boy hand, that Tom
said might be read “most acrost the room.” It contained various
refreshing items of home intelligence, with which our reader is fully
acquainted: stated how Aunt Chloe had been hired out to a confectioner
in Louisville, where her skill in the pastry line was gaining wonderful
sums of money, all of which, Tom was informed, was to be laid up to go
to make up the sum of his redemption money; Mose and Pete were
thriving, and the baby was trotting all about the house, under the care
of Sally and the family generally.

Tom’s cabin was shut up for the present; but George expatiated
brilliantly on ornaments and additions to be made to it when Tom came
back.

The rest of this letter gave a list of George’s school studies, each
one headed by a flourishing capital; and also told the names of four
new colts that appeared on the premises since Tom left; and stated, in
the same connection, that father and mother were well. The style of the
letter was decidedly concise and terse; but Tom thought it the most
wonderful specimen of composition that had appeared in modern times. He
was never tired of looking at it, and even held a council with Eva on
the expediency of getting it framed, to hang up in his room. Nothing
but the difficulty of arranging it so that both sides of the page would
show at once stood in the way of this undertaking.

The friendship between Tom and Eva had grown with the child’s growth.
It would be hard to say what place she held in the soft, impressible
heart of her faithful attendant. He loved her as something frail and
earthly, yet almost worshipped her as something heavenly and divine. He
gazed on her as the Italian sailor gazes on his image of the child
Jesus,—with a mixture of reverence and tenderness; and to humor her
graceful fancies, and meet those thousand simple wants which invest
childhood like a many-colored rainbow, was Tom’s chief delight. In the
market, at morning, his eyes were always on the flower-stalls for rare
bouquets for her, and the choicest peach or orange was slipped into his
pocket to give to her when he came back; and the sight that pleased him
most was her sunny head looking out the gate for his distant approach,
and her childish questions,—“Well, Uncle Tom, what have you got for me
today?”

Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return. Though a child,
she was a beautiful reader;—a fine musical ear, a quick poetic fancy,
and an instinctive sympathy with what’s grand and noble, made her such
a reader of the Bible as Tom had never before heard. At first, she read
to please her humble friend; but soon her own earnest nature threw out
its tendrils, and wound itself around the majestic book; and Eva loved
it, because it woke in her strange yearnings, and strong, dim emotions,
such as impassioned, imaginative children love to feel.

The parts that pleased her most were the Revelations and the
Prophecies,—parts whose dim and wondrous imagery, and fervent language,
impressed her the more, that she questioned vainly of their
meaning;—and she and her simple friend, the old child and the young
one, felt just alike about it. All that they knew was, that they spoke
of a glory to be revealed,—a wondrous something yet to come, wherein
their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why; and though it be not so in the
physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not
always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between
two dim eternities,—the eternal past, the eternal future. The light
shines only on a small space around her; therefore, she needs must
yearn towards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which
come to her from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one
echoes and answers in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imagery are
so many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics; she
folds them in her bosom, and expects to read them when she passes
beyond the veil.


[Illustration: LITTLE EVA READING THE BIBLE TO UNCLE TOM IN THE ARBOR.]


At this time in our story, the whole St. Clare establishment is, for
the time being, removed to their villa on Lake Pontchartrain. The heats
of summer had driven all who were able to leave the sultry and
unhealthy city, to seek the shores of the lake, and its cool
sea-breezes.

St. Clare’s villa was an East Indian cottage, surrounded by light
verandahs of bamboo-work, and opening on all sides into gardens and
pleasure-grounds. The common sitting-room opened on to a large garden,
fragrant with every picturesque plant and flower of the tropics, where
winding paths ran down to the very shores of the lake, whose silvery
sheet of water lay there, rising and falling in the sunbeams,—a picture
never for an hour the same, yet every hour more beautiful.

It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles the whole
horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water another sky. The
lake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where white-winged vessels
glided hither and thither, like so many spirits, and little golden
stars twinkled through the glow, and looked down at themselves as they
trembled in the water.

Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat, in an arbor, at the
foot of the garden. It was Sunday evening, and Eva’s Bible lay open on
her knee. She read,—“And I saw a sea of glass, mingled with fire.”

“Tom,” said Eva, suddenly stopping, and pointing to the lake, “there ’t
is.”

“What, Miss Eva?”

“Don’t you see,—there?” said the child, pointing to the glassy water,
which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden glow of the sky.
“There’s a ’sea of glass, mingled with fire.’”

“True enough, Miss Eva,” said Tom; and Tom sang—

“O, had I the wings of the morning,
    I’d fly away to Canaan’s shore;
Bright angels should convey me home,
    To the new Jerusalem.”


“Where do you suppose new Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom?” said Eva.

“O, up in the clouds, Miss Eva.”

“Then I think I see it,” said Eva. “Look in those clouds!—they look
like great gates of pearl; and you can see beyond them—far, far
off—it’s all gold. Tom, sing about ’spirits bright.’”

Tom sung the words of a well-known Methodist hymn,

“I see a band of spirits bright,
    That taste the glories there;
They all are robed in spotless white,
    And conquering palms they bear.”


“Uncle Tom, I’ve seen _them_,” said Eva.

Tom had no doubt of it at all; it did not surprise him in the least. If
Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he would have thought it
entirely probable.

“They come to me sometimes in my sleep, those spirits;” and Eva’s eyes
grew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low voice,

“They are all robed in spotless white,
    And conquering palms they bear.”


“Uncle Tom,” said Eva, “I’m going there.”

“Where, Miss Eva?”

The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky; the glow of
evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a kind of unearthly
radiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on the skies.

“I’m going _there_,” she said, “to the spirits bright, Tom; _I’m going,
before long_.”

The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how often
he had noticed, within six months, that Eva’s little hands had grown
thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and
how, when she ran or played in the garden, as she once could for hours,
she became soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss Ophelia speak
often of a cough, that all her medicaments could not cure; and even now
that fervent cheek and little hand were burning with hectic fever; and
yet the thought that Eva’s words suggested had never come to him till
now.

Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their
names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their
heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried
treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the
legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to
the peculiar charms of one who _is not_. It is as if heaven had an
especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season
here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear
it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep,
spiritual light in the eye,—when the little soul reveals itself in
words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children,—hope not
to retain that child; for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of
immortality looks out from its eyes.

Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou art passing away;
but they that love thee dearest know it not.

The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty call from
Miss Ophelia.

“Eva—Eva!—why, child, the dew is falling; you mustn’t be out there!”

Eva and Tom hastened in.

Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing. She was
from New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps of that
soft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so many of the fairest and
loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken, seals them
irrevocably for death.

She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brightening cheek; nor
could the lustre of the eye, and the airy buoyancy born of fever,
deceive her.

She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare; but he threw back her
suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike his usual careless
good-humor.

“Don’t be croaking, Cousin,—I hate it!” he would say; “don’t you see
that the child is only growing. Children always lose strength when they
grow fast.”

“But she has that cough!”

“O! nonsense of that cough!—it is not anything. She has taken a little
cold, perhaps.”

“Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and Ellen and Maria
Sanders.”

“O! stop these hobgoblin’ nurse legends. You old hands got so wise,
that a child cannot cough, or sneeze, but you see desperation and ruin
at hand. Only take care of the child, keep her from the night air, and
don’t let her play too hard, and she’ll do well enough.”

So St. Clare said; but he grew nervous and restless. He watched Eva
feverishly day by day, as might be told by the frequency with which he
repeated over that “the child was quite well”—that there wasn’t
anything in that cough,—it was only some little stomach affection, such
as children often had. But he kept by her more than before, took her
oftener to ride with him, brought home every few days some receipt or
strengthening mixture,—“not,” he said, “that the child _needed_ it, but
then it would not do her any harm.”

If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his heart
than anything else was the daily increasing maturity of the child’s
mind and feelings. While still retaining all a child’s fanciful graces,
yet she often dropped, unconsciously, words of such a reach of thought,
and strange unworldly wisdom, that they seemed to be an inspiration. At
such times, St. Clare would feel a sudden thrill, and clasp her in his
arms, as if that fond clasp could save her; and his heart rose up with
wild determination to keep her, never to let her go.

The child’s whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in works of love and
kindness. Impulsively generous she had always been; but there was a
touching and womanly thoughtfulness about her now, that every one
noticed. She still loved to play with Topsy, and the various colored
children; but she now seemed rather a spectator than an actor of their
plays, and she would sit for half an hour at a time, laughing at the
odd tricks of Topsy,—and then a shadow would seem to pass across her
face, her eyes grew misty, and her thoughts were afar.

“Mamma,” she said, suddenly, to her mother, one day, “why don’t we
teach our servants to read?”

“What a question child! People never do.”

“Why don’t they?” said Eva.

“Because it is no use for them to read. It don’t help them to work any
better, and they are not made for anything else.”

“But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn God’s will.”

“O! they can get that read to them all _they_ need.”

“It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to read themselves.
They need it a great many times when there is nobody to read it.”

“Eva, you are an odd child,” said her mother.

“Miss Ophelia has taught Topsy to read,” continued Eva.

“Yes, and you see how much good it does. Topsy is the worst creature I
ever saw!”

“Here’s poor Mammy!” said Eva. “She does love the Bible so much, and
wishes so she could read! And what will she do when I can’t read to
her?”

Marie was busy, turning over the contents of a drawer, as she answered,

“Well, of course, by and by, Eva, you will have other things to think
of besides reading the Bible round to servants. Not but that is very
proper; I’ve done it myself, when I had health. But when you come to be
dressing and going into company, you won’t have time. See here!” she
added, “these jewels I’m going to give you when you come out. I wore
them to my first ball. I can tell you, Eva, I made a sensation.”

Eva took the jewel-case, and lifted from it a diamond necklace. Her
large, thoughtful eyes rested on them, but it was plain her thoughts
were elsewhere.

“How sober you look child!” said Marie.

“Are these worth a great deal of money, mamma?”

“To be sure, they are. Father sent to France for them. They are worth a
small fortune.”

“I wish I had them,” said Eva, “to do what I pleased with!”

“What would you do with them?”

“I’d sell them, and buy a place in the free states, and take all our
people there, and hire teachers, to teach them to read and write.”

Eva was cut short by her mother’s laughing.

“Set up a boarding-school! Wouldn’t you teach them to play on the
piano, and paint on velvet?”

“I’d teach them to read their own Bible, and write their own letters,
and read letters that are written to them,” said Eva, steadily. “I
know, mamma, it does come very hard on them that they can’t do these
things. Tom feels it—Mammy does,—a great many of them do. I think it’s
wrong.”

“Come, come, Eva; you are only a child! You don’t know anything about
these things,” said Marie; “besides, your talking makes my head ache.”

Marie always had a headache on hand for any conversation that did not
exactly suit her.

Eva stole away; but after that, she assiduously gave Mammy reading
lessons.




CHAPTER XXIII
Henrique


About this time, St. Clare’s brother Alfred, with his eldest son, a boy
of twelve, spent a day or two with the family at the lake.

No sight could be more singular and beautiful than that of these twin
brothers. Nature, instead of instituting resemblances between them, had
made them opposites on every point; yet a mysterious tie seemed to
unite them in a closer friendship than ordinary.

They used to saunter, arm in arm, up and down the alleys and walks of
the garden. Augustine, with his blue eyes and golden hair, his
ethereally flexible form and vivacious features; and Alfred, dark-eyed,
with haughty Roman profile, firmly-knit limbs, and decided bearing.
They were always abusing each other’s opinions and practices, and yet
never a whit the less absorbed in each other’s society; in fact, the
very contrariety seemed to unite them, like the attraction between
opposite poles of the magnet.

Henrique, the eldest son of Alfred, was a noble, dark-eyed, princely
boy, full of vivacity and spirit; and, from the first moment of
introduction, seemed to be perfectly fascinated by the spirituelle
graces of his cousin Evangeline.

Eva had a little pet pony, of a snowy whiteness. It was easy as a
cradle, and as gentle as its little mistress; and this pony was now
brought up to the back verandah by Tom, while a little mulatto boy of
about thirteen led along a small black Arabian, which had just been
imported, at a great expense, for Henrique.

Henrique had a boy’s pride in his new possession; and, as he advanced
and took the reins out of the hands of his little groom, he looked
carefully over him, and his brow darkened.

“What’s this, Dodo, you little lazy dog! you haven’t rubbed my horse
down, this morning.”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Dodo, submissively; “he got that dust on his own
self.”

“You rascal, shut your mouth!” said Henrique, violently raising his
riding-whip. “How dare you speak?”

The boy was a handsome, bright-eyed mulatto, of just Henrique’s size,
and his curling hair hung round a high, bold forehead. He had white
blood in his veins, as could be seen by the quick flush in his cheek,
and the sparkle of his eye, as he eagerly tried to speak.

“Mas’r Henrique!—” he began.

Henrique struck him across the face with his riding-whip, and, seizing
one of his arms, forced him on to his knees, and beat him till he was
out of breath.

“There, you impudent dog! Now will you learn not to answer back when I
speak to you? Take the horse back, and clean him properly. I’ll teach
you your place!”

“Young Mas’r,” said Tom, “I specs what he was gwine to say was, that
the horse would roll when he was bringing him up from the stable; he’s
so full of spirits,—that’s the way he got that dirt on him; I looked to
his cleaning.”

“You hold your tongue till you’re asked to speak!” said Henrique,
turning on his heel, and walking up the steps to speak to Eva, who
stood in her riding-dress.

“Dear Cousin, I’m sorry this stupid fellow has kept you waiting,” he
said. “Let’s sit down here, on this seat till they come. What’s the
matter, Cousin?—you look sober.”

“How could you be so cruel and wicked to poor Dodo?” asked Eva.

“Cruel,—wicked!” said the boy, with unaffected surprise. “What do you
mean, dear Eva?”

“I don’t want you to call me dear Eva, when you do so,” said Eva.

“Dear Cousin, you don’t know Dodo; it’s the only way to manage him,
he’s so full of lies and excuses. The only way is to put him down at
once,—not let him open his mouth; that’s the way papa manages.”

“But Uncle Tom said it was an accident, and he never tells what isn’t
true.”

“He’s an uncommon old nigger, then!” said Henrique. “Dodo will lie as
fast as he can speak.”

“You frighten him into deceiving, if you treat him so.”

“Why, Eva, you’ve really taken such a fancy to Dodo, that I shall be
jealous.”

“But you beat him,—and he didn’t deserve it.”

“O, well, it may go for some time when he does, and don’t get it. A few
cuts never come amiss with Dodo,—he’s a regular spirit, I can tell you;
but I won’t beat him again before you, if it troubles you.”

Eva was not satisfied, but found it in vain to try to make her handsome
cousin understand her feelings.

Dodo soon appeared, with the horses.

“Well, Dodo, you’ve done pretty well, this time,” said his young
master, with a more gracious air. “Come, now, and hold Miss Eva’s horse
while I put her on to the saddle.”

Dodo came and stood by Eva’s pony. His face was troubled; his eyes
looked as if he had been crying.

Henrique, who valued himself on his gentlemanly adroitness in all
matters of gallantry, soon had his fair cousin in the saddle, and,
gathering the reins, placed them in her hands.

But Eva bent to the other side of the horse, where Dodo was standing,
and said, as he relinquished the reins,—“That’s a good boy, Dodo;—thank
you!”

Dodo looked up in amazement into the sweet young face; the blood rushed
to his cheeks, and the tears to his eyes.

“Here, Dodo,” said his master, imperiously.

Dodo sprang and held the horse, while his master mounted.

“There’s a picayune for you to buy candy with, Dodo,” said Henrique;
“go get some.”

And Henrique cantered down the walk after Eva. Dodo stood looking after
the two children. One had given him money; and one had given him what
he wanted far more,—a kind word, kindly spoken. Dodo had been only a
few months away from his mother. His master had bought him at a slave
warehouse, for his handsome face, to be a match to the handsome pony;
and he was now getting his breaking in, at the hands of his young
master.

The scene of the beating had been witnessed by the two brothers St.
Clare, from another part of the garden.

Augustine’s cheek flushed; but he only observed, with his usual
sarcastic carelessness.

“I suppose that’s what we may call republican education, Alfred?”

“Henrique is a devil of a fellow, when his blood’s up,” said Alfred,
carelessly.

“I suppose you consider this an instructive practice for him,” said
Augustine, drily.

“I couldn’t help it, if I didn’t. Henrique is a regular little
tempest;—his mother and I have given him up, long ago. But, then, that
Dodo is a perfect sprite,—no amount of whipping can hurt him.”

“And this by way of teaching Henrique the first verse of a republican’s
catechism, ’All men are born free and equal!’”

“Poh!” said Alfred; “one of Tom Jefferson’s pieces of French sentiment
and humbug. It’s perfectly ridiculous to have that going the rounds
among us, to this day.”

“I think it is,” said St. Clare, significantly.

“Because,” said Alfred, “we can see plainly enough that all men are
_not_ born free, nor born equal; they are born anything else. For my
part, I think half this republican talk sheer humbug. It is the
educated, the intelligent, the wealthy, the refined, who ought to have
equal rights and not the canaille.”

“If you can keep the canaille of that opinion,” said Augustine. “They
took _their_ turn once, in France.”

“Of course, they must be _kept down_, consistently, steadily, as I
_should_,” said Alfred, setting his foot hard down as if he were
standing on somebody.

“It makes a terrible slip when they get up,” said Augustine,—“in St.
Domingo, for instance.”

“Poh!” said Alfred, “we’ll take care of that, in this country. We must
set our face against all this educating, elevating talk, that is
getting about now; the lower class must not be educated.”

“That is past praying for,” said Augustine; “educated they will be, and
we have only to say how. Our system is educating them in barbarism and
brutality. We are breaking all humanizing ties, and making them brute
beasts; and, if they get the upper hand, such we shall find them.”

“They shall never get the upper hand!” said Alfred.

“That’s right,” said St. Clare; “put on the steam, fasten down the
escape-valve, and sit on it, and see where you’ll land.”

“Well,” said Alfred, “we _will_ see. I’m not afraid to sit on the
escape-valve, as long as the boilers are strong, and the machinery
works well.”

“The nobles in Louis XVI.‘s time thought just so; and Austria and Pius
IX. think so now; and, some pleasant morning, you may all be caught up
to meet each other in the air, _when the boilers burst_.”

“_Dies declarabit_,” said Alfred, laughing.

“I tell you,” said Augustine, “if there is anything that is revealed
with the strength of a divine law in our times, it is that the masses
are to rise, and the under class become the upper one.”

“That’s one of your red republican humbugs, Augustine! Why didn’t you
ever take to the stump;—you’d make a famous stump orator! Well, I hope
I shall be dead before this millennium of your greasy masses comes on.”

“Greasy or not greasy, they will govern _you_, when their time comes,”
said Augustine; “and they will be just such rulers as you make them.
The French noblesse chose to have the people ’_sans culottes_,’ and
they had ’_sans culotte_’ governors to their hearts’ content. The
people of Hayti—”

“O, come, Augustine! as if we hadn’t had enough of that abominable,
contemptible Hayti![1] The Haytiens were not Anglo Saxons; if they had
been there would have been another story. The Anglo Saxon is the
dominant race of the world, and _is to be so_.”

 [1] In August 1791, as a consequence of the French Revolution, the
 black slaves and mulattoes on Haiti rose in revolt against the whites,
 and in the period of turmoil that followed enormous cruelties were
 practised by both sides. The “Emperor” Dessalines, come to power in
 1804, massacred all the whites on the island. Haitian bloodshed became
 an argument to show the barbarous nature of the Negro, a doctrine
 Wendell Phillips sought to combat in his celebrated lecture on
 Toussaint L’Ouverture.


“Well, there is a pretty fair infusion of Anglo Saxon blood among our
slaves, now,” said Augustine. “There are plenty among them who have
only enough of the African to give a sort of tropical warmth and fervor
to our calculating firmness and foresight. If ever the San Domingo hour
comes, Anglo Saxon blood will lead on the day. Sons of white fathers,
with all our haughty feelings burning in their veins, will not always
be bought and sold and traded. They will rise, and raise with them
their mother’s race.”

“Stuff!—nonsense!”

“Well,” said Augustine, “there goes an old saying to this effect, ’As
it was in the days of Noah so shall it be;—they ate, they drank, they
planted, they builded, and knew not till the flood came and took
them.’”

“On the whole, Augustine, I think your talents might do for a circuit
rider,” said Alfred, laughing. “Never you fear for us; possession is
our nine points. We’ve got the power. This subject race,” said he,
stamping firmly, “is down and shall _stay_ down! We have energy enough
to manage our own powder.”

“Sons trained like your Henrique will be grand guardians of your
powder-magazines,” said Augustine,—“so cool and self-possessed! The
proverb says, ’They that cannot govern themselves cannot govern
others.’”

“There is a trouble there” said Alfred, thoughtfully; “there’s no doubt
that our system is a difficult one to train children under. It gives
too free scope to the passions, altogether, which, in our climate, are
hot enough. I find trouble with Henrique. The boy is generous and
warm-hearted, but a perfect fire-cracker when excited. I believe I
shall send him North for his education, where obedience is more
fashionable, and where he will associate more with equals, and less
with dependents.”

“Since training children is the staple work of the human race,” said
Augustine, “I should think it something of a consideration that our
system does not work well there.”

“It does not for some things,” said Alfred; “for others, again, it
does. It makes boys manly and courageous; and the very vices of an
abject race tend to strengthen in them the opposite virtues. I think
Henrique, now, has a keener sense of the beauty of truth, from seeing
lying and deception the universal badge of slavery.”

“A Christian-like view of the subject, certainly!” said Augustine.

“It’s true, Christian-like or not; and is about as Christian-like as
most other things in the world,” said Alfred.

“That may be,” said St. Clare.

“Well, there’s no use in talking, Augustine. I believe we’ve been round
and round this old track five hundred times, more or less. What do you
say to a game of backgammon?”

The two brothers ran up the verandah steps, and were soon seated at a
light bamboo stand, with the backgammon-board between them. As they
were setting their men, Alfred said,

“I tell you, Augustine, if I thought as you do, I should do something.”

“I dare say you would,—you are one of the doing sort,—but what?”

“Why, elevate your own servants, for a specimen,” said Alfred, with a
half-scornful smile.

“You might as well set Mount Ætna on them flat, and tell them to stand
up under it, as tell me to elevate my servants under all the
superincumbent mass of society upon them. One man can do nothing,
against the whole action of a community. Education, to do anything,
must be a state education; or there must be enough agreed in it to make
a current.”

“You take the first throw,” said Alfred; and the brothers were soon
lost in the game, and heard no more till the scraping of horses’ feet
was heard under the verandah.

“There come the children,” said Augustine, rising. “Look here, Alf! Did
you ever see anything so beautiful?” And, in truth, it _was_ a
beautiful sight. Henrique, with his bold brow, and dark, glossy curls,
and glowing cheek, was laughing gayly as he bent towards his fair
cousin, as they came on. She was dressed in a blue riding dress, with a
cap of the same color. Exercise had given a brilliant hue to her
cheeks, and heightened the effect of her singularly transparent skin,
and golden hair.

“Good heavens! what perfectly dazzling beauty!” said Alfred. “I tell
you, Auguste, won’t she make some hearts ache, one of these days?”

“She will, too truly,—God knows I’m afraid so!” said St. Clare, in a
tone of sudden bitterness, as he hurried down to take her off her
horse.

“Eva darling! you’re not much tired?” he said, as he clasped her in his
arms.

“No, papa,” said the child; but her short, hard breathing alarmed her
father.

“How could you ride so fast, dear?—you know it’s bad for you.”

“I felt so well, papa, and liked it so much, I forgot.”

St. Clare carried her in his arms into the parlor, and laid her on the
sofa.

“Henrique, you must be careful of Eva,” said he; “you mustn’t ride fast
with her.”

“I’ll take her under my care,” said Henrique, seating himself by the
sofa, and taking Eva’s hand.

Eva soon found herself much better. Her father and uncle resumed their
game, and the children were left together.

“Do you know, Eva, I’m sorry papa is only going to stay two days here,
and then I shan’t see you again for ever so long! If I stay with you,
I’d try to be good, and not be cross to Dodo, and so on. I don’t mean
to treat Dodo ill; but, you know, I’ve got such a quick temper. I’m not
really bad to him, though. I give him a picayune, now and then; and you
see he dresses well. I think, on the whole, Dodo ’s pretty well off.”

“Would you think you were well off, if there were not one creature in
the world near you to love you?”

“I?—Well, of course not.”

“And you have taken Dodo away from all the friends he ever had, and now
he has not a creature to love him;—nobody can be good that way.”

“Well, I can’t help it, as I know of. I can’t get his mother and I
can’t love him myself, nor anybody else, as I know of.”

“Why can’t you?” said Eva.

“_Love_ Dodo! Why, Eva, you wouldn’t have me! I may _like_ him well
enough; but you don’t _love_ your servants.”

“I do, indeed.”

“How odd!”

“Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?”

“O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then,
nobody ever thinks of doing them,—you know, Eva, nobody does.”

Eva did not speak; her eyes were fixed and thoughtful for a few
moments.

“At any rate,” she said, “dear Cousin, do love poor Dodo, and be kind
to him, for my sake!”

“I could love anything, for your sake, dear Cousin; for I really think
you are the loveliest creature that I ever saw!” And Henrique spoke
with an earnestness that flushed his handsome face. Eva received it
with perfect simplicity, without even a change of feature; merely
saying, “I’m glad you feel so, dear Henrique! I hope you will
remember.”

The dinner-bell put an end to the interview.




CHAPTER XXIV
Foreshadowings


Two days after this, Alfred St. Clare and Augustine parted; and Eva,
who had been stimulated, by the society of her young cousin, to
exertions beyond her strength, began to fail rapidly. St. Clare was at
last willing to call in medical advice,—a thing from which he had
always shrunk, because it was the admission of an unwelcome truth.

But, for a day or two, Eva was so unwell as to be confined to the
house; and the doctor was called.

Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child’s gradually decaying
health and strength, because she was completely absorbed in studying
out two or three new forms of disease to which she believed she herself
was a victim. It was the first principle of Marie’s belief that nobody
ever was or could be so great a sufferer as _herself_; and, therefore,
she always repelled quite indignantly any suggestion that any one
around her could be sick. She was always sure, in such a case, that it
was nothing but laziness, or want of energy; and that, if they had had
the suffering _she_ had, they would soon know the difference.

Miss Ophelia had several times tried to awaken her maternal fears about
Eva; but to no avail.

“I don’t see as anything ails the child,” she would say; “she runs
about, and plays.”

“But she has a cough.”

“Cough! you don’t need to tell _me_ about a cough. I’ve always been
subject to a cough, all my days. When I was of Eva’s age, they thought
I was in a consumption. Night after night, Mammy used to sit up with
me. O! Eva’s cough is not anything.”

“But she gets weak, and is short-breathed.”

“Law! I’ve had that, years and years; it’s only a nervous affection.”

“But she sweats so, nights!”

“Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night, my
clothes will be wringing wet. There won’t be a dry thread in my
night-clothes and the sheets will be so that Mammy has to hang them up
to dry! Eva doesn’t sweat anything like that!”

Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that Eva was fairly
and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie, all on a sudden,
took a new turn.

“She knew it,” she said; “she always felt it, that she was destined to
be the most miserable of mothers. Here she was, with her wretched
health, and her only darling child going down to the grave before her
eyes;”—and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and rumpussed and scolded,
with more energy than ever, all day, on the strength of this new
misery.

“My dear Marie, don’t talk so!” said St. Clare. “You ought not to give
up the case so, at once.”

“You have not a mother’s feelings, St. Clare! You never could
understand me!—you don’t now.”

“But don’t talk so, as if it were a gone case!”

“I can’t take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare. If _you_ don’t
feel when your only child is in this alarming state, I do. It’s a blow
too much for me, with all I was bearing before.”

“It’s true,” said St. Clare, “that Eva is very delicate, _that_ I
always knew; and that she has grown so rapidly as to exhaust her
strength; and that her situation is critical. But just now she is only
prostrated by the heat of the weather, and by the excitement of her
cousin’s visit, and the exertions she made. The physician says there is
room for hope.”

“Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do; it’s a
mercy if people haven’t sensitive feelings, in this world. I am sure I
wish I didn’t feel as I do; it only makes me completely wretched! I
wish I _could_ be as easy as the rest of you!”

And the “rest of them” had good reason to breathe the same prayer, for
Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology for all sorts of
inflictions on every one about her. Every word that was spoken by
anybody, everything that was done or was not done everywhere, was only
a new proof that she was surrounded by hard-hearted, insensible beings,
who were unmindful of her peculiar sorrows. Poor Eva heard some of
these speeches; and nearly cried her little eyes out, in pity for her
mamma, and in sorrow that she should make her so much distress.

In a week or two, there was a great improvement of symptoms,—one of
those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable disease so often
beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of the grave. Eva’s step
was again in the garden,—in the balconies; she played and laughed
again,—and her father, in a transport, declared that they should soon
have her as hearty as anybody. Miss Ophelia and the physician alone
felt no encouragement from this illusive truce. There was one other
heart, too, that felt the same certainty, and that was the little heart
of Eva. What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so
clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of
decaying nature, or the soul’s impulsive throb, as immortality draws
on? Be it what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet,
prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset,
sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart
reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.

For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though life was unfolding
before her with every brightness that love and wealth could give, had
no regret for herself in dying.

In that book which she and her simple old friend had read so much
together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the image of one
who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and mused, He had ceased
to be an image and a picture of the distant past, and come to be a
living, all-surrounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart
with more than mortal tenderness; and it was to Him, she said, she was
going, and to his home.

But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she was to leave
behind. Her father most,—for Eva, though she never distinctly thought
so, had an instinctive perception that she was more in his heart than
any other. She loved her mother because she was so loving a creature,
and all the selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and
perplexed her; for she had a child’s implicit trust that her mother
could not do wrong. There was something about her that Eva never could
make out; and she always smoothed it over with thinking that, after
all, it was mamma, and she loved her very dearly indeed.

She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was as
daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize; but Eva was
an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she had witnessed of
the evils of the system under which they were living had fallen, one by
one, into the depths of her thoughtful, pondering heart. She had vague
longings to do something for them,—to bless and save not only them, but
all in their condition,—longings that contrasted sadly with the
feebleness of her little frame.

“Uncle Tom,” she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, “I
can understand why Jesus _wanted_ to die for us.”

“Why, Miss Eva?”

“Because I’ve felt so, too.”

“What is it Miss Eva?—I don’t understand.”

“I can’t tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat,
you know, when you came up and I,—some had lost their mothers, and some
their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children—and
when I heard about poor Prue,—oh, wasn’t that dreadful!—and a great
many other times, I’ve felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying
could stop all this misery. _I would_ die for them, Tom, if I could,”
said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.

Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her father’s
voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as he looked after
her.

“It’s jest no use tryin’ to keep Miss Eva here,” he said to Mammy, whom
he met a moment after. “She’s got the Lord’s mark in her forehead.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” said Mammy, raising her hands; “I’ve allers said so.
She wasn’t never like a child that’s to live—there was allers something
deep in her eyes. I’ve told Missis so, many the time; it’s a comin’
true,—we all sees it,—dear, little, blessed lamb!”

Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. It was late in
the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed a kind of glory behind
her, as she came forward in her white dress, with her golden hair and
glowing cheeks, her eyes unnaturally bright with the slow fever that
burned in her veins.

St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had been buying
for her; but her appearance, as she came on, impressed him suddenly and
painfully. There is a kind of beauty so intense, yet so fragile, that
we cannot bear to look at it. Her father folded her suddenly in his
arms, and almost forgot what he was going to tell her.

“Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days,—are you not?”

“Papa,” said Eva, with sudden firmness “I’ve had things I wanted to say
to you, a great while. I want to say them now, before I get weaker.”

St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She laid her head
on his bosom, and said,

“It’s all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer. The time is
coming that I am going to leave you. I am going, and never to come
back!” and Eva sobbed.

“O, now, my dear little Eva!” said St. Clare, trembling as he spoke,
but speaking cheerfully, “you’ve got nervous and low-spirited; you
mustn’t indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here, I’ve bought a statuette
for you!”

“No, papa,” said Eva, putting it gently away, “don’t deceive
yourself!—I am _not_ any better, I know it perfectly well,—and I am
going, before long. I am not nervous,—I am not low-spirited. If it were
not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly happy. I want
to go,—I long to go!”

“Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart so sad? You have
had everything, to make you happy, that could be given you.”

“I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends’ sake, I would
be willing to live. There are a great many things here that make me
sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be there; but I don’t want
to leave you,—it almost breaks my heart!”

“What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva?”

“O, things that are done, and done all the time. I feel sad for our
poor people; they love me dearly, and they are all good and kind to me.
I wish, papa, they were all _free_.”

“Why, Eva, child, don’t you think they are well enough off now?”

“O, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what would become of
them? There are very few men like you, papa. Uncle Alfred isn’t like
you, and mamma isn’t; and then, think of poor old Prue’s owners! What
horrid things people do, and can do!” and Eva shuddered.

“My dear child, you are too sensitive. I’m sorry I ever let you hear
such stories.”

“O, that’s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and
never to have any pain,—never suffer anything,—not even hear a sad
story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all
their lives;—it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to
feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down
deep; I’ve thought and thought about them. Papa, isn’t there any way to
have all slaves made free?”

“That’s a difficult question, dearest. There’s no doubt that this way
is a very bad one; a great many people think so; I do myself; I heartily
wish that there were not a slave in the land; but, then, I don’t know
what is to be done about it!”

“Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind, and you always
have a way of saying things that is so pleasant, couldn’t you go all
round and try to persuade people to do right about this? When I am
dead, papa, then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. I would
do it, if I could.”

“When you are dead, Eva,” said St. Clare, passionately. “O, child,
don’t talk to me so! You are all I have on earth.”

“Poor old Prue’s child was all that she had,—and yet she had to hear it
crying, and she couldn’t help it! Papa, these poor creatures love their
children as much as you do me. O! do something for them! There’s poor
Mammy loves her children; I’ve seen her cry when she talked about them.
And Tom loves his children; and it’s dreadful, papa, that such things
are happening, all the time!”

“There, there, darling,” said St. Clare, soothingly; “only don’t
distress yourself, don’t talk of dying, and I will do anything you
wish.”

“And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom as soon
as”—she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone—“I am gone!”

“Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world,—anything you could ask me
to.”

“Dear papa,” said the child, laying her burning cheek against his, “how
I wish we could go together!”

“Where, dearest?” said St. Clare.

“To our Saviour’s home; it’s so sweet and peaceful there—it is all so
loving there!” The child spoke unconsciously, as of a place where she
had often been. “Don’t you want to go, papa?” she said.

St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent.

“You will come to me,” said the child, speaking in a voice of calm
certainty which she often used unconsciously.

“I shall come after you. I shall not forget you.”

The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them deeper and deeper,
as St. Clare sat silently holding the little frail form to his bosom.
He saw no more the deep eyes, but the voice came over him as a spirit
voice, and, as in a sort of judgment vision, his whole past life rose
in a moment before his eyes: his mother’s prayers and hymns; his own
early yearnings and aspirings for good; and, between them and this
hour, years of worldliness and scepticism, and what man calls
respectable living. We can think _much_, very much, in a moment. St.
Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke nothing; and, as it grew
darker, he took his child to her bed-room; and, when she was prepared
for rest; he sent away the attendants, and rocked her in his arms, and
sung to her till she was asleep.




CHAPTER XXV
The Little Evangelist


It was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in
the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclined on a
sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded,
under an awning of transparent gauze, from the outrages of the
mosquitos, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly bound
prayer-book. She was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined
she had been reading it,—though, in fact, she had been only taking a
succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small
Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as
driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied them.

“I say, Augustine,” said Marie after dozing a while, “I must send to
the city after my old Doctor Posey; I’m sure I’ve got the complaint of
the heart.”

“Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems
skilful.”

“I would not trust him in a critical case,” said Marie; “and I think I
may say mine is becoming so! I’ve been thinking of it, these two or
three nights past; I have such distressing pains, and such strange
feelings.”

“O, Marie, you are blue; I don’t believe it’s heart complaint.”

“I dare say _you_ don’t,” said Marie; “I was prepared to expect _that_.
You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the
matter with her; but you never think of me.”

“If it’s particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, I’ll
try and maintain you have it,” said St. Clare; “I didn’t know it was.”

“Well, I only hope you won’t be sorry for this, when it’s too late!”
said Marie; “but, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the
exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed what I have
long suspected.”

What the _exertions_ were which Marie referred to, it would have been
difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself,
and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of a man as he was,
till a carriage drove up before the verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia
alighted.

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her
bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on
any subject; while Eva came, at St. Clare’s call, and was sitting on
his knee, giving him an account of the services they had heard.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia’s room, which, like
the one in which they were sitting, opened on to the verandah and
violent reproof addressed to somebody.

“What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?” asked St. Clare. “That
commotion is of her raising, I’ll be bound!”

And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came
dragging the culprit along.

“Come out here, now!” she said. “I _will_ tell your master!”

“What’s the case now?” asked Augustine.

“The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child, any longer!
It’s past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! Here, I locked
her up, and gave her a hymn to study; and what does she do, but spy out
where I put my key, and has gone to my bureau, and got a
bonnet-trimming, and cut it all to pieces to make dolls’ jackets! I
never saw anything like it, in my life!”

“I told you, Cousin,” said Marie, “that you’d find out that these
creatures can’t be brought up without severity. If I had _my_ way,
now,” she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, “I’d send that
child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; I’d have her whipped till
she couldn’t stand!”

“I don’t doubt it,” said St. Clare. “Tell me of the lovely rule of
woman! I never saw above a dozen women that wouldn’t half kill a horse,
or a servant, either, if they had their own way with them!—let alone a
man.”

“There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare!” said
Marie. “Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now, as plain as I
do.”

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs to the
thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty actively roused by
the artifice and wastefulness of the child; in fact, many of my lady
readers must own that they should have felt just so in her
circumstances; but Marie’s words went beyond her, and she felt less
heat.

“I wouldn’t have the child treated so, for the world,” she said; “but,
I am sure, Augustine, I don’t know what to do. I’ve taught and taught;
I’ve talked till I’m tired; I’ve whipped her; I’ve punished her in
every way I can think of, and she’s just what she was at first.”

“Come here, Tops, you monkey!” said St. Clare, calling the child up to
him.

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking with a
mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.

“What makes you behave so?” said St. Clare, who could not help being
amused with the child’s expression.

“Spects it’s my wicked heart,” said Topsy, demurely; “Miss Feely says
so.”

“Don’t you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you? She says she has
done everything she can think of.”

“Lor, yes, Mas’r! old Missis used to say so, too. She whipped me a heap
harder, and used to pull my har, and knock my head agin the door; but
it didn’t do me no good! I spects, if they ’s to pull every spire o’
har out o’ my head, it wouldn’t do no good, neither,—I ’s so wicked!
Laws! I ’s nothin but a nigger, no ways!”

“Well, I shall have to give her up,” said Miss Ophelia; “I can’t have
that trouble any longer.”

“Well, I’d just like to ask one question,” said St. Clare.

“What is it?”

“Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen child,
that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what’s the use of
sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of
just such? I suppose this child is about a fair sample of what
thousands of your heathen are.”

Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva, who had stood a
silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to Topsy to
follow her. There was a little glass-room at the corner of the
verandah, which St. Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and
Topsy disappeared into this place.

“What’s Eva going about, now?” said St. Clare; “I mean to see.”

And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the
glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips,
he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat
the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them.
Topsy, with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but,
opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in
her large eyes.

“What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won’t you try and be good? Don’t
you love _anybody_, Topsy?”

“Donno nothing ’bout love; I loves candy and sich, that’s all,” said
Topsy.

“But you love your father and mother?”

“Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva.”

“O, I know,” said Eva, sadly; “but hadn’t you any brother, or sister,
or aunt, or—”

“No, none on ’em,—never had nothing nor nobody.”

“But, Topsy, if you’d only try to be good, you might—”

“Couldn’t never be nothin’ but a nigger, if I was ever so good,” said
Topsy. “If I could be skinned, and come white, I’d try then.”

“But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would
love you, if you were good.”

Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of
expressing incredulity.

“Don’t you think so?” said Eva.

“No; she can’t bar me, ’cause I’m a nigger!—she’d ’s soon have a toad
touch her! There can’t nobody love niggers, and niggers can’t do
nothin’! _I_ don’t care,” said Topsy, beginning to whistle.

“O, Topsy, poor child, _I_ love you!” said Eva, with a sudden burst of
feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on Topsy’s shoulder; “I
love you, because you haven’t had any father, or mother, or
friends;—because you’ve been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I
want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan’t live
a great while; and it really grieves me, to have you be so naughty. I
wish you would try to be good, for my sake;—it’s only a little while I
shall be with you.”

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with
tears;—large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on
the little white hand. Yes, in that moment, a ray of real belief, a ray
of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul! She
laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed,—while the
beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some
bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

“Poor Topsy!” said Eva, “don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He
is just as willing to love you, as me. He loves you just as I do,—only
more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go
to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were
white. Only think of it, Topsy!—_you_ can be one of those spirits
bright, Uncle Tom sings about.”

“O, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!” said the child; “I will try, I will
try; I never did care nothin’ about it before.”

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. “It puts me in mind of
mother,” he said to Miss Ophelia. “It is true what she told me; if we
want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ
did,—call them to us, and _put our hands on them_.”

“I’ve always had a prejudice against negroes,” said Miss Ophelia, “and
it’s a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but, I
don’t think she knew it.”

“Trust any child to find that out,” said St. Clare; “there’s no keeping
it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit
a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never
excite one emotion of gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance
remains in the heart;—it’s a queer kind of a fact,—but so it is.”

“I don’t know how I can help it,” said Miss Ophelia; “they _are_
disagreeable to me,—this child in particular,—how can I help feeling
so?”

“Eva does, it seems.”

“Well, she’s so loving! After all, though, she’s no more than
Christ-like,” said Miss Ophelia; “I wish I were like her. She might
teach me a lesson.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a little child had been used to instruct
an old disciple, if it _were_ so,” said St. Clare.




CHAPTER XXVI
Death


Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
In life’s early morning, hath hid from our eyes.[1]


 [1] “Weep Not for Those,” a poem by Thomas Moore (1779-1852).


Eva’s bed-room was a spacious apartment, which, like all the other
rooms in the house, opened on to the broad verandah. The room
communicated, on one side, with her father and mother’s apartment; on
the other, with that appropriated to Miss Ophelia. St. Clare had
gratified his own eye and taste, in furnishing this room in a style
that had a peculiar keeping with the character of her for whom it was
intended. The windows were hung with curtains of rose-colored and white
muslin, the floor was spread with a matting which had been ordered in
Paris, to a pattern of his own device, having round it a border of
rose-buds and leaves, and a centre-piece with full-flown roses. The
bedstead, chairs, and lounges, were of bamboo, wrought in peculiarly
graceful and fanciful patterns. Over the head of the bed was an
alabaster bracket, on which a beautiful sculptured angel stood, with
drooping wings, holding out a crown of myrtle-leaves. From this
depended, over the bed, light curtains of rose-colored gauze, striped
with silver, supplying that protection from mosquitos which is an
indispensable addition to all sleeping accommodation in that climate.
The graceful bamboo lounges were amply supplied with cushions of
rose-colored damask, while over them, depending from the hands of
sculptured figures, were gauze curtains similar to those of the bed. A
light, fanciful bamboo table stood in the middle of the room, where a
Parian vase, wrought in the shape of a white lily, with its buds,
stood, ever filled with flowers. On this table lay Eva’s books and
little trinkets, with an elegantly wrought alabaster writing-stand,
which her father had supplied to her when he saw her trying to improve
herself in writing. There was a fireplace in the room, and on the
marble mantle above stood a beautifully wrought statuette of Jesus
receiving little children, and on either side marble vases, for which
it was Tom’s pride and delight to offer bouquets every morning. Two or
three exquisite paintings of children, in various attitudes,
embellished the wall. In short, the eye could turn nowhere without
meeting images of childhood, of beauty, and of peace. Those little eyes
never opened, in the morning light, without falling on something which
suggested to the heart soothing and beautiful thoughts.

The deceitful strength which had buoyed Eva up for a little while was
fast passing away; seldom and more seldom her light footstep was heard
in the verandah, and oftener and oftener she was found reclined on a
little lounge by the open window, her large, deep eyes fixed on the
rising and falling waters of the lake.

It was towards the middle of the afternoon, as she was so
reclining,—her Bible half open, her little transparent fingers lying
listlessly between the leaves,—suddenly she heard her mother’s voice,
in sharp tones, in the verandah.

“What now, you baggage!—what new piece of mischief! You’ve been picking
the flowers, hey?” and Eva heard the sound of a smart slap.

“Law, Missis! they ’s for Miss Eva,” she heard a voice say, which she
knew belonged to Topsy.

“Miss Eva! A pretty excuse!—you suppose she wants _your_ flowers, you
good-for-nothing nigger! Get along off with you!”

In a moment, Eva was off from her lounge, and in the verandah.

“O, don’t, mother! I should like the flowers; do give them to me; I
want them!”

“Why, Eva, your room is full now.”

“I can’t have too many,” said Eva. “Topsy, do bring them here.”

Topsy, who had stood sullenly, holding down her head, now came up and
offered her flowers. She did it with a look of hesitation and
bashfulness, quite unlike the eldrich boldness and brightness which was
usual with her.

“It’s a beautiful bouquet!” said Eva, looking at it.

It was rather a singular one,—a brilliant scarlet geranium, and one
single white japonica, with its glossy leaves. It was tied up with an
evident eye to the contrast of color, and the arrangement of every leaf
had carefully been studied.

Topsy looked pleased, as Eva said,—“Topsy, you arrange flowers very
prettily. Here,” she said, “is this vase I haven’t any flowers for. I
wish you’d arrange something every day for it.”

“Well, that’s odd!” said Marie. “What in the world do you want that
for?”

“Never mind, mamma; you’d as lief as not Topsy should do it,—had you
not?”

“Of course, anything you please, dear! Topsy, you hear your young
mistress;—see that you mind.”

Topsy made a short courtesy, and looked down; and, as she turned away,
Eva saw a tear roll down her dark cheek.

“You see, mamma, I knew poor Topsy wanted to do something for me,” said
Eva to her mother.

“O, nonsense! it’s only because she likes to do mischief. She knows she
mustn’t pick flowers,—so she does it; that’s all there is to it. But,
if you fancy to have her pluck them, so be it.”

“Mamma, I think Topsy is different from what she used to be; she’s
trying to be a good girl.”

“She’ll have to try a good while before _she_ gets to be good,” said
Marie, with a careless laugh.

“Well, you know, mamma, poor Topsy! everything has always been against
her.”

“Not since she’s been here, I’m sure. If she hasn’t been talked to, and
preached to, and every earthly thing done that anybody could do;—and
she’s just so ugly, and always will be; you can’t make anything of the
creature!”

“But, mamma, it’s so different to be brought up as I’ve been, with so
many friends, so many things to make me good and happy; and to be
brought up as she’s been, all the time, till she came here!”

“Most likely,” said Marie, yawning,—“dear me, how hot it is!”

“Mamma, you believe, don’t you, that Topsy could become an angel, as
well as any of us, if she were a Christian?”

“Topsy! what a ridiculous idea! Nobody but you would ever think of it.
I suppose she could, though.”

“But, mamma, isn’t God her father, as much as ours? Isn’t Jesus her
Saviour?”

“Well, that may be. I suppose God made everybody,” said Marie. “Where
is my smelling-bottle?”

“It’s such a pity,—oh! _such_ a pity!” said Eva, looking out on the
distant lake, and speaking half to herself.

“What’s a pity?” said Marie.

“Why, that any one, who could be a bright angel, and live with angels,
should go all down, down down, and nobody help them!—oh dear!”

“Well, we can’t help it; it’s no use worrying, Eva! I don’t know what’s
to be done; we ought to be thankful for our own advantages.”

“I hardly can be,” said Eva, “I’m so sorry to think of poor folks that
haven’t any.”

“That’s odd enough,” said Marie;—“I’m sure my religion makes me
thankful for my advantages.”

“Mamma,” said Eva, “I want to have some of my hair cut off,—a good deal
of it.”

“What for?” said Marie.

“Mamma, I want to give some away to my friends, while I am able to give
it to them myself. Won’t you ask aunty to come and cut it for me?”

Marie raised her voice, and called Miss Ophelia, from the other room.

The child half rose from her pillow as she came in, and, shaking down
her long golden-brown curls, said, rather playfully, “Come aunty, shear
the sheep!”

“What’s that?” said St. Clare, who just then entered with some fruit he
had been out to get for her.

“Papa, I just want aunty to cut off some of my hair;—there’s too much
of it, and it makes my head hot. Besides, I want to give some of it
away.”

Miss Ophelia came, with her scissors.

“Take care,—don’t spoil the looks of it!” said her father; “cut
underneath, where it won’t show. Eva’s curls are my pride.”

“O, papa!” said Eva, sadly.

“Yes, and I want them kept handsome against the time I take you up to
your uncle’s plantation, to see Cousin Henrique,” said St. Clare, in a
gay tone.

“I shall never go there, papa;—I am going to a better country. O, do
believe me! Don’t you see, papa, that I get weaker, every day?”

“Why do you insist that I shall believe such a cruel thing, Eva?” said
her father.

“Only because it is _true_, papa: and, if you will believe it now,
perhaps you will get to feel about it as I do.”

St. Clare closed his lips, and stood gloomily eying the long, beautiful
curls, which, as they were separated from the child’s head, were laid,
one by one, in her lap. She raised them up, looked earnestly at them,
twined them around her thin fingers, and looked from time to time,
anxiously at her father.

“It’s just what I’ve been foreboding!” said Marie; “it’s just what has
been preying on my health, from day to day, bringing me downward to the
grave, though nobody regards it. I have seen this, long. St. Clare, you
will see, after a while, that I was right.”

“Which will afford you great consolation, no doubt!” said St. Clare, in
a dry, bitter tone.

Marie lay back on a lounge, and covered her face with her cambric
handkerchief.

Eva’s clear blue eye looked earnestly from one to the other. It was the
calm, comprehending gaze of a soul half loosed from its earthly bonds;
it was evident she saw, felt, and appreciated, the difference between
the two.

She beckoned with her hand to her father. He came and sat down by her.

“Papa, my strength fades away every day, and I know I must go. There
are some things I want to say and do,—that I ought to do; and you are
so unwilling to have me speak a word on this subject. But it must come;
there’s no putting it off. Do be willing I should speak now!”

“My child, I _am_ willing!” said St. Clare, covering his eyes with one
hand, and holding up Eva’s hand with the other.

“Then, I want to see all our people together. I have some things I
_must_ say to them,” said Eva.

“_Well_,” said St. Clare, in a tone of dry endurance.

Miss Ophelia despatched a messenger, and soon the whole of the servants
were convened in the room.

Eva lay back on her pillows; her hair hanging loosely about her face,
her crimson cheeks contrasting painfully with the intense whiteness of
her complexion and the thin contour of her limbs and features, and her
large, soul-like eyes fixed earnestly on every one.

The servants were struck with a sudden emotion. The spiritual face, the
long locks of hair cut off and lying by her, her father’s averted face,
and Marie’s sobs, struck at once upon the feelings of a sensitive and
impressible race; and, as they came in, they looked one on another,
sighed, and shook their heads. There was a deep silence, like that of a
funeral.

Eva raised herself, and looked long and earnestly round at every one.
All looked sad and apprehensive. Many of the women hid their faces in
their aprons.

“I sent for you all, my dear friends,” said Eva, “because I love you. I
love you all; and I have something to say to you, which I want you
always to remember. . . . I am going to leave you. In a few more weeks
you will see me no more—”

Here the child was interrupted by bursts of groans, sobs, and
lamentations, which broke from all present, and in which her slender
voice was lost entirely. She waited a moment, and then, speaking in a
tone that checked the sobs of all, she said,

“If you love me, you must not interrupt me so. Listen to what I say. I
want to speak to you about your souls. . . . Many of you, I am afraid,
are very careless. You are thinking only about this world. I want you
to remember that there is a beautiful world, where Jesus is. I am going
there, and you can go there. It is for you, as much as me. But, if you
want to go there, you must not live idle, careless, thoughtless lives.
You must be Christians. You must remember that each one of you can
become angels, and be angels forever. . . . If you want to be
Christians, Jesus will help you. You must pray to him; you must read—”

The child checked herself, looked piteously at them, and said,
sorrowfully,

“O dear! you _can’t_ read—poor souls!” and she hid her face in the
pillow and sobbed, while many a smothered sob from those she was
addressing, who were kneeling on the floor, aroused her.

“Never mind,” she said, raising her face and smiling brightly through
her tears, “I have prayed for you; and I know Jesus will help you, even
if you can’t read. Try all to do the best you can; pray every day; ask
Him to help you, and get the Bible read to you whenever you can; and I
think I shall see you all in heaven.”

“Amen,” was the murmured response from the lips of Tom and Mammy, and
some of the elder ones, who belonged to the Methodist church. The
younger and more thoughtless ones, for the time completely overcome,
were sobbing, with their heads bowed upon their knees.

“I know,” said Eva, “you all love me.”

“Yes; oh, yes! indeed we do! Lord bless her!” was the involuntary
answer of all.

“Yes, I know you do! There isn’t one of you that hasn’t always been
very kind to me; and I want to give you something that, when you look
at, you shall always remember me, I’m going to give all of you a curl
of my hair; and, when you look at it, think that I loved you and am
gone to heaven, and that I want to see you all there.”

It is impossible to describe the scene, as, with tears and sobs, they
gathered round the little creature, and took from her hands what seemed
to them a last mark of her love. They fell on their knees; they sobbed,
and prayed, and kissed the hem of her garment; and the elder ones
poured forth words of endearment, mingled in prayers and blessings,
after the manner of their susceptible race.

As each one took their gift, Miss Ophelia, who was apprehensive for the
effect of all this excitement on her little patient, signed to each one
to pass out of the apartment.

At last, all were gone but Tom and Mammy.

“Here, Uncle Tom,” said Eva, “is a beautiful one for you. O, I am so
happy, Uncle Tom, to think I shall see you in heaven,—for I’m sure I
shall; and Mammy,—dear, good, kind Mammy!” she said, fondly throwing
her arms round her old nurse,—“I know you’ll be there, too.”

“O, Miss Eva, don’t see how I can live without ye, no how!” said the
faithful creature. “‘Pears like it’s just taking everything off the
place to oncet!” and Mammy gave way to a passion of grief.

Miss Ophelia pushed her and Tom gently from the apartment, and thought
they were all gone; but, as she turned, Topsy was standing there.

“Where did you start up from?” she said, suddenly.

“I was here,” said Topsy, wiping the tears from her eyes. “O, Miss Eva,
I’ve been a bad girl; but won’t you give _me_ one, too?”

“Yes, poor Topsy! to be sure, I will. There—every time you look at
that, think that I love you, and wanted you to be a good girl!”

“O, Miss Eva, I _is_ tryin!” said Topsy, earnestly; “but, Lor, it’s so
hard to be good! ’Pears like I an’t used to it, no ways!”

“Jesus knows it, Topsy; he is sorry for you; he will help you.”

Topsy, with her eyes hid in her apron, was silently passed from the
apartment by Miss Ophelia; but, as she went, she hid the precious curl
in her bosom.

All being gone, Miss Ophelia shut the door. That worthy lady had wiped
away many tears of her own, during the scene; but concern for the
consequence of such an excitement to her young charge was uppermost in
her mind.

St. Clare had been sitting, during the whole time, with his hand
shading his eyes, in the same attitude.

When they were all gone, he sat so still.

“Papa!” said Eva, gently, laying her hand on his.

He gave a sudden start and shiver; but made no answer.

“Dear papa!” said Eva.

“_I cannot_,” said St. Clare, rising, “I _cannot_ have it so! The
Almighty hath dealt _very bitterly_ with me!” and St. Clare pronounced
these words with a bitter emphasis, indeed.

“Augustine! has not God a right to do what he will with his own?” said
Miss Ophelia.

“Perhaps so; but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear,” said he,
with a dry, hard, tearless manner, as he turned away.

“Papa, you break my heart!” said Eva, rising and throwing herself into
his arms; “you must not feel so!” and the child sobbed and wept with a
violence which alarmed them all, and turned her father’s thoughts at
once to another channel.

“There, Eva,—there, dearest! Hush! hush! I was wrong; I was wicked. I
will feel any way, do any way,—only don’t distress yourself; don’t sob
so. I will be resigned; I was wicked to speak as I did.”

Eva soon lay like a wearied dove in her father’s arms; and he, bending
over her, soothed her by every tender word he could think of.

Marie rose and threw herself out of the apartment into her own, when
she fell into violent hysterics.

“You didn’t give me a curl, Eva,” said her father, smiling sadly.

“They are all yours, papa,” said she, smiling—“yours and mamma’s; and
you must give dear aunty as many as she wants. I only gave them to our
poor people myself, because you know, papa, they might be forgotten
when I am gone, and because I hoped it might help them remember. . . .
You are a Christian, are you not, papa?” said Eva, doubtfully.

“Why do you ask me?”

“I don’t know. You are so good, I don’t see how you can help it.”

“What is being a Christian, Eva?”

“Loving Christ most of all,” said Eva.

“Do you, Eva?”

“Certainly I do.”

“You never saw him,” said St. Clare.

“That makes no difference,” said Eva. “I believe him, and in a few days
I shall _see_ him;” and the young face grew fervent, radiant with joy.

St. Clare said no more. It was a feeling which he had seen before in
his mother; but no chord within vibrated to it.

Eva, after this, declined rapidly; there was no more any doubt of the
event; the fondest hope could not be blinded. Her beautiful room was
avowedly a sick room; and Miss Ophelia day and night performed the
duties of a nurse,—and never did her friends appreciate her value more
than in that capacity. With so well-trained a hand and eye, such
perfect adroitness and practice in every art which could promote
neatness and comfort, and keep out of sight every disagreeable incident
of sickness,—with such a perfect sense of time, such a clear,
untroubled head, such exact accuracy in remembering every prescription
and direction of the doctors,—she was everything to him. They who had
shrugged their shoulders at her little peculiarities and setnesses, so
unlike the careless freedom of southern manners, acknowledged that now
she was the exact person that was wanted.

Uncle Tom was much in Eva’s room. The child suffered much from nervous
restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be carried; and it was
Tom’s greatest delight to carry her little frail form in his arms,
resting on a pillow, now up and down her room, now out into the
verandah; and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from the lake,—and the
child felt freshest in the morning,—he would sometimes walk with her
under the orange-trees in the garden, or, sitting down in some of their
old seats, sing to her their favorite old hymns.

Her father often did the same thing; but his frame was slighter, and
when he was weary, Eva would say to him,

“O, papa, let Tom take me. Poor fellow! it pleases him; and you know
it’s all he can do now, and he wants to do something!”

“So do I, Eva!” said her father.

“Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me. You read
to me,—you sit up nights,—and Tom has only this one thing, and his
singing; and I know, too, he does it easier than you can. He carries me
so strong!”

The desire to do something was not confined to Tom. Every servant in
the establishment showed the same feeling, and in their way did what
they could.

Poor Mammy’s heart yearned towards her darling; but she found no
opportunity, night or day, as Marie declared that the state of her mind
was such, it was impossible for her to rest; and, of course, it was
against her principles to let any one else rest. Twenty times in a
night, Mammy would be roused to rub her feet, to bathe her head, to
find her pocket-handkerchief, to see what the noise was in Eva’s room,
to let down a curtain because it was too light, or to put it up because
it was too dark; and, in the daytime, when she longed to have some
share in the nursing of her pet, Marie seemed unusually ingenious in
keeping her busy anywhere and everywhere all over the house, or about
her own person; so that stolen interviews and momentary glimpses were
all she could obtain.

“I feel it my duty to be particularly careful of myself, now,” she
would say, “feeble as I am, and with the whole care and nursing of that
dear child upon me.”

“Indeed, my dear,” said St. Clare, “I thought our cousin relieved you
of that.”

“You talk like a man, St. Clare,—just as if a mother _could_ be
relieved of the care of a child in that state; but, then, it’s all
alike,—no one ever knows what I feel! I can’t throw things off, as you
do.”

St. Clare smiled. You must excuse him, he couldn’t help it,—for St.
Clare could smile yet. For so bright and placid was the farewell voyage
of the little spirit,—by such sweet and fragrant breezes was the small
bark borne towards the heavenly shores,—that it was impossible to
realize that it was death that was approaching. The child felt no
pain,—only a tranquil, soft weakness, daily and almost insensibly
increasing; and she was so beautiful, so loving, so trustful, so happy,
that one could not resist the soothing influence of that air of
innocence and peace which seemed to breathe around her. St. Clare found
a strange calm coming over him. It was not hope,—that was impossible;
it was not resignation; it was only a calm resting in the present,
which seemed so beautiful that he wished to think of no future. It was
like that hush of spirit which we feel amid the bright, mild woods of
autumn, when the bright hectic flush is on the trees, and the last
lingering flowers by the brook; and we joy in it all the more, because
we know that soon it will all pass away.

The friend who knew most of Eva’s own imaginings and foreshadowings was
her faithful bearer, Tom. To him she said what she would not disturb
her father by saying. To him she imparted those mysterious intimations
which the soul feels, as the cords begin to unbind, ere it leaves its
clay forever.

Tom, at last, would not sleep in his room, but lay all night in the
outer verandah, ready to rouse at every call.

“Uncle Tom, what alive have you taken to sleeping anywhere and
everywhere, like a dog, for?” said Miss Ophelia. “I thought you was one
of the orderly sort, that liked to lie in bed in a Christian way.”

“I do, Miss Feely,” said Tom, mysteriously. “I do, but now—”

“Well, what now?”

“We mustn’t speak loud; Mas’r St. Clare won’t hear on ’t; but Miss
Feely, you know there must be somebody watchin’ for the bridegroom.”

“What do you mean, Tom?”

“You know it says in Scripture, ‘At midnight there was a great cry
made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ That’s what I’m spectin now,
every night, Miss Feely,—and I couldn’t sleep out o’ hearin, no ways.”

“Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you think so?”

“Miss Eva, she talks to me. The Lord, he sends his messenger in the
soul. I must be thar, Miss Feely; for when that ar blessed child goes
into the kingdom, they’ll open the door so wide, we’ll all get a look
in at the glory, Miss Feely.”

“Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say she felt more unwell than usual tonight?”

“No; but she telled me, this morning, she was coming nearer,—thar’s
them that tells it to the child, Miss Feely. It’s the angels,—‘it’s the
trumpet sound afore the break o’ day,’” said Tom, quoting from a
favorite hymn.

This dialogue passed between Miss Ophelia and Tom, between ten and
eleven, one evening, after her arrangements had all been made for the
night, when, on going to bolt her outer door, she found Tom stretched
along by it, in the outer verandah.

She was not nervous or impressible; but the solemn, heart-felt manner
struck her. Eva had been unusually bright and cheerful, that afternoon,
and had sat raised in her bed, and looked over all her little trinkets
and precious things, and designated the friends to whom she would have
them given; and her manner was more animated, and her voice more
natural, than they had known it for weeks. Her father had been in, in
the evening, and had said that Eva appeared more like her former self
than ever she had done since her sickness; and when he kissed her for
the night, he said to Miss Ophelia,—“Cousin, we may keep her with us,
after all; she is certainly better;” and he had retired with a lighter
heart in his bosom than he had had there for weeks.

But at midnight,—strange, mystic hour!—when the veil between the frail
present and the eternal future grows thin,—then came the messenger!

There was a sound in that chamber, first of one who stepped quickly. It
was Miss Ophelia, who had resolved to sit up all night with her little
charge, and who, at the turn of the night, had discerned what
experienced nurses significantly call “a change.” The outer door was
quickly opened, and Tom, who was watching outside, was on the alert, in
a moment.

“Go for the doctor, Tom! lose not a moment,” said Miss Ophelia; and,
stepping across the room, she rapped at St. Clare’s door.

“Cousin,” she said, “I wish you would come.”

Those words fell on his heart like clods upon a coffin. Why did they?
He was up and in the room in an instant, and bending over Eva, who
still slept.

What was it he saw that made his heart stand still? Why was no word
spoken between the two? Thou canst say, who hast seen that same
expression on the face dearest to thee;—that look indescribable,
hopeless, unmistakable, that says to thee that thy beloved is no longer
thine.

On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly imprint,—only a
high and almost sublime expression,—the overshadowing presence of
spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal life in that childish soul.

They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the ticking of
the watch seemed too loud. In a few moments, Tom returned, with the
doctor. He entered, gave one look, and stood silent as the rest.

“When did this change take place?” said he, in a low whisper, to Miss
Ophelia.

“About the turn of the night,” was the reply.

Marie, roused by the entrance of the doctor, appeared, hurriedly, from
the next room.

“Augustine! Cousin!—O!—what!” she hurriedly began.

“Hush!” said St. Clare, hoarsely; _“she is dying!”_

Mammy heard the words, and flew to awaken the servants. The house was
soon roused,—lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious faces thronged
the verandah, and looked tearfully through the glass doors; but St.
Clare heard and said nothing,—he saw only _that look_ on the face of
the little sleeper.

“O, if she would only wake, and speak once more!” he said; and,
stooping over her, he spoke in her ear,—“Eva, darling!”

The large blue eyes unclosed—a smile passed over her face;—she tried to
raise her head, and to speak.

“Do you know me, Eva?”

“Dear papa,” said the child, with a last effort, throwing her arms
about his neck. In a moment they dropped again; and, as St. Clare
raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over the face,—she
struggled for breath, and threw up her little hands.

“O, God, this is dreadful!” he said, turning away in agony, and
wringing Tom’s hand, scarce conscious what he was doing. “O, Tom, my
boy, it is killing me!”

Tom had his master’s hands between his own; and, with tears streaming
down his dark cheeks, looked up for help where he had always been used
to look.

“Pray that this may be cut short!” said St. Clare,—“this wrings my
heart.”

“O, bless the Lord! it’s over,—it’s over, dear Master!” said Tom; “look
at her.”

The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted,—the large clear
eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes, that spoke so much
of heaven! Earth was past,—and earthly pain; but so solemn, so
mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face, that it checked
even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her, in breathless
stillness.

“Eva,” said St. Clare, gently.

She did not hear.

“O, Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?” said her father.

A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said,
brokenly,—“O! love,—joy,—peace!” gave one sigh and passed from death
unto life!

“Farewell, beloved child! the bright, eternal doors have closed after
thee; we shall see thy sweet face no more. O, woe for them who watched
thy entrance into heaven, when they shall wake and find only the cold
gray sky of daily life, and thou gone forever!”




CHAPTER XXVII
“This Is the Last of Earth”[1]


 [1] “This is the last of Earth! I am content,” last words of John
 Quincy Adams, uttered February 21, 1848.


The statuettes and pictures in Eva’s room were shrouded in white
napkins, and only hushed breathings and muffled footfalls were heard
there, and the light stole in solemnly through windows partially
darkened by closed blinds.

The bed was draped in white; and there, beneath the drooping
angel-figure, lay a little sleeping form,—sleeping never to waken!

There she lay, robed in one of the simple white dresses she had been
wont to wear when living; the rose-colored light through the curtains
cast over the icy coldness of death a warm glow. The heavy eyelashes
drooped softly on the pure cheek; the head was turned a little to one
side, as if in natural sleep, but there was diffused over every
lineament of the face that high celestial expression, that mingling of
rapture and repose, which showed it was no earthly or temporary sleep,
but the long, sacred rest which “He giveth to his beloved.”

There is no death to such as thou, dear Eva! neither darkness nor
shadow of death; only such a bright fading as when the morning star
fades in the golden dawn. Thine is the victory without the battle,—the
crown without the conflict.

So did St. Clare think, as, with folded arms, he stood there gazing.
Ah! who shall say what he did think? for, from the hour that voices had
said, in the dying chamber, “she is gone,” it had been all a dreary
mist, a heavy “dimness of anguish.” He had heard voices around him; he
had had questions asked, and answered them; they had asked him when he
would have the funeral, and where they should lay her; and he had
answered, impatiently, that he cared not.

Adolph and Rosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, fickle and
childish, as they generally were, they were soft-hearted and full of
feeling; and, while Miss Ophelia presided over the general details of
order and neatness, it was their hands that added those soft, poetic
touches to the arrangements, that took from the death-room the grim and
ghastly air which too often marks a New England funeral.

There were still flowers on the shelves,—all white, delicate and
fragrant, with graceful, drooping leaves. Eva’s little table, covered
with white, bore on it her favorite vase, with a single white moss
rose-bud in it. The folds of the drapery, the fall of the curtains, had
been arranged and rearranged, by Adolph and Rosa, with that nicety of
eye which characterizes their race. Even now, while St. Clare stood
there thinking, little Rosa tripped softly into the chamber with a
basket of white flowers. She stepped back when she saw St. Clare, and
stopped respectfully; but, seeing that he did not observe her, she came
forward to place them around the dead. St. Clare saw her as in a dream,
while she placed in the small hands a fair cape jessamine, and, with
admirable taste, disposed other flowers around the couch.

The door opened again, and Topsy, her eyes swelled with crying,
appeared, holding something under her apron. Rosa made a quick
forbidding gesture; but she took a step into the room.

“You must go out,” said Rosa, in a sharp, positive whisper; “_you_
haven’t any business here!”

“O, do let me! I brought a flower,—such a pretty one!” said Topsy,
holding up a half-blown tea rose-bud. “Do let me put just one there.”

“Get along!” said Rosa, more decidedly.

“Let her stay!” said St. Clare, suddenly stamping his foot. “She shall
come.”

Rosa suddenly retreated, and Topsy came forward and laid her offering
at the feet of the corpse; then suddenly, with a wild and bitter cry,
she threw herself on the floor alongside the bed, and wept, and moaned
aloud.

Miss Ophelia hastened into the room, and tried to raise and silence
her; but in vain.

“O, Miss Eva! oh, Miss Eva! I wish I ’s dead, too,—I do!”

There was a piercing wildness in the cry; the blood flushed into St.
Clare’s white, marble-like face, and the first tears he had shed since
Eva died stood in his eyes.

“Get up, child,” said Miss Ophelia, in a softened voice; “don’t cry so.
Miss Eva is gone to heaven; she is an angel.”

“But I can’t see her!” said Topsy. “I never shall see her!” and she
sobbed again.

They all stood a moment in silence.

“_She_ said she _loved_ me,” said Topsy,—“she did! O, dear! oh, dear!
there an’t _nobody_ left now,—there an’t!”

“That’s true enough” said St. Clare; “but do,” he said to Miss Ophelia,
“see if you can’t comfort the poor creature.”

“I jist wish I hadn’t never been born,” said Topsy. “I didn’t want to
be born, no ways; and I don’t see no use on ’t.”

Miss Ophelia raised her gently, but firmly, and took her from the room;
but, as she did so, some tears fell from her eyes.

“Topsy, you poor child,” she said, as she led her into her room, “don’t
give up! _I_ can love you, though I am not like that dear little child.
I hope I’ve learnt something of the love of Christ from her. I can love
you; I do, and I’ll try to help you to grow up a good Christian girl.”

Miss Ophelia’s voice was more than her words, and more than that were
the honest tears that fell down her face. From that hour, she acquired
an influence over the mind of the destitute child that she never lost.

“O, my Eva, whose little hour on earth did so much of good,” thought
St. Clare, “what account have I to give for my long years?”

There were, for a while, soft whisperings and footfalls in the chamber,
as one after another stole in, to look at the dead; and then came the
little coffin; and then there was a funeral, and carriages drove to the
door, and strangers came and were seated; and there were white scarfs
and ribbons, and crape bands, and mourners dressed in black crape; and
there were words read from the Bible, and prayers offered; and St.
Clare lived, and walked, and moved, as one who has shed every tear;—to
the last he saw only one thing, that golden head in the coffin; but
then he saw the cloth spread over it, the lid of the coffin closed; and
he walked, when he was put beside the others, down to a little place at
the bottom of the garden, and there, by the mossy seat where she and
Tom had talked, and sung, and read so often, was the little grave. St.
Clare stood beside it,—looked vacantly down; he saw them lower the
little coffin; he heard, dimly, the solemn words, “I am the
resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live;” and, as the earth was cast in and filled up
the little grave, he could not realize that it was his Eva that they
were hiding from his sight.

Nor was it!—not Eva, but only the frail seed of that bright, immortal
form with which she shall yet come forth, in the day of the Lord Jesus!

And then all were gone, and the mourners went back to the place which
should know her no more; and Marie’s room was darkened, and she lay on
the bed, sobbing and moaning in uncontrollable grief, and calling every
moment for the attentions of all her servants. Of course, they had no
time to cry,—why should they? the grief was _her_ grief, and she was
fully convinced that nobody on earth did, could, or would feel it as
she did.

“St. Clare did not shed a tear,” she said; “he didn’t sympathize with
her; it was perfectly wonderful to think how hard-hearted and unfeeling
he was, when he must know how she suffered.”

So much are people the slave of their eye and ear, that many of the
servants really thought that Missis was the principal sufferer in the
case, especially as Marie began to have hysterical spasms, and sent for
the doctor, and at last declared herself dying; and, in the running and
scampering, and bringing up hot bottles, and heating of flannels, and
chafing, and fussing, that ensued, there was quite a diversion.

Tom, however, had a feeling at his own heart, that drew him to his
master. He followed him wherever he walked, wistfully and sadly; and
when he saw him sitting, so pale and quiet, in Eva’s room, holding
before his eyes her little open Bible, though seeing no letter or word
of what was in it, there was more sorrow to Tom in that still, fixed,
tearless eye, than in all Marie’s moans and lamentations.

In a few days the St. Clare family were back again in the city;
Augustine, with the restlessness of grief, longing for another scene,
to change the current of his thoughts. So they left the house and
garden, with its little grave, and came back to New Orleans; and St.
Clare walked the streets busily, and strove to fill up the chasm in his
heart with hurry and bustle, and change of place; and people who saw
him in the street, or met him at the cafe, knew of his loss only by the
weed on his hat; for there he was, smiling and talking, and reading the
newspaper, and speculating on politics, and attending to business
matters; and who could see that all this smiling outside was but a
hollowed shell over a heart that was a dark and silent sepulchre?

“Mr. St. Clare is a singular man,” said Marie to Miss Ophelia, in a
complaining tone. “I used to think, if there was anything in the world
he did love, it was our dear little Eva; but he seems to be forgetting
her very easily. I cannot ever get him to talk about her. I really did
think he would show more feeling!”

“Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me,” said Miss Ophelia,
oracularly.

“O, I don’t believe in such things; it’s all talk. If people have
feeling, they will show it,—they can’t help it; but, then, it’s a great
misfortune to have feeling. I’d rather have been made like St. Clare.
My feelings prey upon me so!”

“Sure, Missis, Mas’r St. Clare is gettin’ thin as a shader. They say,
he don’t never eat nothin’,” said Mammy. “I know he don’t forget Miss
Eva; I know there couldn’t nobody,—dear, little, blessed cretur!” she
added, wiping her eyes.

“Well, at all events, he has no consideration for me,” said Marie; “he
hasn’t spoken one word of sympathy, and he must know how much more a
mother feels than any man can.”

“The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” said Miss Ophelia, gravely.

“That’s just what I think. I know just what I feel,—nobody else seems
to. Eva used to, but she is gone!” and Marie lay back on her lounge,
and began to sob disconsolately.

Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, in whose eyes
whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in
possession. Whatever she had, she seemed to survey only to pick flaws
in it; but, once fairly away, there was no end to her valuation of it.

While this conversation was taking place in the parlor another was
going on in St. Clare’s library.

Tom, who was always uneasily following his master about, had seen him
go to his library, some hours before; and, after vainly waiting for him
to come out, determined, at last, to make an errand in. He entered
softly. St. Clare lay on his lounge, at the further end of the room. He
was lying on his face, with Eva’s Bible open before him, at a little
distance. Tom walked up, and stood by the sofa. He hesitated; and,
while he was hesitating, St. Clare suddenly raised himself up. The
honest face, so full of grief, and with such an imploring expression of
affection and sympathy, struck his master. He laid his hand on Tom’s,
and bowed down his forehead on it.

“O, Tom, my boy, the whole world is as empty as an egg-shell.”

“I know it, Mas’r,—I know it,” said Tom; “but, oh, if Mas’r could only
look up,—up where our dear Miss Eva is,—up to the dear Lord Jesus!”

“Ah, Tom! I do look up; but the trouble is, I don’t see anything, when
I do, I wish I could.”

Tom sighed heavily.

“It seems to be given to children, and poor, honest fellows, like you,
to see what we can’t,” said St. Clare. “How comes it?”

“Thou has ’hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes,’”
murmured Tom; “‘even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.’”

“Tom, I don’t believe,—I can’t believe,—I’ve got the habit of
doubting,” said St. Clare. “I want to believe this Bible,—and I can’t.”

“Dear Mas’r, pray to the good Lord,—‘Lord, I believe; help thou my
unbelief.’”

“Who knows anything about anything?” said St. Clare, his eyes wandering
dreamily, and speaking to himself. “Was all that beautiful love and
faith only one of the ever-shifting phases of human feeling, having
nothing real to rest on, passing away with the little breath? And is
there no more Eva,—no heaven,—no Christ,—nothing?”

“O, dear Mas’r, there is! I know it; I’m sure of it,” said Tom, falling
on his knees. “Do, do, dear Mas’r, believe it!”

“How do you know there’s any Christ, Tom! You never saw the Lord.”

“Felt Him in my soul, Mas’r,—feel Him now! O, Mas’r, when I was sold
away from my old woman and the children, I was jest a’most broke up. I
felt as if there warn’t nothin’ left; and then the good Lord, he stood
by me, and he says, ‘Fear not, Tom;’ and he brings light and joy in a
poor feller’s soul,—makes all peace; and I ’s so happy, and loves
everybody, and feels willin’ jest to be the Lord’s, and have the Lord’s
will done, and be put jest where the Lord wants to put me. I know it
couldn’t come from me, cause I ’s a poor, complainin’ cretur; it comes
from the Lord; and I know He’s willin’ to do for Mas’r.”

Tom spoke with fast-running tears and choking voice. St. Clare leaned
his head on his shoulder, and wrung the hard, faithful, black hand.

“Tom, you love me,” he said.

“I ’s willin’ to lay down my life, this blessed day, to see Mas’r a
Christian.”

“Poor, foolish boy!” said St. Clare, half-raising himself. “I’m not
worth the love of one good, honest heart, like yours.”

“O, Mas’r, dere’s more than me loves you,—the blessed Lord Jesus loves
you.”

“How do you know that Tom?” said St. Clare.

“Feels it in my soul. O, Mas’r! ’the love of Christ, that passeth
knowledge.’”

“Singular!” said St. Clare, turning away, “that the story of a man that
lived and died eighteen hundred years ago can affect people so yet. But
he was no man,” he added, suddenly. “No man ever had such long and
living power! O, that I could believe what my mother taught me, and
pray as I did when I was a boy!”

“If Mas’r pleases,” said Tom, “Miss Eva used to read this so
beautifully. I wish Mas’r’d be so good as read it. Don’t get no
readin’, hardly, now Miss Eva’s gone.”

The chapter was the eleventh of John,—the touching account of the
raising of Lazarus, St. Clare read it aloud, often pausing to wrestle
down feelings which were roused by the pathos of the story. Tom knelt
before him, with clasped hands, and with an absorbed expression of
love, trust, adoration, on his quiet face.

“Tom,” said his Master, “this is all _real_ to you!”

“I can jest fairly _see_ it Mas’r,” said Tom.

“I wish I had your eyes, Tom.”

“I wish, to the dear Lord, Mas’r had!”

“But, Tom, you know that I have a great deal more knowledge than you;
what if I should tell you that I don’t believe this Bible?”

“O, Mas’r!” said Tom, holding up his hands, with a deprecating gesture.

“Wouldn’t it shake your faith some, Tom?”

“Not a grain,” said Tom.

“Why, Tom, you must know I know the most.”

“O, Mas’r, haven’t you jest read how he hides from the wise and
prudent, and reveals unto babes? But Mas’r wasn’t in earnest, for
sartin, now?” said Tom, anxiously.

“No, Tom, I was not. I don’t disbelieve, and I think there is reason to
believe; and still I don’t. It’s a troublesome bad habit I’ve got,
Tom.”

“If Mas’r would only pray!”

“How do you know I don’t, Tom?”

“Does Mas’r?”

“I would, Tom, if there was anybody there when I pray; but it’s all
speaking unto nothing, when I do. But come, Tom, you pray now, and show
me how.”

Tom’s heart was full; he poured it out in prayer, like waters that have
been long suppressed. One thing was plain enough; Tom thought there was
somebody to hear, whether there were or not. In fact, St. Clare felt
himself borne, on the tide of his faith and feeling, almost to the
gates of that heaven he seemed so vividly to conceive. It seemed to
bring him nearer to Eva.

“Thank you, my boy,” said St. Clare, when Tom rose. “I like to hear
you, Tom; but go, now, and leave me alone; some other time, I’ll talk
more.”

Tom silently left the room.




CHAPTER XXVIII
Reunion


Week after week glided away in the St. Clare mansion, and the waves of
life settled back to their usual flow, where that little bark had gone
down. For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s
feeling, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities
move on! Still must we eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again,—still
bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions,—pursue, in short, a
thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold
mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it
has fled.

All the interests and hopes of St. Clare’s life had unconsciously wound
themselves around this child. It was for Eva that he had managed his
property; it was for Eva that he had planned the disposal of his time;
and, to do this and that for Eva,—to buy, improve, alter, and arrange,
or dispose something for her,—had been so long his habit, that now she
was gone, there seemed nothing to be thought of, and nothing to be
done.

True, there was another life,—a life which, once believed in, stands as
a solemn, significant figure before the otherwise unmeaning ciphers of
time, changing them to orders of mysterious, untold value. St. Clare
knew this well; and often, in many a weary hour, he heard that slender,
childish voice calling him to the skies, and saw that little hand
pointing to him the way of life; but a heavy lethargy of sorrow lay on
him,—he could not arise. He had one of those natures which could better
and more clearly conceive of religious things from its own perceptions
and instincts, than many a matter-of-fact and practical Christian. The
gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations
of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose whole life
shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron, Goethe, often
speak words more wisely descriptive of the true religious sentiment,
than another man, whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds,
disregard of religion is a more fearful treason,—a more deadly sin.

St. Clare had never pretended to govern himself by any religious
obligation; and a certain fineness of nature gave him such an
instinctive view of the extent of the requirements of Christianity,
that he shrank, by anticipation, from what he felt would be the
exactions of his own conscience, if he once did resolve to assume them.
For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not
to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come
short.

Still St. Clare was, in many respects, another man. He read his little
Eva’s Bible seriously and honestly; he thought more soberly and
practically of his relations to his servants,—enough to make him
extremely dissatisfied with both his past and present course; and one
thing he did, soon after his return to New Orleans, and that was to
commence the legal steps necessary to Tom’s emancipation, which was to
be perfected as soon as he could get through the necessary formalities.
Meantime, he attached himself to Tom more and more, every day. In all
the wide world, there was nothing that seemed to remind him so much of
Eva; and he would insist on keeping him constantly about him, and,
fastidious and unapproachable as he was with regard to his deeper
feelings, he almost thought aloud to Tom. Nor would any one have
wondered at it, who had seen the expression of affection and devotion
with which Tom continually followed his young master.

“Well, Tom,” said St. Clare, the day after he had commenced the legal
formalities for his enfranchisement, “I’m going to make a free man of
you;—so have your trunk packed, and get ready to set out for Kentuck.”

The sudden light of joy that shone in Tom’s face as he raised his hands
to heaven, his emphatic “Bless the Lord!” rather discomposed St. Clare;
he did not like it that Tom should be so ready to leave him.

“You haven’t had such very bad times here, that you need be in such a
rapture, Tom,” he said drily.

“No, no, Mas’r! ’tan’t that,—it’s bein’ a _freeman!_ that’s what I’m
joyin’ for.”

“Why, Tom, don’t you think, for your own part, you’ve been better off
than to be free?”

“_No, indeed_, Mas’r St. Clare,” said Tom, with a flash of energy. “No,
indeed!”

“Why, Tom, you couldn’t possibly have earned, by your work, such
clothes and such living as I have given you.”

“Knows all that, Mas’r St. Clare; Mas’r’s been too good; but, Mas’r,
I’d rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything, and have ’em
_mine_, than have the best, and have ’em any man’s else,—I had _so_,
Mas’r; I think it’s natur, Mas’r.”

“I suppose so, Tom, and you’ll be going off and leaving me, in a month
or so,” he added, rather discontentedly. “Though why you shouldn’t, no
mortal knows,” he said, in a gayer tone; and, getting up, he began to
walk the floor.

“Not while Mas’r is in trouble,” said Tom. “I’ll stay with Mas’r as
long as he wants me,—so as I can be any use.”

“Not while I’m in trouble, Tom?” said St. Clare, looking sadly out of
the window. . . . “And when will _my_ trouble be over?”

“When Mas’r St. Clare’s a Christian,” said Tom.

“And you really mean to stay by till that day comes?” said St. Clare,
half smiling, as he turned from the window, and laid his hand on Tom’s
shoulder. “Ah, Tom, you soft, silly boy! I won’t keep you till that
day. Go home to your wife and children, and give my love to all.”

“I ’s faith to believe that day will come,” said Tom, earnestly, and
with tears in his eyes; “the Lord has a work for Mas’r.”

“A work, hey?” said St. Clare, “well, now, Tom, give me your views on
what sort of a work it is;—let’s hear.”

“Why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the Lord; and Mas’r
St. Clare, that has larnin, and riches, and friends,—how much he might
do for the Lord!”

“Tom, you seem to think the Lord needs a great deal done for him,” said
St. Clare, smiling.

“We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs,” said Tom.

“Good theology, Tom; better than Dr. B. preaches, I dare swear,” said
St. Clare.

The conversation was here interrupted by the announcement of some
visitors.

Marie St. Clare felt the loss of Eva as deeply as she could feel
anything; and, as she was a woman that had a great faculty of making
everybody unhappy when she was, her immediate attendants had still
stronger reason to regret the loss of their young mistress, whose
winning ways and gentle intercessions had so often been a shield to
them from the tyrannical and selfish exactions of her mother. Poor old
Mammy, in particular, whose heart, severed from all natural domestic
ties, had consoled itself with this one beautiful being, was almost
heart-broken. She cried day and night, and was, from excess of sorrow,
less skilful and alert in her ministrations of her mistress than usual,
which drew down a constant storm of invectives on her defenceless head.

Miss Ophelia felt the loss; but, in her good and honest heart, it bore
fruit unto everlasting life. She was more softened, more gentle; and,
though equally assiduous in every duty, it was with a chastened and
quiet air, as one who communed with her own heart not in vain. She was
more diligent in teaching Topsy,—taught her mainly from the Bible,—did
not any longer shrink from her touch, or manifest an ill-repressed
disgust, because she felt none. She viewed her now through the softened
medium that Eva’s hand had first held before her eyes, and saw in her
only an immortal creature, whom God had sent to be led by her to glory
and virtue. Topsy did not become at once a saint; but the life and
death of Eva did work a marked change in her. The callous indifference
was gone; there was now sensibility, hope, desire, and the striving for
good,—a strife irregular, interrupted, suspended oft, but yet renewed
again.

One day, when Topsy had been sent for by Miss Ophelia, she came,
hastily thrusting something into her bosom.

“What are you doing there, you limb? You’ve been stealing something,
I’ll be bound,” said the imperious little Rosa, who had been sent to
call her, seizing her, at the same time, roughly by the arm.

“You go ’long, Miss Rosa!” said Topsy, pulling from her; “‘tan’t none
o’ your business!”

“None o’ your sa’ce!” said Rosa, “I saw you hiding something,—I know
yer tricks,” and Rosa seized her arm, and tried to force her hand into
her bosom, while Topsy, enraged, kicked and fought valiantly for what
she considered her rights. The clamor and confusion of the battle drew
Miss Ophelia and St. Clare both to the spot.

“She’s been stealing!” said Rosa.

“I han’t, neither!” vociferated Topsy, sobbing with passion.

“Give me that, whatever it is!” said Miss Ophelia, firmly.

Topsy hesitated; but, on a second order, pulled out of her bosom a
little parcel done up in the foot of one of her own old stockings.

Miss Ophelia turned it out. There was a small book, which had been
given to Topsy by Eva, containing a single verse of Scripture, arranged
for every day in the year, and in a paper the curl of hair that she had
given her on that memorable day when she had taken her last farewell.

St. Clare was a good deal affected at the sight of it; the little book
had been rolled in a long strip of black crape, torn from the funeral
weeds.

“What did you wrap _this_ round the book for?” said St. Clare, holding
up the crape.

“Cause,—cause,—cause ’t was Miss Eva. O, don’t take ’em away, please!”
she said; and, sitting flat down on the floor, and putting her apron
over her head, she began to sob vehemently.

It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous,—the little
old stockings,—black crape,—text-book,—fair, soft curl,—and Topsy’s
utter distress.

St. Clare smiled; but there were tears in his eyes, as he said,

“Come, come,—don’t cry; you shall have them!” and, putting them
together, he threw them into her lap, and drew Miss Ophelia with him
into the parlor.

“I really think you can make something of that concern,” he said,
pointing with his thumb backward over his shoulder. “Any mind that is
capable of a _real sorrow_ is capable of good. You must try and do
something with her.”

“The child has improved greatly,” said Miss Ophelia. “I have great
hopes of her; but, Augustine,” she said, laying her hand on his arm,
“one thing I want to ask; whose is this child to be?—yours or mine?”

“Why, I gave her to you,” said Augustine.

“But not legally;—I want her to be mine legally,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Whew! cousin,” said Augustine. “What will the Abolition Society think?
They’ll have a day of fasting appointed for this backsliding, if you
become a slaveholder!”

“O, nonsense! I want her mine, that I may have a right to take her to
the free States, and give her her liberty, that all I am trying to do
be not undone.”

“O, cousin, what an awful ’doing evil that good may come’! I can’t
encourage it.”

“I don’t want you to joke, but to reason,” said Miss Ophelia. “There is
no use in my trying to make this child a Christian child, unless I save
her from all the chances and reverses of slavery; and, if you really
are willing I should have her, I want you to give me a deed of gift, or
some legal paper.”

“Well, well,” said St. Clare, “I will;” and he sat down, and unfolded a
newspaper to read.

“But I want it done now,” said Miss Ophelia.

“What’s your hurry?”

“Because now is the only time there ever is to do a thing in,” said
Miss Ophelia. “Come, now, here’s paper, pen, and ink; just write a
paper.”

St. Clare, like most men of his class of mind, cordially hated the
present tense of action, generally; and, therefore, he was considerably
annoyed by Miss Ophelia’s downrightness.

“Why, what’s the matter?” said he. “Can’t you take my word? One would
think you had taken lessons of the Jews, coming at a fellow so!”

“I want to make sure of it,” said Miss Ophelia. “You may die, or fail,
and then Topsy be hustled off to auction, spite of all I can do.”

“Really, you are quite provident. Well, seeing I’m in the hands of a
Yankee, there is nothing for it but to concede;” and St. Clare rapidly
wrote off a deed of gift, which, as he was well versed in the forms of
law, he could easily do, and signed his name to it in sprawling
capitals, concluding by a tremendous flourish.

“There, isn’t that black and white, now, Miss Vermont?” he said, as he
handed it to her.

“Good boy,” said Miss Ophelia, smiling. “But must it not be witnessed?”

“O, bother!—yes. Here,” he said, opening the door into Marie’s
apartment, “Marie, Cousin wants your autograph; just put your name down
here.”

“What’s this?” said Marie, as she ran over the paper. “Ridiculous! I
thought Cousin was too pious for such horrid things,” she added, as she
carelessly wrote her name; “but, if she has a fancy for that article, I
am sure she’s welcome.”

“There, now, she’s yours, body and soul,” said St. Clare, handing the
paper.

“No more mine now than she was before,” Miss Ophelia. “Nobody but God
has a right to give her to me; but I can protect her now.”

“Well, she’s yours by a fiction of law, then,” said St. Clare, as he
turned back into the parlor, and sat down to his paper.

Miss Ophelia, who seldom sat much in Marie’s company, followed him into
the parlor, having first carefully laid away the paper.

“Augustine,” she said, suddenly, as she sat knitting, “have you ever
made any provision for your servants, in case of your death?”

“No,” said St. Clare, as he read on.

“Then all your indulgence to them may prove a great cruelty, by and
by.”

St. Clare had often thought the same thing himself; but he answered,
negligently.

“Well, I mean to make a provision, by and by.”

“When?” said Miss Ophelia.

“O, one of these days.”

“What if you should die first?”

“Cousin, what’s the matter?” said St. Clare, laying down his paper and
looking at her. “Do you think I show symptoms of yellow fever or
cholera, that you are making post mortem arrangements with such zeal?”

“‘In the midst of life we are in death,’” said Miss Ophelia.

St. Clare rose up, and laying the paper down, carelessly, walked to the
door that stood open on the verandah, to put an end to a conversation
that was not agreeable to him. Mechanically, he repeated the last word
again,—_“Death!”_—and, as he leaned against the railings, and watched
the sparkling water as it rose and fell in the fountain; and, as in a
dim and dizzy haze, saw flowers and trees and vases of the courts, he
repeated, again the mystic word so common in every mouth, yet of such
fearful power,—“DEATH!” “Strange that there should be such a word,” he
said, “and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be
living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day,
and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!”

It was a warm, golden evening; and, as he walked to the other end of
the verandah, he saw Tom busily intent on his Bible, pointing, as he
did so, with his finger to each successive word, and whispering them to
himself with an earnest air.

“Want me to read to you, Tom?” said St. Clare, seating himself
carelessly by him.

“If Mas’r pleases,” said Tom, gratefully, “Mas’r makes it so much
plainer.”

St. Clare took the book and glanced at the place, and began reading one
of the passages which Tom had designated by the heavy marks around it.
It ran as follows:

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before
him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.” St. Clare
read on in an animated voice, till he came to the last of the verses.

“Then shall the king say unto him on his left hand, Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye
took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: I was sick, and in
prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they answer unto Him, Lord
when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or
sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he say
unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my
brethren, ye did it not to me.”

St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he read it
twice,—the second time slowly, and as if he were revolving the words in
his mind.

“Tom,” he said, “these folks that get such hard measure seem to have
been doing just what I have,—living good, easy, respectable lives; and
not troubling themselves to inquire how many of their brethren were
hungry or athirst, or sick, or in prison.”

Tom did not answer.

St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the verandah,
seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts; so absorbed was he,
that Tom had to remind him twice that the teabell had rung, before he
could get his attention.

St. Clare was absent and thoughtful, all tea-time. After tea, he and
Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the parlor almost in silence.

Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mosquito curtain,
and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia silently busied herself with
her knitting. St. Clare sat down to the piano, and began playing a soft
and melancholy movement with the Æolian accompaniment. He seemed in a
deep reverie, and to be soliloquizing to himself by music. After a
little, he opened one of the drawers, took out an old music-book whose
leaves were yellow with age, and began turning it over.

“There,” he said to Miss Ophelia, “this was one of my mother’s
books,—and here is her handwriting,—come and look at it. She copied and
arranged this from Mozart’s Requiem.” Miss Ophelia came accordingly.

“It was something she used to sing often,” said St. Clare. “I think I
can hear her now.”

He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that grand old Latin
piece, the “Dies Iræ.”

Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn by the sound to
the very door, where he stood earnestly. He did not understand the
words, of course; but the music and manner of singing appeared to
affect him strongly, especially when St. Clare sang the more pathetic
parts. Tom would have sympathized more heartily, if he had known the
meaning of the beautiful words:—

“Recordare Jesu pie
Quod sum causa tuær viæ
Ne me perdas, illa die
Quærens me sedisti lassus
Redemisti crucem passus
Tantus labor non sit cassus.”[1]


 [1] These lines have been thus rather inadequately translated:

“Think, O Jesus, for what reason
Thou endured’st earth’s spite and treason,
Nor me lose, in that dread season;
Seeking me, thy worn feet hasted,
On the cross thy soul death tasted,
Let not all these toils be wasted.”

[Mrs. Stowe’s note.]


St. Clare threw a deep and pathetic expression into the words; for the
shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, and he seemed to hear his
mother’s voice leading his. Voice and instrument seemed both living,
and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal
Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem.

When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his hand
a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor.

“What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!” said he,—“a
righting of all the wrongs of ages!—a solving of all moral problems, by
an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image.”

“It is a fearful one to us,” said Miss Ophelia.

“It ought to be to me, I suppose,” said St. Clare stopping,
thoughtfully. “I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in
Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with
it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those
who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no,—they are condemned
for _not_ doing positive good, as if that included every possible
harm.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Ophelia, “it is impossible for a person who does
no good not to do harm.”

“And what,” said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep
feeling, “what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education,
and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose;
who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles,
agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?”

“I should say,” said Miss Ophelia, “that he ought to repent, and begin
now.”

“Always practical and to the point!” said St. Clare, his face breaking
out into a smile. “You never leave me any time for general reflections,
Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you
have a kind of eternal _now_, always in your mind.”

“_Now_ is all the time I have anything to do with,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Dear little Eva,—poor child!” said St. Clare, “she had set her little
simple soul on a good work for me.”

It was the first time since Eva’s death that he had ever said as many
words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very
strong feeling.

“My view of Christianity is such,” he added, “that I think no man can
consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being
against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation
of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle.
That is, I mean that _I_ could not be a Christian otherwise, though I
have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and
Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy
of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs
that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than
any other thing.”

“If you knew all this,” said Miss Ophelia, “why didn’t you do it?”

“O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in
lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being
martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others
ought to be martyrs.”

“Well, are you going to do differently now?” said Miss Ophelia.

“God only knows the future,” said St. Clare. “I am braver than I was,
because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all
risks.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out,”
said St. Clare, “beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet
done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may appear that I
can do something for a whole class; something to save my country from
the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all
civilized nations.”

“Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will voluntarily
emancipate?” said Miss Ophelia.

“I don’t know,” said St. Clare. “This is a day of great deeds. Heroism
and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there, in the earth. The
Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs, at an immense pecuniary
loss; and, perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not
estimate honor and justice by dollars and cents.”

“I hardly think so,” said Miss Ophelia.

“But, suppose we should rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would
educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? They
never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and
unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of an idea of that
industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. They will
have to go north, where labor is the fashion,—the universal custom; and
tell me, now, is there enough Christian philanthropy, among your
northern states, to bear with the process of their education and
elevation? You send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but could
you endure to have the heathen sent into your towns and villages, and
give your time, and thoughts, and money, to raise them to the Christian
standard? That’s what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing
to educate? How many families, in your town, would take a negro man and
woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians?
How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk;
or mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade? If I wanted to put Jane
and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the northern states
that would take them in? how many families that would board them? and
yet they are as white as many a woman, north or south. You see, Cousin,
I want justice done us. We are in a bad position. We are the more
_obvious_ oppressors of the negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the
north is an oppressor almost equally severe.”

“Well, Cousin, I know it is so,” said Miss Ophelia,—“I know it was so
with me, till I saw that it was my duty to overcome it; but, I trust I
have overcome it; and I know there are many good people at the north,
who in this matter need only to be _taught_ what their duty is, to do
it. It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen
among us, than to send missionaries to them; but I think we would do
it.”

“_You_ would, I know,” said St. Clare. “I’d like to see anything you
wouldn’t do, if you thought it your duty!”

“Well, I’m not uncommonly good,” said Miss Ophelia. “Others would, if
they saw things as I do. I intend to take Topsy home, when I go. I
suppose our folks will wonder, at first; but I think they will be
brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are many people at the
north who do exactly what you said.”

“Yes, but they are a minority; and, if we should begin to emancipate to
any extent, we should soon hear from you.”

Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments; and St.
Clare’s countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression.

“I don’t know what makes me think of my mother so much, tonight,” he
said. “I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were near me. I keep
thinking of things she used to say. Strange, what brings these past
things so vividly back to us, sometimes!”

St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes more, and then
said,

“I believe I’ll go down street, a few moments, and hear the news,
tonight.”

He took his hat, and passed out.

Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and asked if he
should attend him.

“No, my boy,” said St. Clare. “I shall be back in an hour.”

Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful moonlight evening, and
he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the fountain, and
listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home, and that he should
soon be a free man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he
should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles of his brawny
arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they would soon belong to
himself, and how much they could do to work out the freedom of his
family. Then he thought of his noble young master, and, ever second to
that, came the habitual prayer that he had always offered for him; and
then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he now thought
of among the angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that
bright face and golden hair were looking upon him, out of the spray of
the fountain. And, so musing, he fell asleep, and dreamed he saw her
coming bounding towards him, just as she used to come, with a wreath of
jessamine in her hair, her cheeks bright, and her eyes radiant with
delight; but, as he looked, she seemed to rise from the ground; her
cheeks wore a paler hue,—her eyes had a deep, divine radiance, a golden
halo seemed around her head,—and she vanished from his sight; and Tom
was awakened by a loud knocking, and a sound of many voices at the
gate.

He hastened to undo it; and, with smothered voices and heavy tread,
came several men, bringing a body, wrapped in a cloak, and lying on a
shutter. The light of the lamp fell full on the face; and Tom gave a
wild cry of amazement and despair, that rung through all the galleries,
as the men advanced, with their burden, to the open parlor door, where
Miss Ophelia still sat knitting.

St. Clare had turned into a cafe, to look over an evening paper. As he
was reading, an affray arose between two gentlemen in the room, who
were both partially intoxicated. St. Clare and one or two others made
an effort to separate them, and St. Clare received a fatal stab in the
side with a bowie-knife, which he was attempting to wrest from one of
them.

The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and screams,
servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing themselves on the
ground, or running distractedly about, lamenting. Tom and Miss Ophelia
alone seemed to have any presence of mind; for Marie was in strong
hysteric convulsions. At Miss Ophelia’s direction, one of the lounges
in the parlor was hastily prepared, and the bleeding form laid upon it.
St. Clare had fainted, through pain and loss of blood; but, as Miss
Ophelia applied restoratives, he revived, opened his eyes, looked
fixedly on them, looked earnestly around the room, his eyes travelling
wistfully over every object, and finally they rested on his mother’s
picture.

The physician now arrived, and made his examination. It was evident,
from the expression of his face, that there was no hope; but he applied
himself to dressing the wound, and he and Miss Ophelia and Tom
proceeded composedly with this work, amid the lamentations and sobs and
cries of the affrighted servants, who had clustered about the doors and
windows of the verandah.

“Now,” said the physician, “we must turn all these creatures out; all
depends on his being kept quiet.”

St. Clare opened his eyes, and looked fixedly on the distressed beings,
whom Miss Ophelia and the doctor were trying to urge from the
apartment. “Poor creatures!” he said, and an expression of bitter
self-reproach passed over his face. Adolph absolutely refused to go.
Terror had deprived him of all presence of mind; he threw himself along
the floor, and nothing could persuade him to rise. The rest yielded to
Miss Ophelia’s urgent representations, that their master’s safety
depended on their stillness and obedience.

St. Clare could say but little; he lay with his eyes shut, but it was
evident that he wrestled with bitter thoughts. After a while, he laid
his hand on Tom’s, who was kneeling beside him, and said, “Tom! poor
fellow!”

“What, Mas’r?” said Tom, earnestly.

“I am dying!” said St. Clare, pressing his hand; “pray!”

“If you would like a clergyman—” said the physician.

St. Clare hastily shook his head, and said again to Tom, more
earnestly, “Pray!”

And Tom did pray, with all his mind and strength, for the soul that was
passing,—the soul that seemed looking so steadily and mournfully from
those large, melancholy blue eyes. It was literally prayer offered with
strong crying and tears.

When Tom ceased to speak, St. Clare reached out and took his hand,
looking earnestly at him, but saying nothing. He closed his eyes, but
still retained his hold; for, in the gates of eternity, the black hand
and the white hold each other with an equal clasp. He murmured softly
to himself, at broken intervals,

“Recordare Jesu pie—
*  *  *  *
Ne me perdas—illa die
Quærens me—sedisti lassus.”


It was evident that the words he had been singing that evening were
passing through his mind,—words of entreaty addressed to Infinite Pity.
His lips moved at intervals, as parts of the hymn fell brokenly from
them.

“His mind is wandering,” said the doctor.

“No! it is coming HOME, at last!” said St. Clare, energetically; “at
last! at last!”

The effort of speaking exhausted him. The sinking paleness of death
fell on him; but with it there fell, as if shed from the wings of some
pitying spirit, a beautiful expression of peace, like that of a wearied
child who sleeps.

So he lay for a few moments. They saw that the mighty hand was on him.
Just before the spirit parted, he opened his eyes, with a sudden light,
as of joy and recognition, and said _“Mother!”_ and then he was gone!




CHAPTER XXIX
The Unprotected


We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a
kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God’s earth is
left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these
circumstances.

The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends,
and of the law; he is something, and can do something,—has acknowledged
rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every
respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. The only
possible acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a human and
immortal creature, which are given to him, comes to him through the
sovereign and irresponsible will of his master; and when that master is
stricken down, nothing remains.

The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power
humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this, and the slave
knows it best of all; so that he feels that there are ten chances of
his finding an abusive and tyrannical master, to one of his finding a
considerate and kind one. Therefore is it that the wail over a kind
master is loud and long, as well it may be.

When St. Clare breathed his last, terror and consternation took hold of
all his household. He had been stricken down so in a moment, in the
flower and strength of his youth! Every room and gallery of the house
resounded with sobs and shrieks of despair.

Marie, whose nervous system had been enervated by a constant course of
self-indulgence, had nothing to support the terror of the shock, and,
at the time her husband breathed his last, was passing from one
fainting fit to another; and he to whom she had been joined in the
mysterious tie of marriage passed from her forever, without the
possibility of even a parting word.

Miss Ophelia, with characteristic strength and self-control, had
remained with her kinsman to the last,—all eye, all ear, all attention;
doing everything of the little that could be done, and joining with her
whole soul in the tender and impassioned prayers which the poor slave
had poured forth for the soul of his dying master.

When they were arranging him for his last rest, they found upon his
bosom a small, plain miniature case, opening with a spring. It was the
miniature of a noble and beautiful female face; and on the reverse,
under a crystal, a lock of dark hair. They laid them back on the
lifeless breast,—dust to dust,—poor mournful relics of early dreams,
which once made that cold heart beat so warmly!

Tom’s whole soul was filled with thoughts of eternity; and while he
ministered around the lifeless clay, he did not once think that the
sudden stroke had left him in hopeless slavery. He felt at peace about
his master; for in that hour, when he had poured forth his prayer into
the bosom of his Father, he had found an answer of quietness and
assurance springing up within himself. In the depths of his own
affectionate nature, he felt able to perceive something of the fulness
of Divine love; for an old oracle hath thus written,—“He that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” Tom hoped and trusted, and
was at peace.

But the funeral passed, with all its pageant of black crape, and
prayers, and solemn faces; and back rolled the cool, muddy waves of
every-day life; and up came the everlasting hard inquiry of “What is to
be done next?”

It rose to the mind of Marie, as, dressed in loose morning-robes, and
surrounded by anxious servants, she sat up in a great easy-chair, and
inspected samples of crape and bombazine. It rose to Miss Ophelia, who
began to turn her thoughts towards her northern home. It rose, in
silent terrors, to the minds of the servants, who well knew the
unfeeling, tyrannical character of the mistress in whose hands they
were left. All knew, very well, that the indulgences which had been
accorded to them were not from their mistress, but from their master;
and that, now he was gone, there would be no screen between them and
every tyrannous infliction which a temper soured by affliction might
devise.

It was about a fortnight after the funeral, that Miss Ophelia, busied
one day in her apartment, heard a gentle tap at the door. She opened
it, and there stood Rosa, the pretty young quadroon, whom we have
before often noticed, her hair in disorder, and her eyes swelled with
crying.

“O, Miss Feeley,” she said, falling on her knees, and catching the
skirt of her dress, “_do, do go_ to Miss Marie for me! do plead for me!
She’s goin’ to send me out to be whipped—look there!” And she handed to
Miss Ophelia a paper.

It was an order, written in Marie’s delicate Italian hand, to the
master of a whipping-establishment to give the bearer fifteen lashes.

“What have you been doing?” said Miss Ophelia.

“You know, Miss Feely, I’ve got such a bad temper; it’s very bad of me.
I was trying on Miss Marie’s dress, and she slapped my face; and I
spoke out before I thought, and was saucy; and she said that she’d
bring me down, and have me know, once for all, that I wasn’t going to
be so topping as I had been; and she wrote this, and says I shall carry
it. I’d rather she’d kill me, right out.”

Miss Ophelia stood considering, with the paper in her hand.

“You see, Miss Feely,” said Rosa, “I don’t mind the whipping so much,
if Miss Marie or you was to do it; but, to be sent to a _man!_ and such
a horrid man,—the shame of it, Miss Feely!”

Miss Ophelia well knew that it was the universal custom to send women
and young girls to whipping-houses, to the hands of the lowest of
men,—men vile enough to make this their profession,—there to be
subjected to brutal exposure and shameful correction. She had _known_
it before; but hitherto she had never realized it, till she saw the
slender form of Rosa almost convulsed with distress. All the honest
blood of womanhood, the strong New England blood of liberty, flushed to
her cheeks, and throbbed bitterly in her indignant heart; but, with
habitual prudence and self-control, she mastered herself, and, crushing
the paper firmly in her hand, she merely said to Rosa,

“Sit down, child, while I go to your mistress.”

“Shameful! monstrous! outrageous!” she said to herself, as she was
crossing the parlor.

She found Marie sitting up in her easy-chair, with Mammy standing by
her, combing her hair; Jane sat on the ground before her, busy in
chafing her feet.

“How do you find yourself, today?” said Miss Ophelia.

A deep sigh, and a closing of the eyes, was the only reply, for a
moment; and then Marie answered, “O, I don’t know, Cousin; I suppose
I’m as well as I ever shall be!” and Marie wiped her eyes with a
cambric handkerchief, bordered with an inch deep of black.

“I came,” said Miss Ophelia, with a short, dry cough, such as commonly
introduces a difficult subject,—“I came to speak with you about poor
Rosa.”

Marie’s eyes were open wide enough now, and a flush rose to her sallow
cheeks, as she answered, sharply,

“Well, what about her?”

“She is very sorry for her fault.”

“She is, is she? She’ll be sorrier, before I’ve done with her! I’ve
endured that child’s impudence long enough; and now I’ll bring her
down,—I’ll make her lie in the dust!”

“But could not you punish her some other way,—some way that would be
less shameful?”

“I mean to shame her; that’s just what I want. She has all her life
presumed on her delicacy, and her good looks, and her lady-like airs,
till she forgets who she is;—and I’ll give her one lesson that will
bring her down, I fancy!”

“But, Cousin, consider that, if you destroy delicacy and a sense of
shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast.”

“Delicacy!” said Marie, with a scornful laugh,—“a fine word for such as
she! I’ll teach her, with all her airs, that she’s no better than the
raggedest black wench that walks the streets! She’ll take no more airs
with me!”

“You will answer to God for such cruelty!” said Miss Ophelia, with
energy.

“Cruelty,—I’d like to know what the cruelty is! I wrote orders for only
fifteen lashes, and told him to put them on lightly. I’m sure there’s
no cruelty there!”

“No cruelty!” said Miss Ophelia. “I’m sure any girl might rather be
killed outright!”

“It might seem so to anybody with your feeling; but all these creatures
get used to it; it’s the only way they can be kept in order. Once let
them feel that they are to take any airs about delicacy, and all that,
and they’ll run all over you, just as my servants always have. I’ve
begun now to bring them under; and I’ll have them all to know that I’ll
send one out to be whipped, as soon as another, if they don’t mind
themselves!” said Marie, looking around her decidedly.

Jane hung her head and cowered at this, for she felt as if it was
particularly directed to her. Miss Ophelia sat for a moment, as if she
had swallowed some explosive mixture, and were ready to burst. Then,
recollecting the utter uselessness of contention with such a nature,
she shut her lips resolutely, gathered herself up, and walked out of
the room.

It was hard to go back and tell Rosa that she could do nothing for her;
and, shortly after, one of the man-servants came to say that her
mistress had ordered him to take Rosa with him to the whipping-house,
whither she was hurried, in spite of her tears and entreaties.

A few days after, Tom was standing musing by the balconies, when he was
joined by Adolph, who, since the death of his master, had been entirely
crest-fallen and disconsolate. Adolph knew that he had always been an
object of dislike to Marie; but while his master lived he had paid but
little attention to it. Now that he was gone, he had moved about in
daily dread and trembling, not knowing what might befall him next.
Marie had held several consultations with her lawyer; after
communicating with St. Clare’s brother, it was determined to sell the
place, and all the servants, except her own personal property, and
these she intended to take with her, and go back to her father’s
plantation.

“Do ye know, Tom, that we’ve all got to be sold?” said Adolph.

“How did you hear that?” said Tom.

“I hid myself behind the curtains when Missis was talking with the
lawyer. In a few days we shall be sent off to auction, Tom.”

“The Lord’s will be done!” said Tom, folding his arms and sighing
heavily.

“We’ll never get another such a master,” said Adolph, apprehensively;
“but I’d rather be sold than take my chance under Missis.”

Tom turned away; his heart was full. The hope of liberty, the thought
of distant wife and children, rose up before his patient soul, as to
the mariner shipwrecked almost in port rises the vision of the
church-spire and loving roofs of his native village, seen over the top
of some black wave only for one last farewell. He drew his arms tightly
over his bosom, and choked back the bitter tears, and tried to pray.
The poor old soul had such a singular, unaccountable prejudice in favor
of liberty, that it was a hard wrench for him; and the more he said,
“Thy will be done,” the worse he felt.

He sought Miss Ophelia, who, ever since Eva’s death, had treated him
with marked and respectful kindness.

“Miss Feely,” he said, “Mas’r St. Clare promised me my freedom. He told
me that he had begun to take it out for me; and now, perhaps, if Miss
Feely would be good enough to speak bout it to Missis, she would feel
like goin’ on with it, was it as Mas’r St. Clare’s wish.”

“I’ll speak for you, Tom, and do my best,” said Miss Ophelia; “but, if
it depends on Mrs. St. Clare, I can’t hope much for you;—nevertheless,
I will try.”

This incident occurred a few days after that of Rosa, while Miss
Ophelia was busied in preparations to return north.

Seriously reflecting within herself, she considered that perhaps she
had shown too hasty a warmth of language in her former interview with
Marie; and she resolved that she would now endeavor to moderate her
zeal, and to be as conciliatory as possible. So the good soul gathered
herself up, and, taking her knitting, resolved to go into Marie’s room,
be as agreeable as possible, and negotiate Tom’s case with all the
diplomatic skill of which she was mistress.

She found Marie reclining at length upon a lounge, supporting herself
on one elbow by pillows, while Jane, who had been out shopping, was
displaying before her certain samples of thin black stuffs.

“That will do,” said Marie, selecting one; “only I’m not sure about its
being properly mourning.”

“Laws, Missis,” said Jane, volubly, “Mrs. General Derbennon wore just
this very thing, after the General died, last summer; it makes up
lovely!”

“What do you think?” said Marie to Miss Ophelia.

“It’s a matter of custom, I suppose,” said Miss Ophelia. “You can judge
about it better than I.”

“The fact is,” said Marie, “that I haven’t a dress in the world that I
can wear; and, as I am going to break up the establishment, and go off,
next week, I must decide upon something.”

“Are you going so soon?”

“Yes. St. Clare’s brother has written, and he and the lawyer think that
the servants and furniture had better be put up at auction, and the
place left with our lawyer.”

“There’s one thing I wanted to speak with you about,” said Miss
Ophelia. “Augustine promised Tom his liberty, and began the legal forms
necessary to it. I hope you will use your influence to have it
perfected.”

“Indeed, I shall do no such thing!” said Marie, sharply. “Tom is one of
the most valuable servants on the place,—it couldn’t be afforded, any
way. Besides, what does he want of liberty? He’s a great deal better
off as he is.”

“But he does desire it, very earnestly, and his master promised it,”
said Miss Ophelia.

“I dare say he does want it,” said Marie; “they all want it, just
because they are a discontented set,—always wanting what they haven’t
got. Now, I’m principled against emancipating, in any case. Keep a
negro under the care of a master, and he does well enough, and is
respectable; but set them free, and they get lazy, and won’t work, and
take to drinking, and go all down to be mean, worthless fellows, I’ve
seen it tried, hundreds of times. It’s no favor to set them free.”

“But Tom is so steady, industrious, and pious.”

“O, you needn’t tell me! I’ve see a hundred like him. He’ll do very
well, as long as he’s taken care of,—that’s all.”

“But, then, consider,” said Miss Ophelia, “when you set him up for
sale, the chances of his getting a bad master.”

“O, that’s all humbug!” said Marie; “it isn’t one time in a hundred
that a good fellow gets a bad master; most masters are good, for all
the talk that is made. I’ve lived and grown up here, in the South, and
I never yet was acquainted with a master that didn’t treat his servants
well,—quite as well as is worth while. I don’t feel any fears on that
head.”

“Well,” said Miss Ophelia, energetically, “I know it was one of the
last wishes of your husband that Tom should have his liberty; it was
one of the promises that he made to dear little Eva on her death-bed,
and I should not think you would feel at liberty to disregard it.”

Marie had her face covered with her handkerchief at this appeal, and
began sobbing and using her smelling-bottle, with great vehemence.

“Everybody goes against me!” she said. “Everybody is so inconsiderate!
I shouldn’t have expected that _you_ would bring up all these
remembrances of my troubles to me,—it’s so inconsiderate! But nobody
ever does consider,—my trials are so peculiar! It’s so hard, that when
I had only one daughter, she should have been taken!—and when I had a
husband that just exactly suited me,—and I’m so hard to be suited!—he
should be taken! And you seem to have so little feeling for me, and
keep bringing it up to me so carelessly,—when you know how it overcomes
me! I suppose you mean well; but it is very inconsiderate,—very!” And
Marie sobbed, and gasped for breath, and called Mammy to open the
window, and to bring her the camphor-bottle, and to bathe her head, and
unhook her dress. And, in the general confusion that ensued, Miss
Ophelia made her escape to her apartment.

She saw, at once, that it would do no good to say anything more; for
Marie had an indefinite capacity for hysteric fits; and, after this,
whenever her husband’s or Eva’s wishes with regard to the servants were
alluded to, she always found it convenient to set one in operation.
Miss Ophelia, therefore, did the next best thing she could for Tom,—she
wrote a letter to Mrs. Shelby for him, stating his troubles, and urging
them to send to his relief.

The next day, Tom and Adolph, and some half a dozen other servants,
were marched down to a slave-warehouse, to await the convenience of the
trader, who was going to make up a lot for auction.




CHAPTER XXX
The Slave Warehouse


A slave warehouse! Perhaps some of my readers conjure up horrible
visions of such a place. They fancy some foul, obscure den, some
horrible _Tartarus “informis, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.”_ But no,
innocent friend; in these days men have learned the art of sinning
expertly and genteelly, so as not to shock the eyes and senses of
respectable society. Human property is high in the market; and is,
therefore, well fed, well cleaned, tended, and looked after, that it
may come to sale sleek, and strong, and shining. A slave-warehouse in
New Orleans is a house externally not much unlike many others, kept
with neatness; and where every day you may see arranged, under a sort
of shed along the outside, rows of men and women, who stand there as a
sign of the property sold within.

Then you shall be courteously entreated to call and examine, and shall
find an abundance of husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers,
mothers, and young children, to be “sold separately, or in lots to suit
the convenience of the purchaser;” and that soul immortal, once bought
with blood and anguish by the Son of God, when the earth shook, and the
rocks rent, and the graves were opened, can be sold, leased, mortgaged,
exchanged for groceries or dry goods, to suit the phases of trade, or
the fancy of the purchaser.

It was a day or two after the conversation between Marie and Miss
Ophelia, that Tom, Adolph, and about half a dozen others of the St.
Clare estate, were turned over to the loving kindness of Mr. Skeggs,
the keeper of a depot on —— street, to await the auction, next day.

Tom had with him quite a sizable trunk full of clothing, as had most
others of them. They were ushered, for the night, into a long room,
where many other men, of all ages, sizes, and shades of complexion,
were assembled, and from which roars of laughter and unthinking
merriment were proceeding.

“Ah, ha! that’s right. Go it, boys,—go it!” said Mr. Skeggs, the
keeper. “My people are always so merry! Sambo, I see!” he said,
speaking approvingly to a burly negro who was performing tricks of low
buffoonery, which occasioned the shouts which Tom had heard.

As might be imagined, Tom was in no humor to join these proceedings;
and, therefore, setting his trunk as far as possible from the noisy
group, he sat down on it, and leaned his face against the wall.

The dealers in the human article make scrupulous and systematic efforts
to promote noisy mirth among them, as a means of drowning reflection,
and rendering them insensible to their condition. The whole object of
the training to which the negro is put, from the time he is sold in the
northern market till he arrives south, is systematically directed
towards making him callous, unthinking, and brutal. The slave-dealer
collects his gang in Virginia or Kentucky, and drives them to some
convenient, healthy place,—often a watering place,—to be fattened. Here
they are fed full daily; and, because some incline to pine, a fiddle is
kept commonly going among them, and they are made to dance daily; and
he who refuses to be merry—in whose soul thoughts of wife, or child, or
home, are too strong for him to be gay—is marked as sullen and
dangerous, and subjected to all the evils which the ill will of an
utterly irresponsible and hardened man can inflict upon him. Briskness,
alertness, and cheerfulness of appearance, especially before observers,
are constantly enforced upon them, both by the hope of thereby getting
a good master, and the fear of all that the driver may bring upon them
if they prove unsalable.

“What dat ar nigger doin here?” said Sambo, coming up to Tom, after Mr.
Skeggs had left the room. Sambo was a full black, of great size, very
lively, voluble, and full of trick and grimace.

“What you doin here?” said Sambo, coming up to Tom, and poking him
facetiously in the side. “Meditatin’, eh?”

“I am to be sold at the auction tomorrow!” said Tom, quietly.

“Sold at auction,—haw! haw! boys, an’t this yer fun? I wish’t I was
gwine that ar way!—tell ye, wouldn’t I make em laugh? But how is
it,—dis yer whole lot gwine tomorrow?” said Sambo, laying his hand
freely on Adolph’s shoulder.

“Please to let me alone!” said Adolph, fiercely, straightening himself
up, with extreme disgust.

“Law, now, boys! dis yer’s one o’ yer white niggers,—kind o’ cream
color, ye know, scented!” said he, coming up to Adolph and snuffing. “O
Lor! he’d do for a tobaccer-shop; they could keep him to scent snuff!
Lor, he’d keep a whole shope agwine,—he would!”

“I say, keep off, can’t you?” said Adolph, enraged.

“Lor, now, how touchy we is,—we white niggers! Look at us now!” and
Sambo gave a ludicrous imitation of Adolph’s manner; “here’s de airs
and graces. We’s been in a good family, I specs.”

“Yes,” said Adolph; “I had a master that could have bought you all for
old truck!”

“Laws, now, only think,” said Sambo, “the gentlemens that we is!”

“I belonged to the St. Clare family,” said Adolph, proudly.

“Lor, you did! Be hanged if they ar’n’t lucky to get shet of ye. Spects
they’s gwine to trade ye off with a lot o’ cracked tea-pots and sich
like!” said Sambo, with a provoking grin.

Adolph, enraged at this taunt, flew furiously at his adversary,
swearing and striking on every side of him. The rest laughed and
shouted, and the uproar brought the keeper to the door.

“What now, boys? Order,—order!” he said, coming in and flourishing a
large whip.

All fled in different directions, except Sambo, who, presuming on the
favor which the keeper had to him as a licensed wag, stood his ground,
ducking his head with a facetious grin, whenever the master made a dive
at him.

“Lor, Mas’r, ’tan’t us,—we ’s reglar stiddy,—it’s these yer new hands;
they ’s real aggravatin’,—kinder pickin’ at us, all time!”

The keeper, at this, turned upon Tom and Adolph, and distributing a few
kicks and cuffs without much inquiry, and leaving general orders for
all to be good boys and go to sleep, left the apartment.

While this scene was going on in the men’s sleeping-room, the reader
may be curious to take a peep at the corresponding apartment allotted
to the women. Stretched out in various attitudes over the floor, he may
see numberless sleeping forms of every shade of complexion, from the
purest ebony to white, and of all years, from childhood to old age,
lying now asleep. Here is a fine bright girl, of ten years, whose
mother was sold out yesterday, and who tonight cried herself to sleep
when nobody was looking at her. Here, a worn old negress, whose thin
arms and callous fingers tell of hard toil, waiting to be sold
tomorrow, as a cast-off article, for what can be got for her; and some
forty or fifty others, with heads variously enveloped in blankets or
articles of clothing, lie stretched around them. But, in a corner,
sitting apart from the rest, are two females of a more interesting
appearance than common. One of these is a respectably-dressed mulatto
woman between forty and fifty, with soft eyes and a gentle and pleasing
physiognomy. She has on her head a high-raised turban, made of a gay
red Madras handkerchief, of the first quality, her dress is neatly
fitted, and of good material, showing that she has been provided for
with a careful hand. By her side, and nestling closely to her, is a
young girl of fifteen,—her daughter. She is a quadroon, as may be seen
from her fairer complexion, though her likeness to her mother is quite
discernible. She has the same soft, dark eye, with longer lashes, and
her curling hair is of a luxuriant brown. She also is dressed with
great neatness, and her white, delicate hands betray very little
acquaintance with servile toil. These two are to be sold tomorrow, in
the same lot with the St. Clare servants; and the gentleman to whom
they belong, and to whom the money for their sale is to be transmitted,
is a member of a Christian church in New York, who will receive the
money, and go thereafter to the sacrament of his Lord and theirs, and
think no more of it.

These two, whom we shall call Susan and Emmeline, had been the personal
attendants of an amiable and pious lady of New Orleans, by whom they
had been carefully and piously instructed and trained. They had been
taught to read and write, diligently instructed in the truths of
religion, and their lot had been as happy an one as in their condition
it was possible to be. But the only son of their protectress had the
management of her property; and, by carelessness and extravagance
involved it to a large amount, and at last failed. One of the largest
creditors was the respectable firm of B. & Co., in New York. B. & Co.
wrote to their lawyer in New Orleans, who attached the real estate
(these two articles and a lot of plantation hands formed the most
valuable part of it), and wrote word to that effect to New York.
Brother B., being, as we have said, a Christian man, and a resident in
a free State, felt some uneasiness on the subject. He didn’t like
trading in slaves and souls of men,—of course, he didn’t; but, then,
there were thirty thousand dollars in the case, and that was rather too
much money to be lost for a principle; and so, after much considering,
and asking advice from those that he knew would advise to suit him,
Brother B. wrote to his lawyer to dispose of the business in the way
that seemed to him the most suitable, and remit the proceeds.

The day after the letter arrived in New Orleans, Susan and Emmeline
were attached, and sent to the depot to await a general auction on the
following morning; and as they glimmer faintly upon us in the moonlight
which steals through the grated window, we may listen to their
conversation. Both are weeping, but each quietly, that the other may
not hear.

“Mother, just lay your head on my lap, and see if you can’t sleep a
little,” says the girl, trying to appear calm.

“I haven’t any heart to sleep, Em; I can’t; it’s the last night we may
be together!”

“O, mother, don’t say so! perhaps we shall get sold together,—who
knows?”

“If ’t was anybody’s else case, I should say so, too, Em,” said the
woman; “but I’m so feard of losin’ you that I don’t see anything but
the danger.”

“Why, mother, the man said we were both likely, and would sell well.”

Susan remembered the man’s looks and words. With a deadly sickness at
her heart, she remembered how he had looked at Emmeline’s hands, and
lifted up her curly hair, and pronounced her a first-rate article.
Susan had been trained as a Christian, brought up in the daily reading
of the Bible, and had the same horror of her child’s being sold to a
life of shame that any other Christian mother might have; but she had
no hope,—no protection.

“Mother, I think we might do first rate, if you could get a place as
cook, and I as chambermaid or seamstress, in some family. I dare say we
shall. Let’s both look as bright and lively as we can, and tell all we
can do, and perhaps we shall,” said Emmeline.

“I want you to brush your hair all back straight, tomorrow,” said
Susan.

“What for, mother? I don’t look near so well, that way.”

“Yes, but you’ll sell better so.”

“I don’t see why!” said the child.

“Respectable families would be more apt to buy you, if they saw you
looked plain and decent, as if you wasn’t trying to look handsome. I
know their ways better ’n you do,” said Susan.

“Well, mother, then I will.”

“And, Emmeline, if we shouldn’t ever see each other again, after
tomorrow,—if I’m sold way up on a plantation somewhere, and you
somewhere else,—always remember how you’ve been brought up, and all
Missis has told you; take your Bible with you, and your hymn-book; and
if you’re faithful to the Lord, he’ll be faithful to you.”

So speaks the poor soul, in sore discouragement; for she knows that
tomorrow any man, however vile and brutal, however godless and
merciless, if he only has money to pay for her, may become owner of her
daughter, body and soul; and then, how is the child to be faithful? She
thinks of all this, as she holds her daughter in her arms, and wishes
that she were not handsome and attractive. It seems almost an
aggravation to her to remember how purely and piously, how much above
the ordinary lot, she has been brought up. But she has no resort but to
_pray_; and many such prayers to God have gone up from those same trim,
neatly-arranged, respectable slave-prisons,—prayers which God has not
forgotten, as a coming day shall show; for it is written, “Who causeth
one of these little ones to offend, it were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depths of the sea.”

The soft, earnest, quiet moonbeam looks in fixedly, marking the bars of
the grated windows on the prostrate, sleeping forms. The mother and
daughter are singing together a wild and melancholy dirge, common as a
funeral hymn among the slaves:

“O, where is weeping Mary?
O, where is weeping Mary?
          ’Rived in the goodly land.
She is dead and gone to Heaven;
She is dead and gone to Heaven;
          ’Rived in the goodly land.”


These words, sung by voices of a peculiar and melancholy sweetness, in
an air which seemed like the sighing of earthy despair after heavenly
hope, floated through the dark prison rooms with a pathetic cadence, as
verse after verse was breathed out:

“O, where are Paul and Silas?
O, where are Paul and Silas?
          Gone to the goodly land.
They are dead and gone to Heaven;
They are dead and gone to Heaven;
          ’Rived in the goodly land.”


Sing on poor souls! The night is short, and the morning will part you
forever!

But now it is morning, and everybody is astir; and the worthy Mr.
Skeggs is busy and bright, for a lot of goods is to be fitted out for
auction. There is a brisk lookout on the toilet; injunctions passed
around to every one to put on their best face and be spry; and now all
are arranged in a circle for a last review, before they are marched up
to the Bourse.

Mr. Skeggs, with his palmetto on and his cigar in his mouth, walks
around to put farewell touches on his wares.

“How’s this?” he said, stepping in front of Susan and Emmeline.
“Where’s your curls, gal?”

The girl looked timidly at her mother, who, with the smooth adroitness
common among her class, answers,

“I was telling her, last night, to put up her hair smooth and neat, and
not havin’ it flying about in curls; looks more respectable so.”

“Bother!” said the man, peremptorily, turning to the girl; “you go
right along, and curl yourself real smart!” He added, giving a crack to
a rattan he held in his hand, “And be back in quick time, too!”

“You go and help her,” he added, to the mother. “Them curls may make a
hundred dollars difference in the sale of her.”


Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro,
over the marble pave. On every side of the circular area were little
tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of
these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant
and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and
French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A
third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a
group, waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognize
the St. Clare servants,—Tom, Adolph, and others; and there, too, Susan
and Emmeline, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected faces.
Various spectators, intending to purchase, or not intending, examining,
and commenting on their various points and faces with the same freedom
that a set of jockeys discuss the merits of a horse.

“Hulloa, Alf! what brings you here?” said a young exquisite, slapping
the shoulder of a sprucely-dressed young man, who was examining Adolph
through an eye-glass.

“Well! I was wanting a valet, and I heard that St. Clare’s lot was
going. I thought I’d just look at his—”

“Catch me ever buying any of St. Clare’s people! Spoilt niggers, every
one. Impudent as the devil!” said the other.

“Never fear that!” said the first. “If I get ’em, I’ll soon have their
airs out of them; they’ll soon find that they’ve another kind of master
to deal with than Monsieur St. Clare. ’Pon my word, I’ll buy that
fellow. I like the shape of him.”

“You’ll find it’ll take all you’ve got to keep him. He’s deucedly
extravagant!”

“Yes, but my lord will find that he _can’t_ be extravagant with _me_.
Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few times, and thoroughly
dressed down! I’ll tell you if it don’t bring him to a sense of his
ways! O, I’ll reform him, up hill and down,—you’ll see. I buy him,
that’s flat!”

Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces
thronging around him, for one whom he would wish to call master. And if
you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting, out of two
hundred men, one who was to become your absolute owner and disposer,
you would, perhaps, realize, just as Tom did, how few there were that
you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom saw
abundance of men,—great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried men;
long-favored, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbed-looking,
commonplace men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips,
putting them into the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according
to their convenience; but he saw no St. Clare.

A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in a
checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the
worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one
who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to the group,
began to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom saw him
approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that
increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic
strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes, with their
shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather
unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth
was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he
ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands
were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very dirty, and
garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded
to a very free personal examination of the lot. He seized Tom by the
jaw, and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth; made him strip up
his sleeve, to show his muscle; turned him round, made him jump and
spring, to show his paces.

“Where was you raised?” he added, briefly, to these investigations.

“In Kintuck, Mas’r,” said Tom, looking about, as if for deliverance.

“What have you done?”

“Had care of Mas’r’s farm,” said Tom.

“Likely story!” said the other, shortly, as he passed on. He paused a
moment before Dolph; then spitting a discharge of tobacco-juice on his
well-blacked boots, and giving a contemptuous umph, he walked on. Again
he stopped before Susan and Emmeline. He put out his heavy, dirty hand,
and drew the girl towards him; passed it over her neck and bust, felt
her arms, looked at her teeth, and then pushed her back against her
mother, whose patient face showed the suffering she had been going
through at every motion of the hideous stranger.

The girl was frightened, and began to cry.

“Stop that, you minx!” said the salesman; “no whimpering here,—the sale
is going to begin.” And accordingly the sale begun.

Adolph was knocked off, at a good sum, to the young gentlemen who had
previously stated his intention of buying him; and the other servants
of the St. Clare lot went to various bidders.

“Now, up with you, boy! d’ye hear?” said the auctioneer to Tom.

Tom stepped upon the block, gave a few anxious looks round; all seemed
mingled in a common, indistinct noise,—the clatter of the salesman
crying off his qualifications in French and English, the quick fire of
French and English bids; and almost in a moment came the final thump of
the hammer, and the clear ring on the last syllable of the word
_“dollars,”_ as the auctioneer announced his price, and Tom was made
over.—He had a master!

He was pushed from the block;—the short, bullet-headed man seizing him
roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a harsh
voice, “Stand there, _you!_”

Tom hardly realized anything; but still the bidding went on,—ratting,
clattering, now French, now English. Down goes the hammer again,—Susan
is sold! She goes down from the block, stops, looks wistfully back,—her
daughter stretches her hands towards her. She looks with agony in the
face of the man who has bought her,—a respectable middle-aged man, of
benevolent countenance.

“O, Mas’r, please do buy my daughter!”

“I’d like to, but I’m afraid I can’t afford it!” said the gentleman,
looking, with painful interest, as the young girl mounted the block,
and looked around her with a frightened and timid glance.

The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colorless cheek, her eye
has a feverish fire, and her mother groans to see that she looks more
beautiful than she ever saw her before. The auctioneer sees his
advantage, and expatiates volubly in mingled French and English, and
bids rise in rapid succession.

“I’ll do anything in reason,” said the benevolent-looking gentleman,
pressing in and joining with the bids. In a few moments they have run
beyond his purse. He is silent; the auctioneer grows warmer; but bids
gradually drop off. It lies now between an aristocratic old citizen and
our bullet-headed acquaintance. The citizen bids for a few turns,
contemptuously measuring his opponent; but the bullet-head has the
advantage over him, both in obstinacy and concealed length of purse,
and the controversy lasts but a moment; the hammer falls,—he has got
the girl, body and soul, unless God help her!

Her master is Mr. Legree, who owns a cotton plantation on the Red
River. She is pushed along into the same lot with Tom and two other
men, and goes off, weeping as she goes.

The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but, then, the thing happens every
day! One sees girls and mothers crying, at these sales, _always!_ it
can’t be helped, &c. and he walks off, with his acquisition, in
another direction.

Two days after, the lawyer of the Christian firm of B. & Co., New York,
send on their money to them. On the reverse of that draft, so obtained,
let them write these words of the great Paymaster, to whom they shall
make up their account in a future day: _“When he maketh inquisition for
blood, he forgetteth not the cry of the humble!”_




CHAPTER XXXI
The Middle Passage


“Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon
iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and
holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more
righteous than he?”—HAB. 1: 13.


On the lower part of a small, mean boat, on the Red River, Tom
sat,—chains on his wrists, chains on his feet, and a weight heavier
than chains lay on his heart. All had faded from his sky,—moon and
star; all had passed by him, as the trees and banks were now passing,
to return no more. Kentucky home, with wife and children, and indulgent
owners; St. Clare home, with all its refinements and splendors; the
golden head of Eva, with its saint-like eyes; the proud, gay, handsome,
seemingly careless, yet ever-kind St. Clare; hours of ease and
indulgent leisure,—all gone! and in place thereof, _what_ remains?

It is one of the bitterest apportionments of a lot of slavery, that the
negro, sympathetic and assimilative, after acquiring, in a refined
family, the tastes and feelings which form the atmosphere of such a
place, is not the less liable to become the bond-slave of the coarsest
and most brutal,—just as a chair or table, which once decorated the
superb saloon, comes, at last, battered and defaced, to the barroom of
some filthy tavern, or some low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The great
difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and the _man_ can;
for even a legal enactment that he shall be “taken, reputed, adjudged
in law, to be a chattel personal,” cannot blot out his soul, with its
own private little world of memories, hopes, loves, fears, and desires.

Mr. Simon Legree, Tom’s master, had purchased slaves at one place and
another, in New Orleans, to the number of eight, and driven them,
handcuffed, in couples of two and two, down to the good steamer Pirate,
which lay at the levee, ready for a trip up the Red River.

Having got them fairly on board, and the boat being off, he came round,
with that air of efficiency which ever characterized him, to take a
review of them. Stopping opposite to Tom, who had been attired for sale
in his best broadcloth suit, with well-starched linen and shining
boots, he briefly expressed himself as follows:

“Stand up.”

Tom stood up.

“Take off that stock!” and, as Tom, encumbered by his fetters,
proceeded to do it, he assisted him, by pulling it, with no gentle
hand, from his neck, and putting it in his pocket.

Legree now turned to Tom’s trunk, which, previous to this, he had been
ransacking, and, taking from it a pair of old pantaloons and
dilapidated coat, which Tom had been wont to put on about his
stable-work, he said, liberating Tom’s hands from the handcuffs, and
pointing to a recess in among the boxes,

“You go there, and put these on.”

Tom obeyed, and in a few moments returned.

“Take off your boots,” said Mr. Legree.

Tom did so.

“There,” said the former, throwing him a pair of coarse, stout shoes,
such as were common among the slaves, “put these on.”

In Tom’s hurried exchange, he had not forgotten to transfer his
cherished Bible to his pocket. It was well he did so; for Mr. Legree,
having refitted Tom’s handcuffs, proceeded deliberately to investigate
the contents of his pockets. He drew out a silk handkerchief, and put
it into his own pocket. Several little trifles, which Tom had
treasured, chiefly because they had amused Eva, he looked upon with a
contemptuous grunt, and tossed them over his shoulder into the river.

Tom’s Methodist hymn-book, which, in his hurry, he had forgotten, he
now held up and turned over.

“Humph! pious, to be sure. So, what’s yer name,—you belong to the
church, eh?”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Tom, firmly.

“Well, I’ll soon have _that_ out of you. I have none o’ yer bawling,
praying, singing niggers on my place; so remember. Now, mind yourself,”
he said, with a stamp and a fierce glance of his gray eye, directed at
Tom, “_I’m_ your church now! You understand,—you’ve got to be as _I_
say.”

Something within the silent black man answered _No!_ and, as if
repeated by an invisible voice, came the words of an old prophetic
scroll, as Eva had often read them to him,—“Fear not! for I have
redeemed thee. I have called thee by name. Thou art MINE!”

But Simon Legree heard no voice. That voice is one he never shall hear.
He only glared for a moment on the downcast face of Tom, and walked
off. He took Tom’s trunk, which contained a very neat and abundant
wardrobe, to the forecastle, where it was soon surrounded by various
hands of the boat. With much laughing, at the expense of niggers who
tried to be gentlemen, the articles very readily were sold to one and
another, and the empty trunk finally put up at auction. It was a good
joke, they all thought, especially to see how Tom looked after his
things, as they were going this way and that; and then the auction of
the trunk, that was funnier than all, and occasioned abundant
witticisms.

This little affair being over, Simon sauntered up again to his
property.

“Now, Tom, I’ve relieved you of any extra baggage, you see. Take mighty
good care of them clothes. It’ll be long enough ’fore you get more. I
go in for making niggers careful; one suit has to do for one year, on
my place.”

Simon next walked up to the place where Emmeline was sitting, chained
to another woman.

“Well, my dear,” he said, chucking her under the chin, “keep up your
spirits.”

The involuntary look of horror, fright and aversion, with which the
girl regarded him, did not escape his eye. He frowned fiercely.

“None o’ your shines, gal! you’s got to keep a pleasant face, when I
speak to ye,—d’ye hear? And you, you old yellow poco moonshine!” he
said, giving a shove to the mulatto woman to whom Emmeline was chained,
“don’t you carry that sort of face! You’s got to look chipper, I tell
ye!”

“I say, all on ye,” he said retreating a pace or two back, “look at
me,—look at me,—look me right in the eye,—_straight_, now!” said he,
stamping his foot at every pause.

As by a fascination, every eye was now directed to the glaring
greenish-gray eye of Simon.

“Now,” said he, doubling his great, heavy fist into something
resembling a blacksmith’s hammer, “d’ye see this fist? Heft it!” he
said, bringing it down on Tom’s hand. “Look at these yer bones! Well, I
tell ye this yer fist has got as hard as iron _knocking down niggers_.
I never see the nigger, yet, I couldn’t bring down with one crack,”
said he, bringing his fist down so near to the face of Tom that he
winked and drew back. “I don’t keep none o’ yer cussed overseers; I
does my own overseeing; and I tell you things _is_ seen to. You’s every
one on ye got to toe the mark, I tell ye; quick,—straight,—the moment I
speak. That’s the way to keep in with me. Ye won’t find no soft spot in
me, nowhere. So, now, mind yerselves; for I don’t show no mercy!”

The women involuntarily drew in their breath, and the whole gang sat
with downcast, dejected faces. Meanwhile, Simon turned on his heel, and
marched up to the bar of the boat for a dram.

“That’s the way I begin with my niggers,” he said, to a gentlemanly
man, who had stood by him during his speech. “It’s my system to begin
strong,—just let ’em know what to expect.”

“Indeed!” said the stranger, looking upon him with the curiosity of a
naturalist studying some out-of-the-way specimen.

“Yes, indeed. I’m none o’ yer gentlemen planters, with lily fingers, to
slop round and be cheated by some old cuss of an overseer! Just feel of
my knuckles, now; look at my fist. Tell ye, sir, the flesh on ’t has
come jest like a stone, practising on nigger—feel on it.”

The stranger applied his fingers to the implement in question, and
simply said,

“’T is hard enough; and, I suppose,” he added, “practice has made your
heart just like it.”

“Why, yes, I may say so,” said Simon, with a hearty laugh. “I reckon
there’s as little soft in me as in any one going. Tell you, nobody
comes it over me! Niggers never gets round me, neither with squalling
nor soft soap,—that’s a fact.”

“You have a fine lot there.”

“Real,” said Simon. “There’s that Tom, they telled me he was suthin’
uncommon. I paid a little high for him, tendin’ him for a driver and a
managing chap; only get the notions out that he’s larnt by bein’
treated as niggers never ought to be, he’ll do prime! The yellow woman
I got took in on. I rayther think she’s sickly, but I shall put her
through for what she’s worth; she may last a year or two. I don’t go
for savin’ niggers. Use up, and buy more, ’s my way;-makes you less
trouble, and I’m quite sure it comes cheaper in the end;” and Simon
sipped his glass.

“And how long do they generally last?” said the stranger.

“Well, donno; ’cordin’ as their constitution is. Stout fellers last six
or seven years; trashy ones gets worked up in two or three. I used to,
when I fust begun, have considerable trouble fussin’ with ’em and
trying to make ’em hold out,—doctorin’ on ’em up when they’s sick, and
givin’ on ’em clothes and blankets, and what not, tryin’ to keep ’em
all sort o’ decent and comfortable. Law, ’t wasn’t no sort o’ use; I
lost money on ’em, and ’t was heaps o’ trouble. Now, you see, I just
put ’em straight through, sick or well. When one nigger’s dead, I buy
another; and I find it comes cheaper and easier, every way.”

The stranger turned away, and seated himself beside a gentleman, who
had been listening to the conversation with repressed uneasiness.

“You must not take that fellow to be any specimen of Southern
planters,” said he.

“I should hope not,” said the young gentleman, with emphasis.

“He is a mean, low, brutal fellow!” said the other.

“And yet your laws allow him to hold any number of human beings subject
to his absolute will, without even a shadow of protection; and, low as
he is, you cannot say that there are not many such.”

“Well,” said the other, “there are also many considerate and humane men
among planters.”

“Granted,” said the young man; “but, in my opinion, it is you
considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the brutality and
outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it were not for your
sanction and influence, the whole system could not keep foothold for an
hour. If there were no planters except such as that one,” said he,
pointing with his finger to Legree, who stood with his back to them,
“the whole thing would go down like a millstone. It is your
respectability and humanity that licenses and protects his brutality.”

“You certainly have a high opinion of my good nature,” said the
planter, smiling, “but I advise you not to talk quite so loud, as there
are people on board the boat who might not be quite so tolerant to
opinion as I am. You had better wait till I get up to my plantation,
and there you may abuse us all, quite at your leisure.”

The young gentleman colored and smiled, and the two were soon busy in a
game of backgammon. Meanwhile, another conversation was going on in the
lower part of the boat, between Emmeline and the mulatto woman with
whom she was confined. As was natural, they were exchanging with each
other some particulars of their history.

“Who did you belong to?” said Emmeline.

“Well, my Mas’r was Mr. Ellis,—lived on Levee-street. P’raps you’ve
seen the house.”

“Was he good to you?” said Emmeline.

“Mostly, till he tuk sick. He’s lain sick, off and on, more than six
months, and been orful oneasy. ’Pears like he warnt willin’ to have
nobody rest, day or night; and got so curous, there couldn’t nobody
suit him. ’Pears like he just grew crosser, every day; kep me up nights
till I got farly beat out, and couldn’t keep awake no longer; and cause
I got to sleep, one night, Lors, he talk so orful to me, and he tell me
he’d sell me to just the hardest master he could find; and he’d
promised me my freedom, too, when he died.”

“Had you any friends?” said Emmeline.

“Yes, my husband,—he’s a blacksmith. Mas’r gen’ly hired him out. They
took me off so quick, I didn’t even have time to see him; and I’s got
four children. O, dear me!” said the woman, covering her face with her
hands.

It is a natural impulse, in every one, when they hear a tale of
distress, to think of something to say by way of consolation. Emmeline
wanted to say something, but she could not think of anything to say.
What was there to be said? As by a common consent, they both avoided,
with fear and dread, all mention of the horrible man who was now their
master.

True, there is religious trust for even the darkest hour. The mulatto
woman was a member of the Methodist church, and had an unenlightened
but very sincere spirit of piety. Emmeline had been educated much more
intelligently,—taught to read and write, and diligently instructed in
the Bible, by the care of a faithful and pious mistress; yet, would it
not try the faith of the firmest Christian, to find themselves
abandoned, apparently, of God, in the grasp of ruthless violence? How
much more must it shake the faith of Christ’s poor little ones, weak in
knowledge and tender in years!

The boat moved on,—freighted with its weight of sorrow,—up the red,
muddy, turbid current, through the abrupt tortuous windings of the Red
river; and sad eyes gazed wearily on the steep red-clay banks, as they
glided by in dreary sameness. At last the boat stopped at a small town,
and Legree, with his party, disembarked.




CHAPTER XXXII
Dark Places


“The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of
cruelty.”[1]


 [1] Ps. 74:20.


Trailing wearily behind a rude wagon, and over a ruder road, Tom and
his associates faced onward.

In the wagon was seated Simon Legree and the two women, still fettered
together, were stowed away with some baggage in the back part of it,
and the whole company were seeking Legree’s plantation, which lay a
good distance off.

It was a wild, forsaken road, now winding through dreary pine barrens,
where the wind whispered mournfully, and now over log causeways,
through long cypress swamps, the doleful trees rising out of the slimy,
spongy ground, hung with long wreaths of funeral black moss, while ever
and anon the loathsome form of the mocassin snake might be seen sliding
among broken stumps and shattered branches that lay here and there,
rotting in the water.

It is disconsolate enough, this riding, to the stranger, who, with
well-filled pocket and well-appointed horse, threads the lonely way on
some errand of business; but wilder, drearier, to the man enthralled,
whom every weary step bears further from all that man loves and prays
for.

So one should have thought, that witnessed the sunken and dejected
expression on those dark faces; the wistful, patient weariness with
which those sad eyes rested on object after object that passed them in
their sad journey.

Simon rode on, however, apparently well pleased, occasionally pulling
away at a flask of spirit, which he kept in his pocket.

“I say, _you!_” he said, as he turned back and caught a glance at the
dispirited faces behind him. “Strike up a song, boys,—come!”

The men looked at each other, and the “_come_” was repeated, with a
smart crack of the whip which the driver carried in his hands. Tom
began a Methodist hymn.

“Jerusalem, my happy home,
    Name ever dear to me!
When shall my sorrows have an end,
    Thy joys when shall—“[2]


 [2] _Jerusalem, my happy home_,” anonymous hymn dating from the latter
 part of the sixteenth century, sung to the tune of “St. Stephen.”
 Words derive from St. Augustine’s _Meditations_.


“Shut up, you black cuss!” roared Legree; “did ye think I wanted any o’
yer infernal old Methodism? I say, tune up, now, something real
rowdy,—quick!”

One of the other men struck up one of those unmeaning songs, common
among the slaves.

“Mas’r see’d me cotch a coon,
    High boys, high!
He laughed to split,—d’ye see the moon,
    Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
Ho! yo! hi—e! _oh!”_


The singer appeared to make up the song to his own pleasure, generally
hitting on rhyme, without much attempt at reason; and the party took up
the chorus, at intervals,

“Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
High—e—oh! high—e—oh!”


It was sung very boisterouly, and with a forced attempt at merriment;
but no wail of despair, no words of impassioned prayer, could have had
such a depth of woe in them as the wild notes of the chorus. As if the
poor, dumb heart, threatened,—prisoned,—took refuge in that
inarticulate sanctuary of music, and found there a language in which to
breathe its prayer to God! There was a prayer in it, which Simon could
not hear. He only heard the boys singing noisily, and was well pleased;
he was making them “keep up their spirits.”

“Well, my little dear,” said he, turning to Emmeline, and laying his
hand on her shoulder, “we’re almost home!”

When Legree scolded and stormed, Emmeline was terrified; but when he
laid his hand on her, and spoke as he now did, she felt as if she had
rather he would strike her. The expression of his eyes made her soul
sick, and her flesh creep. Involuntarily she clung closer to the
mulatto woman by her side, as if she were her mother.

“You didn’t ever wear ear-rings,” he said, taking hold of her small ear
with his coarse fingers.

“No, Mas’r!” said Emmeline, trembling and looking down.

“Well, I’ll give you a pair, when we get home, if you’re a good girl.
You needn’t be so frightened; I don’t mean to make you work very hard.
You’ll have fine times with me, and live like a lady,—only be a good
girl.”

Legree had been drinking to that degree that he was inclining to be
very gracious; and it was about this time that the enclosures of the
plantation rose to view. The estate had formerly belonged to a
gentleman of opulence and taste, who had bestowed some considerable
attention to the adornment of his grounds. Having died insolvent, it
had been purchased, at a bargain, by Legree, who used it, as he did
everything else, merely as an implement for money-making. The place had
that ragged, forlorn appearance, which is always produced by the
evidence that the care of the former owner has been left to go to utter
decay.

What was once a smooth-shaven lawn before the house, dotted here and
there with ornamental shrubs, was now covered with frowsy tangled
grass, with horseposts set up, here and there, in it, where the turf
was stamped away, and the ground littered with broken pails, cobs of
corn, and other slovenly remains. Here and there, a mildewed jessamine
or honeysuckle hung raggedly from some ornamental support, which had
been pushed to one side by being used as a horse-post. What once was a
large garden was now all grown over with weeds, through which, here and
there, some solitary exotic reared its forsaken head. What had been a
conservatory had now no window-shades, and on the mouldering shelves
stood some dry, forsaken flower-pots, with sticks in them, whose dried
leaves showed they had once been plants.

The wagon rolled up a weedy gravel walk, under a noble avenue of China
trees, whose graceful forms and ever-springing foliage seemed to be the
only things there that neglect could not daunt or alter,—like noble
spirits, so deeply rooted in goodness, as to flourish and grow stronger
amid discouragement and decay.

The house had been large and handsome. It was built in a manner common
at the South; a wide verandah of two stories running round every part
of the house, into which every outer door opened, the lower tier being
supported by brick pillars.

But the place looked desolate and uncomfortable; some windows stopped
up with boards, some with shattered panes, and shutters hanging by a
single hinge,—all telling of coarse neglect and discomfort.

Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, garnished the
ground in all directions; and three or four ferocious-looking dogs,
roused by the sound of the wagon-wheels, came tearing out, and were
with difficulty restrained from laying hold of Tom and his companions,
by the effort of the ragged servants who came after them.

“Ye see what ye’d get!” said Legree, caressing the dogs with grim
satisfaction, and turning to Tom and his companions. “Ye see what ye’d
get, if ye try to run off. These yer dogs has been raised to track
niggers; and they’d jest as soon chaw one on ye up as eat their supper.
So, mind yerself! How now, Sambo!” he said, to a ragged fellow, without
any brim to his hat, who was officious in his attentions. “How have
things been going?”

“Fust rate, Mas’r.”

“Quimbo,” said Legree to another, who was making zealous demonstrations
to attract his attention, “ye minded what I telled ye?”

“Guess I did, didn’t I?”

These two colored men were the two principal hands on the plantation.
Legree had trained them in savageness and brutality as systematically
as he had his bull-dogs; and, by long practice in hardness and cruelty,
brought their whole nature to about the same range of capacities. It is
a common remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly against
the character of the race, that the negro overseer is always more
tyrannical and cruel than the white one. This is simply saying that the
negro mind has been more crushed and debased than the white. It is no
more true of this race than of every oppressed race, the world over.
The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one.

Legree, like some potentates we read of in history, governed his
plantation by a sort of resolution of forces. Sambo and Quimbo
cordially hated each other; the plantation hands, one and all,
cordially hated them; and, by playing off one against another, he was
pretty sure, through one or the other of the three parties, to get
informed of whatever was on foot in the place.

Nobody can live entirely without social intercourse; and Legree
encouraged his two black satellites to a kind of coarse familiarity
with him,—a familiarity, however, at any moment liable to get one or
the other of them into trouble; for, on the slightest provocation, one
of them always stood ready, at a nod, to be a minister of his vengeance
on the other.

As they stood there now by Legree, they seemed an apt illustration of
the fact that brutal men are lower even than animals. Their coarse,
dark, heavy features; their great eyes, rolling enviously on each
other; their barbarous, guttural, half-brute intonation; their
dilapidated garments fluttering in the wind,—were all in admirable
keeping with the vile and unwholesome character of everything about the
place.

“Here, you Sambo,” said Legree, “take these yer boys down to the
quarters; and here’s a gal I’ve got for _you_,” said he, as he
separated the mulatto woman from Emmeline, and pushed her towards
him;—“I promised to bring you one, you know.”

The woman gave a start, and drawing back, said, suddenly,

“O, Mas’r! I left my old man in New Orleans.”

“What of that, you—; won’t you want one here? None o’ your words,—go
long!” said Legree, raising his whip.

“Come, mistress,” he said to Emmeline, “you go in here with me.”

A dark, wild face was seen, for a moment, to glance at the window of
the house; and, as Legree opened the door, a female voice said
something, in a quick, imperative tone. Tom, who was looking, with
anxious interest, after Emmeline, as she went in, noticed this, and
heard Legree answer, angrily, “You may hold your tongue! I’ll do as I
please, for all you!”

Tom heard no more; for he was soon following Sambo to the quarters. The
quarters was a little sort of street of rude shanties, in a row, in a
part of the plantation, far off from the house. They had a forlorn,
brutal, forsaken air. Tom’s heart sunk when he saw them. He had been
comforting himself with the thought of a cottage, rude, indeed, but one
which he might make neat and quiet, and where he might have a shelf for
his Bible, and a place to be alone out of his laboring hours. He looked
into several; they were mere rude shells, destitute of any species of
furniture, except a heap of straw, foul with dirt, spread confusedly
over the floor, which was merely the bare ground, trodden hard by the
tramping of innumerable feet.

“Which of these will be mine?” said he, to Sambo, submissively.

“Dunno; ken turn in here, I spose,” said Sambo; “spects thar’s room for
another thar; thar’s a pretty smart heap o’ niggers to each on ’em,
now; sure, I dunno what I ’s to do with more.”


It was late in the evening when the weary occupants of the shanties
came flocking home,—men and women, in soiled and tattered garments,
surly and uncomfortable, and in no mood to look pleasantly on
new-comers. The small village was alive with no inviting sounds;
hoarse, guttural voices contending at the hand-mills where their morsel
of hard corn was yet to be ground into meal, to fit it for the cake
that was to constitute their only supper. From the earliest dawn of the
day, they had been in the fields, pressed to work under the driving
lash of the overseers; for it was now in the very heat and hurry of the
season, and no means was left untried to press every one up to the top
of their capabilities. “True,” says the negligent lounger; “picking
cotton isn’t hard work.” Isn’t it? And it isn’t much inconvenience,
either, to have one drop of water fall on your head; yet the worst
torture of the inquisition is produced by drop after drop, drop after
drop, falling moment after moment, with monotonous succession, on the
same spot; and work, in itself not hard, becomes so, by being pressed,
hour after hour, with unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even
the consciousness of free-will to take from its tediousness. Tom looked
in vain among the gang, as they poured along, for companionable faces.
He saw only sullen, scowling, imbruted men, and feeble, discouraged
women, or women that were not women,—the strong pushing away the
weak,—the gross, unrestricted animal selfishness of human beings, of
whom nothing good was expected and desired; and who, treated in every
way like brutes, had sunk as nearly to their level as it was possible
for human beings to do. To a late hour in the night the sound of the
grinding was protracted; for the mills were few in number compared with
the grinders, and the weary and feeble ones were driven back by the
strong, and came on last in their turn.

“Ho yo!” said Sambo, coming to the mulatto woman, and throwing down a
bag of corn before her; “what a cuss yo name?”

“Lucy,” said the woman.

“Wal, Lucy, yo my woman now. Yo grind dis yer corn, and get _my_ supper
baked, ye har?”

“I an’t your woman, and I won’t be!” said the woman, with the sharp,
sudden courage of despair; “you go long!”

“I’ll kick yo, then!” said Sambo, raising his foot threateningly.

“Ye may kill me, if ye choose,—the sooner the better! Wish’t I was
dead!” said she.

“I say, Sambo, you go to spilin’ the hands, I’ll tell Mas’r o’ you,”
said Quimbo, who was busy at the mill, from which he had viciously
driven two or three tired women, who were waiting to grind their corn.

“And, I’ll tell him ye won’t let the women come to the mills, yo old
nigger!” said Sambo. “Yo jes keep to yo own row.”

Tom was hungry with his day’s journey, and almost faint for want of
food.

“Thar, yo!” said Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, which contained a
peck of corn; “thar, nigger, grab, take car on ’t,—yo won’t get no
more, _dis_ yer week.”

Tom waited till a late hour, to get a place at the mills; and then,
moved by the utter weariness of two women, whom he saw trying to grind
their corn there, he ground for them, put together the decaying brands
of the fire, where many had baked cakes before them, and then went
about getting his own supper. It was a new kind of work there,—a deed
of charity, small as it was; but it woke an answering touch in their
hearts,—an expression of womanly kindness came over their hard faces;
they mixed his cake for him, and tended its baking; and Tom sat down by
the light of the fire, and drew out his Bible,—for he had need for
comfort.

“What’s that?” said one of the woman.

“A Bible,” said Tom.

“Good Lord! han’t seen un since I was in Kentuck.”

“Was you raised in Kentuck?” said Tom, with interest.

“Yes, and well raised, too; never ’spected to come to dis yer!” said
the woman, sighing.

“What’s dat ar book, any way?” said the other woman.

“Why, the Bible.”

“Laws a me! what’s dat?” said the woman.

“Do tell! you never hearn on ’t?” said the other woman. “I used to har
Missis a readin’ on ’t, sometimes, in Kentuck; but, laws o’ me! we
don’t har nothin’ here but crackin’ and swarin’.”

“Read a piece, anyways!” said the first woman, curiously, seeing Tom
attentively poring over it.

Tom read,—“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.”

“Them’s good words, enough,” said the woman; “who says ’em?”

“The Lord,” said Tom.

“I jest wish I know’d whar to find Him,” said the woman. “I would go;
’pears like I never should get rested again. My flesh is fairly sore,
and I tremble all over, every day, and Sambo’s allers a jawin’ at me,
’cause I doesn’t pick faster; and nights it’s most midnight ’fore I can
get my supper; and den ’pears like I don’t turn over and shut my eyes,
’fore I hear de horn blow to get up, and at it agin in de mornin’. If I
knew whar de Lor was, I’d tell him.”

“He’s here, he’s everywhere,” said Tom.

“Lor, you an’t gwine to make me believe dat ar! I know de Lord an’t
here,” said the woman; “‘tan’t no use talking, though. I’s jest gwine
to camp down, and sleep while I ken.”

The women went off to their cabins, and Tom sat alone, by the
smouldering fire, that flickered up redly in his face.

The silver, fair-browed moon rose in the purple sky, and looked down,
calm and silent, as God looks on the scene of misery and
oppression,—looked calmly on the lone black man, as he sat, with his
arms folded, and his Bible on his knee.

“Is God HERE?” Ah, how is it possible for the untaught heart to keep
its faith, unswerving, in the face of dire misrule, and palpable,
unrebuked injustice? In that simple heart waged a fierce conflict; the
crushing sense of wrong, the foreshadowing, of a whole life of future
misery, the wreck of all past hopes, mournfully tossing in the soul’s
sight, like dead corpses of wife, and child, and friend, rising from
the dark wave, and surging in the face of the half-drowned mariner! Ah,
was it easy _here_ to believe and hold fast the great password of
Christian faith, that “God IS, and is the REWARDER of them that
diligently seek Him”?

Tom rose, disconsolate, and stumbled into the cabin that had been
allotted to him. The floor was already strewn with weary sleepers, and
the foul air of the place almost repelled him; but the heavy night-dews
were chill, and his limbs weary, and, wrapping about him a tattered
blanket, which formed his only bed-clothing, he stretched himself in
the straw and fell asleep.

In dreams, a gentle voice came over his ear; he was sitting on the
mossy seat in the garden by Lake Pontchartrain, and Eva, with her
serious eyes bent downward, was reading to him from the Bible; and he
heard her read.

“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and the
rivers they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon
thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”

Gradually the words seemed to melt and fade, as in a divine music; the
child raised her deep eyes, and fixed them lovingly on him, and rays of
warmth and comfort seemed to go from them to his heart; and, as if
wafted on the music, she seemed to rise on shining wings, from which
flakes and spangles of gold fell off like stars, and she was gone.

Tom woke. Was it a dream? Let it pass for one. But who shall say that
that sweet young spirit, which in life so yearned to comfort and
console the distressed, was forbidden of God to assume this ministry
after death?

It is a beautiful belief,
    That ever round our head
Are hovering, on angel wings,
    The spirits of the dead.




CHAPTER XXXIII
Cassy


“And behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no
comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but
they had no comforter.”—ECCL. 4:1


It took but a short time to familiarize Tom with all that was to be
hoped or feared in his new way of life. He was an expert and efficient
workman in whatever he undertook; and was, both from habit and
principle, prompt and faithful. Quiet and peaceable in his disposition,
he hoped, by unremitting diligence, to avert from himself at least a
portion of the evils of his condition. He saw enough of abuse and
misery to make him sick and weary; but he determined to toil on, with
religious patience, committing himself to Him that judgeth righteously,
not without hope that some way of escape might yet be opened to him.

Legree took a silent note of Tom’s availability. He rated him as a
first-class hand; and yet he felt a secret dislike to him,—the native
antipathy of bad to good. He saw, plainly, that when, as was often the
case, his violence and brutality fell on the helpless, Tom took notice
of it; for, so subtle is the atmosphere of opinion, that it will make
itself felt, without words; and the opinion even of a slave may annoy a
master. Tom in various ways manifested a tenderness of feeling, a
commiseration for his fellow-sufferers, strange and new to them, which
was watched with a jealous eye by Legree. He had purchased Tom with a
view of eventually making him a sort of overseer, with whom he might,
at times, intrust his affairs, in short absences; and, in his view, the
first, second, and third requisite for that place, was _hardness_.
Legree made up his mind, that, as Tom was not hard to his hand, he
would harden him forthwith; and some few weeks after Tom had been on
the place, he determined to commence the process.

One morning, when the hands were mustered for the field, Tom noticed,
with surprise, a new comer among them, whose appearance excited his
attention. It was a woman, tall and slenderly formed, with remarkably
delicate hands and feet, and dressed in neat and respectable garments.
By the appearance of her face, she might have been between thirty-five
and forty; and it was a face that, once seen, could never be
forgotten,—one of those that, at a glance, seem to convey to us an idea
of a wild, painful, and romantic history. Her forehead was high, and
her eyebrows marked with beautiful clearness. Her straight, well-formed
nose, her finely-cut mouth, and the graceful contour of her head and
neck, showed that she must once have been beautiful; but her face was
deeply wrinkled with lines of pain, and of proud and bitter endurance.
Her complexion was sallow and unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features
sharp, and her whole form emaciated. But her eye was the most
remarkable feature,—so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by long
lashes of equal darkness, and so wildly, mournfully despairing. There
was a fierce pride and defiance in every line of her face, in every
curve of the flexible lip, in every motion of her body; but in her eye
was a deep, settled night of anguish,—an expression so hopeless and
unchanging as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride expressed
by her whole demeanor.

Where she came from, or who she was, Tom did not know. The first he did
know, she was walking by his side, erect and proud, in the dim gray of
the dawn. To the gang, however, she was known; for there was much
looking and turning of heads, and a smothered yet apparent exultation
among the miserable, ragged, half-starved creatures by whom she was
surrounded.

“Got to come to it, at last,—glad of it!” said one.

“He! he! he!” said another; “you’ll know how good it is, Misse!”

“We’ll see her work!”

“Wonder if she’ll get a cutting up, at night, like the rest of us!”

“I’d be glad to see her down for a flogging, I’ll bound!” said another.

The woman took no notice of these taunts, but walked on, with the same
expression of angry scorn, as if she heard nothing. Tom had always
lived among refined, and cultivated people, and he felt intuitively,
from her air and bearing, that she belonged to that class; but how or
why she could be fallen to those degrading circumstances, he could not
tell. The woman neither looked at him nor spoke to him, though, all the
way to the field, she kept close at his side.

Tom was soon busy at his work; but, as the woman was at no great
distance from him, he often glanced an eye to her, at her work. He saw,
at a glance, that a native adroitness and handiness made the task to
her an easier one than it proved to many. She picked very fast and very
clean, and with an air of scorn, as if she despised both the work and
the disgrace and humiliation of the circumstances in which she was
placed.

In the course of the day, Tom was working near the mulatto woman who
had been bought in the same lot with himself. She was evidently in a
condition of great suffering, and Tom often heard her praying, as she
wavered and trembled, and seemed about to fall down. Tom silently as he
came near to her, transferred several handfuls of cotton from his own
sack to hers.

“O, don’t, don’t!” said the woman, looking surprised; “it’ll get you
into trouble.”

Just then Sambo came up. He seemed to have a special spite against this
woman; and, flourishing his whip, said, in brutal, guttural tones,
“What dis yer, Luce,—foolin’ a’” and, with the word, kicking the woman
with his heavy cowhide shoe, he struck Tom across the face with his
whip.

Tom silently resumed his task; but the woman, before at the last point
of exhaustion, fainted.

“I’ll bring her to!” said the driver, with a brutal grin. “I’ll give
her something better than camphire!” and, taking a pin from his
coat-sleeve, he buried it to the head in her flesh. The woman groaned,
and half rose. “Get up, you beast, and work, will yer, or I’ll show yer
a trick more!”

The woman seemed stimulated, for a few moments, to an unnatural
strength, and worked with desperate eagerness.

“See that you keep to dat ar,” said the man, “or yer’ll wish yer’s dead
tonight, I reckin!”

“That I do now!” Tom heard her say; and again he heard her say, “O,
Lord, how long! O, Lord, why don’t you help us?”

At the risk of all that he might suffer, Tom came forward again, and
put all the cotton in his sack into the woman’s.

“O, you mustn’t! you donno what they’ll do to ye!” said the woman.

“I can bar it!” said Tom, “better ’n you;” and he was at his place
again. It passed in a moment.

Suddenly, the stranger woman whom we have described, and who had, in
the course of her work, come near enough to hear Tom’s last words,
raised her heavy black eyes, and fixed them, for a second, on him;
then, taking a quantity of cotton from her basket, she placed it in
his.

“You know nothing about this place,” she said, “or you wouldn’t have
done that. When you’ve been here a month, you’ll be done helping
anybody; you’ll find it hard enough to take care of your own skin!”

“The Lord forbid, Missis!” said Tom, using instinctively to his field
companion the respectful form proper to the high bred with whom he had
lived.

“The Lord never visits these parts,” said the woman, bitterly, as she
went nimbly forward with her work; and again the scornful smile curled
her lips.

But the action of the woman had been seen by the driver, across the
field; and, flourishing his whip, he came up to her.

“What! what!” he said to the woman, with an air of triumph, “You a
foolin’? Go along! yer under me now,—mind yourself, or yer’ll cotch
it!”

A glance like sheet-lightning suddenly flashed from those black eyes;
and, facing about, with quivering lip and dilated nostrils, she drew
herself up, and fixed a glance, blazing with rage and scorn, on the
driver.

“Dog!” she said, “touch _me_, if you dare! I’ve power enough, yet, to
have you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to inches! I’ve only to say
the word!”

“What de devil you here for, den?” said the man, evidently cowed, and
sullenly retreating a step or two. “Didn’t mean no harm, Misse Cassy!”

“Keep your distance, then!” said the woman. And, in truth, the man
seemed greatly inclined to attend to something at the other end of the
field, and started off in quick time.

The woman suddenly turned to her work, and labored with a despatch that
was perfectly astonishing to Tom. She seemed to work by magic. Before
the day was through, her basket was filled, crowded down, and piled,
and she had several times put largely into Tom’s. Long after dusk, the
whole weary train, with their baskets on their heads, defiled up to the
building appropriated to the storing and weighing the cotton. Legree
was there, busily conversing with the two drivers.

“Dat ar Tom’s gwine to make a powerful deal o’ trouble; kept a puttin’
into Lucy’s basket.—One o’ these yer dat will get all der niggers to
feelin’ ’bused, if Masir don’t watch him!” said Sambo.

“Hey-dey! The black cuss!” said Legree. “He’ll have to get a breakin’
in, won’t he, boys?”

Both negroes grinned a horrid grin, at this intimation.

“Ay, ay! Let Mas’r Legree alone, for breakin’ in! De debil heself
couldn’t beat Mas’r at dat!” said Quimbo.

“Wal, boys, the best way is to give him the flogging to do, till he
gets over his notions. Break him in!”

“Lord, Mas’r’ll have hard work to get dat out o’ him!”

“It’ll have to come out of him, though!” said Legree, as he rolled his
tobacco in his mouth.

“Now, dar’s Lucy,—de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de place!” pursued
Sambo.

“Take care, Sam; I shall begin to think what’s the reason for your
spite agin Lucy.”

“Well, Mas’r knows she sot herself up agin Mas’r, and wouldn’t have me,
when he telled her to.”

“I’d a flogged her into ’t,” said Legree, spitting, “only there’s such
a press o’ work, it don’t seem wuth a while to upset her jist now.
She’s slender; but these yer slender gals will bear half killin’ to get
their own way!”

“Wal, Lucy was real aggravatin’ and lazy, sulkin’ round; wouldn’t do
nothin,—and Tom he stuck up for her.”

“He did, eh! Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of flogging her.
It’ll be a good practice for him, and he won’t put it on to the gal
like you devils, neither.”

“Ho, ho! haw! haw! haw!” laughed both the sooty wretches; and the
diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not unapt expression of the
fiendish character which Legree gave them.

“Wal, but, Mas’r, Tom and Misse Cassy, and dey among ’em, filled Lucy’s
basket. I ruther guess der weight ’s in it, Mas’r!”

“_I do the weighing!_” said Legree, emphatically.

Both the drivers again laughed their diabolical laugh.

“So!” he added, “Misse Cassy did her day’s work.”

“She picks like de debil and all his angels!”

“She’s got ’em all in her, I believe!” said Legree; and, growling a
brutal oath, he proceeded to the weighing-room.


Slowly the weary, dispirited creatures, wound their way into the room,
and, with crouching reluctance, presented their baskets to be weighed.

Legree noted on a slate, on the side of which was pasted a list of
names, the amount.

Tom’s basket was weighed and approved; and he looked, with an anxious
glance, for the success of the woman he had befriended.

Tottering with weakness, she came forward, and delivered her basket. It
was of full weight, as Legree well perceived; but, affecting anger, he
said,

“What, you lazy beast! short again! stand aside, you’ll catch it,
pretty soon!”

The woman gave a groan of utter despair, and sat down on a board.

The person who had been called Misse Cassy now came forward, and, with
a haughty, negligent air, delivered her basket. As she delivered it,
Legree looked in her eyes with a sneering yet inquiring glance.

She fixed her black eyes steadily on him, her lips moved slightly, and
she said something in French. What it was, no one knew; but Legree’s
face became perfectly demoniacal in its expression, as she spoke; he
half raised his hand, as if to strike,—a gesture which she regarded
with fierce disdain, as she turned and walked away.

“And now,” said Legree, “come here, you Tom. You see, I telled ye I
didn’t buy ye jest for the common work; I mean to promote ye, and make
a driver of ye; and tonight ye may jest as well begin to get yer hand
in. Now, ye jest take this yer gal and flog her; ye’ve seen enough on’t
to know how.”

“I beg Mas’r’s pardon,” said Tom; “hopes Mas’r won’t set me at that.
It’s what I an’t used to,—never did,—and can’t do, no way possible.”

“Ye’ll larn a pretty smart chance of things ye never did know, before
I’ve done with ye!” said Legree, taking up a cowhide, and striking Tom
a heavy blow cross the cheek, and following up the infliction by a
shower of blows.

“There!” he said, as he stopped to rest; “now, will ye tell me ye can’t
do it?”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Tom, putting up his hand, to wipe the blood, that
trickled down his face. “I’m willin’ to work, night and day, and work
while there’s life and breath in me; but this yer thing I can’t feel it
right to do;—and, Mas’r, I _never_ shall do it,—_never_!”

Tom had a remarkably smooth, soft voice, and a habitually respectful
manner, that had given Legree an idea that he would be cowardly, and
easily subdued. When he spoke these last words, a thrill of amazement
went through every one; the poor woman clasped her hands, and said, “O
Lord!” and every one involuntarily looked at each other and drew in
their breath, as if to prepare for the storm that was about to burst.

Legree looked stupefied and confounded; but at last burst forth,—“What!
ye blasted black beast! tell _me_ ye don’t think it _right_ to do what
I tell ye! What have any of you cussed cattle to do with thinking
what’s right? I’ll put a stop to it! Why, what do ye think ye are? May
be ye think ye’r a gentleman master, Tom, to be a telling your master
what’s right, and what ain’t! So you pretend it’s wrong to flog the
gal!”

“I think so, Mas’r,” said Tom; “the poor crittur’s sick and feeble; ’t
would be downright cruel, and it’s what I never will do, nor begin to.
Mas’r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my raising my hand
agin any one here, I never shall,—I’ll die first!”

Tom spoke in a mild voice, but with a decision that could not be
mistaken. Legree shook with anger; his greenish eyes glared fiercely,
and his very whiskers seemed to curl with passion; but, like some
ferocious beast, that plays with its victim before he devours it, he
kept back his strong impulse to proceed to immediate violence, and
broke out into bitter raillery.

“Well, here’s a pious dog, at last, let down among us sinners!—a saint,
a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners about our sins!
Powerful holy critter, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe
to be so pious,—didn’t you never hear, out of yer Bible, ’Servants,
obey yer masters’? An’t I yer master? Didn’t I pay down twelve hundred
dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An’t
yer mine, now, body and soul?” he said, giving Tom a violent kick with
his heavy boot; “tell me!”

In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal oppression,
this question shot a gleam of joy and triumph through Tom’s soul. He
suddenly stretched himself up, and, looking earnestly to heaven, while
the tears and blood that flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed,

“No! no! no! my soul an’t yours, Mas’r! You haven’t bought it,—ye can’t
buy it! It’s been bought and paid for, by one that is able to keep
it;—no matter, no matter, you can’t harm me!”

“I can’t!” said Legree, with a sneer; “we’ll see,—we’ll see! Here,
Sambo, Quimbo, give this dog such a breakin’ in as he won’t get over,
this month!”

The two gigantic negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with fiendish
exultation in their faces, might have formed no unapt personification
of powers of darkness. The poor woman screamed with apprehension, and
all rose, as by a general impulse, while they dragged him unresisting
from the place.




CHAPTER XXXIV
The Quadroon’s Story


And behold the tears of such as are oppressed; and on the side of their
oppressors there was power. Wherefore I praised the dead that are
already dead more than the living that are yet alive.—ECCL. 4:1.


It was late at night, and Tom lay groaning and bleeding alone, in an
old forsaken room of the gin-house, among pieces of broken machinery,
piles of damaged cotton, and other rubbish which had there accumulated.

The night was damp and close, and the thick air swarmed with myriads of
mosquitos, which increased the restless torture of his wounds; whilst a
burning thirst—a torture beyond all others—filled up the uttermost
measure of physical anguish.

“O, good Lord! _Do_ look down,—give me the victory!—give me the victory
over all!” prayed poor Tom, in his anguish.

A footstep entered the room, behind him, and the light of a lantern
flashed on his eyes.

“Who’s there? O, for the Lord’s massy, please give me some water!”

The woman Cassy—for it was she,—set down her lantern, and, pouring
water from a bottle, raised his head, and gave him drink. Another and
another cup were drained, with feverish eagerness.


[Illustration: CASSY MINISTERING TO UNCLE TOM AFTER HIS WHIPPING.]


“Drink all ye want,” she said; “I knew how it would be. It isn’t the
first time I’ve been out in the night, carrying water to such as you.”

“Thank you, Missis,” said Tom, when he had done drinking.

“Don’t call me Missis! I’m a miserable slave, like yourself,—a lower
one than you can ever be!” said she, bitterly; “but now,” said she,
going to the door, and dragging in a small pallaise, over which she had
spread linen cloths wet with cold water, “try, my poor fellow, to roll
yourself on to this.”

Stiff with wounds and bruises, Tom was a long time in accomplishing
this movement; but, when done, he felt a sensible relief from the
cooling application to his wounds.

The woman, whom long practice with the victims of brutality had made
familiar with many healing arts, went on to make many applications to
Tom’s wounds, by means of which he was soon somewhat relieved.

“Now,” said the woman, when she had raised his head on a roll of
damaged cotton, which served for a pillow, “there’s the best I can do
for you.”

Tom thanked her; and the woman, sitting down on the floor, drew up her
knees, and embracing them with her arms, looked fixedly before her,
with a bitter and painful expression of countenance. Her bonnet fell
back, and long wavy streams of black hair fell around her singular and
melancholy-face.

“It’s no use, my poor fellow!” she broke out, at last, “it’s of no use,
this you’ve been trying to do. You were a brave fellow,—you had the
right on your side; but it’s all in vain, and out of the question, for
you to struggle. You are in the devil’s hands;—he is the strongest, and
you must give up!”

Give up! and, had not human weakness and physical agony whispered that,
before? Tom started; for the bitter woman, with her wild eyes and
melancholy voice, seemed to him an embodiment of the temptation with
which he had been wrestling.

“O Lord! O Lord!” he groaned, “how can I give up?”

“There’s no use calling on the Lord,—he never hears,” said the woman,
steadily; “there isn’t any God, I believe; or, if there is, he’s taken
sides against us. All goes against us, heaven and earth. Everything is
pushing us into hell. Why shouldn’t we go?”

Tom closed his eyes, and shuddered at the dark, atheistic words.

“You see,” said the woman, “_you_ don’t know anything about it—I do.
I’ve been on this place five years, body and soul, under this man’s
foot; and I hate him as I do the devil! Here you are, on a lone
plantation, ten miles from any other, in the swamps; not a white person
here, who could testify, if you were burned alive,—if you were scalded,
cut into inch-pieces, set up for the dogs to tear, or hung up and
whipped to death. There’s no law here, of God or man, that can do you,
or any one of us, the least good; and, this man! there’s no earthly
thing that he’s too good to do. I could make any one’s hair rise, and
their teeth chatter, if I should only tell what I’ve seen and been
knowing to, here,—and it’s no use resisting! Did I _want_ to live with
him? Wasn’t I a woman delicately bred; and he,—God in heaven! what was
he, and is he? And yet, I’ve lived with him, these five years, and
cursed every moment of my life,—night and day! And now, he’s got a new
one,—a young thing, only fifteen, and she brought up, she says,
piously. Her good mistress taught her to read the Bible; and she’s
brought her Bible here—to hell with her!”—and the woman laughed a wild
and doleful laugh, that rung, with a strange, supernatural sound,
through the old ruined shed.

Tom folded his hands; all was darkness and horror.

“O Jesus! Lord Jesus! have you quite forgot us poor critturs?” burst
forth, at last;—“help, Lord, I perish!”

The woman sternly continued:

“And what are these miserable low dogs you work with, that you should
suffer on their account? Every one of them would turn against you, the
first time they got a chance. They are all of ’em as low and cruel to
each other as they can be; there’s no use in your suffering to keep
from hurting them.”

“Poor critturs!” said Tom,—“what made ’em cruel?—and, if I give out, I
shall get used to ’t, and grow, little by little, just like ’em! No,
no, Missis! I’ve lost everything,—wife, and children, and home, and a
kind Mas’r,—and he would have set me free, if he’d only lived a week
longer; I’ve lost everything in _this_ world, and it’s clean gone,
forever,—and now I _can’t_ lose Heaven, too; no, I can’t get to be
wicked, besides all!”

“But it can’t be that the Lord will lay sin to our account,” said the
woman; “he won’t charge it to us, when we’re forced to it; he’ll charge
it to them that drove us to it.”

“Yes,” said Tom; “but that won’t keep us from growing wicked. If I get
to be as hard-hearted as that ar’ Sambo, and as wicked, it won’t make
much odds to me how I come so; it’s the bein’ so,—that ar’s what I’m a
dreadin’.”

The woman fixed a wild and startled look on Tom, as if a new thought
had struck her; and then, heavily groaning, said,

“O God a’ mercy! you speak the truth! O—O—O!”—and, with groans, she
fell on the floor, like one crushed and writhing under the extremity of
mental anguish.

There was a silence, a while, in which the breathing of both parties
could be heard, when Tom faintly said, “O, please, Missis!”

The woman suddenly rose up, with her face composed to its usual stern,
melancholy expression.

“Please, Missis, I saw ’em throw my coat in that ar’ corner, and in my
coat-pocket is my Bible;—if Missis would please get it for me.”

Cassy went and got it. Tom opened, at once, to a heavily marked
passage, much worn, of the last scenes in the life of Him by whose
stripes we are healed.

“If Missis would only be so good as read that ar’,—it’s better than
water.”

Cassy took the book, with a dry, proud air, and looked over the
passage. She then read aloud, in a soft voice, and with a beauty of
intonation that was peculiar, that touching account of anguish and of
glory. Often, as she read, her voice faltered, and sometimes failed her
altogether, when she would stop, with an air of frigid composure, till
she had mastered herself. When she came to the touching words, “Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do,” she threw down the book,
and, burying her face in the heavy masses of her hair, she sobbed
aloud, with a convulsive violence.

Tom was weeping, also, and occasionally uttering a smothered
ejaculation.

“If we only could keep up to that ar’!” said Tom;—“it seemed to come so
natural to him, and we have to fight so hard for ’t! O Lord, help us! O
blessed Lord Jesus, do help us!”

“Missis,” said Tom, after a while, “I can see that, some how, you’re
quite ’bove me in everything; but there’s one thing Missis might learn
even from poor Tom. Ye said the Lord took sides against us, because he
lets us be ’bused and knocked round; but ye see what come on his own
Son,—the blessed Lord of Glory,—wan’t he allays poor? and have we, any
on us, yet come so low as he come? The Lord han’t forgot us,—I’m
sartin’ o’ that ar’. If we suffer with him, we shall also reign,
Scripture says; but, if we deny Him, he also will deny us. Didn’t they
all suffer?—the Lord and all his? It tells how they was stoned and sawn
asunder, and wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and was
destitute, afflicted, tormented. Sufferin’ an’t no reason to make us
think the Lord’s turned agin us; but jest the contrary, if only we hold
on to him, and doesn’t give up to sin.”

“But why does he put us where we can’t help but sin?” said the woman.

“I think we _can_ help it,” said Tom.

“You’ll see,” said Cassy; “what’ll you do? Tomorrow they’ll be at you
again. I know ’em; I’ve seen all their doings; I can’t bear to think of
all they’ll bring you to;—and they’ll make you give out, at last!”

“Lord Jesus!” said Tom, “you _will_ take care of my soul? O Lord,
do!—don’t let me give out!”

“O dear!” said Cassy; “I’ve heard all this crying and praying before;
and yet, they’ve been broken down, and brought under. There’s Emmeline,
she’s trying to hold on, and you’re trying,—but what use? You must give
up, or be killed by inches.”

“Well, then, I _will_ die!” said Tom. “Spin it out as long as they can,
they can’t help my dying, some time!—and, after that, they can’t do no
more. I’m clar, I’m set! I _know_ the Lord’ll help me, and bring me
through.”

The woman did not answer; she sat with her black eyes intently fixed on
the floor.

“May be it’s the way,” she murmured to herself; “but those that _have_
given up, there’s no hope for them!—none! We live in filth, and grow
loathsome, till we loathe ourselves! And we long to die, and we don’t
dare to kill ourselves!—No hope! no hope! no hope?—this girl now,—just
as old as I was!

“You see me now,” she said, speaking to Tom very rapidly; “see what I
am! Well, I was brought up in luxury; the first I remember is, playing
about, when I was a child, in splendid parlors,—when I was kept dressed
up like a doll, and company and visitors used to praise me. There was a
garden opening from the saloon windows; and there I used to play
hide-and-go-seek, under the orange-trees, with my brothers and sisters.
I went to a convent, and there I learned music, French and embroidery,
and what not; and when I was fourteen, I came out to my father’s
funeral. He died very suddenly, and when the property came to be
settled, they found that there was scarcely enough to cover the debts;
and when the creditors took an inventory of the property, I was set
down in it. My mother was a slave woman, and my father had always meant
to set me free; but he had not done it, and so I was set down in the
list. I’d always known who I was, but never thought much about it.
Nobody ever expects that a strong, healthy man is going to die. My
father was a well man only four hours before he died;—it was one of the
first cholera cases in New Orleans. The day after the funeral, my
father’s wife took her children, and went up to her father’s
plantation. I thought they treated me strangely, but didn’t know. There
was a young lawyer who they left to settle the business; and he came
every day, and was about the house, and spoke very politely to me. He
brought with him, one day, a young man, whom I thought the handsomest I
had ever seen. I shall never forget that evening. I walked with him in
the garden. I was lonesome and full of sorrow, and he was so kind and
gentle to me; and he told me that he had seen me before I went to the
convent, and that he had loved me a great while, and that he would be
my friend and protector;—in short, though he didn’t tell me, he had
paid two thousand dollars for me, and I was his property,—I became his
willingly, for I loved him. Loved!” said the woman, stopping. “O, how I
_did_ love that man! How I love him now,—and always shall, while I
breathe! He was so beautiful, so high, so noble! He put me into a
beautiful house, with servants, horses, and carriages, and furniture,
and dresses. Everything that money could buy, he gave me; but I didn’t
set any value on all that,—I only cared for him. I loved him better
than my God and my own soul, and, if I tried, I couldn’t do any other
way from what he wanted me to.

“I wanted only one thing—I did want him to _marry_ me. I thought, if he
loved me as he said he did, and if I was what he seemed to think I was,
he would be willing to marry me and set me free. But he convinced me
that it would be impossible; and he told me that, if we were only
faithful to each other, it was marriage before God. If that is true,
wasn’t I that man’s wife? Wasn’t I faithful? For seven years, didn’t I
study every look and motion, and only live and breathe to please him?
He had the yellow fever, and for twenty days and nights I watched with
him. I alone,—and gave him all his medicine, and did everything for
him; and then he called me his good angel, and said I’d saved his life.
We had two beautiful children. The first was a boy, and we called him
Henry. He was the image of his father,—he had such beautiful eyes, such
a forehead, and his hair hung all in curls around it; and he had all
his father’s spirit, and his talent, too. Little Elise, he said, looked
like me. He used to tell me that I was the most beautiful woman in
Louisiana, he was so proud of me and the children. He used to love to
have me dress them up, and take them and me about in an open carriage,
and hear the remarks that people would make on us; and he used to fill
my ears constantly with the fine things that were said in praise of me
and the children. O, those were happy days! I thought I was as happy as
any one could be; but then there came evil times. He had a cousin come
to New Orleans, who was his particular friend,—he thought all the world
of him;—but, from the first time I saw him, I couldn’t tell why, I
dreaded him; for I felt sure he was going to bring misery on us. He got
Henry to going out with him, and often he would not come home nights
till two or three o’clock. I did not dare say a word; for Henry was so
high spirited, I was afraid to. He got him to the gaming-houses; and he
was one of the sort that, when he once got a going there, there was no
holding back. And then he introduced him to another lady, and I saw
soon that his heart was gone from me. He never told me, but I saw it,—I
knew it, day after day,—I felt my heart breaking, but I could not say a
word! At this, the wretch offered to buy me and the children of Henry,
to clear off his gambling debts, which stood in the way of his marrying
as he wished;—and _he sold us_. He told me, one day, that he had
business in the country, and should be gone two or three weeks. He
spoke kinder than usual, and said he should come back; but it didn’t
deceive me. I knew that the time had come; I was just like one turned
into stone; I couldn’t speak, nor shed a tear. He kissed me and kissed
the children, a good many times, and went out. I saw him get on his
horse, and I watched him till he was quite out of sight; and then I
fell down, and fainted.

“Then _he_ came, the cursed wretch! he came to take possession. He told
me that he had bought me and my children; and showed me the papers. I
cursed him before God, and told him I’d die sooner than live with him.”

“‘Just as you please,’ said he; ‘but, if you don’t behave reasonably,
I’ll sell both the children, where you shall never see them again.’ He
told me that he always had meant to have me, from the first time he saw
me; and that he had drawn Henry on, and got him in debt, on purpose to
make him willing to sell me. That he got him in love with another
woman; and that I might know, after all that, that he should not give
up for a few airs and tears, and things of that sort.

“I gave up, for my hands were tied. He had my children;—whenever I
resisted his will anywhere, he would talk about selling them, and he
made me as submissive as he desired. O, what a life it was! to live
with my heart breaking, every day,—to keep on, on, on, loving, when it
was only misery; and to be bound, body and soul, to one I hated. I used
to love to read to Henry, to play to him, to waltz with him, and sing
to him; but everything I did for this one was a perfect drag,—yet I was
afraid to refuse anything. He was very imperious, and harsh to the
children. Elise was a timid little thing; but Henry was bold and
high-spirited, like his father, and he had never been brought under, in
the least, by any one. He was always finding fault, and quarrelling
with him; and I used to live in daily fear and dread. I tried to make
the child respectful;—I tried to keep them apart, for I held on to
those children like death; but it did no good. _He sold both those
children_. He took me to ride, one day, and when I came home, they were
nowhere to be found! He told me he had sold them; he showed me the
money, the price of their blood. Then it seemed as if all good forsook
me. I raved and cursed,—cursed God and man; and, for a while, I
believe, he really was afraid of me. But he didn’t give up so. He told
me that my children were sold, but whether I ever saw their faces
again, depended on him; and that, if I wasn’t quiet, they should smart
for it. Well, you can do anything with a woman, when you’ve got her
children. He made me submit; he made me be peaceable; he flattered me
with hopes that, perhaps, he would buy them back; and so things went
on, a week or two. One day, I was out walking, and passed by the
calaboose; I saw a crowd about the gate, and heard a child’s voice,—and
suddenly my Henry broke away from two or three men who were holding
him, and ran, screaming, and caught my dress. They came up to him,
swearing dreadfully; and one man, whose face I shall never forget, told
him that he wouldn’t get away so; that he was going with him into the
calaboose, and he’d get a lesson there he’d never forget. I tried to
beg and plead,—they only laughed; the poor boy screamed and looked into
my face, and held on to me, until, in tearing him off, they tore the
skirt of my dress half away; and they carried him in, screaming
’Mother! mother! mother!’ There was one man stood there seemed to pity
me. I offered him all the money I had, if he’d only interfere. He shook
his head, and said that the boy had been impudent and disobedient, ever
since he bought him; that he was going to break him in, once for all. I
turned and ran; and every step of the way, I thought that I heard him
scream. I got into the house; ran, all out of breath, to the parlor,
where I found Butler. I told him, and begged him to go and interfere.
He only laughed, and told me the boy had got his deserts. He’d got to
be broken in,—the sooner the better; ’what did I expect?’ he asked.

“It seemed to me something in my head snapped, at that moment. I felt
dizzy and furious. I remember seeing a great sharp bowie-knife on the
table; I remember something about catching it, and flying upon him; and
then all grew dark, and I didn’t know any more,—not for days and days.

“When I came to myself, I was in a nice room,—but not mine. An old
black woman tended me; and a doctor came to see me, and there was a
great deal of care taken of me. After a while, I found that he had gone
away, and left me at this house to be sold; and that’s why they took
such pains with me.

“I didn’t mean to get well, and hoped I shouldn’t; but, in spite of me
the fever went off and I grew healthy, and finally got up. Then, they
made me dress up, every day; and gentlemen used to come in and stand
and smoke their cigars, and look at me, and ask questions, and debate
my price. I was so gloomy and silent, that none of them wanted me. They
threatened to whip me, if I wasn’t gayer, and didn’t take some pains to
make myself agreeable. At length, one day, came a gentleman named
Stuart. He seemed to have some feeling for me; he saw that something
dreadful was on my heart, and he came to see me alone, a great many
times, and finally persuaded me to tell him. He bought me, at last, and
promised to do all he could to find and buy back my children. He went
to the hotel where my Henry was; they told him he had been sold to a
planter up on Pearl River; that was the last that I ever heard. Then he
found where my daughter was; an old woman was keeping her. He offered
an immense sum for her, but they would not sell her. Butler found out
that it was for me he wanted her; and he sent me word that I should
never have her. Captain Stuart was very kind to me; he had a splendid
plantation, and took me to it. In the course of a year, I had a son
born. O, that child!—how I loved it! How just like my poor Henry the
little thing looked! But I had made up my mind,—yes, I had. I would
never again let a child live to grow up! I took the little fellow in my
arms, when he was two weeks old, and kissed him, and cried over him;
and then I gave him laudanum, and held him close to my bosom, while he
slept to death. How I mourned and cried over it! and who ever dreamed
that it was anything but a mistake, that had made me give it the
laudanum? but it’s one of the few things that I’m glad of, now. I am
not sorry, to this day; he, at least, is out of pain. What better than
death could I give him, poor child! After a while, the cholera came,
and Captain Stuart died; everybody died that wanted to live,—and I,—I,
though I went down to death’s door,—_I lived!_ Then I was sold, and
passed from hand to hand, till I grew faded and wrinkled, and I had a
fever; and then this wretch bought me, and brought me here,—and here I
am!”

The woman stopped. She had hurried on through her story, with a wild,
passionate utterance; sometimes seeming to address it to Tom, and
sometimes speaking as in a soliloquy. So vehement and overpowering was
the force with which she spoke, that, for a season, Tom was beguiled
even from the pain of his wounds, and, raising himself on one elbow,
watched her as she paced restlessly up and down, her long black hair
swaying heavily about her, as she moved.

“You tell me,” she said, after a pause, “that there is a God,—a God
that looks down and sees all these things. May be it’s so. The sisters
in the convent used to tell me of a day of judgment, when everything is
coming to light;—won’t there be vengeance, then!

“They think it’s nothing, what we suffer,—nothing, what our children
suffer! It’s all a small matter; yet I’ve walked the streets when it
seemed as if I had misery enough in my one heart to sink the city. I’ve
wished the houses would fall on me, or the stones sink under me. Yes!
and, in the judgment day, I will stand up before God, a witness against
those that have ruined me and my children, body and soul!

“When I was a girl, I thought I was religious; I used to love God and
prayer. Now, I’m a lost soul, pursued by devils that torment me day and
night; they keep pushing me on and on—and I’ll do it, too, some of
these days!” she said, clenching her hand, while an insane light
glanced in her heavy black eyes. “I’ll send him where he belongs,—a
short way, too,—one of these nights, if they burn me alive for it!” A
wild, long laugh rang through the deserted room, and ended in a
hysteric sob; she threw herself on the floor, in convulsive sobbing and
struggles.

In a few moments, the frenzy fit seemed to pass off; she rose slowly,
and seemed to collect herself.

“Can I do anything more for you, my poor fellow?” she said, approaching
where Tom lay; “shall I give you some more water?”

There was a graceful and compassionate sweetness in her voice and
manner, as she said this, that formed a strange contrast with the
former wildness.

Tom drank the water, and looked earnestly and pitifully into her face.

“O, Missis, I wish you’d go to him that can give you living waters!”

“Go to him! Where is he? Who is he?” said Cassy.

“Him that you read of to me,—the Lord.”

“I used to see the picture of him, over the altar, when I was a girl,”
said Cassy, her dark eyes fixing themselves in an expression of
mournful reverie; “but, _he isn’t here!_ there’s nothing here, but sin
and long, long, long despair! O!” She laid her hand on her breast and
drew in her breath, as if to lift a heavy weight.

Tom looked as if he would speak again; but she cut him short, with a
decided gesture.

“Don’t talk, my poor fellow. Try to sleep, if you can.” And, placing
water in his reach, and making whatever little arrangements for his
comforts she could, Cassy left the shed.




CHAPTER XXXV
The Tokens


“And slight, withal, may be the things that bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside forever; it may be a sound,
A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound,—
Striking the electric chain wherewith we’re darkly bound.”

_Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Can_. 4.


The sitting-room of Legree’s establishment was a large, long room, with
a wide, ample fireplace. It had once been hung with a showy and
expensive paper, which now hung mouldering, torn and discolored, from
the damp walls. The place had that peculiar sickening, unwholesome
smell, compounded of mingled damp, dirt and decay, which one often
notices in close old houses. The wall-paper was defaced, in spots, by
slops of beer and wine; or garnished with chalk memorandums, and long
sums footed up, as if somebody had been practising arithmetic there. In
the fireplace stood a brazier full of burning charcoal; for, though the
weather was not cold, the evenings always seemed damp and chilly in
that great room; and Legree, moreover, wanted a place to light his
cigars, and heat his water for punch. The ruddy glare of the charcoal
displayed the confused and unpromising aspect of the room,—saddles,
bridles, several sorts of harness, riding-whips, overcoats, and various
articles of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused
variety; and the dogs, of whom we have before spoken, had encamped
themselves among them, to suit their own taste and convenience.

Legree was just mixing himself a tumbler of punch, pouring his hot
water from a cracked and broken-nosed pitcher, grumbling, as he did so,

“Plague on that Sambo, to kick up this yer row between me and the new
hands! The fellow won’t be fit to work for a week, now,—right in the
press of the season!”

“Yes, just like you,” said a voice, behind his chair. It was the woman
Cassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy.

“Hah! you she-devil! you’ve come back, have you?”

“Yes, I have,” she said, coolly; “come to have my own way, too!”

“You lie, you jade! I’ll be up to my word. Either behave yourself, or
stay down to the quarters, and fare and work with the rest.”

“I’d rather, ten thousand times,” said the woman, “live in the dirtiest
hole at the quarters, than be under your hoof!”

“But you _are_ under my hoof, for all that,” said he, turning upon her,
with a savage grin; “that’s one comfort. So, sit down here on my knee,
my dear, and hear to reason,” said he, laying hold on her wrist.

“Simon Legree, take care!” said the woman, with a sharp flash of her
eye, a glance so wild and insane in its light as to be almost
appalling. “You’re afraid of me, Simon,” she said, deliberately; “and
you’ve reason to be! But be careful, for I’ve got the devil in me!”

The last words she whispered in a hissing tone, close to his ear.

“Get out! I believe, to my soul, you have!” said Legree, pushing her
from him, and looking uncomfortably at her. “After all, Cassy,” he
said, “why can’t you be friends with me, as you used to?”

“Used to!” said she, bitterly. She stopped short,—a word of choking
feelings, rising in her heart, kept her silent.

Cassy had always kept over Legree the kind of influence that a strong,
impassioned woman can ever keep over the most brutal man; but, of late,
she had grown more and more irritable and restless, under the hideous
yoke of her servitude, and her irritability, at times, broke out into
raving insanity; and this liability made her a sort of object of dread
to Legree, who had that superstitious horror of insane persons which is
common to coarse and uninstructed minds. When Legree brought Emmeline
to the house, all the smouldering embers of womanly feeling flashed up
in the worn heart of Cassy, and she took part with the girl; and a
fierce quarrel ensued between her and Legree. Legree, in a fury, swore
she should be put to field service, if she would not be peaceable.
Cassy, with proud scorn, declared she _would_ go to the field. And she
worked there one day, as we have described, to show how perfectly she
scorned the threat.

Legree was secretly uneasy, all day; for Cassy had an influence over
him from which he could not free himself. When she presented her basket
at the scales, he had hoped for some concession, and addressed her in a
sort of half conciliatory, half scornful tone; and she had answered
with the bitterest contempt.

The outrageous treatment of poor Tom had roused her still more; and she
had followed Legree to the house, with no particular intention, but to
upbraid him for his brutality.

“I wish, Cassy,” said Legree, “you’d behave yourself decently.”

“_You_ talk about behaving decently! And what have you been doing?—you,
who haven’t even sense enough to keep from spoiling one of your best
hands, right in the most pressing season, just for your devilish
temper!”

“I was a fool, it’s a fact, to let any such brangle come up,” said
Legree; “but, when the boy set up his will, he had to be broke in.”

“I reckon you won’t break _him_ in!”

“Won’t I?” said Legree, rising, passionately. “I’d like to know if I
won’t? He’ll be the first nigger that ever came it round me! I’ll break
every bone in his body, but he _shall_ give up!”

Just then the door opened, and Sambo entered. He came forward, bowing,
and holding out something in a paper.

“What’s that, you dog?” said Legree.

“It’s a witch thing, Mas’r!”

“A what?”

“Something that niggers gets from witches. Keeps ’em from feelin’ when
they ’s flogged. He had it tied round his neck, with a black string.”

Legree, like most godless and cruel men, was superstitious. He took the
paper, and opened it uneasily.

There dropped out of it a silver dollar, and a long, shining curl of
fair hair,—hair which, like a living thing, twined itself round
Legree’s fingers.

“Damnation!” he screamed, in sudden passion, stamping on the floor, and
pulling furiously at the hair, as if it burned him. “Where did this
come from? Take it off!—burn it up!—burn it up!” he screamed, tearing
it off, and throwing it into the charcoal. “What did you bring it to me
for?”

Sambo stood, with his heavy mouth wide open, and aghast with wonder;
and Cassy, who was preparing to leave the apartment, stopped, and
looked at him in perfect amazement.

“Don’t you bring me any more of your devilish things!” said he, shaking
his fist at Sambo, who retreated hastily towards the door; and, picking
up the silver dollar, he sent it smashing through the window-pane, out
into the darkness.

Sambo was glad to make his escape. When he was gone, Legree seemed a
little ashamed of his fit of alarm. He sat doggedly down in his chair,
and began sullenly sipping his tumbler of punch.

Cassy prepared herself for going out, unobserved by him; and slipped
away to minister to poor Tom, as we have already related.

And what was the matter with Legree? and what was there in a simple
curl of fair hair to appall that brutal man, familiar with every form
of cruelty? To answer this, we must carry the reader backward in his
history. Hard and reprobate as the godless man seemed now, there had
been a time when he had been rocked on the bosom of a mother,—cradled
with prayers and pious hymns,—his now seared brow bedewed with the
waters of holy baptism. In early childhood, a fair-haired woman had led
him, at the sound of Sabbath bell, to worship and to pray. Far in New
England that mother had trained her only son, with long, unwearied
love, and patient prayers. Born of a hard-tempered sire, on whom that
gentle woman had wasted a world of unvalued love, Legree had followed
in the steps of his father. Boisterous, unruly, and tyrannical, he
despised all her counsel, and would none of her reproof; and, at an
early age, broke from her, to seek his fortunes at sea. He never came
home but once, after; and then, his mother, with the yearning of a
heart that must love something, and has nothing else to love, clung to
him, and sought, with passionate prayers and entreaties, to win him
from a life of sin, to his soul’s eternal good.

That was Legree’s day of grace; then good angels called him; then he
was almost persuaded, and mercy held him by the hand. His heart inly
relented,—there was a conflict,—but sin got the victory, and he set all
the force of his rough nature against the conviction of his conscience.
He drank and swore,—was wilder and more brutal than ever. And, one
night, when his mother, in the last agony of her despair, knelt at his
feet, he spurned her from him,—threw her senseless on the floor, and,
with brutal curses, fled to his ship. The next Legree heard of his
mother was, when, one night, as he was carousing among drunken
companions, a letter was put into his hand. He opened it, and a lock of
long, curling hair fell from it, and twined about his fingers. The
letter told him his mother was dead, and that, dying, she blest and
forgave him.

There is a dread, unhallowed necromancy of evil, that turns things
sweetest and holiest to phantoms of horror and affright. That pale,
loving mother,—her dying prayers, her forgiving love,—wrought in that
demoniac heart of sin only as a damning sentence, bringing with it a
fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Legree burned
the hair, and burned the letter; and when he saw them hissing and
crackling in the flame, inly shuddered as he thought of everlasting
fires. He tried to drink, and revel, and swear away the memory; but
often, in the deep night, whose solemn stillness arraigns the bad soul
in forced communion with herself, he had seen that pale mother rising
by his bedside, and felt the soft twining of that hair around his
fingers, till the cold sweat would roll down his face, and he would
spring from his bed in horror. Ye who have wondered to hear, in the
same evangel, that God is love, and that God is a consuming fire, see
ye not how, to the soul resolved in evil, perfect love is the most
fearful torture, the seal and sentence of the direst despair?

“Blast it!” said Legree to himself, as he sipped his liquor; “where did
he get that? If it didn’t look just like—whoo! I thought I’d forgot
that. Curse me, if I think there’s any such thing as forgetting
anything, any how,—hang it! I’m lonesome! I mean to call Em. She hates
me—the monkey! I don’t care,—I’ll _make_ her come!”

Legree stepped out into a large entry, which went up stairs, by what
had formerly been a superb winding staircase; but the passage-way was
dirty and dreary, encumbered with boxes and unsightly litter. The
stairs, uncarpeted, seemed winding up, in the gloom, to nobody knew
where! The pale moonlight streamed through a shattered fanlight over
the door; the air was unwholesome and chilly, like that of a vault.

Legree stopped at the foot of the stairs, and heard a voice singing. It
seemed strange and ghostlike in that dreary old house, perhaps because
of the already tremulous state of his nerves. Hark! what is it?

A wild, pathetic voice, chants a hymn common among the slaves:

“O there’ll be mourning, mourning, mourning,
O there’ll be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ!”


“Blast the girl!” said Legree. “I’ll choke her.—Em! Em!” he called,
harshly; but only a mocking echo from the walls answered him. The sweet
voice still sung on:

“Parents and children there shall part!
Parents and children there shall part!
    Shall part to meet no more!”


And clear and loud swelled through the empty halls the refrain,

“O there’ll be mourning, mourning, mourning,
O there’ll be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ!”


Legree stopped. He would have been ashamed to tell of it, but large
drops of sweat stood on his forehead, his heart beat heavy and thick
with fear; he even thought he saw something white rising and glimmering
in the gloom before him, and shuddered to think what if the form of his
dead mother should suddenly appear to him.

“I know one thing,” he said to himself, as he stumbled back in the
sitting-room, and sat down; “I’ll let that fellow alone, after this!
What did I want of his cussed paper? I b’lieve I am bewitched, sure
enough! I’ve been shivering and sweating, ever since! Where did he get
that hair? It couldn’t have been _that!_ I burnt _that_ up, I know I
did! It would be a joke, if hair could rise from the dead!”

Ah, Legree! that golden tress _was_ charmed; each hair had in it a
spell of terror and remorse for thee, and was used by a mightier power
to bind thy cruel hands from inflicting uttermost evil on the helpless!

“I say,” said Legree, stamping and whistling to the dogs, “wake up,
some of you, and keep me company!” but the dogs only opened one eye at
him, sleepily, and closed it again.

“I’ll have Sambo and Quimbo up here, to sing and dance one of their
hell dances, and keep off these horrid notions,” said Legree; and,
putting on his hat, he went on to the verandah, and blew a horn, with
which he commonly summoned his two sable drivers.

Legree was often wont, when in a gracious humor, to get these two
worthies into his sitting-room, and, after warming them up with
whiskey, amuse himself by setting them to singing, dancing or fighting,
as the humor took him.

It was between one and two o’clock at night, as Cassy was returning
from her ministrations to poor Tom, that she heard the sound of wild
shrieking, whooping, halloing, and singing, from the sitting-room,
mingled with the barking of dogs, and other symptoms of general uproar.

She came up on the verandah steps, and looked in. Legree and both the
drivers, in a state of furious intoxication, were singing, whooping,
upsetting chairs, and making all manner of ludicrous and horrid
grimaces at each other.

She rested her small, slender hand on the window-blind, and looked
fixedly at them;—there was a world of anguish, scorn, and fierce
bitterness, in her black eyes, as she did so. “Would it be a sin to rid
the world of such a wretch?” she said to herself.

She turned hurriedly away, and, passing round to a back door, glided up
stairs, and tapped at Emmeline’s door.




CHAPTER XXXVI
Emmeline and Cassy


Cassy entered the room, and found Emmeline sitting, pale with fear, in
the furthest corner of it. As she came in, the girl started up
nervously; but, on seeing who it was, rushed forward, and catching her
arm, said, “O Cassy, is it you? I’m so glad you’ve come! I was afraid
it was—. O, you don’t know what a horrid noise there has been, down
stairs, all this evening!”

“I ought to know,” said Cassy, dryly. “I’ve heard it often enough.”

“O Cassy! do tell me,—couldn’t we get away from this place? I don’t
care where,—into the swamp among the snakes,—anywhere! _Couldn’t_ we
get _somewhere_ away from here?”

“Nowhere, but into our graves,” said Cassy.

“Did you ever try?”

“I’ve seen enough of trying and what comes of it,” said Cassy.

“I’d be willing to live in the swamps, and gnaw the bark from trees. I
an’t afraid of snakes! I’d rather have one near me than him,” said
Emmeline, eagerly.

“There have been a good many here of your opinion,” said Cassy; “but
you couldn’t stay in the swamps,—you’d be tracked by the dogs, and
brought back, and then—then—”

“What would he do?” said the girl, looking, with breathless interest,
into her face.

“What _wouldn’t_ he do, you’d better ask,” said Cassy. “He’s learned
his trade well, among the pirates in the West Indies. You wouldn’t
sleep much, if I should tell you things I’ve seen,—things that he tells
of, sometimes, for good jokes. I’ve heard screams here that I haven’t
been able to get out of my head for weeks and weeks. There’s a place
way out down by the quarters, where you can see a black, blasted tree,
and the ground all covered with black ashes. Ask anyone what was done
there, and see if they will dare to tell you.”

“O! what do you mean?”

“I won’t tell you. I hate to think of it. And I tell you, the Lord only
knows what we may see tomorrow, if that poor fellow holds out as he’s
begun.”

“Horrid!” said Emmeline, every drop of blood receding from her cheeks.
“O, Cassy, do tell me what I shall do!”

“What I’ve done. Do the best you can,—do what you must,—and make it up
in hating and cursing.”

“He wanted to make me drink some of his hateful brandy,” said Emmeline;
“and I hate it so—”

“You’d better drink,” said Cassy. “I hated it, too; and now I can’t
live without it. One must have something;—things don’t look so
dreadful, when you take that.”

“Mother used to tell me never to touch any such thing,” said Emmeline.

“_Mother_ told you!” said Cassy, with a thrilling and bitter emphasis
on the word mother. “What use is it for mothers to say anything? You
are all to be bought and paid for, and your souls belong to whoever
gets you. That’s the way it goes. I say, _drink_ brandy; drink all you
can, and it’ll make things come easier.”

“O, Cassy! do pity me!”

“Pity you!—don’t I? Haven’t I a daughter,—Lord knows where she is, and
whose she is, now,—going the way her mother went, before her, I
suppose, and that her children must go, after her! There’s no end to
the curse—forever!”

“I wish I’d never been born!” said Emmeline, wringing her hands.

“That’s an old wish with me,” said Cassy. “I’ve got used to wishing
that. I’d die, if I dared to,” she said, looking out into the darkness,
with that still, fixed despair which was the habitual expression of her
face when at rest.

“It would be wicked to kill one’s self,” said Emmeline.

“I don’t know why,—no wickeder than things we live and do, day after
day. But the sisters told me things, when I was in the convent, that
make me afraid to die. If it would only be the end of us, why, then—”

Emmeline turned away, and hid her face in her hands.

While this conversation was passing in the chamber, Legree, overcome
with his carouse, had sunk to sleep in the room below. Legree was not
an habitual drunkard. His coarse, strong nature craved, and could
endure, a continual stimulation, that would have utterly wrecked and
crazed a finer one. But a deep, underlying spirit of cautiousness
prevented his often yielding to appetite in such measure as to lose
control of himself.

This night, however, in his feverish efforts to banish from his mind
those fearful elements of woe and remorse which woke within him, he had
indulged more than common; so that, when he had discharged his sable
attendants, he fell heavily on a settle in the room, and was sound
asleep.

O! how dares the bad soul to enter the shadowy world of sleep?—that
land whose dim outlines lie so fearfully near to the mystic scene of
retribution! Legree dreamed. In his heavy and feverish sleep, a veiled
form stood beside him, and laid a cold, soft hand upon him. He thought
he knew who it was; and shuddered, with creeping horror, though the
face was veiled. Then he thought he felt _that hair_ twining round his
fingers; and then, that it slid smoothly round his neck, and tightened
and tightened, and he could not draw his breath; and then he thought
voices _whispered_ to him,—whispers that chilled him with horror. Then
it seemed to him he was on the edge of a frightful abyss, holding on
and struggling in mortal fear, while dark hands stretched up, and were
pulling him over; and Cassy came behind him laughing, and pushed him.
And then rose up that solemn veiled figure, and drew aside the veil. It
was his mother; and she turned away from him, and he fell down, down,
down, amid a confused noise of shrieks, and groans, and shouts of demon
laughter,—and Legree awoke.

Calmly the rosy hue of dawn was stealing into the room. The morning
star stood, with its solemn, holy eye of light, looking down on the man
of sin, from out the brightening sky. O, with what freshness, what
solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate
man, “Behold! thou hast one more chance! _Strive_ for immortal glory!”
There is no speech nor language where this voice is not heard; but the
bold, bad man heard it not. He woke with an oath and a curse. What to
him was the gold and purple, the daily miracle of morning! What to him
the sanctity of the star which the Son of God has hallowed as his own
emblem? Brute-like, he saw without perceiving; and, stumbling forward,
poured out a tumbler of brandy, and drank half of it.

“I’ve had a h—l of a night!” he said to Cassy, who just then entered
from an opposite door.

“You’ll get plenty of the same sort, by and by,” said she, dryly.

“What do you mean, you minx?”

“You’ll find out, one of these days,” returned Cassy, in the same tone.
“Now Simon, I’ve one piece of advice to give you.”

“The devil, you have!”

“My advice is,” said Cassy, steadily, as she began adjusting some
things about the room, “that you let Tom alone.”

“What business is ’t of yours?”

“What? To be sure, I don’t know what it should be. If you want to pay
twelve hundred for a fellow, and use him right up in the press of the
season, just to serve your own spite, it’s no business of mine, I’ve
done what I could for him.”

“You have? What business have you meddling in my matters?”

“None, to be sure. I’ve saved you some thousands of dollars, at
different times, by taking care of your hands,—that’s all the thanks I
get. If your crop comes shorter into market than any of theirs, you
won’t lose your bet, I suppose? Tompkins won’t lord it over you, I
suppose,—and you’ll pay down your money like a lady, won’t you? I think
I see you doing it!”

Legree, like many other planters, had but one form of ambition,—to have
in the heaviest crop of the season,—and he had several bets on this
very present season pending in the next town. Cassy, therefore, with
woman’s tact, touched the only string that could be made to vibrate.

“Well, I’ll let him off at what he’s got,” said Legree; “but he shall
beg my pardon, and promise better fashions.”

“That he won’t do,” said Cassy.

“Won’t,—eh?”

“No, he won’t,” said Cassy.

“I’d like to know _why_, Mistress,” said Legree, in the extreme of
scorn.

“Because he’s done right, and he knows it, and won’t say he’s done
wrong.”

“Who a cuss cares what he knows? The nigger shall say what I please,
or—”

“Or, you’ll lose your bet on the cotton crop, by keeping him out of the
field, just at this very press.”

“But he _will_ give up,—course, he will; don’t I know what niggers is?
He’ll beg like a dog, this morning.”

“He won’t, Simon; you don’t know this kind. You may kill him by
inches,—you won’t get the first word of confession out of him.”

“We’ll see,—where is he?” said Legree, going out.

“In the waste-room of the gin-house,” said Cassy.

Legree, though he talked so stoutly to Cassy, still sallied forth from
the house with a degree of misgiving which was not common with him. His
dreams of the past night, mingled with Cassy’s prudential suggestions,
considerably affected his mind. He resolved that nobody should be
witness of his encounter with Tom; and determined, if he could not
subdue him by bullying, to defer his vengeance, to be wreaked in a more
convenient season.

The solemn light of dawn—the angelic glory of the morning-star—had
looked in through the rude window of the shed where Tom was lying; and,
as if descending on that star-beam, came the solemn words, “I am the
root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” The
mysterious warnings and intimations of Cassy, so far from discouraging
his soul, in the end had roused it as with a heavenly call. He did not
know but that the day of his death was dawning in the sky; and his
heart throbbed with solemn throes of joy and desire, as he thought that
the wondrous _all_, of which he had often pondered,—the great white
throne, with its ever radiant rainbow; the white-robed multitude, with
voices as many waters; the crowns, the palms, the harps,—might all
break upon his vision before that sun should set again. And, therefore,
without shuddering or trembling, he heard the voice of his persecutor,
as he drew near.

“Well, my boy,” said Legree, with a contemptuous kick, “how do you find
yourself? Didn’t I tell yer I could larn yer a thing or two? How do yer
like it—eh? How did yer whaling agree with yer, Tom? An’t quite so
crank as ye was last night. Ye couldn’t treat a poor sinner, now, to a
bit of sermon, could ye,—eh?”

Tom answered nothing.

“Get up, you beast!” said Legree, kicking him again.

This was a difficult matter for one so bruised and faint; and, as Tom
made efforts to do so, Legree laughed brutally.

“What makes ye so spry, this morning, Tom? Cotched cold, may be, last
night.”

Tom by this time had gained his feet, and was confronting his master
with a steady, unmoved front.

“The devil, you can!” said Legree, looking him over. “I believe you
haven’t got enough yet. Now, Tom, get right down on yer knees and beg
my pardon, for yer shines last night.”

Tom did not move.

“Down, you dog!” said Legree, striking him with his riding-whip.

“Mas’r Legree,” said Tom, “I can’t do it. I did only what I thought was
right. I shall do just so again, if ever the time comes. I never will
do a cruel thing, come what may.”

“Yes, but ye don’t know what may come, Master Tom. Ye think what you’ve
got is something. I tell you ’tan’t anything,—nothing ’t all. How would
ye like to be tied to a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around
ye;—wouldn’t that be pleasant,—eh, Tom?”

“Mas’r,” said Tom, “I know ye can do dreadful things; but,”—he
stretched himself upward and clasped his hands,—“but, after ye’ve
killed the body, there an’t no more ye can do. And O, there’s all
ETERNITY to come, after that!”

ETERNITY,—the word thrilled through the black man’s soul with light and
power, as he spoke; it thrilled through the sinner’s soul, too, like
the bite of a scorpion. Legree gnashed on him with his teeth, but rage
kept him silent; and Tom, like a man disenthralled, spoke, in a clear
and cheerful voice,

“Mas’r Legree, as ye bought me, I’ll be a true and faithful servant to
ye. I’ll give ye all the work of my hands, all my time, all my
strength; but my soul I won’t give up to mortal man. I will hold on to
the Lord, and put his commands before all,—die or live; you may be sure
on ’t. Mas’r Legree, I ain’t a grain afeard to die. I’d as soon die as
not. Ye may whip me, starve me, burn me,—it’ll only send me sooner
where I want to go.”

“I’ll make ye give out, though, ’fore I’ve done!” said Legree, in a
rage.

“I shall have _help_,” said Tom; “you’ll never do it.”

“Who the devil’s going to help you?” said Legree, scornfully.

“The Lord Almighty,” said Tom.

“D—n you!” said Legree, as with one blow of his fist he felled Tom to
the earth.

A cold soft hand fell on Legree’s at this moment. He turned,—it was
Cassy’s; but the cold soft touch recalled his dream of the night
before, and, flashing through the chambers of his brain, came all the
fearful images of the night-watches, with a portion of the horror that
accompanied them.

“Will you be a fool?” said Cassy, in French. “Let him go! Let me alone
to get him fit to be in the field again. Isn’t it just as I told you?”

They say the alligator, the rhinoceros, though enclosed in bullet-proof
mail, have each a spot where they are vulnerable; and fierce, reckless,
unbelieving reprobates, have commonly this point in superstitious
dread.

Legree turned away, determined to let the point go for the time.

“Well, have it your own way,” he said, doggedly, to Cassy.

“Hark, ye!” he said to Tom; “I won’t deal with ye now, because the
business is pressing, and I want all my hands; but I _never_ forget.
I’ll score it against ye, and sometime I’ll have my pay out o’ yer old
black hide,—mind ye!”

Legree turned, and went out.

“There you go,” said Cassy, looking darkly after him; “your reckoning’s
to come, yet!—My poor fellow, how are you?”

“The Lord God hath sent his angel, and shut the lion’s mouth, for this
time,” said Tom.

“For this time, to be sure,” said Cassy; “but now you’ve got his ill
will upon you, to follow you day in, day out, hanging like a dog on
your throat,—sucking your blood, bleeding away your life, drop by drop.
I know the man.”




CHAPTER XXXVII
Liberty


“No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the
altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the
altar and the God sink together in the dust, and he stands redeemed,
regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal
emancipation.”—_Curran_.[1]


 [1] John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), Irish orator and judge who worked
 for Catholic emancipation.


A while we must leave Tom in the hands of his persecutors, while we
turn to pursue the fortunes of George and his wife, whom we left in
friendly hands, in a farmhouse on the road-side.

Tom Loker we left groaning and touzling in a most immaculately clean
Quaker bed, under the motherly supervision of Aunt Dorcas, who found
him to the full as tractable a patient as a sick bison.

Imagine a tall, dignified, spiritual woman, whose clear muslin cap
shades waves of silvery hair, parted on a broad, clear forehead, which
overarches thoughtful gray eyes. A snowy handkerchief of lisse crape is
folded neatly across her bosom; her glossy brown silk dress rustles
peacefully, as she glides up and down the chamber.

“The devil!” says Tom Loker, giving a great throw to the bedclothes.

“I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language,” says Aunt
Dorcas, as she quietly rearranged the bed.

“Well, I won’t, granny, if I can help it,” says Tom; “but it is enough
to make a fellow swear,—so cursedly hot!”

Dorcas removed a comforter from the bed, straightened the clothes
again, and tucked them in till Tom looked something like a chrysalis;
remarking, as she did so,

“I wish, friend, thee would leave off cursing and swearing, and think
upon thy ways.”

“What the devil,” said Tom, “should I think of _them_ for? Last thing
ever _I_ want to think of—hang it all!” And Tom flounced over,
untucking and disarranging everything, in a manner frightful to behold.

“That fellow and gal are here, I s’pose,” said he, sullenly, after a
pause.

“They are so,” said Dorcas.

“They’d better be off up to the lake,” said Tom; “the quicker the
better.”

“Probably they will do so,” said Aunt Dorcas, knitting peacefully.

“And hark ye,” said Tom; “we’ve got correspondents in Sandusky, that
watch the boats for us. I don’t care if I tell, now. I hope they _will_
get away, just to spite Marks,—the cursed puppy!—d—n him!”

“Thomas!” said Dorcas.

“I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight, I shall
split,” said Tom. “But about the gal,—tell ’em to dress her up some
way, so’s to alter her. Her description’s out in Sandusky.”

“We will attend to that matter,” said Dorcas, with characteristic
composure.

As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as well say, that,
having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, sick with a rheumatic
fever, which set in, in company with his other afflictions, Tom arose
from his bed a somewhat sadder and wiser man; and, in place of
slave-catching, betook himself to life in one of the new settlements,
where his talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears,
wolves, and other inhabitants of the forest, in which he made himself
quite a name in the land. Tom always spoke reverently of the Quakers.
“Nice people,” he would say; “wanted to convert me, but couldn’t come
it, exactly. But, tell ye what, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow
first rate,—no mistake. Make jist the tallest kind o’ broth and
knicknacks.”

As Tom had informed them that their party would be looked for in
Sandusky, it was thought prudent to divide them. Jim, with his old
mother, was forwarded separately; and a night or two after, George and
Eliza, with their child, were driven privately into Sandusky, and
lodged beneath a hospital roof, preparatory to taking their last
passage on the lake.

Their night was now far spent, and the morning star of liberty rose
fair before them!—electric word! What is it? Is there anything more in
it than a name—a rhetorical flourish? Why, men and women of America,
does your heart’s blood thrill at that word, for which your fathers
bled, and your braver mothers were willing that their noblest and best
should die?

Is there anything in it glorious and dear for a nation, that is not
also glorious and dear for a man? What is freedom to a nation, but
freedom to the individuals in it? What is freedom to that young man,
who sits there, with his arms folded over his broad chest, the tint of
African blood in his cheek, its dark fires in his eyes,—what is freedom
to George Harris? To your fathers, freedom was the right of a nation to
be a nation. To him, it is the right of a man to be a man, and not a
brute; the right to call the wife of his bosom his wife, and to protect
her from lawless violence; the right to protect and educate his child;
the right to have a home of his own, a religion of his own, a character
of his own, unsubject to the will of another. All these thoughts were
rolling and seething in George’s breast, as he was pensively leaning
his head on his hand, watching his wife, as she was adapting to her
slender and pretty form the articles of man’s attire, in which it was
deemed safest she should make her escape.

“Now for it,” said she, as she stood before the glass, and shook down
her silky abundance of black curly hair. “I say, George, it’s almost a
pity, isn’t it,” she said, as she held up some of it, playfully,—“pity
it’s all got to come off?”

George smiled sadly, and made no answer.

Eliza turned to the glass, and the scissors glittered as one long lock
after another was detached from her head.

“There, now, that’ll do,” she said, taking up a hair-brush; “now for a
few fancy touches.”

“There, an’t I a pretty young fellow?” she said, turning around to her
husband, laughing and blushing at the same time.

“You always will be pretty, do what you will,” said George.

“What does make you so sober?” said Eliza, kneeling on one knee, and
laying her hand on his. “We are only within twenty-four hours of
Canada, they say. Only a day and a night on the lake, and then—oh,
then!—”

“O, Eliza!” said George, drawing her towards him; “that is it! Now my
fate is all narrowing down to a point. To come so near, to be almost in
sight, and then lose all. I should never live under it, Eliza.”

“Don’t fear,” said his wife, hopefully. “The good Lord would not have
brought us so far, if he didn’t mean to carry us through. I seem to
feel him with us, George.”

“You are a blessed woman, Eliza!” said George, clasping her with a
convulsive grasp. “But,—oh, tell me! can this great mercy be for us?
Will these years and years of misery come to an end?—shall we be free?

“I am sure of it, George,” said Eliza, looking upward, while tears of
hope and enthusiasm shone on her long, dark lashes. “I feel it in me,
that God is going to bring us out of bondage, this very day.”

“I will believe you, Eliza,” said George, rising suddenly up, “I will
believe,—come let’s be off. Well, indeed,” said he, holding her off at
arm’s length, and looking admiringly at her, “you _are_ a pretty little
fellow. That crop of little, short curls, is quite becoming. Put on
your cap. So—a little to one side. I never saw you look quite so
pretty. But, it’s almost time for the carriage;—I wonder if Mrs. Smyth
has got Harry rigged?”

The door opened, and a respectable, middle-aged woman entered, leading
little Harry, dressed in girl’s clothes.

“What a pretty girl he makes,” said Eliza, turning him round. “We call
him Harriet, you see;—don’t the name come nicely?”

The child stood gravely regarding his mother in her new and strange
attire, observing a profound silence, and occasionally drawing deep
sighs, and peeping at her from under his dark curls.

“Does Harry know mamma?” said Eliza, stretching her hands toward him.

The child clung shyly to the woman.

“Come Eliza, why do you try to coax him, when you know that he has got
to be kept away from you?”

“I know it’s foolish,” said Eliza; “yet, I can’t bear to have him turn
away from me. But come,—where’s my cloak? Here,—how is it men put on
cloaks, George?”

“You must wear it so,” said her husband, throwing it over his
shoulders.

“So, then,” said Eliza, imitating the motion,—“and I must stamp, and
take long steps, and try to look saucy.”

“Don’t exert yourself,” said George. “There is, now and then, a modest
young man; and I think it would be easier for you to act that
character.”

“And these gloves! mercy upon us!” said Eliza; “why, my hands are lost
in them.”

“I advise you to keep them on pretty strictly,” said George. “Your
slender paw might bring us all out. Now, Mrs. Smyth, you are to go
under our charge, and be our aunty,—you mind.”

“I’ve heard,” said Mrs. Smyth, “that there have been men down, warning
all the packet captains against a man and woman, with a little boy.”

“They have!” said George. “Well, if we see any such people, we can tell
them.”

A hack now drove to the door, and the friendly family who had received
the fugitives crowded around them with farewell greetings.

The disguises the party had assumed were in accordance with the hints
of Tom Loker. Mrs. Smyth, a respectable woman from the settlement in
Canada, whither they were fleeing, being fortunately about crossing the
lake to return thither, had consented to appear as the aunt of little
Harry; and, in order to attach him to her, he had been allowed to
remain, the two last days, under her sole charge; and an extra amount
of petting, jointed to an indefinite amount of seed-cakes and candy,
had cemented a very close attachment on the part of the young
gentleman.

The hack drove to the wharf. The two young men, as they appeared,
walked up the plank into the boat, Eliza gallantly giving her arm to
Mrs. Smyth, and George attending to their baggage.

George was standing at the captain’s office, settling for his party,
when he overheard two men talking by his side.

“I’ve watched every one that came on board,” said one, “and I know
they’re not on this boat.”

The voice was that of the clerk of the boat. The speaker whom he
addressed was our sometime friend Marks, who, with that valuable
perseverance which characterized him, had come on to Sandusky, seeking
whom he might devour.

“You would scarcely know the woman from a white one,” said Marks. “The
man is a very light mulatto; he has a brand in one of his hands.”

The hand with which George was taking the tickets and change trembled a
little; but he turned coolly around, fixed an unconcerned glance on the
face of the speaker, and walked leisurely toward another part of the
boat, where Eliza stood waiting for him.

Mrs. Smyth, with little Harry, sought the seclusion of the ladies’
cabin, where the dark beauty of the supposed little girl drew many
flattering comments from the passengers.

George had the satisfaction, as the bell rang out its farewell peal, to
see Marks walk down the plank to the shore; and drew a long sigh of
relief, when the boat had put a returnless distance between them.

It was a superb day. The blue waves of Lake Erie danced, rippling and
sparkling, in the sun-light. A fresh breeze blew from the shore, and
the lordly boat ploughed her way right gallantly onward.

O, what an untold world there is in one human heart! Who thought, as
George walked calmly up and down the deck of the steamer, with his shy
companion at his side, of all that was burning in his bosom? The mighty
good that seemed approaching seemed too good, too fair, even to be a
reality; and he felt a jealous dread, every moment of the day, that
something would rise to snatch it from him.

But the boat swept on. Hours fleeted, and, at last, clear and full rose
the blessed English shores; shores charmed by a mighty spell,—with one
touch to dissolve every incantation of slavery, no matter in what
language pronounced, or by what national power confirmed.


[Illustration: THE FUGITIVES ARE SAVE IN A FREE LAND.]


George and his wife stood arm in arm, as the boat neared the small town
of Amherstberg, in Canada. His breath grew thick and short; a mist
gathered before his eyes; he silently pressed the little hand that lay
trembling on his arm. The bell rang; the boat stopped. Scarcely seeing
what he did, he looked out his baggage, and gathered his little party.
The little company were landed on the shore. They stood still till the
boat had cleared; and then, with tears and embracings, the husband and
wife, with their wondering child in their arms, knelt down and lifted
up their hearts to God!

“’T was something like the burst from death to life;
    From the grave’s cerements to the robes of heaven;
From sin’s dominion, and from passion’s strife,
    To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven;
    Where all the bonds of death and hell are riven,
And mortal puts on immortality,
When Mercy’s hand hath turned the golden key,
And Mercy’s voice hath said, _Rejoice, thy soul is free.”_


The little party were soon guided, by Mrs. Smyth, to the hospitable
abode of a good missionary, whom Christian charity has placed here as a
shepherd to the outcast and wandering, who are constantly finding an
asylum on this shore.

Who can speak the blessedness of that first day of freedom? Is not the
_sense_ of liberty a higher and a finer one than any of the five? To
move, speak and breathe,—go out and come in unwatched, and free from
danger! Who can speak the blessings of that rest which comes down on
the free man’s pillow, under laws which insure to him the rights that
God has given to man? How fair and precious to that mother was that
sleeping child’s face, endeared by the memory of a thousand dangers!
How impossible was it to sleep, in the exuberant possession of such
blessedness! And yet, these two had not one acre of ground,—not a roof
that they could call their own,—they had spent their all, to the last
dollar. They had nothing more than the birds of the air, or the flowers
of the field,—yet they could not sleep for joy. “O, ye who take freedom
from man, with what words shall ye answer it to God?”




CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Victory


“Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory.”[1]


 [1] I Cor. 15:57.


Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how
far easier it were to die than to live?

The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror,
finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic.
There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry
through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory
and rest.

But to live,—to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing
servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling
gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow,
daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after
hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or
woman.

When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and heard his threats,
and thought in his very soul that his hour was come, his heart swelled
bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bear
anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond;
but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back
the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,—came back the sense of his
utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily
enough.

Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be
put to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain and
weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that the
ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in _our_
circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations
which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes
with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his
associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the
habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads
of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his
Bible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height of
the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through,
Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn’t he?—he made more cotton by
it, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could
buy better ones. At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his
Bible, by the flicker of the fire, after he had returned from his daily
toil; but, after the cruel treatment he received, he used to come home
so exhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to
read; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in
utter exhaustion.

Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne him
hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness?
The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his
eyes,—souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was
weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness and
sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia’s letter to his Kentucky friends,
and would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then
he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody
sent to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his
soul bitter thoughts,—that it was vain to serve God, that God had
forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to
the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held
very little communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him
to commune with anybody.

One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a
few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a few
bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then
drew his worn Bible from his pocket. There were all the marked
passages, which had thrilled his soul so often,—words of patriarchs and
seers, poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to
man,—voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in
the race of life. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye
and weary sense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty
inspiration? Heavily sighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh
roused him; he looked up,—Legree was standing opposite to him.

“Well, old boy,” he said, “you find your religion don’t work, it seems!
I thought I should get that through your wool, at last!”

The cruel taunt was more than hunger and cold and nakedness. Tom was
silent.

“You were a fool,” said Legree; “for I meant to do well by you, when I
bought you. You might have been better off than Sambo, or Quimbo
either, and had easy times; and, instead of getting cut up and
thrashed, every day or two, ye might have had liberty to lord it round,
and cut up the other niggers; and ye might have had, now and then, a
good warming of whiskey punch. Come, Tom, don’t you think you’d better
be reasonable?—heave that ar old pack of trash in the fire, and join my
church!”

“The Lord forbid!” said Tom, fervently.

“You see the Lord an’t going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn’t
have let _me_ get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lying
trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye’d better hold to me; I’m
somebody, and can do something!”

“No, Mas’r,” said Tom; “I’ll hold on. The Lord may help me, or not
help; but I’ll hold to him, and believe him to the last!”

“The more fool you!” said Legree, spitting scornfully at him, and
spurning him with his foot. “Never mind; I’ll chase you down, yet, and
bring you under,—you’ll see!” and Legree turned away.

When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which
endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of
every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the
heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So
was it now with Tom. The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his
before dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith
still held to the eternal rock, it was a numb, despairing grasp. Tom
sat, like one stunned, at the fire. Suddenly everything around him
seemed to fade, and a vision rose before him of one crowned with
thorns, buffeted and bleeding. Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the
majestic patience of the face; the deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to
his inmost heart; his soul woke, as, with floods of emotion, he
stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees,—when, gradually, the
vision changed: the sharp thorns became rays of glory; and, in splendor
inconceivable, he saw that same face bending compassionately towards
him, and a voice said, “He that overcometh shall sit down with me on my
throne, even as I also overcome, and am set down with my Father on his
throne.”

How long Tom lay there, he knew not. When he came to himself, the fire
was gone out, his clothes were wet with the chill and drenching dews;
but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the joy that filled him, he
no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness.
From his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope
in life that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning
sacrifice to the Infinite. Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living
stars,—types of the angelic hosts who ever look down on man; and the
solitude of the night rung with the triumphant words of a hymn, which
he had sung often in happier days, but never with such feeling as now:

“The earth shall be dissolved like snow,
    The sun shall cease to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
    Shall be forever mine.

“And when this mortal life shall fail,
    And flesh and sense shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil
    A life of joy and peace.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
    Bright shining like the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
    Than when we first begun.”


Those who have been familiar with the religious histories of the slave
population know that relations like what we have narrated are very
common among them. We have heard some from their own lips, of a very
touching and affecting character. The psychologist tells us of a state,
in which the affections and images of the mind become so dominant and
overpowering, that they press into their service the outward imagining.
Who shall measure what an all-pervading Spirit may do with these
capabilities of our mortality, or the ways in which He may encourage
the desponding souls of the desolate? If the poor forgotten slave
believes that Jesus hath appeared and spoken to him, who shall
contradict him? Did He not say that his mission, in all ages, was to
bind up the broken-hearted, and set at liberty them that are bruised?

When the dim gray of dawn woke the slumberers to go forth to the field,
there was among those tattered and shivering wretches one who walked
with an exultant tread; for firmer than the ground he trod on was his
strong faith in Almighty, eternal love. Ah, Legree, try all your forces
now! Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of all things,
shall only hasten on the process by which he shall be made a king and a
priest unto God!

From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed the lowly
heart of the oppressed one,—an ever-present Saviour hallowed it as a
temple. Past now the bleeding of earthly regrets; past its fluctuations
of hope, and fear, and desire; the human will, bent, and bleeding, and
struggling long, was now entirely merged in the Divine. So short now
seemed the remaining voyage of life,—so near, so vivid, seemed eternal
blessedness,—that life’s uttermost woes fell from him unharming.

All noticed the change in his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness
seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury
could ruffle seemed to possess him.

“What the devil’s got into Tom?” Legree said to Sambo. “A while ago he
was all down in the mouth, and now he’s peart as a cricket.”

“Dunno, Mas’r; gwine to run off, mebbe.”

“Like to see him try that,” said Legree, with a savage grin, “wouldn’t
we, Sambo?”

“Guess we would! Haw! haw! ho!” said the sooty gnome, laughing
obsequiously. “Lord, de fun! To see him stickin’ in de mud,—chasin’ and
tarin’ through de bushes, dogs a holdin’ on to him! Lord, I laughed fit
to split, dat ar time we cotched Molly. I thought they’d a had her all
stripped up afore I could get ’em off. She car’s de marks o’ dat ar
spree yet.”

“I reckon she will, to her grave,” said Legree. “But now, Sambo, you
look sharp. If the nigger’s got anything of this sort going, trip him
up.”

“Mas’r, let me lone for dat,” said Sambo, “I’ll tree de coon. Ho, ho,
ho!”

This was spoken as Legree was getting on his horse, to go to the
neighboring town. That night, as he was returning, he thought he would
turn his horse and ride round the quarters, and see if all was safe.

It was a superb moonlight night, and the shadows of the graceful China
trees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below, and there was that
transparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy to
disturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heard
the voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and he
paused to listen. A musical tenor voice sang,

“When I can read my title clear
    To mansions in the skies,
I’ll bid farewell to every fear,
    And wipe my weeping eyes

“Should earth against my soul engage,
    And hellish darts be hurled,
Then I can smile at Satan’s rage,
    And face a frowning world.

“Let cares like a wild deluge come,
    And storms of sorrow fall,
May I but safely reach my home,
    My God, my Heaven, my All.”[2]


 [2] “On My Journey Home,” hymn by Isaac Watts, found in many of the
 southern country songbooks of the ante bellum period.


“So ho!” said Legree to himself, “he thinks so, does he? How I hate
these cursed Methodist hymns! Here, you nigger,” said he, coming
suddenly out upon Tom, and raising his riding-whip, “how dare you be
gettin’ up this yer row, when you ought to be in bed? Shut yer old
black gash, and get along in with you!”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Tom, with ready cheerfulness, as he rose to go in.

Legree was provoked beyond measure by Tom’s evident happiness; and
riding up to him, belabored him over his head and shoulders.

“There, you dog,” he said, “see if you’ll feel so comfortable, after
that!”

But the blows fell now only on the outer man, and not, as before, on
the heart. Tom stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not
hide from himself that his power over his bond thrall was somehow gone.
And, as Tom disappeared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenly
round, there passed through his mind one of those vivid flashes that
often send the lightning of conscience across the dark and wicked soul.
He understood full well that it was GOD who was standing between him
and his victim, and he blasphemed him. That submissive and silent man,
whom taunts, nor threats, nor stripes, nor cruelties, could disturb,
roused a voice within him, such as of old his Master roused in the
demoniac soul, saying, “What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
Nazareth?—art thou come to torment us before the time?”

Tom’s whole soul overflowed with compassion and sympathy for the poor
wretches by whom he was surrounded. To him it seemed as if his
life-sorrows were now over, and as if, out of that strange treasury of
peace and joy, with which he had been endowed from above, he longed to
pour out something for the relief of their woes. It is true,
opportunities were scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and back
again, and during the hours of labor, chances fell in his way of
extending a helping-hand to the weary, the disheartened and
discouraged. The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could
scarce comprehend this; but, when it was continued week after week, and
month after month, it began to awaken long-silent chords in their
benumbed hearts. Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, silent,
patient man, who was ready to bear every one’s burden, and sought help
from none,—who stood aside for all, and came last, and took least, yet
was foremost to share his little all with any who needed,—the man who,
in cold nights, would give up his tattered blanket to add to the
comfort of some woman who shivered with sickness, and who filled the
baskets of the weaker ones in the field, at the terrible risk of coming
short in his own measure,—and who, though pursued with unrelenting
cruelty by their common tyrant, never joined in uttering a word of
reviling or cursing,—this man, at last, began to have a strange power
over them; and, when the more pressing season was past, and they were
allowed again their Sundays for their own use, many would gather
together to hear from him of Jesus. They would gladly have met to hear,
and pray, and sing, in some place, together; but Legree would not
permit it, and more than once broke up such attempts, with oaths and
brutal execrations,—so that the blessed news had to circulate from
individual to individual. Yet who can speak the simple joy with which
some of those poor outcasts, to whom life was a joyless journey to a
dark unknown, heard of a compassionate Redeemer and a heavenly home? It
is the statement of missionaries, that, of all races of the earth, none
have received the Gospel with such eager docility as the African. The
principle of reliance and unquestioning faith, which is its foundation,
is more a native element in this race than any other; and it has often
been found among them, that a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze
of accident into hearts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit,
whose abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful culture.

The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been well-nigh crushed
and overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which had fallen
upon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and passages of Holy
Writ, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in intervals,
as they were going to and returning from work; and even the half-crazed
and wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and
unobtrusive influences.

Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life, Cassy
had often resolved in her soul an hour of retribution, when her hand
should avenge on her oppressor all the injustice and cruelty to which
she had been witness, or which _she_ had in her own person suffered.

One night, after all in Tom’s cabin were sunk in sleep, he was suddenly
aroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served
for a window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out.

Tom came out the door. It was between one and two o’clock at
night,—broad, calm, still moonlight. Tom remarked, as the light of the
moon fell upon Cassy’s large, black eyes, that there was a wild and
peculiar glare in them, unlike their wonted fixed despair.

“Come here, Father Tom,” she said, laying her small hand on his wrist,
and drawing him forward with a force as if the hand were of steel;
“come here,—I’ve news for you.”

“What, Misse Cassy?” said Tom, anxiously.

“Tom, wouldn’t you like your liberty?”

“I shall have it, Misse, in God’s time,” said Tom. “Ay, but you may
have it tonight,” said Cassy, with a flash of sudden energy. “Come on.”

Tom hesitated.

“Come!” said she, in a whisper, fixing her black eyes on him. “Come
along! He’s asleep—sound. I put enough into his brandy to keep him so.
I wish I’d had more,—I shouldn’t have wanted you. But come, the back
door is unlocked; there’s an axe there, I put it there,—his room door
is open; I’ll show you the way. I’d a done it myself, only my arms are
so weak. Come along!”

“Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!” said Tom, firmly, stopping and
holding her back, as she was pressing forward.

“But think of all these poor creatures,” said Cassy. “We might set them
all free, and go somewhere in the swamps, and find an island, and live
by ourselves; I’ve heard of its being done. Any life is better than
this.”

“No!” said Tom, firmly. “No! good never comes of wickedness. I’d sooner
chop my right hand off!”

“Then _I_ shall do it,” said Cassy, turning.

“O, Misse Cassy!” said Tom, throwing himself before her, “for the dear
Lord’s sake that died for ye, don’t sell your precious soul to the
devil, that way! Nothing but evil will come of it. The Lord hasn’t
called us to wrath. We must suffer, and wait his time.”

“Wait!” said Cassy. “Haven’t I waited?—waited till my head is dizzy and
my heart sick? What has he made me suffer? What has he made hundreds of
poor creatures suffer? Isn’t he wringing the life-blood out of you? I’m
called on; they call me! His time’s come, and I’ll have his heart’s
blood!”

“No, no, no!” said Tom, holding her small hands, which were clenched
with spasmodic violence. “No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn’t do.
The dear, blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he
poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow his
steps, and love our enemies.”

“Love!” said Cassy, with a fierce glare; “love _such_ enemies! It isn’t
in flesh and blood.”

“No, Misse, it isn’t,” said Tom, looking up; “but _He_ gives it to us,
and that’s the victory. When we can love and pray over all and through
all, the battle’s past, and the victory’s come,—glory be to God!” And,
with streaming eyes and choking voice, the black man looked up to
heaven.

And this, oh Africa! latest called of nations,—called to the crown of
thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony,—this is to
be _thy_ victory; by this shalt thou reign with Christ when his kingdom
shall come on earth.

The deep fervor of Tom’s feelings, the softness of his voice, his
tears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of the poor woman. A
softness gathered over the lurid fires of her eye; she looked down, and
Tom could feel the relaxing muscles of her hands, as she said,

“Didn’t I tell you that evil spirits followed me? O! Father Tom, I
can’t pray,—I wish I could. I never have prayed since my children were
sold! What you say must be right, I know it must; but when I try to
pray, I can only hate and curse. I can’t pray!”

“Poor soul!” said Tom, compassionately. “Satan desires to have ye, and
sift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. O! Misse Cassy, turn to the
dear Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all
that mourn.”

Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from her downcast
eyes.

“Misse Cassy,” said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after surveying her in
silence, “if ye only could get away from here,—if the thing was
possible,—I’d ’vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that is, if ye could go
without blood-guiltiness,—not otherwise.”

“Would you try it with us, Father Tom?”

“No,” said Tom; “time was when I would; but the Lord’s given me a work
among these yer poor souls, and I’ll stay with ’em and bear my cross
with ’em till the end. It’s different with you; it’s a snare to
you,—it’s more’n you can stand,—and you’d better go, if you can.”

“I know no way but through the grave,” said Cassy. “There’s no beast or
bird but can find a home some where; even the snakes and the alligators
have their places to lie down and be quiet; but there’s no place for
us. Down in the darkest swamps, their dogs will hunt us out, and find
us. Everybody and everything is against us; even the very beasts side
against us,—and where shall we go?”

Tom stood silent; at length he said,

“Him that saved Daniel in the den of lions,—that saved the children in
the fiery furnace,—Him that walked on the sea, and bade the winds be
still,—He’s alive yet; and I’ve faith to believe he can deliver you.
Try it, and I’ll pray, with all my might, for you.”

By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and
trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new
light, as a discovered diamond?

Cassy had often revolved, for hours, all possible or probable schemes
of escape, and dismissed them all, as hopeless and impracticable; but
at this moment there flashed through her mind a plan, so simple and
feasible in all its details, as to awaken an instant hope.

“Father Tom, I’ll try it!” she said, suddenly.

“Amen!” said Tom; “the Lord help ye!”




CHAPTER XXXIX
The Stratagem


“The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he
stumbleth.”[1]


 [1] Prov. 4:19.


The garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most other garrets,
was a great, desolate space, dusty, hung with cobwebs, and littered
with cast-off lumber. The opulent family that had inhabited the house
in the days of its splendor had imported a great deal of splendid
furniture, some of which they had taken away with them, while some
remained standing desolate in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, or stored
away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in which this
furniture was brought, stood against the sides of the garret. There was
a small window there, which let in, through its dingy, dusty panes, a
scanty, uncertain light on the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty
tables, that had once seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and
ghostly place; but, ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among
the superstitious negroes, to increase its terrors. Some few years
before, a negro woman, who had incurred Legree’s displeasure, was
confined there for several weeks. What passed there, we do not say; the
negroes used to whisper darkly to each other; but it was known that the
body of the unfortunate creature was one day taken down from there, and
buried; and, after that, it was said that oaths and cursings, and the
sound of violent blows, used to ring through that old garret, and
mingled with wailings and groans of despair. Once, when Legree chanced
to overhear something of this kind, he flew into a violent passion, and
swore that the next one that told stories about that garret should have
an opportunity of knowing what was there, for he would chain them up
there for a week. This hint was enough to repress talking, though, of
course, it did not disturb the credit of the story in the least.

Gradually, the staircase that led to the garret, and even the
passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one in the house,
from every one fearing to speak of it, and the legend was gradually
falling into desuetude. It had suddenly occurred to Cassy to make use
of the superstitious excitability, which was so great in Legree, for
the purpose of her liberation, and that of her fellow-sufferer.

The sleeping-room of Cassy was directly under the garret. One day,
without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it upon her, with some
considerable ostentation, to change all the furniture and appurtenances
of the room to one at some considerable distance. The under-servants,
who were called on to effect this movement, were running and bustling
about with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned from a ride.

“Hallo! you Cass!” said Legree, “what’s in the wind now?”

“Nothing; only I choose to have another room,” said Cassy, doggedly.

“And what for, pray?” said Legree.

“I choose to,” said Cassy.

“The devil you do! and what for?”

“I’d like to get some sleep, now and then.”

“Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?”

“I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear,” said Cassy, dryly.

“Speak out, you minx!” said Legree.

“O! nothing. I suppose it wouldn’t disturb _you!_ Only groans, and
people scuffing, and rolling round on the garret floor, half the night,
from twelve to morning!”

“People up garret!” said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; “who
are they, Cassy?”

Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of Legree,
with an expression that went through his bones, as she said, “To be
sure, Simon, who are they? I’d like to have _you_ tell me. You don’t
know, I suppose!”

With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip; but she glided
to one side, and passed through the door, and looking back, said, “If
you’ll sleep in that room, you’ll know all about it. Perhaps you’d
better try it!” and then immediately she shut and locked the door.

Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door; but
apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the
sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home; and, from
that hour, with the most exquisite address, she never ceased to
continue the train of influences she had begun.

In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the
neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least
wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it,
which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect shriek, such as to
credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror
and despair.

These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants, and
revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend. A
superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and though no
one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself encompassed by it,
as by an atmosphere.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. The Christian
is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence
fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has
dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew
poet, “a land of darkness and the shadow of death,” without any order,
where the light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted
grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.

Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused by his
encounters with Tom,—roused, only to be resisted by the determinate
force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion of the dark,
inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted
in superstitious dread.

The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He
was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew, wholly,
and without any possibility of help or redress, in his hands; and yet
so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live in constant association
with a strong female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it.
When he first bought her, she was, as she said, a woman delicately
bred; and then he crushed her, without scruple, beneath the foot of his
brutality. But, as time, and debasing influences, and despair, hardened
womanhood within her, and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had
become in a measure his mistress, and he alternately tyrannized over
and dreaded her.

This influence had become more harassing and decided, since partial
insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled cast to all her words
and language.

A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old sitting-room,
by the side of a flickering wood fire, that threw uncertain glances
round the room. It was a stormy, windy night, such as raises whole
squadrons of nondescript noises in rickety old houses. Windows were
rattling, shutters flapping, and wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling
down the chimney, and, every once in a while, puffing out smoke and
ashes, as if a legion of spirits were coming after them. Legree had
been casting up accounts and reading newspapers for some hours, while
Cassy sat in the corner; sullenly looking into the fire. Legree laid
down his paper, and seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had
noticed Cassy reading, the first part of the evening, took it up, and
began to turn it over. It was one of those collections of stories of
bloody murders, ghostly legends, and supernatural visitations, which,
coarsely got up and illustrated, have a strange fascination for one who
once begins to read them.

Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after page, till,
finally, after reading some way, he threw down the book, with an oath.

“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?” said he, taking the tongs
and settling the fire. “I thought you’d more sense than to let noises
scare _you_.”

“No matter what I believe,” said Cassy, sullenly.

“Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at sea,” said
Legree. “Never come it round me that way. I’m too tough for any such
trash, tell ye.”

Cassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the corner. There
was that strange light in her eyes that always impressed Legree with
uneasiness.

“Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind,” said Legree. “Rats
will make a devil of a noise. I used to hear ’em sometimes down in the
hold of the ship; and wind,—Lord’s sake! ye can make anything out o’
wind.”

Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and, therefore, she made
no answer, but sat fixing them on him, with that strange, unearthly
expression, as before.

“Come, speak out, woman,—don’t you think so?” said Legree.

“Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through the entry, and
open a door when you’ve locked it and set a chair against it?” said
Cassy; “and come walk, walk, walking right up to your bed, and put out
their hand, so?”

Cassy kept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree, as she spoke, and he
stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till, when she finished by
laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he sprung back, with an oath.

“Woman! what do you mean? Nobody did?”

“O, no,—of course not,—did I say they did?” said Cassy, with a smile of
chilling derision.

“But—did—have you really seen?—Come, Cass, what is it, now,—speak out!”

“You may sleep there, yourself,” said Cassy, “if you want to know.”

“Did it come from the garret, Cassy?”

“_It_,—what?” said Cassy.

“Why, what you told of—”

“I didn’t tell you anything,” said Cassy, with dogged sullenness.

Legree walked up and down the room, uneasily.

“I’ll have this yer thing examined. I’ll look into it, this very night.
I’ll take my pistols—”

“Do,” said Cassy; “sleep in that room. I’d like to see you doing it.
Fire your pistols,—do!”

Legree stamped his foot, and swore violently.

“Don’t swear,” said Cassy; “nobody knows who may be hearing you. Hark!
What was that?”

“What?” said Legree, starting.

A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the room, began,
and slowly struck twelve.

For some reason or other, Legree neither spoke nor moved; a vague
horror fell on him; while Cassy, with a keen, sneering glitter in her
eyes, stood looking at him, counting the strokes.

“Twelve o’clock; well _now_ we’ll see,” said she, turning, and opening
the door into the passage-way, and standing as if listening.

“Hark! What’s that?” said she, raising her finger.

“It’s only the wind,” said Legree. “Don’t you hear how cursedly it
blows?”

“Simon, come here,” said Cassy, in a whisper, laying her hand on his,
and leading him to the foot of the stairs: “do you know what _that_ is?
Hark!”

A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came from the garret.
Legree’s knees knocked together; his face grew white with fear.

“Hadn’t you better get your pistols?” said Cassy, with a sneer that
froze Legree’s blood. “It’s time this thing was looked into, you know.
I’d like to have you go up now; _they’re at it_.”

“I won’t go!” said Legree, with an oath.

“Why not? There an’t any such thing as ghosts, you know! Come!” and
Cassy flitted up the winding stairway, laughing, and looking back after
him. “Come on.”

“I believe you _are_ the devil!” said Legree. “Come back you hag,—come
back, Cass! You shan’t go!”

But Cassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her open the entry
doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of wind swept down,
extinguishing the candle he held in his hand, and with it the fearful,
unearthly screams; they seemed to be shrieked in his very ear.

Legree fled frantically into the parlor, whither, in a few moments, he
was followed by Cassy, pale, calm, cold as an avenging spirit, and with
that same fearful light in her eye.

“I hope you are satisfied,” said she.

“Blast you, Cass!” said Legree.

“What for?” said Cassy. “I only went up and shut the doors. _What’s the
matter with that garret_, Simon, do you suppose?” said she.

“None of your business!” said Legree.

“O, it an’t? Well,” said Cassy, “at any rate, I’m glad _I_ don’t sleep
under it.”

Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening, Cassy had been
up and opened the garret window. Of course, the moment the doors were
opened, the wind had drafted down, and extinguished the light.

This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy played with Legree,
until he would sooner have put his head into a lion’s mouth than to
have explored that garret. Meanwhile, in the night, when everybody else
was asleep, Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of
provisions sufficient to afford subsistence for some time; she
transferred, article by article, a greater part of her own and
Emmeline’s wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only waited a
fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution.

By cajoling Legree, and taking advantage of a good-natured interval,
Cassy had got him to take her with him to the neighboring town, which
was situated directly on the Red River. With a memory sharpened to
almost preternatural clearness, she remarked every turn in the road,
and formed a mental estimate of the time to be occupied in traversing
it.

At the time when all was matured for action, our readers may, perhaps,
like to look behind the scenes, and see the final _coup d’état_.

It was now near evening, Legree had been absent, on a ride to a
neighboring farm. For many days Cassy had been unusually gracious and
accommodating in her humors; and Legree and she had been, apparently,
on the best of terms. At present, we may behold her and Emmeline in the
room of the latter, busy in sorting and arranging two small bundles.

“There, these will be large enough,” said Cassy. “Now put on your
bonnet, and let’s start; it’s just about the right time.”

“Why, they can see us yet,” said Emmeline.

“I mean they shall,” said Cassy, coolly. “Don’t you know that they must
have their chase after us, at any rate? The way of the thing is to be
just this:—We will steal out of the back door, and run down by the
quarters. Sambo or Quimbo will be sure to see us. They will give chase,
and we will get into the swamp; then, they can’t follow us any further
till they go up and give the alarm, and turn out the dogs, and so on;
and, while they are blundering round, and tumbling over each other, as
they always do, you and I will slip along to the creek, that runs back
of the house, and wade along in it, till we get opposite the back door.
That will put the dogs all at fault; for scent won’t lie in the water.
Every one will run out of the house to look after us, and then we’ll
whip in at the back door, and up into the garret, where I’ve got a nice
bed made up in one of the great boxes. We must stay in that garret a
good while, for, I tell you, he will raise heaven and earth after us.
He’ll muster some of those old overseers on the other plantations, and
have a great hunt; and they’ll go over every inch of ground in that
swamp. He makes it his boast that nobody ever got away from him. So let
him hunt at his leisure.”

“Cassy, how well you have planned it!” said Emmeline. “Who ever would
have thought of it, but you?”

There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Cassy’s eyes,—only a
despairing firmness.

“Come,” she said, reaching her hand to Emmeline.

The two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and flitted,
through the gathering shadows of evening, along by the quarters. The
crescent moon, set like a silver signet in the western sky, delayed a
little the approach of night. As Cassy expected, when quite near the
verge of the swamps that encircled the plantation, they heard a voice
calling to them to stop. It was not Sambo, however, but Legree, who was
pursuing them with violent execrations. At the sound, the feebler
spirit of Emmeline gave way; and, laying hold of Cassy’s arm, she said,
“O, Cassy, I’m going to faint!”

“If you do, I’ll kill you!” said Cassy, drawing a small, glittering
stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes of the girl.

The diversion accomplished the purpose. Emmeline did not faint, and
succeeded in plunging, with Cassy, into a part of the labyrinth of
swamp, so deep and dark that it was perfectly hopeless for Legree to
think of following them, without assistance.

“Well,” said he, chuckling brutally; “at any rate, they’ve got
themselves into a trap now—the baggage! They’re safe enough. They shall
sweat for it!”

“Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!” called Legree, coming to the
quarters, when the men and women were just returning from work.
“There’s two runaways in the swamps. I’ll give five dollars to any
nigger as catches ’em. Turn out the dogs! Turn out Tiger, and Fury, and
the rest!”

The sensation produced by this news was immediate. Many of the men
sprang forward, officiously, to offer their services, either from the
hope of the reward, or from that cringing subserviency which is one of
the most baleful effects of slavery. Some ran one way, and some
another. Some were for getting flambeaux of pine-knots. Some were
uncoupling the dogs, whose hoarse, savage bay added not a little to the
animation of the scene.

“Mas’r, shall we shoot ’em, if can’t cotch ’em?” said Sambo, to whom
his master brought out a rifle.

“You may fire on Cass, if you like; it’s time she was gone to the
devil, where she belongs; but the gal, not,” said Legree. “And now,
boys, be spry and smart. Five dollars for him that gets ’em; and a
glass of spirits to every one of you, anyhow.”

The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, and whoop, and
shout, and savage yell, of man and beast, proceeded down to the swamp,
followed, at some distance, by every servant in the house. The
establishment was, of a consequence, wholly deserted, when Cassy and
Emmeline glided into it the back way. The whooping and shouts of their
pursuers were still filling the air; and, looking from the sitting-room
windows, Cassy and Emmeline could see the troop, with their flambeaux,
just dispersing themselves along the edge of the swamp.

“See there!” said Emmeline, pointing to Cassy; “the hunt is begun! Look
how those lights dance about! Hark! the dogs! Don’t you hear? If we
were only _there_, our chances wouldn’t be worth a picayune. O, for
pity’s sake, do let’s hide ourselves. Quick!”

“There’s no occasion for hurry,” said Cassy, coolly; “they are all out
after the hunt,—that’s the amusement of the evening! We’ll go up
stairs, by and by. Meanwhile,” said she, deliberately taking a key from
the pocket of a coat that Legree had thrown down in his hurry,
“meanwhile I shall take something to pay our passage.”

She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which she counted
over rapidly.

“O, don’t let’s do that!” said Emmeline.

“Don’t!” said Cassy; “why not? Would you have us starve in the swamps,
or have that that will pay our way to the free states. Money will do
anything, girl.” And, as she spoke, she put the money in her bosom.

“It would be stealing,” said Emmeline, in a distressed whisper.

“Stealing!” said Cassy, with a scornful laugh. “They who steal body and
soul needn’t talk to us. Every one of these bills is stolen,—stolen
from poor, starving, sweating creatures, who must go to the devil at
last, for his profit. Let _him_ talk about stealing! But come, we may
as well go up garret; I’ve got a stock of candles there, and some books
to pass away the time. You may be pretty sure they won’t come _there_
to inquire after us. If they do, I’ll play ghost for them.”

When Emmeline reached the garret, she found an immense box, in which
some heavy pieces of furniture had once been brought, turned on its
side, so that the opening faced the wall, or rather the eaves. Cassy
lit a small lamp, and creeping round under the eaves, they established
themselves in it. It was spread with a couple of small mattresses and
some pillows; a box near by was plentifully stored with candles,
provisions, and all the clothing necessary to their journey, which
Cassy had arranged into bundles of an astonishingly small compass.

“There,” said Cassy, as she fixed the lamp into a small hook, which she
had driven into the side of the box for that purpose; “this is to be
our home for the present. How do you like it?”

“Are you sure they won’t come and search the garret?”

“I’d like to see Simon Legree doing that,” said Cassy. “No, indeed; he
will be too glad to keep away. As to the servants, they would any of
them stand and be shot, sooner than show their faces here.”

Somewhat reassured, Emmeline settled herself back on her pillow.

“What did you mean, Cassy, by saying you would kill me?” she said,
simply.

“I meant to stop your fainting,” said Cassy, “and I did do it. And now
I tell you, Emmeline, you must make up your mind _not_ to faint, let
what will come; there’s no sort of need of it. If I had not stopped
you, that wretch might have had his hands on you now.”

Emmeline shuddered.

The two remained some time in silence. Cassy busied herself with a
French book; Emmeline, overcome with the exhaustion, fell into a doze,
and slept some time. She was awakened by loud shouts and outcries, the
tramp of horses’ feet, and the baying of dogs. She started up, with a
faint shriek.

“Only the hunt coming back,” said Cassy, coolly; “never fear. Look out
of this knot-hole. Don’t you see ’em all down there? Simon has to give
up, for this night. Look, how muddy his horse is, flouncing about in
the swamp; the dogs, too, look rather crestfallen. Ah, my good sir,
you’ll have to try the race again and again,—the game isn’t there.”

“O, don’t speak a word!” said Emmeline; “what if they should hear you?”

“If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular to keep
away,” said Cassy. “No danger; we may make any noise we please, and it
will only add to the effect.”

At length the stillness of midnight settled down over the house.
Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance on the morrow,
went to bed.




CHAPTER XL
The Martyr


“Deem not the just by Heaven forgot!
    Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though, with a crushed and bleeding heart,
    And spurned of man, he goes to die!
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
    And numbered every bitter tear,
And heaven’s long years of bliss shall pay
    For all his children suffer here.” BRYANT.[1]


 [1] This poem does not appear in the collected works of William Cullen
 Bryant, nor in the collected poems of his brother, John Howard Bryant.
 It was probably copied from a newspaper or magazine.


The longest way must have its close,—the gloomiest night will wear on
to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying
the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to
an eternal day. We have walked with our humble friend thus far in the
valley of slavery; first through flowery fields of ease and indulgence,
then through heart-breaking separations from all that man holds dear.
Again, we have waited with him in a sunny island, where generous hands
concealed his chains with flowers; and, lastly, we have followed him
when the last ray of earthly hope went out in night, and seen how, in
the blackness of earthly darkness, the firmament of the unseen has
blazed with stars of new and significant lustre.

The morning-star now stands over the tops of the mountains, and gales
and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates of day are unclosing.

The escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of
Legree to the last degree; and his fury, as was to be expected, fell
upon the defenceless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the
tidings among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom’s eye, a
sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he
did not join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him to
do it; but, having had, of old, experience of his inflexibility when
commanded to take part in any deed of inhumanity, he would not, in his
hurry, stop to enter into any conflict with him.

Tom, therefore, remained behind, with a few who had learned of him to
pray, and offered up prayers for the escape of the fugitives.

When Legree returned, baffled and disappointed, all the long-working
hatred of his soul towards his slave began to gather in a deadly and
desperate form. Had not this man braved him,—steadily, powerfully,
resistlessly,—ever since he bought him? Was there not a spirit in him
which, silent as it was, burned on him like the fires of perdition?

“I _hate_ him!” said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his bed; “I
_hate_ him! And isn’t he MINE? Can’t I do what I like with him? Who’s
to hinder, I wonder?” And Legree clenched his fist, and shook it, as if
he had something in his hands that he could rend in pieces.

But, then, Tom was a faithful, valuable servant; and, although Legree
hated him the more for that, yet the consideration was still somewhat
of a restraint to him.

The next morning, he determined to say nothing, as yet; to assemble a
party, from some neighboring plantations, with dogs and guns; to
surround the swamp, and go about the hunt systematically. If it
succeeded, well and good; if not, he would summon Tom before him,
and—his teeth clenched and his blood boiled—_then_ he would break the
fellow down, or—there was a dire inward whisper, to which his soul
assented.

Ye say that the _interest_ of the master is a sufficient safeguard for
the slave. In the fury of man’s mad will, he will wittingly, and with
open eye, sell his own soul to the devil to gain his ends; and will he
be more careful of his neighbor’s body?

“Well,” said Cassy, the next day, from the garret, as she reconnoitred
through the knot-hole, “the hunt’s going to begin again, today!”

Three or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, on the space in
front of the house; and one or two leashes of strange dogs were
struggling with the negroes who held them, baying and barking at each
other.

The men are, two of them, overseers of plantations in the vicinity; and
others were some of Legree’s associates at the tavern-bar of a
neighboring city, who had come for the interest of the sport. A more
hard-favored set, perhaps, could not be imagined. Legree was serving
brandy, profusely, round among them, as also among the negroes, who had
been detailed from the various plantations for this service; for it was
an object to make every service of this kind, among the negroes, as
much of a holiday as possible.

Cassy placed her ear at the knot-hole; and, as the morning air blew
directly towards the house, she could overhear a good deal of the
conversation. A grave sneer overcast the dark, severe gravity of her
face, as she listened, and heard them divide out the ground, discuss
the rival merits of the dogs, give orders about firing, and the
treatment of each, in case of capture.

Cassy drew back; and, clasping her hands, looked upward, and said, “O,
great Almighty God! we are _all_ sinners; but what have _we_ done, more
than all the rest of the world, that we should be treated so?”

There was a terrible earnestness in her face and voice, as she spoke.

“If it wasn’t for _you_, child,” she said, looking at Emmeline, “I’d
_go_ out to them; and I’d thank any one of them that _would_ shoot me
down; for what use will freedom be to me? Can it give me back my
children, or make me what I used to be?”

Emmeline, in her child-like simplicity, was half afraid of the dark
moods of Cassy. She looked perplexed, but made no answer. She only took
her hand, with a gentle, caressing movement.

“Don’t!” said Cassy, trying to draw it away; “you’ll get me to loving
you; and I never mean to love anything, again!”

“Poor Cassy!” said Emmeline, “don’t feel so! If the Lord gives us
liberty, perhaps he’ll give you back your daughter; at any rate, I’ll
be like a daughter to you. I know I’ll never see my poor old mother
again! I shall love you, Cassy, whether you love me or not!”

The gentle, child-like spirit conquered. Cassy sat down by her, put her
arm round her neck, stroked her soft, brown hair; and Emmeline then
wondered at the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now soft with tears.

“O, Em!” said Cassy, “I’ve hungered for my children, and thirsted for
them, and my eyes fail with longing for them! Here! here!” she said,
striking her breast, “it’s all desolate, all empty! If God would give
me back my children, then I could pray.”

“You must trust him, Cassy,” said Emmeline; “he is our Father!”

“His wrath is upon us,” said Cassy; “he has turned away in anger.”

“No, Cassy! He will be good to us! Let us hope in Him,” said
Emmeline,—“I always have had hope.”


The hunt was long, animated, and thorough, but unsuccessful; and, with
grave, ironic exultation, Cassy looked down on Legree, as, weary and
dispirited, he alighted from his horse.

“Now, Quimbo,” said Legree, as he stretched himself down in the
sitting-room, “you jest go and walk that Tom up here, right away! The
old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter; and I’ll have it
out of his old black hide, or I’ll know the reason why!”

Sambo and Quimbo, both, though hating each other, were joined in one
mind by a no less cordial hatred of Tom. Legree had told them, at
first, that he had bought him for a general overseer, in his absence;
and this had begun an ill will, on their part, which had increased, in
their debased and servile natures, as they saw him becoming obnoxious
to their master’s displeasure. Quimbo, therefore, departed, with a
will, to execute his orders.

Tom heard the message with a forewarning heart; for he knew all the
plan of the fugitives’ escape, and the place of their present
concealment;—he knew the deadly character of the man he had to deal
with, and his despotic power. But he felt strong in God to meet death,
rather than betray the helpless.

He sat his basket down by the row, and, looking up, said, “Into thy
hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, oh Lord God of
truth!” and then quietly yielded himself to the rough, brutal grasp
with which Quimbo seized him.

“Ay, ay!” said the giant, as he dragged him along; “ye’ll cotch it,
now! I’ll boun’ Mas’r’s back ’s up _high!_ No sneaking out, now! Tell
ye, ye’ll get it, and no mistake! See how ye’ll look, now, helpin’
Mas’r’s niggers to run away! See what ye’ll get!”

The savage words none of them reached that ear!—a higher voice there
was saying, “Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no
more that they can do.” Nerve and bone of that poor man’s body vibrated
to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the
strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and
bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation,
seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing ear. His soul
throbbed,—his home was in sight,—and the hour of release seemed at
hand.

“Well, Tom!” said Legree, walking up, and seizing him grimly by the
collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm of
determined rage, “do you know I’ve made up my mind to KILL YOU?”

“It’s very likely, Mas’r,” said Tom, calmly.

“I _have_,” said Legree, with a grim, terrible calmness,
“_done—just—that—thing_, Tom, unless you’ll tell me what you know about
these yer gals!”

Tom stood silent.

“D’ye hear?” said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an
incensed lion. “Speak!”

“_I han’t got nothing to tell, Mas’r_,” said Tom, with a slow, firm,
deliberate utterance.

“Do you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don’t _know_?” said
Legree.

Tom was silent.

“Speak!” thundered Legree, striking him furiously. “Do you know
anything?”

“I know, Mas’r; but I can’t tell anything. _I can die!_”

Legree drew in a long breath; and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by
the arm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said, in a terrible
voice, “Hark ’e, Tom!—ye think, ’cause I’ve let you off before, I don’t
mean what I say; but, this time, _I’ve made up my mind_, and counted
the cost. You’ve always stood it out again’ me: now, _I’ll conquer ye,
or kill ye!_—one or t’ other. I’ll count every drop of blood there is
in you, and take ’em, one by one, till ye give up!”

Tom looked up to his master, and answered, “Mas’r, if you was sick, or
in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I’d _give_ ye my heart’s
blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would
save your precious soul, I’d give ’em freely, as the Lord gave his for
me. O, Mas’r! don’t bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you
more than ’t will me! Do the worst you can, my troubles’ll be over
soon; but, if ye don’t repent, yours won’t _never_ end!”

Like a strange snatch of heavenly music, heard in the lull of a
tempest, this burst of feeling made a moment’s blank pause. Legree
stood aghast, and looked at Tom; and there was such a silence, that the
tick of the old clock could be heard, measuring, with silent touch, the
last moments of mercy and probation to that hardened heart.

It was but a moment. There was one hesitating pause,—one irresolute,
relenting thrill,—and the spirit of evil came back, with seven-fold
vehemence; and Legree, foaming with rage, smote his victim to the
ground.


Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man
has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear. What brother-man and
brother-Christian must suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secret
chamber, it so harrows the soul! And yet, oh my country! these things
are done under the shadow of thy laws! O, Christ! thy church sees them,
almost in silence!

But, of old, there was One whose suffering changed an instrument of
torture, degradation and shame, into a symbol of glory, honor, and
immortal life; and, where His spirit is, neither degrading stripes, nor
blood, nor insults, can make the Christian’s last struggle less than
glorious.

Was he alone, that long night, whose brave, loving spirit was bearing
up, in that old shed, against buffeting and brutal stripes?

Nay! There stood by him ONE,—seen by him alone,—“like unto the Son of
God.”

The tempter stood by him, too,—blinded by furious, despotic will,—every
moment pressing him to shun that agony by the betrayal of the innocent.
But the brave, true heart was firm on the Eternal Rock. Like his
Master, he knew that, if he saved others, himself he could not save;
nor could utmost extremity wring from him words, save of prayers and
holy trust.

“He’s most gone, Mas’r,” said Sambo, touched, in spite of himself, by
the patience of his victim.

“Pay away, till he gives up! Give it to him!—give it to him!” shouted
Legree. “I’ll take every drop of blood he has, unless he confesses!”

Tom opened his eyes, and looked upon his master. “Ye poor miserable
critter!” he said, “there ain’t no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with
all my soul!” and he fainted entirely away.

“I b’lieve, my soul, he’s done for, finally,” said Legree, stepping
forward, to look at him. “Yes, he is! Well, his mouth’s shut up, at
last,—that’s one comfort!”

Yes, Legree; but who shall shut up that voice in thy soul? that soul,
past repentance, past prayer, past hope, in whom the fire that never
shall be quenched is already burning!

Yet Tom was not quite gone. His wondrous words and pious prayers had
struck upon the hearts of the imbruted blacks, who had been the
instruments of cruelty upon him; and, the instant Legree withdrew, they
took him down, and, in their ignorance, sought to call him back to
life,—as if _that_ were any favor to him.

“Sartin, we ’s been doin’ a drefful wicked thing!” said Sambo; “hopes
Mas’r’ll have to ’count for it, and not we.”

They washed his wounds,—they provided a rude bed, of some refuse
cotton, for him to lie down on; and one of them, stealing up to the
house, begged a drink of brandy of Legree, pretending that he was
tired, and wanted it for himself. He brought it back, and poured it
down Tom’s throat.

“O, Tom!” said Quimbo, “we’s been awful wicked to ye!”

“I forgive ye, with all my heart!” said Tom, faintly.

“O, Tom! do tell us who is _Jesus_, anyhow?” said Sambo;—“Jesus, that’s
been a standin’ by you so, all this night!—Who is he?”

The word roused the failing, fainting spirit. He poured forth a few
energetic sentences of that wondrous One,—his life, his death, his
everlasting presence, and power to save.

They wept,—both the two savage men.

“Why didn’t I never hear this before?” said Sambo; “but I do believe!—I
can’t help it! Lord Jesus, have mercy on us!”

“Poor critters!” said Tom, “I’d be willing to bar all I have, if it’ll
only bring ye to Christ! O, Lord! give me these two more souls, I
pray!”

That prayer was answered!




CHAPTER XLI
The Young Master


Two days after, a young man drove a light wagon up through the avenue
of China trees, and, throwing the reins hastily on the horse’s neck,
sprang out and inquired for the owner of the place.

It was George Shelby; and, to show how he came to be there, we must go
back in our story.

The letter of Miss Ophelia to Mrs. Shelby had, by some unfortunate
accident, been detained, for a month or two, at some remote
post-office, before it reached its destination; and, of course, before
it was received, Tom was already lost to view among the distant swamps
of the Red River.

Mrs. Shelby read the intelligence with the deepest concern; but any
immediate action upon it was an impossibility. She was then in
attendance on the sick-bed of her husband, who lay delirious in the
crisis of a fever. Master George Shelby, who, in the interval, had
changed from a boy to a tall young man, was her constant and faithful
assistant, and her only reliance in superintending his father’s
affairs. Miss Ophelia had taken the precaution to send them the name of
the lawyer who did business for the St. Clares; and the most that, in
the emergency, could be done, was to address a letter of inquiry to
him. The sudden death of Mr. Shelby, a few days after, brought, of
course, an absorbing pressure of other interests, for a season.

Mr. Shelby showed his confidence in his wife’s ability, by appointing
her sole executrix upon his estates; and thus immediately a large and
complicated amount of business was brought upon her hands.

Mrs. Shelby, with characteristic energy, applied herself to the work of
straightening the entangled web of affairs; and she and George were for
some time occupied with collecting and examining accounts, selling
property and settling debts; for Mrs. Shelby was determined that
everything should be brought into tangible and recognizable shape, let
the consequences to her prove what they might. In the mean time, they
received a letter from the lawyer to whom Miss Ophelia had referred
them, saying that he knew nothing of the matter; that the man was sold
at a public auction, and that, beyond receiving the money, he knew
nothing of the affair.

Neither George nor Mrs. Shelby could be easy at this result; and,
accordingly, some six months after, the latter, having business for his
mother, down the river, resolved to visit New Orleans, in person, and
push his inquiries, in hopes of discovering Tom’s whereabouts, and
restoring him.

After some months of unsuccessful search, by the merest accident,
George fell in with a man, in New Orleans, who happened to be possessed
of the desired information; and with his money in his pocket, our hero
took steamboat for Red River, resolving to find out and re-purchase his
old friend.

He was soon introduced into the house, where he found Legree in the
sitting-room.

Legree received the stranger with a kind of surly hospitality,

“I understand,” said the young man, “that you bought, in New Orleans, a
boy, named Tom. He used to be on my father’s place, and I came to see
if I couldn’t buy him back.”

Legree’s brow grew dark, and he broke out, passionately: “Yes, I did
buy such a fellow,—and a h—l of a bargain I had of it, too! The most
rebellious, saucy, impudent dog! Set up my niggers to run away; got off
two gals, worth eight hundred or a thousand apiece. He owned to that,
and, when I bid him tell me where they was, he up and said he knew, but
he wouldn’t tell; and stood to it, though I gave him the cussedest
flogging I ever gave nigger yet. I b’lieve he’s trying to die; but I
don’t know as he’ll make it out.”

“Where is he?” said George, impetuously. “Let me see him.” The cheeks
of the young man were crimson, and his eyes flashed fire; but he
prudently said nothing, as yet.

“He’s in dat ar shed,” said a little fellow, who stood holding George’s
horse.

Legree kicked the boy, and swore at him; but George, without saying
another word, turned and strode to the spot.

Tom had been lying two days since the fatal night, not suffering, for
every nerve of suffering was blunted and destroyed. He lay, for the
most part, in a quiet stupor; for the laws of a powerful and well-knit
frame would not at once release the imprisoned spirit. By stealth,
there had been there, in the darkness of the night, poor desolated
creatures, who stole from their scanty hours’ rest, that they might
repay to him some of those ministrations of love in which he had always
been so abundant. Truly, those poor disciples had little to give,—only
the cup of cold water; but it was given with full hearts.

Tears had fallen on that honest, insensible face,—tears of late
repentance in the poor, ignorant heathen, whom his dying love and
patience had awakened to repentance, and bitter prayers, breathed over
him to a late-found Saviour, of whom they scarce knew more than the
name, but whom the yearning ignorant heart of man never implores in
vain.

Cassy, who had glided out of her place of concealment, and, by
overhearing, learned the sacrifice that had been made for her and
Emmeline, had been there, the night before, defying the danger of
detection; and, moved by the last few words which the affectionate soul
had yet strength to breathe, the long winter of despair, the ice of
years, had given way, and the dark, despairing woman had wept and
prayed.

When George entered the shed, he felt his head giddy and his heart
sick.

“Is it possible,—is it possible?” said he, kneeling down by him. “Uncle
Tom, my poor, poor old friend!”

Something in the voice penetrated to the ear of the dying. He moved his
head gently, smiled, and said,

“Jesus can make a dying-bed
Feel soft as down pillows are.”


Tears which did honor to his manly heart fell from the young man’s
eyes, as he bent over his poor friend.

“O, dear Uncle Tom! do wake,—do speak once more! Look up! Here’s Mas’r
George,—your own little Mas’r George. Don’t you know me?”

“Mas’r George!” said Tom, opening his eyes, and speaking in a feeble
voice; “Mas’r George!” He looked bewildered.

Slowly the idea seemed to fill his soul; and the vacant eye became
fixed and brightened, the whole face lighted up, the hard hands
clasped, and tears ran down the cheeks.

“Bless the Lord! it is,—it is,—it’s all I wanted! They haven’t forgot
me. It warms my soul; it does my heart good! Now I shall die content!
Bless the Lord, on my soul!”

“You shan’t die! you _mustn’t_ die, nor think of it! I’ve come to buy
you, and take you home,” said George, with impetuous vehemence.

“O, Mas’r George, ye’re too late. The Lord’s bought me, and is going to
take me home,—and I long to go. Heaven is better than Kintuck.”

“O, don’t die! It’ll kill me!—it’ll break my heart to think what you’ve
suffered,—and lying in this old shed, here! Poor, poor fellow!”

“Don’t call me poor fellow!” said Tom, solemnly, “I _have_ been poor
fellow; but that’s all past and gone, now. I’m right in the door, going
into glory! O, Mas’r George! _Heaven has come!_ I’ve got the
victory!—the Lord Jesus has given it to me! Glory be to His name!”

George was awe-struck at the force, the vehemence, the power, with
which these broken sentences were uttered. He sat gazing in silence.

Tom grasped his hand, and continued,—“Ye mustn’t, now, tell Chloe, poor
soul! how ye found me;—‘t would be so drefful to her. Only tell her ye
found me going into glory; and that I couldn’t stay for no one. And
tell her the Lord’s stood by me everywhere and al’ays, and made
everything light and easy. And oh, the poor chil’en, and the baby;—my
old heart’s been most broke for ’em, time and agin! Tell ’em all to
follow me—follow me! Give my love to Mas’r, and dear good Missis, and
everybody in the place! Ye don’t know! ’Pears like I loves ’em all! I
loves every creature everywhar!—it’s nothing _but_ love! O, Mas’r
George! what a thing ’t is to be a Christian!”

At this moment, Legree sauntered up to the door of the shed, looked in,
with a dogged air of affected carelessness, and turned away.

“The old Satan!” said George, in his indignation. “It’s a comfort to
think the devil will pay _him_ for this, some of these days!”

“O, don’t!—oh, ye mustn’t!” said Tom, grasping his hand; “he’s a poor
mis’able critter! it’s awful to think on ’t! Oh, if he only could
repent, the Lord would forgive him now; but I’m ’feared he never will!”

“I hope he won’t!” said George; “I never want to see _him_ in heaven!”

“Hush, Mas’r George!—it worries me! Don’t feel so! He an’t done me no
real harm,—only opened the gate of the kingdom for me; that’s all!”

At this moment, the sudden flush of strength which the joy of meeting
his young master had infused into the dying man gave way. A sudden
sinking fell upon him; he closed his eyes; and that mysterious and
sublime change passed over his face, that told the approach of other
worlds.

He began to draw his breath with long, deep inspirations; and his broad
chest rose and fell, heavily. The expression of his face was that of a
conqueror.

“Who,—who,—who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” he said, in
a voice that contended with mortal weakness; and, with a smile, he fell
asleep.

George sat fixed with solemn awe. It seemed to him that the place was
holy; and, as he closed the lifeless eyes, and rose up from the dead,
only one thought possessed him,—that expressed by his simple old
friend,—“What a thing it is to be a Christian!”

He turned: Legree was standing, sullenly, behind him.

Something in that dying scene had checked the natural fierceness of
youthful passion. The presence of the man was simply loathsome to
George; and he felt only an impulse to get away from him, with as few
words as possible.

Fixing his keen dark eyes on Legree, he simply said, pointing to the
dead, “You have got all you ever can of him. What shall I pay you for
the body? I will take it away, and bury it decently.”

“I don’t sell dead niggers,” said Legree, doggedly. “You are welcome to
bury him where and when you like.”

“Boys,” said George, in an authoritative tone, to two or three negroes,
who were looking at the body, “help me lift him up, and carry him to my
wagon; and get me a spade.”

One of them ran for a spade; the other two assisted George to carry the
body to the wagon.

George neither spoke to nor looked at Legree, who did not countermand
his orders, but stood, whistling, with an air of forced unconcern. He
sulkily followed them to where the wagon stood at the door.

George spread his cloak in the wagon, and had the body carefully
disposed of in it,—moving the seat, so as to give it room. Then he
turned, fixed his eyes on Legree, and said, with forced composure,

“I have not, as yet, said to you what I think of this most atrocious
affair;—this is not the time and place. But, sir, this innocent blood
shall have justice. I will proclaim this murder. I will go to the very
first magistrate, and expose you.”

“Do!” said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. “I’d like to see
you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses?—how you going to prove
it?—Come, now!”

George saw, at once, the force of this defiance. There was not a white
person on the place; and, in all southern courts, the testimony of
colored blood is nothing. He felt, at that moment, as if he could have
rent the heavens with his heart’s indignant cry for justice; but in
vain.

“After all, what a fuss, for a dead nigger!” said Legree.

The word was as a spark to a powder magazine. Prudence was never a
cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy. George turned, and, with one
indignant blow, knocked Legree flat upon his face; and, as he stood
over him, blazing with wrath and defiance, he would have formed no bad
personification of his great namesake triumphing over the dragon.

Some men, however, are decidedly bettered by being knocked down. If a
man lays them fairly flat in the dust, they seem immediately to
conceive a respect for him; and Legree was one of this sort. As he
rose, therefore, and brushed the dust from his clothes, he eyed the
slowly-retreating wagon with some evident consideration; nor did he
open his mouth till it was out of sight.

Beyond the boundaries of the plantation, George had noticed a dry,
sandy knoll, shaded by a few trees; there they made the grave.

“Shall we take off the cloak, Mas’r?” said the negroes, when the grave
was ready.

“No, no,—bury it with him! It’s all I can give you, now, poor Tom, and
you shall have it.”

They laid him in; and the men shovelled away, silently. They banked it
up, and laid green turf over it.

“You may go, boys,” said George, slipping a quarter into the hand of
each. They lingered about, however.

“If young Mas’r would please buy us—” said one.

“We’d serve him so faithful!” said the other.

“Hard times here, Mas’r!” said the first. “Do, Mas’r, buy us, please!”

“I can’t!—I can’t!” said George, with difficulty, motioning them off;
“it’s impossible!”

The poor fellows looked dejected, and walked off in silence.

“Witness, eternal God!” said George, kneeling on the grave of his poor
friend; “oh, witness, that, from this hour, I will do _what one man
can_ to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!”

There is no monument to mark the last resting-place of our friend. He
needs none! His Lord knows where he lies, and will raise him up,
immortal, to appear with him when he shall appear in his glory.

Pity him not! Such a life and death is not for pity! Not in the riches
of omnipotence is the chief glory of God; but in self-denying,
suffering love! And blessed are the men whom he calls to fellowship
with him, bearing their cross after him with patience. Of such it is
written, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”




CHAPTER XLII
An Authentic Ghost Story


For some remarkable reason, ghostly legends were uncommonly rife, about
this time, among the servants on Legree’s place.

It was whisperingly asserted that footsteps, in the dead of night, had
been heard descending the garret stairs, and patrolling the house. In
vain the doors of the upper entry had been locked; the ghost either
carried a duplicate key in its pocket, or availed itself of a ghost’s
immemorial privilege of coming through the keyhole, and promenaded as
before, with a freedom that was alarming.

Authorities were somewhat divided, as to the outward form of the
spirit, owing to a custom quite prevalent among negroes,—and, for aught
we know, among whites, too,—of invariably shutting the eyes, and
covering up heads under blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might
come in use for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody
knows, when the bodily eyes are thus out of the lists, the spiritual
eyes are uncommonly vivacious and perspicuous; and, therefore, there
were abundance of full-length portraits of the ghost, abundantly sworn
and testified to, which, as is often the case with portraits, agreed
with each other in no particular, except the common family peculiarity
of the ghost tribe,—the wearing of a _white sheet_. The poor souls were
not versed in ancient history, and did not know that Shakspeare had
authenticated this costume, by telling how

“The _sheeted_ dead
Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome.”[1]


 [1] _Hamlet_, Act I, scene 1, lines 115-116


And, therefore, their all hitting upon this is a striking fact in
pneumatology, which we recommend to the attention of spiritual media
generally.

Be it as it may, we have private reasons for knowing that a tall figure
in a white sheet did walk, at the most approved ghostly hours, around
the Legree premises,—pass out the doors, glide about the
house,—disappear at intervals, and, reappearing, pass up the silent
stairway, into that fatal garret; and that, in the morning, the entry
doors were all found shut and locked as firm as ever.

Legree could not help overhearing this whispering; and it was all the
more exciting to him, from the pains that were taken to conceal it from
him. He drank more brandy than usual; held up his head briskly, and
swore louder than ever in the daytime; but he had bad dreams, and the
visions of his head on his bed were anything but agreeable. The night
after Tom’s body had been carried away, he rode to the next town for a
carouse, and had a high one. Got home late and tired; locked his door,
took out the key, and went to bed.

After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it down, a human
soul is an awful ghostly, unquiet possession, for a bad man to have.
Who knows the metes and bounds of it? Who knows all its awful
perhapses,—those shudderings and tremblings, which it can no more live
down than it can outlive its own eternity! What a fool is he who locks
his door to keep out spirits, who has in his own bosom a spirit he
dares not meet alone,—whose voice, smothered far down, and piled over
with mountains of earthliness, is yet like the forewarning trumpet of
doom!

But Legree locked his door and set a chair against it; he set a
night-lamp at the head of his bed; and put his pistols there. He
examined the catches and fastenings of the windows, and then swore he
“didn’t care for the devil and all his angels,” and went to sleep.

Well, he slept, for he was tired,—slept soundly. But, finally, there
came over his sleep a shadow, a horror, an apprehension of something
dreadful hanging over him. It was his mother’s shroud, he thought; but
Cassy had it, holding it up, and showing it to him. He heard a confused
noise of screams and groanings; and, with it all, he knew he was
asleep, and he struggled to wake himself. He was half awake. He was
sure something was coming into his room. He knew the door was opening,
but he could not stir hand or foot. At last he turned, with a start;
the door _was_ open, and he saw a hand putting out his light.

It was a cloudy, misty moonlight, and there he saw it!—something white,
gliding in! He heard the still rustle of its ghostly garments. It stood
still by his bed;—a cold hand touched his; a voice said, three times,
in a low, fearful whisper, “Come! come! come!” And, while he lay
sweating with terror, he knew not when or how, the thing was gone. He
sprang out of bed, and pulled at the door. It was shut and locked, and
the man fell down in a swoon.

After this, Legree became a harder drinker than ever before. He no
longer drank cautiously, prudently, but imprudently and recklessly.

There were reports around the country, soon after that he was sick and
dying. Excess had brought on that frightful disease that seems to throw
the lurid shadows of a coming retribution back into the present life.
None could bear the horrors of that sick room, when he raved and
screamed, and spoke of sights which almost stopped the blood of those
who heard him; and, at his dying bed, stood a stern, white, inexorable
figure, saying, “Come! come! come!”

By a singular coincidence, on the very night that this vision appeared
to Legree, the house-door was found open in the morning, and some of
the negroes had seen two white figures gliding down the avenue towards
the high-road.

It was near sunrise when Cassy and Emmeline paused, for a moment, in a
little knot of trees near the town.

Cassy was dressed after the manner of the Creole Spanish ladies,—wholly
in black. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick
with embroidery, concealed her face. It had been agreed that, in their
escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and
Emmeline that of her servant.

Brought up, from early life, in connection with the highest society,
the language, movements and air of Cassy, were all in agreement with
this idea; and she had still enough remaining with her, of a once
splendid wardrobe, and sets of jewels, to enable her to personate the
thing to advantage.

She stopped in the outskirts of the town, where she had noticed trunks
for sale, and purchased a handsome one. This she requested the man to
send along with her. And, accordingly, thus escorted by a boy wheeling
her trunk, and Emmeline behind her, carrying her carpet-bag and sundry
bundles, she made her appearance at the small tavern, like a lady of
consideration.

The first person that struck her, after her arrival, was George Shelby,
who was staying there, awaiting the next boat.

Cassy had remarked the young man from her loophole in the garret, and
seen him bear away the body of Tom, and observed with secret
exultation, his rencontre with Legree. Subsequently she had gathered,
from the conversations she had overheard among the negroes, as she
glided about in her ghostly disguise, after nightfall, who he was, and
in what relation he stood to Tom. She, therefore, felt an immediate
accession of confidence, when she found that he was, like herself,
awaiting the next boat.

Cassy’s air and manner, address, and evident command of money,
prevented any rising disposition to suspicion in the hotel. People
never inquire too closely into those who are fair on the main point, of
paying well,—a thing which Cassy had foreseen when she provided herself
with money.

In the edge of the evening, a boat was heard coming along, and George
Shelby handed Cassy aboard, with the politeness which comes naturally
to every Kentuckian, and exerted himself to provide her with a good
state-room.

Cassy kept her room and bed, on pretext of illness, during the whole
time they were on Red River; and was waited on, with obsequious
devotion, by her attendant.

When they arrived at the Mississippi river, George, having learned that
the course of the strange lady was upward, like his own, proposed to
take a state-room for her on the same boat with himself,—good-naturedly
compassionating her feeble health, and desirous to do what he could to
assist her.

Behold, therefore, the whole party safely transferred to the good
steamer Cincinnati, and sweeping up the river under a powerful head of
steam.

Cassy’s health was much better. She sat upon the guards, came to the
table, and was remarked upon in the boat as a lady that must have been
very handsome.

From the moment that George got the first glimpse of her face, he was
troubled with one of those fleeting and indefinite likenesses, which
almost every body can remember, and has been, at times, perplexed with.
He could not keep himself from looking at her, and watching her
perpetually. At table, or sitting at her state-room door, still she
would encounter the young man’s eyes fixed on her, and politely
withdrawn, when she showed, by her countenance, that she was sensible
to the observation.

Cassy became uneasy. She began to think that he suspected something;
and finally resolved to throw herself entirely on his generosity, and
intrusted him with her whole history.

George was heartily disposed to sympathize with any one who had escaped
from Legree’s plantation,—a place that he could not remember or speak
of with patience,—and, with the courageous disregard of consequences
which is characteristic of his age and state, he assured her that he
would do all in his power to protect and bring them through.

The next state-room to Cassy’s was occupied by a French lady, named De
Thoux, who was accompanied by a fine little daughter, a child of some
twelve summers.

This lady, having gathered, from George’s conversation, that he was
from Kentucky, seemed evidently disposed to cultivate his acquaintance;
in which design she was seconded by the graces of her little girl, who
was about as pretty a plaything as ever diverted the weariness of a
fortnight’s trip on a steamboat.

George’s chair was often placed at her state-room door; and Cassy, as
she sat upon the guards, could hear their conversation.

Madame de Thoux was very minute in her inquiries as to Kentucky, where
she said she had resided in a former period of her life. George
discovered, to his surprise, that her former residence must have been
in his own vicinity; and her inquiries showed a knowledge of people and
things in his vicinity, that was perfectly surprising to him.

“Do you know,” said Madame de Thoux to him, one day, “of any man, in
your neighborhood, of the name of Harris?”

“There is an old fellow, of that name, lives not far from my father’s
place,” said George. “We never have had much intercourse with him,
though.”

“He is a large slave-owner, I believe,” said Madame de Thoux, with a
manner which seemed to betray more interest than she was exactly
willing to show.

“He is,” said George, looking rather surprised at her manner.

“Did you ever know of his having—perhaps, you may have heard of his
having a mulatto boy, named George?”

“O, certainly,—George Harris,—I know him well; he married a servant of
my mother’s, but has escaped, now, to Canada.”

“He has?” said Madame de Thoux, quickly. “Thank God!”

George looked a surprised inquiry, but said nothing.

Madame de Thoux leaned her head on her hand, and burst into tears.

“He is my brother,” she said.

“Madame!” said George, with a strong accent of surprise.

“Yes,” said Madame de Thoux, lifting her head, proudly, and wiping her
tears, “Mr. Shelby, George Harris is my brother!”

“I am perfectly astonished,” said George, pushing back his chair a pace
or two, and looking at Madame de Thoux.

“I was sold to the South when he was a boy,” said she. “I was bought by
a good and generous man. He took me with him to the West Indies, set me
free, and married me. It is but lately that he died; and I was going up
to Kentucky, to see if I could find and redeem my brother.”

“I heard him speak of a sister Emily, that was sold South,” said
George.

“Yes, indeed! I am the one,” said Madame de Thoux;—“tell me what sort
of a—”

“A very fine young man,” said George, “notwithstanding the curse of
slavery that lay on him. He sustained a first rate character, both for
intelligence and principle. I know, you see,” he said; “because he
married in our family.”

“What sort of a girl?” said Madame de Thoux, eagerly.

“A treasure,” said George; “a beautiful, intelligent, amiable girl.
Very pious. My mother had brought her up, and trained her as carefully,
almost, as a daughter. She could read and write, embroider and sew,
beautifully; and was a beautiful singer.”

“Was she born in your house?” said Madame de Thoux.

“No. Father bought her once, in one of his trips to New Orleans, and
brought her up as a present to mother. She was about eight or nine
years old, then. Father would never tell mother what he gave for her;
but, the other day, in looking over his old papers, we came across the
bill of sale. He paid an extravagant sum for her, to be sure. I
suppose, on account of her extraordinary beauty.”

George sat with his back to Cassy, and did not see the absorbed
expression of her countenance, as he was giving these details.

At this point in the story, she touched his arm, and, with a face
perfectly white with interest, said, “Do you know the names of the
people he bought her of?”

“A man of the name of Simmons, I think, was the principal in the
transaction. At least, I think that was the name on the bill of sale.”

“O, my God!” said Cassy, and fell insensible on the floor of the cabin.

George was wide awake now, and so was Madame de Thoux. Though neither
of them could conjecture what was the cause of Cassy’s fainting, still
they made all the tumult which is proper in such cases;—George
upsetting a wash-pitcher, and breaking two tumblers, in the warmth of
his humanity; and various ladies in the cabin, hearing that somebody
had fainted, crowded the state-room door, and kept out all the air they
possibly could, so that, on the whole, everything was done that could
be expected.

Poor Cassy! when she recovered, turned her face to the wall, and wept
and sobbed like a child,—perhaps, mother, you can tell what she was
thinking of! Perhaps you cannot,—but she felt as sure, in that hour,
that God had had mercy on her, and that she should see her daughter,—as
she did, months afterwards,—when—but we anticipate.




CHAPTER XLIII
Results


The rest of our story is soon told. George Shelby, interested, as any
other young man might be, by the romance of the incident, no less than
by feelings of humanity, was at the pains to send to Cassy the bill of
sale of Eliza; whose date and name all corresponded with her own
knowledge of facts, and felt no doubt upon her mind as to the identity
of her child. It remained now only for her to trace out the path of the
fugitives.

Madame de Thoux and she, thus drawn together by the singular
coincidence of their fortunes, proceeded immediately to Canada, and
began a tour of inquiry among the stations, where the numerous
fugitives from slavery are located. At Amherstberg they found the
missionary with whom George and Eliza had taken shelter, on their first
arrival in Canada; and through him were enabled to trace the family to
Montreal.

George and Eliza had now been five years free. George had found
constant occupation in the shop of a worthy machinist, where he had
been earning a competent support for his family, which, in the mean
time, had been increased by the addition of another daughter.

Little Harry—a fine bright boy—had been put to a good school, and was
making rapid proficiency in knowledge.

The worthy pastor of the station, in Amherstberg, where George had
first landed, was so much interested in the statements of Madame de
Thoux and Cassy, that he yielded to the solicitations of the former, to
accompany them to Montreal, in their search,—she bearing all the
expense of the expedition.

The scene now changes to a small, neat tenement, in the outskirts of
Montreal; the time, evening. A cheerful fire blazes on the hearth; a
tea-table, covered with a snowy cloth, stands prepared for the evening
meal. In one corner of the room was a table covered with a green cloth,
where was an open writing-desk, pens, paper, and over it a shelf of
well-selected books.

This was George’s study. The same zeal for self-improvement, which led
him to steal the much coveted arts of reading and writing, amid all the
toil and discouragements of his early life, still led him to devote all
his leisure time to self-cultivation.

At this present time, he is seated at the table, making notes from a
volume of the family library he has been reading.

“Come, George,” says Eliza, “you’ve been gone all day. Do put down that
book, and let’s talk, while I’m getting tea,—do.”

And little Eliza seconds the effort, by toddling up to her father, and
trying to pull the book out of his hand, and install herself on his
knee as a substitute.

“O, you little witch!” says George, yielding, as, in such
circumstances, man always must.

“That’s right,” says Eliza, as she begins to cut a loaf of bread. A
little older she looks; her form a little fuller; her air more matronly
than of yore; but evidently contented and happy as woman need be.

“Harry, my boy, how did you come on in that sum, today?” says George,
as he laid his hand on his son’s head.

Harry has lost his long curls; but he can never lose those eyes and
eyelashes, and that fine, bold brow, that flushes with triumph, as he
answers, “I did it, every bit of it, _myself_, father; and _nobody_
helped me!”

“That’s right,” says his father; “depend on yourself, my son. You have
a better chance than ever your poor father had.”

At this moment, there is a rap at the door; and Eliza goes and opens
it. The delighted—“Why! this you?”—calls up her husband; and the good
pastor of Amherstberg is welcomed. There are two more women with him,
and Eliza asks them to sit down.

Now, if the truth must be told, the honest pastor had arranged a little
programme, according to which this affair was to develop itself; and,
on the way up, all had very cautiously and prudently exhorted each
other not to let things out, except according to previous arrangement.

What was the good man’s consternation, therefore, just as he had
motioned to the ladies to be seated, and was taking out his
pocket-handkerchief to wipe his mouth, so as to proceed to his
introductory speech in good order, when Madame de Thoux upset the whole
plan, by throwing her arms around George’s neck, and letting all out at
once, by saying, “O, George! don’t you know me? I’m your sister Emily.”

Cassy had seated herself more composedly, and would have carried on her
part very well, had not little Eliza suddenly appeared before her in
exact shape and form, every outline and curl, just as her daughter was
when she saw her last. The little thing peered up in her face; and
Cassy caught her up in her arms, pressed her to her bosom, saying,
what, at the moment she really believed, “Darling, I’m your mother!”

In fact, it was a troublesome matter to do up exactly in proper order;
but the good pastor, at last, succeeded in getting everybody quiet, and
delivering the speech with which he had intended to open the exercises;
and in which, at last, he succeeded so well, that his whole audience
were sobbing about him in a manner that ought to satisfy any orator,
ancient or modern.

They knelt together, and the good man prayed,—for there are some
feelings so agitated and tumultuous, that they can find rest only by
being poured into the bosom of Almighty love,—and then, rising up, the
new-found family embraced each other, with a holy trust in Him, who
from such peril and dangers, and by such unknown ways, had brought them
together.

The note-book of a missionary, among the Canadian fugitives, contains
truth stranger than fiction. How can it be otherwise, when a system
prevails which whirls families and scatters their members, as the wind
whirls and scatters the leaves of autumn? These shores of refuge, like
the eternal shore, often unite again, in glad communion, hearts that
for long years have mourned each other as lost. And affecting beyond
expression is the earnestness with which every new arrival among them
is met, if, perchance, it may bring tidings of mother, sister, child or
wife, still lost to view in the shadows of slavery.

Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of romance, when
defying torture, and braving death itself, the fugitive voluntarily
threads his way back to the terrors and perils of that dark land, that
he may bring out his sister, or mother, or wife.

One young man, of whom a missionary has told us, twice re-captured, and
suffering shameful stripes for his heroism, had escaped again; and, in
a letter which we heard read, tells his friends that he is going back a
third time, that he may, at last, bring away his sister. My good sir,
is this man a hero, or a criminal? Would not you do as much for your
sister? And can you blame him?

But, to return to our friends, whom we left wiping their eyes, and
recovering themselves from too great and sudden a joy. They are now
seated around the social board, and are getting decidedly
companionable; only that Cassy, who keeps little Eliza on her lap,
occasionally squeezes the little thing, in a manner that rather
astonishes her, and obstinately refuses to have her mouth stuffed with
cake to the extent the little one desires,—alleging, what the child
rather wonders at, that she has got something better than cake, and
doesn’t want it.

And, indeed, in two or three days, such a change has passed over Cassy,
that our readers would scarcely know her. The despairing, haggard
expression of her face had given way to one of gentle trust. She seemed
to sink, at once, into the bosom of the family, and take the little
ones into her heart, as something for which it long had waited. Indeed,
her love seemed to flow more naturally to the little Eliza than to her
own daughter; for she was the exact image and body of the child whom
she had lost. The little one was a flowery bond between mother and
daughter, through whom grew up acquaintanceship and affection. Eliza’s
steady, consistent piety, regulated by the constant reading of the
sacred word, made her a proper guide for the shattered and wearied mind
of her mother. Cassy yielded at once, and with her whole soul, to every
good influence, and became a devout and tender Christian.

After a day or two, Madame de Thoux told her brother more particularly
of her affairs. The death of her husband had left her an ample fortune,
which she generously offered to share with the family. When she asked
George what way she could best apply it for him, he answered, “Give me
an education, Emily; that has always been my heart’s desire. Then, I
can do all the rest.”

On mature deliberation, it was decided that the whole family should go,
for some years, to France; whither they sailed, carrying Emmeline with
them.

The good looks of the latter won the affection of the first mate of the
vessel; and, shortly after entering the port, she became his wife.

George remained four years at a French university, and, applying
himself with an unintermitted zeal, obtained a very thorough education.

Political troubles in France, at last, led the family again to seek an
asylum in this country.

George’s feelings and views, as an educated man, may be best expressed
in a letter to one of his friends.

“I feel somewhat at a loss, as to my future course. True, as you have
said to me, I might mingle in the circles of the whites, in this
country, my shade of color is so slight, and that of my wife and family
scarce perceptible. Well, perhaps, on sufferance, I might. But, to tell
you the truth, I have no wish to.

“My sympathies are not for my father’s race, but for my mother’s. To
him I was no more than a fine dog or horse: to my poor heart-broken
mother I was a _child_; and, though I never saw her, after the cruel
sale that separated us, till she died, yet I _know_ she always loved me
dearly. I know it by my own heart. When I think of all she suffered, of
my own early sufferings, of the distresses and struggles of my heroic
wife, of my sister, sold in the New Orleans slave-market,—though I hope
to have no unchristian sentiments, yet I may be excused for saying, I
have no wish to pass for an American, or to identify myself with them.

“It is with the oppressed, enslaved African race that I cast in my lot;
and, if I wished anything, I would wish myself two shades darker,
rather than one lighter.

“The desire and yearning of my soul is for an African _nationality_. I
want a people that shall have a tangible, separate existence of its
own; and where am I to look for it? Not in Hayti; for in Hayti they had
nothing to start with. A stream cannot rise above its fountain. The
race that formed the character of the Haytiens was a worn-out,
effeminate one; and, of course, the subject race will be centuries in
rising to anything.

“Where, then, shall I look? On the shores of Africa I see a republic,—a
republic formed of picked men, who, by energy and self-educating force,
have, in many cases, individually, raised themselves above a condition
of slavery. Having gone through a preparatory stage of feebleness, this
republic has, at last, become an acknowledged nation on the face of the
earth,—acknowledged by both France and England. There it is my wish to
go, and find myself a people.

“I am aware, now, that I shall have you all against me; but, before you
strike, hear me. During my stay in France, I have followed up, with
intense interest, the history of my people in America. I have noted the
struggle between abolitionist and colonizationist, and have received
some impressions, as a distant spectator, which could never have
occurred to me as a participator.

“I grant that this Liberia may have subserved all sorts of purposes, by
being played off, in the hands of our oppressors, against us. Doubtless
the scheme may have been used, in unjustifiable ways, as a means of
retarding our emancipation. But the question to me is, Is there not a
God above all man’s schemes? May He not have over-ruled their designs,
and founded for us a nation by them?

“In these days, a nation is born in a day. A nation starts, now, with
all the great problems of republican life and civilization wrought out
to its hand;—it has not to discover, but only to apply. Let us, then,
all take hold together, with all our might, and see what we can do with
this new enterprise, and the whole splendid continent of Africa opens
before us and our children. _Our nation_ shall roll the tide of
civilization and Christianity along its shores, and plant there mighty
republics, that, growing with the rapidity of tropical vegetation,
shall be for all coming ages.

“Do you say that I am deserting my enslaved brethren? I think not. If I
forget them one hour, one moment of my life, so may God forget me! But,
what can I do for them, here? Can I break their chains? No, not as an
individual; but, let me go and form part of a nation, which shall have
a voice in the councils of nations, and then we can speak. A nation has
a right to argue, remonstrate, implore, and present the cause of its
race,—which an individual has not.

“If Europe ever becomes a grand council of free nations,—as I trust in
God it will,—if, there, serfdom, and all unjust and oppressive social
inequalities, are done away; and if they, as France and England have
done, acknowledge our position,—then, in the great congress of nations,
we will make our appeal, and present the cause of our enslaved and
suffering race; and it cannot be that free, enlightened America will
not then desire to wipe from her escutcheon that bar sinister which
disgraces her among nations, and is as truly a curse to her as to the
enslaved.

“But, you will tell me, our race have equal rights to mingle in the
American republic as the Irishman, the German, the Swede. Granted, they
have. We _ought_ to be free to meet and mingle,—to rise by our
individual worth, without any consideration of caste or color; and they
who deny us this right are false to their own professed principles of
human equality. We ought, in particular, to be allowed _here_. We have
_more_ than the rights of common men;—we have the claim of an injured
race for reparation. But, then, _I do not want it_; I want a country, a
nation, of my own. I think that the African race has peculiarities, yet
to be unfolded in the light of civilization and Christianity, which, if
not the same with those of the Anglo-Saxon, may prove to be, morally,
of even a higher type.

“To the Anglo-Saxon race has been intrusted the destinies of the world,
during its pioneer period of struggle and conflict. To that mission its
stern, inflexible, energetic elements, were well adapted; but, as a
Christian, I look for another era to arise. On its borders I trust we
stand; and the throes that now convulse the nations are, to my hope,
but the birth-pangs of an hour of universal peace and brotherhood.

“I trust that the development of Africa is to be essentially a
Christian one. If not a dominant and commanding race, they are, at
least, an affectionate, magnanimous, and forgiving one. Having been
called in the furnace of injustice and oppression, they have need to
bind closer to their hearts that sublime doctrine of love and
forgiveness, through which alone they are to conquer, which it is to be
their mission to spread over the continent of Africa.

“In myself, I confess, I am feeble for this,—full half the blood in my
veins is the hot and hasty Saxon; but I have an eloquent preacher of
the Gospel ever by my side, in the person of my beautiful wife. When I
wander, her gentler spirit ever restores me, and keeps before my eyes
the Christian calling and mission of our race. As a Christian patriot,
as a teacher of Christianity, I go to _my country_,—my chosen, my
glorious Africa!—and to her, in my heart, I sometimes apply those
splendid words of prophecy: ’Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated,
so that no man went through thee; _I_ will make thee an eternal
excellence, a joy of many generations!’

“You will call me an enthusiast: you will tell me that I have not well
considered what I am undertaking. But I have considered, and counted
the cost. I go to _Liberia_, not as an Elysium of romance, but as to _a
field of work_. I expect to work with both hands,—to work _hard_; to
work against all sorts of difficulties and discouragements; and to work
till I die. This is what I go for; and in this I am quite sure I shall
not be disappointed.

“Whatever you may think of my determination, do not divorce me from
your confidence; and think that, in whatever I do, I act with a heart
wholly given to my people.

“GEORGE HARRIS.”


George, with his wife, children, sister and mother, embarked for
Africa, some few weeks after. If we are not mistaken, the world will
yet hear from him there.

Of our other characters we have nothing very particular to write,
except a word relating to Miss Ophelia and Topsy, and a farewell
chapter, which we shall dedicate to George Shelby.

Miss Ophelia took Topsy home to Vermont with her, much to the surprise
of the grave deliberative body whom a New Englander recognizes under
the term “_Our folks_.” “Our folks,” at first, thought it an odd and
unnecessary addition to their well-trained domestic establishment; but,
so thoroughly efficient was Miss Ophelia in her conscientious endeavor
to do her duty by her _ilhve_, that the child rapidly grew in grace and
in favor with the family and neighborhood. At the age of womanhood, she
was, by her own request, baptized, and became a member of the Christian
church in the place; and showed so much intelligence, activity and
zeal, and desire to do good in the world, that she was at last
recommended, and approved as a missionary to one of the stations in
Africa; and we have heard that the same activity and ingenuity which,
when a child, made her so multiform and restless in her developments,
is now employed, in a safer and wholesomer manner, in teaching the
children of her own country.

P.S.—It will be a satisfaction to some mother, also, to state, that
some inquiries, which were set on foot by Madame de Thoux, have
resulted recently in the discovery of Cassy’s son. Being a young man of
energy, he had escaped, some years before his mother, and been received
and educated by friends of the oppressed in the north. He will soon
follow his family to Africa.




CHAPTER XLIV
The Liberator


George Shelby had written to his mother merely a line, stating the day
that she might expect him home. Of the death scene of his old friend he
had not the heart to write. He had tried several times, and only
succeeded in half choking himself; and invariably finished by tearing
up the paper, wiping his eyes, and rushing somewhere to get quiet.

There was a pleased bustle all through the Shelby mansion, that day, in
expectation of the arrival of young Mas’r George.

Mrs. Shelby was seated in her comfortable parlor, where a cheerful
hickory fire was dispelling the chill of the late autumn evening. A
supper-table, glittering with plate and cut glass, was set out, on
whose arrangements our former friend, old Chloe, was presiding.

Arrayed in a new calico dress, with clean, white apron, and high,
well-starched turban, her black polished face glowing with
satisfaction, she lingered, with needless punctiliousness, around the
arrangements of the table, merely as an excuse for talking a little to
her mistress.

“Laws, now! won’t it look natural to him?” she said. “Thar,—I set his
plate just whar he likes it round by the fire. Mas’r George allers
wants de warm seat. O, go way!—why didn’t Sally get out de _best_
tea-pot,—de little new one, Mas’r George got for Missis, Christmas?
I’ll have it out! And Missis has heard from Mas’r George?” she said,
inquiringly.

“Yes, Chloe; but only a line, just to say he would be home tonight, if
he could,—that’s all.”

“Didn’t say nothin’ ’bout my old man, s’pose?” said Chloe, still
fidgeting with the tea-cups.

“No, he didn’t. He did not speak of anything, Chloe. He said he would
tell all, when he got home.”

“Jes like Mas’r George,—he’s allers so ferce for tellin’ everything
hisself. I allers minded dat ar in Mas’r George. Don’t see, for my
part, how white people gen’lly can bar to hev to write things much as
they do, writin’ ’s such slow, oneasy kind o’ work.”

Mrs. Shelby smiled.

“I’m a thinkin’ my old man won’t know de boys and de baby. Lor’! she’s
de biggest gal, now,—good she is, too, and peart, Polly is. She’s out
to the house, now, watchin’ de hoe-cake. I ’s got jist de very pattern
my old man liked so much, a bakin’. Jist sich as I gin him the mornin’
he was took off. Lord bless us! how I felt, dat ar morning!”

Mrs. Shelby sighed, and felt a heavy weight on her heart, at this
allusion. She had felt uneasy, ever since she received her son’s
letter, lest something should prove to be hidden behind the veil of
silence which he had drawn.

“Missis has got dem bills?” said Chloe, anxiously.

“Yes, Chloe.”

“‘Cause I wants to show my old man dem very bills de _perfectioner_
gave me. ‘And,’ say he, ‘Chloe, I wish you’d stay longer.’ ‘Thank you,
Mas’r,’ says I, ‘I would, only my old man’s coming home, and
Missis,—she can’t do without me no longer.’ There’s jist what I telled
him. Berry nice man, dat Mas’r Jones was.”

Chloe had pertinaciously insisted that the very bills in which her
wages had been paid should be preserved, to show her husband, in
memorial of her capability. And Mrs. Shelby had readily consented to
humor her in the request.

“He won’t know Polly,—my old man won’t. Laws, it’s five year since they
tuck him! She was a baby den,—couldn’t but jist stand. Remember how
tickled he used to be, cause she would keep a fallin’ over, when she
sot out to walk. Laws a me!”

The rattling of wheels now was heard.

“Mas’r George!” said Aunt Chloe, starting to the window.

Mrs. Shelby ran to the entry door, and was folded in the arms of her
son. Aunt Chloe stood anxiously straining her eyes out into the
darkness.

“O, _poor_ Aunt Chloe!” said George, stopping compassionately, and
taking her hard, black hand between both his; “I’d have given all my
fortune to have brought him with me, but he’s gone to a better
country.”

There was a passionate exclamation from Mrs. Shelby, but Aunt Chloe
said nothing.

The party entered the supper-room. The money, of which Chloe was so
proud, was still lying on the table.

“Thar,” said she, gathering it up, and holding it, with a trembling
hand, to her mistress, “don’t never want to see nor hear on ’t again.
Jist as I knew ’t would be,—sold, and murdered on dem ar’ old
plantations!”

Chloe turned, and was walking proudly out of the room. Mrs. Shelby
followed her softly, and took one of her hands, drew her down into a
chair, and sat down by her.

“My poor, good Chloe!” said she.

Chloe leaned her head on her mistress’ shoulder, and sobbed out, “O
Missis! ’scuse me, my heart’s broke,—dat’s all!”

“I know it is,” said Mrs. Shelby, as her tears fell fast; “and _I_
cannot heal it, but Jesus can. He healeth the broken hearted, and
bindeth up their wounds.”

There was a silence for some time, and all wept together. At last,
George, sitting down beside the mourner, took her hand, and, with
simple pathos, repeated the triumphant scene of her husband’s death,
and his last messages of love.

About a month after this, one morning, all the servants of the Shelby
estate were convened together in the great hall that ran through the
house, to hear a few words from their young master.

To the surprise of all, he appeared among them with a bundle of papers
in his hand, containing a certificate of freedom to every one on the
place, which he read successively, and presented, amid the sobs and
tears and shouts of all present.

Many, however, pressed around him, earnestly begging him not to send
them away; and, with anxious faces, tendering back their free papers.

“We don’t want to be no freer than we are. We’s allers had all we
wanted. We don’t want to leave de ole place, and Mas’r and Missis, and
de rest!”

“My good friends,” said George, as soon as he could get a silence,
“there’ll be no need for you to leave me. The place wants as many hands
to work it as it did before. We need the same about the house that we
did before. But, you are now free men and free women. I shall pay you
wages for your work, such as we shall agree on. The advantage is, that
in case of my getting in debt, or dying,—things that might happen,—you
cannot now be taken up and sold. I expect to carry on the estate, and
to teach you what, perhaps, it will take you some time to learn,—how to
use the rights I give you as free men and women. I expect you to be
good, and willing to learn; and I trust in God that I shall be
faithful, and willing to teach. And now, my friends, look up, and thank
God for the blessing of freedom.”

An aged, partriarchal negro, who had grown gray and blind on the
estate, now rose, and, lifting his trembling hand said, “Let us give
thanks unto the Lord!” As all kneeled by one consent, a more touching
and hearty _Te Deum_ never ascended to heaven, though borne on the peal
of organ, bell and cannon, than came from that honest old heart.

On rising, another struck up a Methodist hymn, of which the burden was,

“The year of Jubilee is come,—
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.”


“One thing more,” said George, as he stopped the congratulations of the
throng; “you all remember our good old Uncle Tom?”

George here gave a short narration of the scene of his death, and of
his loving farewell to all on the place, and added,

“It was on his grave, my friends, that I resolved, before God, that I
would never own another slave, while it was possible to free him; that
nobody, through me, should ever run the risk of being parted from home
and friends, and dying on a lonely plantation, as he died. So, when you
rejoice in your freedom, think that you owe it to that good old soul,
and pay it back in kindness to his wife and children. Think of your
freedom, every time you see UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; and let it be a memorial
to put you all in mind to follow in his steps, and be honest and
faithful and Christian as he was.”




CHAPTER XLV
Concluding Remarks


The writer has often been inquired of, by correspondents from different
parts of the country, whether this narrative is a true one; and to
these inquiries she will give one general answer.

The separate incidents that compose the narrative are, to a very great
extent, authentic, occurring, many of them, either under her own
observation, or that of her personal friends. She or her friends have
observed characters the counterpart of almost all that are here
introduced; and many of the sayings are word for word as heard herself,
or reported to her.

The personal appearance of Eliza, the character ascribed to her, are
sketches drawn from life. The incorruptible fidelity, piety and
honesty, of Uncle Tom, had more than one development, to her personal
knowledge. Some of the most deeply tragic and romantic, some of the
most terrible incidents, have also their parallels in reality. The
incident of the mother’s crossing the Ohio river on the ice is a
well-known fact. The story of “old Prue,” in the second volume, was an
incident that fell under the personal observation of a brother of the
writer, then collecting-clerk to a large mercantile house, in New
Orleans. From the same source was derived the character of the planter
Legree. Of him her brother thus wrote, speaking of visiting his
plantation, on a collecting tour; “He actually made me feel of his
fist, which was like a blacksmith’s hammer, or a nodule of iron,
telling me that it was ‘calloused with knocking down niggers.’ When I
left the plantation, I drew a long breath, and felt as if I had escaped
from an ogre’s den.”

That the tragical fate of Tom, also, has too many times had its
parallel, there are living witnesses, all over our land, to testify.
Let it be remembered that in all southern states it is a principle of
jurisprudence that no person of colored lineage can testify in a suit
against a white, and it will be easy to see that such a case may occur,
wherever there is a man whose passions outweigh his interests, and a
slave who has manhood or principle enough to resist his will. There is,
actually, nothing to protect the slave’s life, but the _character_ of
the master. Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force
their way to the public ear, and the comment that one often hears made
on them is more shocking than the thing itself. It is said, “Very
likely such cases may now and then occur, but they are no sample of
general practice.” If the laws of New England were so arranged that a
master could _now and then_ torture an apprentice to death, would it be
received with equal composure? Would it be said, “These cases are rare,
and no samples of general practice”? This injustice is an _inherent_
one in the slave system,—it cannot exist without it.

The public and shameless sale of beautiful mulatto and quadroon girls
has acquired a notoriety, from the incidents following the capture of
the Pearl. We extract the following from the speech of Hon. Horace
Mann, one of the legal counsel for the defendants in that case. He
says: “In that company of seventy-six persons, who attempted, in 1848,
to escape from the District of Columbia in the schooner Pearl, and
whose officers I assisted in defending, there were several young and
healthy girls, who had those peculiar attractions of form and feature
which connoisseurs prize so highly. Elizabeth Russel was one of them.
She immediately fell into the slave-trader’s fangs, and was doomed for
the New Orleans market. The hearts of those that saw her were touched
with pity for her fate. They offered eighteen hundred dollars to redeem
her; and some there were who offered to give, that would not have much
left after the gift; but the fiend of a slave-trader was inexorable.
She was despatched to New Orleans; but, when about half way there, God
had mercy on her, and smote her with death. There were two girls named
Edmundson in the same company. When about to be sent to the same
market, an older sister went to the shambles, to plead with the wretch
who owned them, for the love of God, to spare his victims. He bantered
her, telling what fine dresses and fine furniture they would have.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that may do very well in this life, but what will
become of them in the next?’ They too were sent to New Orleans; but
were afterwards redeemed, at an enormous ransom, and brought back.” Is
it not plain, from this, that the histories of Emmeline and Cassy may
have many counterparts?

Justice, too, obliges the author to state that the fairness of mind and
generosity attributed to St. Clare are not without a parallel, as the
following anecdote will show. A few years since, a young southern
gentleman was in Cincinnati, with a favorite servant, who had been his
personal attendant from a boy. The young man took advantage of this
opportunity to secure his own freedom, and fled to the protection of a
Quaker, who was quite noted in affairs of this kind. The owner was
exceedingly indignant. He had always treated the slave with such
indulgence, and his confidence in his affection was such, that he
believed he must have been practised upon to induce him to revolt from
him. He visited the Quaker, in high anger; but, being possessed of
uncommon candor and fairness, was soon quieted by his arguments and
representations. It was a side of the subject which he never had
heard,—never had thought on; and he immediately told the Quaker that,
if his slave would, to his own face, say that it was his desire to be
free, he would liberate him. An interview was forthwith procured, and
Nathan was asked by his young master whether he had ever had any reason
to complain of his treatment, in any respect.

“No, Mas’r,” said Nathan; “you’ve always been good to me.”

“Well, then, why do you want to leave me?”

“Mas’r may die, and then who get me?—I’d rather be a free man.”

After some deliberation, the young master replied, “Nathan, in your
place, I think I should feel very much so, myself. You are free.”

He immediately made him out free papers; deposited a sum of money in
the hands of the Quaker, to be judiciously used in assisting him to
start in life, and left a very sensible and kind letter of advice to
the young man. That letter was for some time in the writer’s hands.

The author hopes she has done justice to that nobility, generosity, and
humanity, which in many cases characterize individuals at the South.
Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind. But, she asks
any person, who knows the world, are such characters _common_,
anywhere?

For many years of her life, the author avoided all reading upon or
allusion to the subject of slavery, considering it as too painful to be
inquired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would
certainly live down. But, since the legislative act of 1850, when she
heard, with perfect surprise and consternation, Christian and humane
people actually recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into
slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens,—when she heard, on all
hands, from kind, compassionate and estimable people, in the free
states of the North, deliberations and discussions as to what Christian
duty could be on this head,—she could only think, These men and
Christians cannot know what slavery is; if they did, such a question
could never be open for discussion. And from this arose a desire to
exhibit it in a _living dramatic reality_. She has endeavored to show
it fairly, in its best and its worst phases. In its _best_ aspect, she
has, perhaps, been successful; but, oh! who shall say what yet remains
untold in that valley and shadow of death, that lies the other side?

To you, generous, noble-minded men and women, of the South,—you, whose
virtue, and magnanimity and purity of character, are the greater for
the severer trial it has encountered,—to you is her appeal. Have you
not, in your own secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt
that there are woes and evils, in this accursed system, far beyond what
are here shadowed, or can be shadowed? Can it be otherwise? Is _man_
ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does
not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of
testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can
anybody fail to make the inference what the practical result will be?
If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor,
justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public
sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the
ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves
as the best and purest? Are the honorable, the just, the high-minded
and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world?

The slave-trade is now, by American law, considered as piracy. But a
slave-trade, as systematic as ever was carried on on the coast of
Africa, is an inevitable attendant and result of American slavery. And
its heart-break and its horrors, can they be told?

The writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim picture, of the anguish
and despair that are, at this very moment, riving thousands of hearts,
shattering thousands of families, and driving a helpless and sensitive
race to frenzy and despair. There are those living who know the mothers
whom this accursed traffic has driven to the murder of their children;
and themselves seeking in death a shelter from woes more dreaded than
death. Nothing of tragedy can be written, can be spoken, can be
conceived, that equals the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly
acting on our shores, beneath the shadow of American law, and the
shadow of the cross of Christ.

And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to be trifled with,
apologized for, and passed over in silence? Farmers of Massachusetts,
of New Hampshire, of Vermont, of Connecticut, who read this book by the
blaze of your winter-evening fire,—strong-hearted, generous sailors and
ship-owners of Maine,—is this a thing for you to countenance and
encourage? Brave and generous men of New York, farmers of rich and
joyous Ohio, and ye of the wide prairie states,—answer, is this a thing
for you to protect and countenance? And you, mothers of America,—you
who have learned, by the cradles of your own children, to love and feel
for all mankind,—by the sacred love you bear your child; by your joy in
his beautiful, spotless infancy; by the motherly pity and tenderness
with which you guide his growing years; by the anxieties of his
education; by the prayers you breathe for his soul’s eternal good;—I
beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one
legal right to protect, guide, or educate, the child of her bosom! By
the sick hour of your child; by those dying eyes, which you can never
forget; by those last cries, that wrung your heart when you could
neither help nor save; by the desolation of that empty cradle, that
silent nursery,—I beseech you, pity those mothers that are constantly
made childless by the American slave-trade! And say, mothers of
America, is this a thing to be defended, sympathized with, passed over
in silence?

Do you say that the people of the free state have nothing to do with
it, and can do nothing? Would to God this were true! But it is not
true. The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and
participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South,
in that they have not the apology of education or custom.

If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times
past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and,
proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; the sons of the free
states would not have connived at the extension of slavery, in our
national body; the sons of the free states would not, as they do, trade
the souls and bodies of men as an equivalent to money, in their
mercantile dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned,
and sold again, by merchants in northern cities; and shall the whole
guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South?

Northern men, northern mothers, northern Christians, have something
more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look
to the evil among themselves.

But, what can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge.
There is one thing that every individual can do,—they can see to it
that _they feel right_. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence
encircles every human being; and the man or woman who _feels_ strongly,
healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant
benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this
matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they
swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?

Christian men and women of the North! still further,—you have another
power; you can _pray!_ Do you believe in prayer? or has it become an
indistinct apostolic tradition? You pray for the heathen abroad; pray
also for the heathen at home. And pray for those distressed Christians
whose whole chance of religious improvement is an accident of trade and
sale; from whom any adherence to the morals of Christianity is, in many
cases, an impossibility, unless they have given them, from above, the
courage and grace of martyrdom.

But, still more. On the shores of our free states are emerging the
poor, shattered, broken remnants of families,—men and women, escaped,
by miraculous providences from the surges of slavery,—feeble in
knowledge, and, in many cases, infirm in moral constitution, from a
system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and
morality. They come to seek a refuge among you; they come to seek
education, knowledge, Christianity.

What do you owe to these poor unfortunates, oh Christians? Does not
every American Christian owe to the African race some effort at
reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon
them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses be shut upon them?
Shall states arise and shake them out? Shall the church of Christ hear
in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the
helpless hand that they stretch out; and, by her silence, encourage the
cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it
will be a mournful spectacle. If it must be so, the country will have
reason to tremble, when it remembers that the fate of nations is in the
hands of One who is very pitiful, and of tender compassion.

Do you say, “We don’t want them here; let them go to Africa”?

That the providence of God has provided a refuge in Africa, is, indeed,
a great and noticeable fact; but that is no reason why the church of
Christ should throw off that responsibility to this outcast race which
her profession demands of her.

To fill up Liberia with an ignorant, inexperienced, half-barbarized
race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, would be only to
prolong, for ages, the period of struggle and conflict which attends
the inception of new enterprises. Let the church of the north receive
these poor sufferers in the spirit of Christ; receive them to the
educating advantages of Christian republican society and schools, until
they have attained to somewhat of a moral and intellectual maturity,
and then assist them in their passage to those shores, where they may
put in practice the lessons they have learned in America.

There is a body of men at the north, comparatively small, who have been
doing this; and, as the result, this country has already seen examples
of men, formerly slaves, who have rapidly acquired property,
reputation, and education. Talent has been developed, which,
considering the circumstances, is certainly remarkable; and, for moral
traits of honesty, kindness, tenderness of feeling,—for heroic efforts
and self-denials, endured for the ransom of brethren and friends yet in
slavery,—they have been remarkable to a degree that, considering the
influence under which they were born, is surprising.

The writer has lived, for many years, on the frontier-line of slave
states, and has had great opportunities of observation among those who
formerly were slaves. They have been in her family as servants; and, in
default of any other school to receive them, she has, in many cases,
had them instructed in a family school, with her own children. She has
also the testimony of missionaries, among the fugitives in Canada, in
coincidence with her own experience; and her deductions, with regard to
the capabilities of the race, are encouraging in the highest degree.

The first desire of the emancipated slave, generally, is for
_education_. There is nothing that they are not willing to give or do
to have their children instructed, and, so far as the writer has
observed herself, or taken the testimony of teachers among them, they
are remarkably intelligent and quick to learn. The results of schools,
founded for them by benevolent individuals in Cincinnati, fully
establish this.

The author gives the following statement of facts, on the authority of
Professor C. E. Stowe, then of Lane Seminary, Ohio, with regard to
emancipated slaves, now resident in Cincinnati; given to show the
capability of the race, even without any very particular assistance or
encouragement.

The initial letters alone are given. They are all residents of
Cincinnati.

“B——. Furniture maker; twenty years in the city; worth ten thousand
dollars, all his own earnings; a Baptist.

“C——. Full black; stolen from Africa; sold in New Orleans; been free
fifteen years; paid for himself six hundred dollars; a farmer; owns
several farms in Indiana; Presbyterian; probably worth fifteen or
twenty thousand dollars, all earned by himself.

“K——. Full black; dealer in real estate; worth thirty thousand dollars;
about forty years old; free six years; paid eighteen hundred dollars
for his family; member of the Baptist church; received a legacy from
his master, which he has taken good care of, and increased.

“G——. Full black; coal dealer; about thirty years old; worth eighteen
thousand dollars; paid for himself twice, being once defrauded to the
amount of sixteen hundred dollars; made all his money by his own
efforts—much of it while a slave, hiring his time of his master, and
doing business for himself; a fine, gentlemanly fellow.

“W——. Three-fourths black; barber and waiter; from Kentucky; nineteen
years free; paid for self and family over three thousand dollars;
deacon in the Baptist church.

“G. D——. Three-fourths black; white-washer; from Kentucky; nine years
free; paid fifteen hundred dollars for self and family; recently died,
aged sixty; worth six thousand dollars.”

Professor Stowe says, “With all these, except G——, I have been, for
some years, personally acquainted, and make my statements from my own
knowledge.”

The writer well remembers an aged colored woman, who was employed as a
washerwoman in her father’s family. The daughter of this woman married
a slave. She was a remarkably active and capable young woman, and, by
her industry and thrift, and the most persevering self-denial, raised
nine hundred dollars for her husband’s freedom, which she paid, as she
raised it, into the hands of his master. She yet wanted a hundred
dollars of the price, when he died. She never recovered any of the
money.

These are but few facts, among multitudes which might be adduced, to
show the self-denial, energy, patience, and honesty, which the slave
has exhibited in a state of freedom.

And let it be remembered that these individuals have thus bravely
succeeded in conquering for themselves comparative wealth and social
position, in the face of every disadvantage and discouragement. The
colored man, by the law of Ohio, cannot be a voter, and, till within a
few years, was even denied the right of testimony in legal suits with
the white. Nor are these instances confined to the State of Ohio. In
all states of the Union we see men, but yesterday burst from the
shackles of slavery, who, by a self-educating force, which cannot be
too much admired, have risen to highly respectable stations in society.
Pennington, among clergymen, Douglas and Ward, among editors, are well
known instances.

If this persecuted race, with every discouragement and disadvantage,
have done thus much, how much more they might do if the Christian
church would act towards them in the spirit of her Lord!

This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. A
mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an
earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom
great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last
convulsion.

For what is this mighty influence thus rousing in all nations and
languages those groanings that cannot be uttered, for man’s freedom and
equality?

O, Church of Christ, read the signs of the times! Is not this power the
spirit of Him whose kingdom is yet to come, and whose will to be done
on earth as it is in heaven?

But who may abide the day of his appearing? “for that day shall burn as
an oven: and he shall appear as a swift witness against those that
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and
that _turn aside the stranger in his right_: and he shall break in
pieces the oppressor.”

Are not these dread words for a nation bearing in her bosom so mighty
an injustice? Christians! every time that you pray that the kingdom of
Christ may come, can you forget that prophecy associates, in dread
fellowship, the _day of vengeance_ with the year of his redeemed?

A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been
guilty before God; and the _Christian church_ has a heavy account to
answer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty,
and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved,—but by
repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by
which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by
which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of
Almighty God!




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