1852
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
PREFACE
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THE scenes of this story, as its title indicates, lie among a race
hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and refined society; an
exotic race, whose ancestors, born beneath a tropic sun, brought with
them, and perpetuated to their descendants, a character so essentially
unlike the hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race, as for many years to
have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt.
But another and better day is dawning; every influence of
literature, of poetry, and of art, in our times, is becoming more and
more in unison with the great master chord of Christianity, "good will
to man."
The poet, the painter, and the artist now seek out and embellish the
common and gentler humanities of life, and, under the allurements of
fiction, breathe a humanizing and subduing influence, favorable to the
development of the great principles of Christian brotherhood.
The hand of the benevolence is everywhere stretched out, searching
into abuses, righting wrongs, alleviating distresses, and bringing to
the knowledge and sympathies of the world and the lowly, the
oppressed, and the forgotten.
In this general movement, unhappy Africa at last is remembered;
Africa, who began the race of civilization and human progress in the
dim, gray dawn of early time, but who, for centuries, has lain bound
and bleeding at the foot of civilized and Christianized humanity,
imploring compassion in vain.
But the heart of the dominant race, who have been her conquerors,
her hard masters, has at length been turned towards her in mercy; and
it has been seen how far nobler it is in nations to protect the feeble
than to oppress them. Thanks be to God, the world has at last outlived
the slave-trade!
The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for
the African race, as they exist among us; to show their wrongs and
sorrows, under a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat
and do away the good effects of all that can be attempted for them, by
their best friends, under it.
In doing this, the author can sincerely disclaim any invidious
feeling towards those individuals who, often without any fault of
their own, are involved in the trails and embarrassments of the legal
relations of slavery.
Experience has shown her that some of the noblest of minds and
hearts are often thus involved; and no one knows better than they do,
that what may be gathered of the evils of slavery from sketches like
these, is not the half that could be told, of the unspeakable whole.
In the northern states, these representations may, perhaps, be
thought caricatures; in the southern states are witnesses who know
their fidelity. What personal knowledge the author has had, of the
truth of incidents such as here are related, will appear in its time.
It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world's sorrows and
wrongs have, from ate to age, been lived down, so a time shall come
when sketches similar to these shall be valuable only as memorials of
what has long ceased to be.
When an enlightened and Christianized community shall have, on the
shores of Africa, laws, language, and literature, drawn from among us,
may then the scenes of the house of bondage be to them like the
remembrance of Egypt to the Israelite,- a motive of thankfulness to
Him who hath redeemed them!
For, while politicians contend, and men are swerved this way and
that by conflicting tides of interest and passion, the great cause of
human liberty is in the hands of One, of whom it is said:
-
"He shall not fail nor be discouraged
Till He have set judgment in the earth."
"He shall deliver the needy when he crieth,
The poor, and him that hath no helper."
"He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence,
And precious shall their blood be in His sight."
1: In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity
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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, 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.
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- it 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 'twere,"
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'n't 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 hate 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 earrings, 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 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 'tis. 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 cases,- 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 nowadays, 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
principal 'twas, you see, for a better hearted feller never broke
bread; 'twas 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 anyways 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 my 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 to-day?" said her mistress, when Eliza
had upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the work-stand, and finally
was abstractedly offering her mistress a long night-gown 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 principal, 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 super-abundance 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.
2: The Mother
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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. *001
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!
3: 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 hand
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 wont!" 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-bye, 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-bye," 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.
4: 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 barnyard 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 operations 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 tall 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 re-commenced.
"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,' says 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 alongside 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 mississ- 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 'tall."
"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! 'Tain't 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 came pretty
near quarreling 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 them 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 'tis- 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 Gineral 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 'tain'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 buttonhole 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 teapot 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.
"An't 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 'twill 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 the 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', warn't 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 'twill 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 head-kerchief, 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 buyin, 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 sang, 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 "'twas 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 child-like
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.
5: 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 bye, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow that you lugged in
to our dinner-table to-day?"
"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's 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 to-morrow. 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 to-night. 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 tall, 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
help-meet 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!"
"Sold him?" echoed both, lifting up their hands in dismay.
"Yes, sold him!" said Eliza, firmly; "I crept into the closet by
Mistress' door to-night, 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 to-day."
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 'twas 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- 'tan'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 ain'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,
to-day, 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.
6: 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'n't 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
singular 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, etc., 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 blows 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- who but 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 eves. "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, regularly organized method of assisting his
mental perplexities.
"Der an't no sayin'- 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's 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 for to say it."
"You must be careful, Sam."
"Just let me get my breath, Missis, and I'll start fair. I'll be
berry 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 'tal surprised if dat ar gen'leman'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 jist 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 horse-posts to be ready to "help Mas'r."
Sam's palm-leaf had been ingeniously disentangled from all
pretensions to braid, as respected 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 aforenamed 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 triumph |
