CHAPTER I
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity
Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting
alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of
P——, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the
gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some
subject with great earnestness.
For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen. One of the
parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to
come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace
features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is
trying to elbow his way upward in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a
gaudy vest of many colors, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow
spots, and arranged with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air
of the man. His hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings;
and he wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous
size, and a great variety of colors, attached to it,—which, in the ardor
of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling with evident
satisfaction. His conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray’s
Grammar,[1]
and was garnished at convenient intervals with various profane expressions,
which not even the desire to be graphic in our account shall induce us to
transcribe.
His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a gentleman; and the
arrangements of the house, and the general air of the housekeeping, indicated
easy, and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated, the two were in the
midst of an earnest conversation.
“That is the way I should arrange the matter,” said Mr. Shelby.
“I can’t make trade that way—I positively can’t, Mr.
Shelby,” said the other, holding up a glass of wine between his eye and
the light.
“Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly
worth that sum anywhere,—steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm
like a clock.”
“You mean honest, as niggers go,” said Haley, helping himself to a
glass of brandy.
“No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He
got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really
did get it. I’ve trusted him, since then, with everything I
have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and go round the
country; and I always found him true and square in everything.”
“Some folks don’t believe there is pious niggers Shelby,”
said Haley, with a candid flourish of his hand, “but I do. I had a
fellow, now, in this yer last lot I took to Orleans—‘t was as good
as a meetin, now, really, to hear that critter pray; and he was quite gentle
and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him cheap of a man
that was ’bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I
consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it’s the genuine
article, and no mistake.”
“Well, Tom’s got the real article, if ever a fellow had,”
rejoined the other. “Why, last fall, I let him go to Cincinnati alone, to
do business for me, and bring home five hundred dollars. ‘Tom,’
says I to him, ‘I trust you, because I think you’re a
Christian—I know you wouldn’t cheat.’ Tom comes back, sure
enough; I knew he would. Some low fellows, they say, said to him—Tom, why
don’t you make tracks for Canada?’ ’Ah, master trusted me,
and I couldn’t,’—they told me about it. I am sorry to part
with Tom, I must say. You ought to let him cover the whole balance of the debt;
and you would, Haley, if you had any conscience.”
“Well, I’ve got just as much conscience as any man in business can
afford to keep,—just a little, you know, to swear by, as ’t
were,” said the trader, jocularly; “and, then, I’m ready to
do anything in reason to ’blige friends; but this yer, you see, is a
leetle too hard on a fellow—a leetle too hard.” The trader sighed
contemplatively, and poured out some more brandy.
“Well, then, Haley, how will you trade?” said Mr. Shelby, after an
uneasy interval of silence.
“Well, haven’t you a boy or gal that you could throw in with
Tom?”
“Hum!—none that I could well spare; to tell the truth, it’s
only hard necessity makes me willing to sell at all. I don’t like parting
with any of my hands, that’s a fact.”
Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between four and five years of
age, entered the room. There was something in his appearance remarkably
beautiful and engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy
curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of
fire and softness, looked out from beneath the rich, long lashes, as he peered
curiously into the apartment. A gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid, carefully
made and neatly fitted, set off to advantage the dark and rich style of his
beauty; and a certain comic air of assurance, blended with bashfulness, showed
that he had been not unused to being petted and noticed by his master.
“Hulloa, Jim Crow!” said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and snapping a
bunch of raisins towards him, “pick that up, now!”
The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the prize, while his
master laughed.
“Come here, Jim Crow,” said he. The child came up, and the master
patted the curly head, and chucked him under the chin.
“Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing.” The boy
commenced one of those wild, grotesque songs common among the negroes, in a
rich, clear voice, accompanying his singing with many comic evolutions of the
hands, feet, and whole body, all in perfect time to the music.
“Bravo!” said Haley, throwing him a quarter of an orange.
“Now, Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe, when he has the rheumatism,”
said his master.
Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the appearance of deformity
and distortion, as, with his back humped up, and his master’s stick in
his hand, he hobbled about the room, his childish face drawn into a doleful
pucker, and spitting from right to left, in imitation of an old man.
Both gentlemen laughed uproariously.
“Now, Jim,” said his master, “show us how old Elder Robbins
leads the psalm.” The boy drew his chubby face down to a formidable
length, and commenced toning a psalm tune through his nose, with imperturbable
gravity.
“Hurrah! bravo! what a young ’un!” said Haley; “that
chap’s a case, I’ll promise. Tell you what,” said he,
suddenly clapping his hand on Mr. Shelby’s shoulder, “fling in that
chap, and I’ll settle the business—I will. Come, now, if that
ain’t doing the thing up about the rightest!”
At this moment, the door was pushed gently open, and a young quadroon woman,
apparently about twenty-five, entered the room.
There needed only a glance from the child to her, to identify her as its
mother. There was the same rich, full, dark eye, with its long lashes; the same
ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek
to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man
fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest
possible fit, and set off to advantage her finely moulded shape;—a
delicately formed hand and a trim foot and ankle were items of appearance that
did not escape the quick eye of the trader, well used to run up at a glance the
points of a fine female article.
“Well, Eliza?” said her master, as she stopped and looked
hesitatingly at him.
“I was looking for Harry, please, sir;” and the boy bounded toward
her, showing his spoils, which he had gathered in the skirt of his robe.
“Well, take him away then,” said Mr. Shelby; and hastily she
withdrew, carrying the child on her arm.
“By Jupiter,” said the trader, turning to him in admiration,
“there’s an article, now! You might make your fortune on that ar
gal in Orleans, any day. I’ve seen over a thousand, in my day, paid down
for gals not a bit handsomer.”
“I don’t want to make my fortune on her,” said Mr. Shelby,
dryly; and, seeking to turn the conversation, he uncorked a bottle of fresh
wine, and asked his companion’s opinion of it.
“Capital, sir,—first chop!” said the trader; then turning,
and slapping his hand familiarly on Shelby’s shoulder, he added—
“Come, how will you trade about the gal?—what shall I say for
her—what’ll you take?”
“Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold,” said Shelby. “My wife
would not part with her for her weight in gold.”
“Ay, ay! women always say such things, cause they ha’nt no sort of
calculation. Just show ’em how many watches, feathers, and trinkets,
one’s weight in gold would buy, and that alters the case, I
reckon.”
“I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of; I say no, and I mean
no,” said Shelby, decidedly.
“Well, you’ll let me have the boy, though,” said the trader;
“you must own I’ve come down pretty handsomely for him.”
“What on earth can you want with the child?” said Shelby.
“Why, I’ve got a friend that’s going into this yer branch of
the business—wants to buy up handsome boys to raise for the market. Fancy
articles entirely—sell for waiters, and so on, to rich ’uns, that
can pay for handsome ’uns. It sets off one of yer great places—a
real handsome boy to open door, wait, and tend. They fetch a good sum; and this
little devil is such a comical, musical concern, he’s just the
article!’
“I would rather not sell him,” said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully;
“the fact is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy
from his mother, sir.”
“O, you do?—La! yes—something of that ar natur. I understand,
perfectly. It is mighty onpleasant getting on with women, sometimes, I
al’ays hates these yer screechin,’ screamin’ times. They are
mighty onpleasant; but, as I manages business, I generally avoids
’em, sir. Now, what if you get the girl off for a day, or a week, or so;
then the thing’s done quietly,—all over before she comes home. Your
wife might get her some ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make
up with her.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain’t like white folks, you
know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say,” said
Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, “that this kind o’
trade is hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never
could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I’ve seen
’em as would pull a woman’s child out of her arms, and set him up
to sell, and she screechin’ like mad all the time;—very bad
policy—damages the article—makes ’em quite unfit for service
sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined
by this sort o’ handling. The fellow that was trading for her
didn’t want her baby; and she was one of your real high sort, when her
blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked,
and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of ’t;
and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went
ravin’ mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars,
just for want of management,—there’s where ’t is. It’s
always best to do the humane thing, sir; that’s been my
experience.” And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm,
with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second
Wilberforce.
The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply; for while Mr. Shelby was
thoughtfully peeling an orange, Haley broke out afresh, with becoming
diffidence, but as if actually driven by the force of truth to say a few words
more.
“It don’t look well, now, for a feller to be praisin’
himself; but I say it jest because it’s the truth. I believe I’m
reckoned to bring in about the finest droves of niggers that is brought
in,—at least, I’ve been told so; if I have once, I reckon I have a
hundred times,—all in good case,—fat and likely, and I lose as few
as any man in the business. And I lays it all to my management, sir; and
humanity, sir, I may say, is the great pillar of my management.”
Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, and so he said, “Indeed!”
“Now, I’ve been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I’ve been
talked to. They an’t pop’lar, and they an’t common; but I
stuck to ’em, sir; I’ve stuck to ’em, and realized well on
’em; yes, sir, they have paid their passage, I may say,” and the
trader laughed at his joke.
There was something so piquant and original in these elucidations of humanity,
that Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps you laugh too, dear
reader; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms
now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say
and do.
Mr. Shelby’s laugh encouraged the trader to proceed.
“It’s strange, now, but I never could beat this into people’s
heads. Now, there was Tom Loker, my old partner, down in Natchez; he was a
clever fellow, Tom was, only the very devil with niggers,—on principle
’t was, you see, for a better hearted feller never broke bread; ’t
was his system, sir. I used to talk to Tom. ‘Why, Tom,’ I
used to say, ‘when your gals takes on and cry, what’s the use
o’ crackin on’ ’em over the head, and knockin’ on
’em round? It’s ridiculous,’ says I, ‘and don’t
do no sort o’ good. Why, I don’t see no harm in their
cryin’,’ says I; ’it’s natur,’ says I, ‘and
if natur can’t blow off one way, it will another. Besides, Tom,’
says I, ‘it jest spiles your gals; they get sickly, and down in the
mouth; and sometimes they gets ugly,—particular yallow gals do,—and
it’s the devil and all gettin’ on ’em broke in. Now,’
says I, ‘why can’t you kinder coax ’em up, and speak
’em fair? Depend on it, Tom, a little humanity, thrown in along, goes a
heap further than all your jawin’ and crackin’; and it pays
better,’ says I, ‘depend on ’t.’ But Tom couldn’t
get the hang on ’t; and he spiled so many for me, that I had to break off
with him, though he was a good-hearted fellow, and as fair a business hand as
is goin’.”
“And do you find your ways of managing do the business better than
Tom’s?” said Mr. Shelby.
“Why, yes, sir, I may say so. You see, when I any ways can, I takes a
leetle care about the onpleasant parts, like selling young uns and
that,—get the gals out of the way—out of sight, out of mind, you
know,—and when it’s clean done, and can’t be helped, they
naturally gets used to it. ’Tan’t, you know, as if it was white
folks, that’s brought up in the way of ’spectin’ to keep
their children and wives, and all that. Niggers, you know, that’s fetched
up properly, ha’n’t no kind of ’spectations of no kind; so
all these things comes easier.”
“I’m afraid mine are not properly brought up, then,” said Mr.
Shelby.
“S’pose not; you Kentucky folks spile your niggers. You mean well
by ’em, but ’tan’t no real kindness, arter all. Now, a
nigger, you see, what’s got to be hacked and tumbled round the world, and
sold to Tom, and Dick, and the Lord knows who, ’tan’t no kindness
to be givin’ on him notions and expectations, and bringin’ on him
up too well, for the rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, I
venture to say, your niggers would be quite chop-fallen in a place where some
of your plantation niggers would be singing and whooping like all possessed.
Every man, you know, Mr. Shelby, naturally thinks well of his own ways; and I
think I treat niggers just about as well as it’s ever worth while to
treat ’em.”
“It’s a happy thing to be satisfied,” said Mr. Shelby, with a
slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature.
“Well,” said Haley, after they had both silently picked their nuts
for a season, “what do you say?”
“I’ll think the matter over, and talk with my wife,” said Mr.
Shelby. “Meantime, Haley, if you want the matter carried on in the quiet
way you speak of, you’d best not let your business in this neighborhood
be known. It will get out among my boys, and it will not be a particularly
quiet business getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I’ll
promise you.”
“O! certainly, by all means, mum! of course. But I’ll tell you.
I’m in a devil of a hurry, and shall want to know, as soon as possible,
what I may depend on,” said he, rising and putting on his overcoat.
“Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and you shall have my
answer,” said Mr. Shelby, and the trader bowed himself out of the
apartment.
“I’d like to have been able to kick the fellow down the
steps,” said he to himself, as he saw the door fairly closed, “with
his impudent assurance; but he knows how much he has me at advantage. If
anybody had ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of those
rascally traders, I should have said, ’Is thy servant a dog, that he
should do this thing?’ And now it must come, for aught I see. And
Eliza’s child, too! I know that I shall have some fuss with wife about
that; and, for that matter, about Tom, too. So much for being in
debt,—heigho! The fellow sees his advantage, and means to push it.”
Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of
Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a quiet and
gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that
are called for in the business of more southern districts, makes the task of
the negro a more healthful and reasonable one; while the master, content with a
more gradual style of acquisition, has not those temptations to hardheartedness
which always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid
gain is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests
of the helpless and unprotected.
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of
some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might
be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution,
and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous
shadow—the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these
human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many
things belonging to a master,—so long as the failure, or
misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any
day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless
misery and toil,—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or
desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.
Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured and kindly, and
disposed to easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never been a
lack of anything which might contribute to the physical comfort of the negroes
on his estate. He had, however, speculated largely and quite loosely; had
involved himself deeply, and his notes to a large amount had come into the
hands of Haley; and this small piece of information is the key to the preceding
conversation.
Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza had caught enough
of the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to her master for
somebody.
She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as she came out; but her
mistress just then calling, she was obliged to hasten away.
Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her boy;—could
she be mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily strained
him so tight that the little fellow looked up into her face in astonishment.
“Eliza, girl, what ails you today?” said her mistress, when Eliza
had upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the workstand, and finally was
abstractedly offering her mistress a long nightgown in place of the silk dress
she had ordered her to bring from the wardrobe.
Eliza started. “O, missis!” she said, raising her eyes; then,
bursting into tears, she sat down in a chair, and began sobbing.
“Why, Eliza child, what ails you?” said her mistress.
“O! missis, missis,” said Eliza, “there’s been a trader
talking with master in the parlor! I heard him.”
“Well, silly child, suppose there has.”
“O, missis, do you suppose mas’r would sell my Harry?”
And the poor creature threw herself into a chair, and sobbed convulsively.
“Sell him! No, you foolish girl! You know your master never deals with
those southern traders, and never means to sell any of his servants, as long as
they behave well. Why, you silly child, who do you think would want to buy your
Harry? Do you think all the world are set on him as you are, you goosie? Come,
cheer up, and hook my dress. There now, put my back hair up in that pretty
braid you learnt the other day, and don’t go listening at doors any
more.”
“Well, but, missis, you never would give your
consent—to—to—”
“Nonsense, child! to be sure, I shouldn’t. What do you talk so for?
I would as soon have one of my own children sold. But really, Eliza, you are
getting altogether too proud of that little fellow. A man can’t put his
nose into the door, but you think he must be coming to buy him.”
Reassured by her mistress’ confident tone, Eliza proceeded nimbly and
adroitly with her toilet, laughing at her own fears, as she proceeded.
Mrs. Shelby was a woman of high class, both intellectually and morally. To that
natural magnanimity and generosity of mind which one often marks as
characteristic of the women of Kentucky, she added high moral and religious
sensibility and principle, carried out with great energy and ability into
practical results. Her husband, who made no professions to any particular
religious character, nevertheless reverenced and respected the consistency of
hers, and stood, perhaps, a little in awe of her opinion. Certain it was that
he gave her unlimited scope in all her benevolent efforts for the comfort,
instruction, and improvement of her servants, though he never took any decided
part in them himself. In fact, if not exactly a believer in the doctrine of the
efficiency of the extra good works of saints, he really seemed somehow or other
to fancy that his wife had piety and benevolence enough for two—to
indulge a shadowy expectation of getting into heaven through her superabundance
of qualities to which he made no particular pretension.
The heaviest load on his mind, after his conversation with the trader, lay in
the foreseen necessity of breaking to his wife the arrangement
contemplated,—meeting the importunities and opposition which he knew he
should have reason to encounter.
Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassments, and
knowing only the general kindliness of his temper, had been quite sincere in
the entire incredulity with which she had met Eliza’s suspicions. In
fact, she dismissed the matter from her mind, without a second thought; and
being occupied in preparations for an evening visit, it passed out of her
thoughts entirely.
CHAPTER II
The Mother
Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a petted and
indulged favorite.
The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air of
refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be
a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in
the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in
almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing and agreeable.
Eliza, such as we have described her, is not a fancy sketch, but taken from
remembrance, as we saw her, years ago, in Kentucky. Safe under the protecting
care of her mistress, Eliza had reached maturity without those temptations
which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a
bright and talented young mulatto man, who was a slave on a neighboring estate,
and bore the name of George Harris.
This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging factory,
where his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered the first hand
in the place. He had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which,
considering the education and circumstances of the inventor, displayed quite as
much mechanical genius as Whitney’s cotton-gin.[1]
He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general
favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the
law not a man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to
the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical master. This same gentleman,
having heard of the fame of George’s invention, took a ride over to the
factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received
with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so
valuable a slave.
He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George, who, in
high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and
manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority.
What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing
machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop
to it. He’d take him back, and put him to hoeing and digging, and
“see if he’d step about so smart.” Accordingly, the
manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded
George’s wages, and announced his intention of taking him home.
“But, Mr. Harris,” remonstrated the manufacturer,
“isn’t this rather sudden?”
“What if it is?—isn’t the man mine?”
“We would be willing, sir, to increase the rate of compensation.”
“No object at all, sir. I don’t need to hire any of my hands out,
unless I’ve a mind to.”
“But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to this business.”
“Dare say he may be; never was much adapted to anything that I set him
about, I’ll be bound.”
“But only think of his inventing this machine,” interposed one of
the workmen, rather unluckily.
“O yes! a machine for saving work, is it? He’d invent that,
I’ll be bound; let a nigger alone for that, any time. They are all
labor-saving machines themselves, every one of ’em. No, he shall
tramp!”
George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly
pronounced by a power that he knew was irresistible. He folded his arms,
tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter feelings burned in
his bosom, and sent streams of fire through his veins. He breathed short, and
his large dark eyes flashed like live coals; and he might have broken out into
some dangerous ebullition, had not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the
arm, and said, in a low tone,
“Give way, George; go with him for the present. We’ll try to help
you, yet.”
The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he could
not hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in his
determination to keep the power he possessed over his victim.
George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm. He had been
able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and
troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be
repressed,—indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could
not become a thing.
It was during the happy period of his employment in the factory that George had
seen and married his wife. During that period,—being much trusted and
favored by his employer,—he had free liberty to come and go at
discretion. The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who, with a
little womanly complacency in match-making, felt pleased to unite her handsome
favorite with one of her own class who seemed in every way suited to her; and
so they were married in her mistress’ great parlor, and her mistress
herself adorned the bride’s beautiful hair with orange-blossoms, and
threw over it the bridal veil, which certainly could scarce have rested on a
fairer head; and there was no lack of white gloves, and cake and wine,—of
admiring guests to praise the bride’s beauty, and her mistress’
indulgence and liberality. For a year or two Eliza saw her husband frequently,
and there was nothing to interrupt their happiness, except the loss of two
infant children, to whom she was passionately attached, and whom she mourned
with a grief so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her mistress,
who sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her naturally passionate feelings
within the bounds of reason and religion.
After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually become
tranquillized and settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve, once
more entwined with that little life, seemed to become sound and healthful, and
Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband was rudely torn from
his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway of his legal owner.
The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a week or two after
George had been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of the occasion had
passed away, and tried every possible inducement to lead him to restore him to
his former employment.
“You needn’t trouble yourself to talk any longer,” said he,
doggedly; “I know my own business, sir.”
“I did not presume to interfere with it, sir. I only thought that you
might think it for your interest to let your man to us on the terms
proposed.”
“O, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your winking and
whispering, the day I took him out of the factory; but you don’t come it
over me that way. It’s a free country, sir; the man’s mine,
and I do what I please with him,—that’s it!”
And so fell George’s last hope;—nothing before him but a life of
toil and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation and
indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.
A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is to hang
him. No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is WORSE!
CHAPTER III
The Husband and Father
Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather
dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her
shoulder. She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.
“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I am so glad you
’s come! Missis is gone to spend the afternoon; so come into my little
room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”
Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah,
where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.
“How glad I am!—why don’t you smile?—and look at
Harry—how he grows.” The boy stood shyly regarding his father
through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s dress.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and
kissing him.
“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly.
“I wish I’d never been born myself!”
Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her
husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.
“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor
girl!” said he, fondly; “it’s too bad: O, how I wish you
never had seen me—you might have been happy!”
“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has happened,
or is going to happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till
lately.”
“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his
knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through
his long curls.
“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and
the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor
you me!”
“O, George, how can you!”
“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as
wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable,
forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all.
What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything,
trying to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was
dead!”
“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked! I know how you feel about
losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray be
patient, and perhaps something—”
“Patient!” said he, interrupting her; “haven’t I been
patient? Did I say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason,
from the place where everybody was kind to me? I’d paid him truly every
cent of my earnings,—and they all say I worked well.”
“Well, it is dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all,
he is your master, you know.”
“My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think
of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a
better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better
manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better
hand,—and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to
him,—I’ve learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to
make a dray-horse of me?—to take me from things I can do, and do better
than he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he
says he’ll bring me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the
hardest, meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”
“O, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never heard you talk so;
I’m afraid you’ll do something dreadful. I don’t wonder at
your feelings, at all; but oh, do be careful—do, do—for my
sake—for Harry’s!”
“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it’s growing
worse and worse; flesh and blood can’t bear it any longer;—every
chance he can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my
work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work
hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He says that though
I don’t say anything, he sees I’ve got the devil in me, and he
means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come out in a way that he
won’t like, or I’m mistaken!”
“O dear! what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully.
“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy loading
stones into a cart, that young Mas’r Tom stood there, slashing his whip
so near the horse that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop, as
pleasant as I could,—he just kept right on. I begged him again, and then
he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then he screamed
and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that I was fighting him. He came
in a rage, and said he’d teach me who was my master; and he tied me to a
tree, and cut switches for young master, and told him that he might whip me
till he was tired;—and he did do it! If I don’t make him remember
it, some time!” and the brow of the young man grew dark, and his eyes
burned with an expression that made his young wife tremble. “Who made
this man my master? That’s what I want to know!” he said.
“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must
obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”
“There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a
child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a
good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been
kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I
owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I
won’t bear it. No, I won’t!” he said, clenching
his hand with a fierce frown.
Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood
before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the
surges of such passions.
“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added George;
“the creature has been about all the comfort that I’ve had. He has
slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o’ looked at
me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him
with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas’r came
along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he couldn’t
afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to
his neck and throw him in the pond.”
“O, George, you didn’t do it!”
“Do it? not I!—but he did. Mas’r and Tom pelted the poor
drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if
he wondered why I didn’t save him. I had to take a flogging because I
wouldn’t do it myself. I don’t care. Mas’r will find out that
I’m one that whipping won’t tame. My day will come yet, if he
don’t look out.”
“What are you going to do? O, George, don’t do anything wicked; if
you only trust in God, and try to do right, he’ll deliver you.”
“I an’t a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart’s full of
bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?”
“O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go
wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best.”
“That’s easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and
riding in their carriages; but let ’em be where I am, I guess it would
come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can’t
be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn’t in my place,—you can’t
now, if I tell you all I’ve got to say. You don’t know the whole
yet.”
“What can be coming now?”
“Well, lately Mas’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me
marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they
are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud
notions from you; and he says he won’t let me come here any more, and
that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded
and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for
a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down
river.”
“Why—but you were married to me, by the minister, as much as
if you’d been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.
“Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in
this country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if he chooses to
part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you,—why I wish
I’d never been born; it would have been better for us both,—it
would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this
may happen to him yet!”
“O, but master is so kind!”
“Yes, but who knows?—he may die—and then he may be sold to
nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and
bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every
good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too much
for you to keep.”
The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart; the vision of the trader came
before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned
pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the
boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding
triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s walking-stick. She would have
spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.
“No, no,—he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she thought.
“No, I won’t tell him; besides, it an’t true; Missis never
deceives us.”
“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear up,
now; and good-by, for I’m going.”
“Going, George! Going where?”
“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and when
I’m there, I’ll buy you; that’s all the hope that’s
left us. You have a kind master, that won’t refuse to sell you.
I’ll buy you and the boy;—God helping me, I will!”
“O, dreadful! if you should be taken?”
“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll die first! I’ll
be free, or I’ll die!”
“You won’t kill yourself!”
“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get me
down the river alive!”
“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked;
don’t lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too
much—too much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully,
prudently; pray God to help you.”
“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas’r took it into his head to
send me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I
believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It would please
him, if he thought it would aggravate ’Shelby’s folks,’ as he
calls ’em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all
was over. I’ve got some preparations made,—and there are those that
will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the missing,
some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear
you.”
“O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then you won’t
do anything wicked.”
“Well, now, good-by,” said George, holding Eliza’s
hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there
were last words, and sobs, and bitter weeping,—such parting as those may
make whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web,—and the
husband and wife were parted.
CHAPTER IV
An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close adjoining to “the
house,” as the negro par excellence designates his master’s
dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch, where, every summer,
strawberries, raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, flourished
under careful tending. The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet
bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and interlacing, left
scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen. Here, also, in summer, various
brilliant annuals, such as marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an
indulgent corner in which to unfold their splendors, and were the delight and
pride of Aunt Chloe’s heart.
Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house is over, and Aunt
Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to inferior
officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and washing dishes, and
come out into her own snug territories, to “get her ole man’s
supper”; therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the fire,
presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a stew-pan, and
anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a bake-kettle, from whence
steam forth indubitable intimations of “something good.” A round,
black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might
have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her
whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under her
well-starched checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a
little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the
neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be.
A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a
chicken or turkey or duck in the barn-yard but looked grave when they saw her
approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and
certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and
roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting
fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins,
and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less
practised compounders; and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and
merriment, as she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of
her compeers had made to attain to her elevation.
The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of dinners and suppers
“in style,” awoke all the energies of her soul; and no sight was
more welcome to her than a pile of travelling trunks launched on the verandah,
for then she foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.
Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the bake-pan; in which
congenial operation we shall leave her till we finish our picture of the
cottage.
In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy spread; and by the
side of it was a piece of carpeting, of some considerable size. On this piece
of carpeting Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in the upper walks
of life; and it and the bed by which it lay, and the whole corner, in fact,
were treated with distinguished consideration, and made, so far as possible,
sacred from the marauding inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact,
that corner was the drawing-room of the establishment. In the other
corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for
use. The wall over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant
scriptural prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and colored in a
manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he happened to
meet with its like.
On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed boys, with glistening
black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were busy in superintending the first
walking operations of the baby, which, as is usually the case, consisted in
getting up on its feet, balancing a moment, and then tumbling down,—each
successive failure being violently cheered, as something decidedly clever.
A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in front of the fire,
and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and saucers of a decidedly brilliant
pattern, with other symptoms of an approaching meal. At this table was seated
Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby’s best hand, who, as he is to be the hero of our
story, we must daguerreotype for our readers. He was a large, broad-chested,
powerfully-made man, of a full glossy black, and a face whose truly African
features were characterized by an expression of grave and steady good sense,
united with much kindliness and benevolence. There was something about his
whole air self-respecting and dignified, yet united with a confiding and humble
simplicity.
He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying before him, on which
he was carefully and slowly endeavoring to accomplish a copy of some letters,
in which operation he was overlooked by young Mas’r George, a smart,
bright boy of thirteen, who appeared fully to realize the dignity of his
position as instructor.
“Not that way, Uncle Tom,—not that way,” said he, briskly, as
Uncle Tom laboriously brought up the tail of his g the wrong side out;
“that makes a q, you see.”
“La sakes, now, does it?” said Uncle Tom, looking with a
respectful, admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly scrawled
q’s and g’s innumerable for his edification; and
then, taking the pencil in his big, heavy fingers, he patiently recommenced.
“How easy white folks al’us does things!” said Aunt Chloe,
pausing while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap of bacon on her fork, and
regarding young Master George with pride. “The way he can write, now! and
read, too! and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons to
us,—it’s mighty interestin’!”
“But, Aunt Chloe, I’m getting mighty hungry,” said George.
“Isn’t that cake in the skillet almost done?”
“Mose done, Mas’r George,” said Aunt Chloe, lifting the lid
and peeping in,—“browning beautiful—a real lovely brown. Ah!
let me alone for dat. Missis let Sally try to make some cake, t’ other
day, jes to larn her, she said. ‘O, go way, Missis,’ said I;
‘it really hurts my feelin’s, now, to see good vittles spilt 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 some fin, by and by. Now, Mas’r
George, you jest take off dem books, and set down now with my old man, and
I’ll take up de sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your
plates in less dan no time.”
“They wanted me to come to supper in the house,” said George;
“but I knew what was what too well for that, Aunt Chloe.”
“So you did—so you did, honey,” said Aunt Chloe, heaping the
smoking batter-cakes on his plate; “you know’d your old
aunty’d keep the best for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!”
And, with that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be
immensely facetious, and turned again to her griddle with great briskness.
“Now for the cake,” said Mas’r George, when the activity of
the griddle department had somewhat subsided; and, with that, the youngster
flourished a large knife over the article in question.
“La bless you, Mas’r George!” said Aunt Chloe, with
earnestness, catching his arm, “you wouldn’t be for cuttin’
it wid dat ar great heavy knife! Smash all down—spile all de pretty rise
of it. Here, I’ve got a thin old knife, I keeps sharp a purpose. Dar now,
see! comes apart light as a feather! Now eat away—you won’t get
anything to beat dat ar.”
“Tom Lincon says,” said George, speaking with his mouth full,
“that their Jinny is a better cook than you.”
“Dem Lincons an’t much count, no way!” said Aunt Chloe,
contemptuously; “I mean, set along side our folks. They ’s
’spectable folks enough in a kinder plain way; but, as to gettin’
up anything in style, they don’t begin to have a notion on ’t. Set
Mas’r Lincon, now, alongside Mas’r Shelby! Good Lor! and Missis
Lincon,—can she kinder sweep it into a room like my missis,—so
kinder splendid, yer know! O, go way! don’t tell me nothin’ of dem
Lincons!”—and Aunt Chloe tossed her head as one who hoped she did
know something of the world.
“Well, though, I’ve heard you say,” said George, “that
Jinny was a pretty fair cook.”
“So I did,” said Aunt Chloe,—“I may say dat. Good,
plain, common cookin’, Jinny’ll do;—make a good pone o’
bread,—bile her taters far,—her corn cakes isn’t
extra, not extra now, Jinny’s corn cakes isn’t, but then
they’s far,—but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and what
can she do? Why, she makes pies—sartin she does; but what kinder
crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your mouth, and lies
all up like a puff? Now, I went over thar when Miss Mary was gwine to be
married, and Jinny she jest showed me de weddin’ pies. Jinny and I is
good friends, ye know. I never said nothin’; but go ’long,
Mas’r George! Why, I shouldn’t sleep a wink for a week, if I had a
batch of pies like dem ar. Why, dey wan’t no ’count ’t
all.”
“I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice,” said George.
“Thought so!—didn’t she? Thar she was, showing em, as
innocent—ye see, it’s jest here, Jinny don’t know.
Lor, the family an’t nothing! She can’t be spected to know!
’Ta’nt no fault o’ hem. 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 my pie and pudding
privileges,” said George. “Ask Tom Lincon if I don’t crow
over him, every time I meet him.”
Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a hearty guffaw of laughter,
at this witticism of young Mas’r’s, laughing till the tears rolled
down her black, shining cheeks, and varying the exercise with playfully
slapping and poking Mas’r Georgey, and telling him to go way, and that he
was a case—that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin would kill
her, one of these days; and, between each of these sanguinary predictions,
going off into a laugh, each longer and stronger than the other, till George
really began to think that he was a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it
became him to be careful how he talked “as funny as he could.”
“And so ye telled Tom, did ye? O, Lor! what young uns will be up ter! Ye
crowed over Tom? O, Lor! Mas’r George, if ye wouldn’t make a
hornbug laugh!”
“Yes,” said George, “I says to him, ‘Tom, you ought to
see some of Aunt Chloe’s pies; they’re the right sort,’ says
I.”
“Pity, now, Tom couldn’t,” said Aunt Chloe, on whose
benevolent heart the idea of Tom’s benighted condition seemed to make a
strong impression. “Ye oughter just ask him here to dinner, some o’
these times, Mas’r George,” she added; “it would look quite
pretty of ye. Ye know, Mas’r George, ye oughtenter feel ’bove
nobody, on ’count yer privileges, ’cause all our privileges is
gi’n to us; we ought al’ays to ’member that,” said Aunt
Chloe, looking quite serious.
“Well, I mean to ask Tom here, some day next week,” said George;
“and you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and we’ll make him stare.
Won’t we make him eat so he won’t get over it for a
fortnight?”
“Yes, yes—sartin,” said Aunt Chloe, delighted;
“you’ll see. Lor! to think of some of our dinners! Yer mind dat ar
great chicken pie I made when we guv de dinner to General Knox? I and Missis,
we come pretty near quarrelling about dat ar crust. What does get into ladies
sometimes, I don’t know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest kind
o’ ’sponsibility on ’em, as ye may say, and is all kinder
”seris’ and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be
hangin’ round and kinder interferin’! Now, Missis, she wanted me to
do dis way, and she wanted me to do dat way; and, finally, I got kinder sarcy,
and, says I, ’Now, Missis, do jist look at dem beautiful white hands
o’ yourn with long fingers, and all a sparkling with rings, like my white
lilies when de dew ’s on ’em; and look at my great black stumpin
hands. Now, don’t ye think dat de Lord must have meant me to make
de pie-crust, and you to stay in de parlor? Dar! I was jist so sarcy,
Mas’r George.”
“And what did mother say?” said George.
“Say?—why, she kinder larfed in her eyes—dem great handsome
eyes o’ hern; and, says she, ‘Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are
about in the right on ’t,’ says she; and she went off in de parlor.
She oughter cracked me over de head for bein’ so sarcy; but dar’s
whar ’t is—I can’t do nothin’ with ladies in de
kitchen!”
“Well, you made out well with that dinner,—I remember everybody
said so,” said George.
“Didn’t I? And wan’t I behind de dinin’-room door dat
bery day? and didn’t I see de General pass his plate three times for some
more dat bery pie?—and, says he, ‘You must have an uncommon cook,
Mrs. Shelby.’ Lor! I was fit to split myself.
“And de Gineral, he knows what cookin’ is,” said Aunt Chloe,
drawing herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de Gineral! He comes of
one of de bery fustest families in Old Virginny! He knows what’s
what, now, as well as I do—de Gineral. Ye see, there’s pints
in all pies, Mas’r George; but tan’t everybody knows what they is,
or as 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
Aunte Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby on her lap, and
began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and distributing to Mose and
Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs as they rolled about on the
floor under the table, tickling each other, and occasionally pulling the
baby’s toes.
“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick,
in a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too
obstreperous. “Can’t ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye?
Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I’ll take ye down a
button-hole lower, when Mas’r George is gone!”
What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to say;
but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce very little
impression on the young sinners addressed.
“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle all
the while, they can’t behave theirselves.”
Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with hands and faces well
plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.
“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their woolly
heads. “Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat
fashion. Go long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding
her exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which seemed
only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as they tumbled
precipitately over each other out of doors, where they fairly screamed with
merriment.
“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe,
rather complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies, she
poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began rubbing off
the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having polished her
till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she busied herself
in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals in pulling Tom’s
nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands in his woolly hair, which
last operation seemed to afford her special content.
“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take
a full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder, and
began capering and dancing with her, while Mas’r George snapped at her
with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned again, roared
after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they “fairly took her
head off” with their noise. As, according to her own statement, this
surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in the cabin, the
declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one had roared and tumbled
and danced themselves down to a state of composure.
“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had
been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose
and you Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the
meetin’.”
“O mother, we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to
meetin’,—meetin’s is so curis. We likes ’em.”
“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said
Mas’r George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.
Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to push the
thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’t will do
’em some good.”
The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider the
accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.
“What we’s to do for cheers, now, I declar I don’t
know,” said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s
weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any more
“cheers,” there seemed some encouragement to hope that a way would
be discovered at present.
“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last
week,” suggested Mose.
“You go long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some
o’ your shines,” said Aunt Chloe.
“Well, it’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!”
said Mose.
“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, cause he al’ays
hitches when he gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’
other night,” said Pete.
“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den
he’d begin, ‘Come saints—and sinners, hear me tell,’
and den down he’d go,”—and Mose imitated precisely the nasal
tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor, to illustrate the supposed
catastrophe.
“Come now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe;
“an’t yer shamed?”
Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared
decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition
seemed rather to fail of effect.
“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote
in them ar bar’ls.”
“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s, Mas’r
George was reading ’bout, in de good book,—dey never fails,”
said Mose, aside to Peter.
“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete,
“and let ’em all down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was
failin’, warnt it?”
During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks had been rolled into
the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on each side, boards were
laid across them, which arrangement, together with the turning down of certain
tubs and pails, and the disposing of the rickety chairs, at last completed the
preparation.
“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll
stay to read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “‘pears like ’t
will be so much more interestin’.”
George very readily consented, for your boy is always ready for anything that
makes him of importance.
The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from the old gray-headed
patriarch of eighty, to the young girl and lad of fifteen. A little harmless
gossip ensued on various themes, such as where old Aunt Sally got her new red
headkerchief, and how “Missis was a going to give Lizzy that spotted
muslin gown, when she’d got her new berage made up;” and how
Mas’r Shelby was thinking of buying a new sorrel colt, that was going to
prove an addition to the glories of the place. A few of the worshippers
belonged to families hard by, who had got permission to attend, and who brought
in various choice scraps of information, about the sayings and doings at the
house and on the place, which circulated as freely as the same sort of small
change does in higher circles.
After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all present. Not
even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could prevent the effect of the
naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild and spirited. The words were
sometimes the well-known and common hymns sung in the churches about, and
sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite character, picked up at camp-meetings.
The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung with great energy and
unction:
“Die on the field of battle,
Die on the field of battle,
Glory in my soul.”
Another special favorite had oft repeated the words—
“O, I’m going to glory,—won’t you come along with me?
Don’t you see the angels beck’ning, and a calling me away?
Don’t you see the golden city and the everlasting day?”
There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s
banks,” and “Canaan’s fields,” and the “New
Jerusalem;” for the negro mind, impassioned and imaginative, always
attaches itself to hymns and expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; and,
as they sung, some laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook
hands rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other side
of the river.
Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed, and intermingled
with the singing. One old gray-headed woman, long past work, but much revered
as a sort of chronicle of the past, rose, and leaning on her staff,
said—“Well, chil’en! Well, I’m mighty glad to hear ye
all and see ye all once more, ’cause I don’t know when I’ll
be gone to glory; but I’ve done got ready, chil’en; ’pears
like I’d got my little bundle all tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a
waitin’ for the stage to come along and take me home; sometimes, in the
night, I think I hear the wheels a rattlin’, and I’m lookin’
out all the time; now, you jest be ready too, for I tell ye all,
chil’en,” she said striking her staff hard on the floor, “dat
ar glory is a mighty thing! It’s a mighty thing,
chil’en,—you don’no nothing about it,—it’s
wonderful.” And the old creature sat down, with streaming tears,
as wholly overcome, while the whole circle struck up—
“O Canaan, bright Canaan
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”
Mas’r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation, often
interrupted by such exclamations as “The sakes now!”
“Only hear that!” “Jest think on ’t!” “Is
all that a comin’ sure enough?”
George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by his
mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw in expositions
of his own, from time to time, with a commendable seriousness and gravity, for
which he was admired by the young and blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on
all hands, that “a minister couldn’t lay it off better than he did;
that ’t was reely ’mazin’!”
Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the neighborhood.
Having, naturally, an organization in which the morale was strongly
predominant, together with a greater breadth and cultivation of mind than
obtained among his companions, he was looked up to with great respect, as a
sort of minister among them; and the simple, hearty, sincere style of his
exhortations might have edified even better educated persons. But it was in
prayer that he especially excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching
simplicity, the childlike earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the
language of Scripture, which seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his
being, as to have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips
unconsciously; in the language of a pious old negro, he “prayed right
up.” And so much did his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of
his audiences, that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost
altogether in the abundance of the responses which broke out everywhere around
him.
While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite otherwise
passed in the halls of the master.
The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the dining room afore-named,
at a table covered with papers and writing utensils.
Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, which, as they were
counted, he pushed over to the trader, who counted them likewise.
“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these
yer.”
Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and signed them, like a
man that hurries over some disagreeable business, and then pushed them over
with the money. Haley produced, from a well-worn valise, a parchment, which,
after looking over it a moment, he handed to Mr. Shelby, who took it with a
gesture of suppressed eagerness.
“Wal, now, the thing’s done!” said the trader, getting
up.
“It’s done!” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and,
fetching a long breath, he repeated, “It’s done!”
“Yer don’t seem to feel much pleased with it, ’pears to
me,” said the trader.
“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you’ll remember that
you promised, on your honor, you wouldn’t sell Tom, without knowing what
sort of hands he’s going into.”
“Why, you’ve just done it sir,” said the trader.
“Circumstances, you well know, obliged me,” said Shelby,
haughtily.
“Wal, you know, they may ’blige me, too,” said the
trader. “Howsomever, I’ll do the very best I can in gettin’
Tom a good berth; as to my treatin’ on him bad, you needn’t be a
grain afeard. If there’s anything that I thank the Lord for, it is that
I’m never noways cruel.”
After the expositions which the trader had previously given of his humane
principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly reassured by these
declarations; but, as they were the best comfort the case admitted of, he
allowed the trader to depart in silence, and betook himself to a solitary
cigar.
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