Uncle Tom's Cabin
Jerry, with Haley’s horse by his side, reeking with sweat, but with
flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, showing that the spirit of freedom
had not yet entirely subsided.
“He’s cotched!” he exclaimed, triumphantly. “If ’t hadn’t been for me,
they might a bust themselves, all on ’em; but I cotched him!”
“You!” growled Haley, in no amiable mood. “If it hadn’t been for you,
this never would have happened.”
“Lord bless us, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a tone of the deepest concern,
“and me that has been racin’ and chasin’ till the sweat jest pours off
me!”
“Well, well!” said Haley, “you’ve lost me near three hours, with your
cursed nonsense. Now let’s be off, and have no more fooling.”
“Why, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a deprecating tone, “I believe you mean to
kill us all clar, horses and all. Here we are all just ready to drop
down, and the critters all in a reek of sweat. Why, Mas’r won’t think
of startin’ on now till arter dinner. Mas’r’s hoss wants rubben down;
see how he splashed hisself; and Jerry limps too; don’t think Missis
would be willin’ to have us start dis yer way, no how. Lord bless you,
Mas’r, we can ketch up, if we do stop. Lizy never was no great of a
walker.”
Mrs. Shelby, who, greatly to her amusement, had overheard this
conversation from the verandah, now resolved to do her part. She came
forward, and, courteously expressing her concern for Haley’s accident,
pressed him to stay to dinner, saying that the cook should bring it on
the table immediately.
Thus, all things considered, Haley, with rather an equivocal grace,
proceeded to the parlor, while Sam, rolling his eyes after him with
unutterable meaning, proceeded gravely with the horses to the
stable-yard.
“Did yer see him, Andy? _did_ yer see him?” said Sam, when he had got
fairly beyond the shelter of the barn, and fastened the horse to a
post. “O, Lor, if it warn’t as good as a meetin’, now, to see him a
dancin’ and kickin’ and swarin’ at us. Didn’t I hear him? Swar away,
ole fellow (says I to myself ); will yer have yer hoss now, or wait
till you cotch him? (says I). Lor, Andy, I think I can see him now.”
And Sam and Andy leaned up against the barn and laughed to their
hearts’ content.
“Yer oughter seen how mad he looked, when I brought the hoss up. Lord,
he’d a killed me, if he durs’ to; and there I was a standin’ as
innercent and as humble.”
“Lor, I seed you,” said Andy; “an’t you an old hoss, Sam?”
“Rather specks I am,” said Sam; “did yer see Missis up stars at the
winder? I seed her laughin’.”
“I’m sure, I was racin’ so, I didn’t see nothing,” said Andy.
“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s
pony, “I ’se ’quired what yer may call a habit _o’ bobservation_, Andy.
It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy; and I ’commend yer to be cultivatin’
it, now yer young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer see, Andy, it’s
_bobservation_ makes all de difference in niggers. Didn’t I see which
way the wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see what Missis wanted,
though she never let on? Dat ar’s bobservation, Andy. I ’spects it’s
what you may call a faculty. Faculties is different in different
peoples, but cultivation of ’em goes a great way.”
“I guess if I hadn’t helped your bobservation dis mornin’, yer wouldn’t
have seen your way so smart,” said Andy.
“Andy,” said Sam, “you’s a promisin’ child, der an’t no manner o’
doubt. I thinks lots of yer, Andy; and I don’t feel no ways ashamed to
take idees from you. We oughtenter overlook nobody, Andy, cause the
smartest on us gets tripped up sometimes. And so, Andy, let’s go up to
the house now. I’ll be boun’ Missis’ll give us an uncommon good bite,
dis yer time.”
CHAPTER VII
The Mother’s Struggle
It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate
and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom’s
cabin.
Her husband’s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all
blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she
was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting
loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then
there was the parting from every familiar object,—the place where she
had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where
she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her
young husband,—everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight,
seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go
from a home like that?
But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of
frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough
to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only
have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out
of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a
convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.
The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the
sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward
to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself
at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the
weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of
fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while
from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to
a Friend above—“Lord, help! Lord, save me!”
If it were _your_ Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be
torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the
man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had
only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how
fast could _you_ walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief
hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your
shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?
For the child slept. At first, the novelty and alarm kept him waking;
but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so
assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him,
that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself
sinking to sleep,
“Mother, I don’t need to keep awake, do I?”
“No, my darling; sleep, if you want to.”
“But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won’t let him get me?”
“No! so may God help me!” said his mother, with a paler cheek, and a
brighter light in her large dark eyes.
“You’re _sure_, an’t you, mother?”
“Yes, _sure_!” said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for
it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her;
and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon
asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that
came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements! It
seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams, from
every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child.
Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time,
can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel,
so that the weak become so mighty.
The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her
dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar
object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening
daylight found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar
objects upon the open highway.
She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections, in
the little village of T——, not far from the Ohio river, and knew the
road well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio river, were the
first hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that, she could
only hope in God.
When horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that
alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to
be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and
distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore
put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she
walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the
preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a
store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening
the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when
the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often
repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.
After a while, they came to a thick patch of woodland, through which
murmured a clear brook. As the child complained of hunger and thirst,
she climbed over the fence with him; and, sitting down behind a large
rock which concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast out
of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved that she could not
eat; and when, putting his arms round her neck, he tried to wedge some
of his cake into her mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her
throat would choke her.
“No, no, Harry darling! mother can’t eat till you are safe! We must go
on—on—till we come to the river!” And she hurried again into the road,
and again constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly forward.
She was many miles past any neighborhood where she was personally
known. If she should chance to meet any who knew her, she reflected
that the well-known kindness of the family would be of itself a blind
to suspicion, as making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a
fugitive. As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored
lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it
was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.
On this presumption, she stopped at noon at a neat farmhouse, to rest
herself, and buy some dinner for her child and self; for, as the danger
decreased with the distance, the supernatural tension of the nervous
system lessened, and she found herself both weary and hungry.
The good woman, kindly and gossipping, seemed rather pleased than
otherwise with having somebody come in to talk with; and accepted,
without examination, Eliza’s statement, that she “was going on a little
piece, to spend a week with her friends,”—all which she hoped in her
heart might prove strictly true.
An hour before sunset, she entered the village of T——, by the Ohio
river, weary and foot-sore, but still strong in heart. Her first glance
was at the river, which lay, like Jordan, between her and the Canaan of
liberty on the other side.
It was now early spring, and the river was swollen and turbulent; great
cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid
waters. Owing to the peculiar form of the shore on the Kentucky side,
the land bending far out into the water, the ice had been lodged and
detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round
the bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming a
temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and formed a
great, undulating raft, filling up the whole river, and extending
almost to the Kentucky shore.
Eliza stood, for a moment, contemplating this unfavorable aspect of
things, which she saw at once must prevent the usual ferry-boat from
running, and then turned into a small public house on the bank, to make
a few inquiries.
The hostess, who was busy in various fizzing and stewing operations
over the fire, preparatory to the evening meal, stopped, with a fork in
her hand, as Eliza’s sweet and plaintive voice arrested her.
“What is it?” she said.
“Isn’t there any ferry or boat, that takes people over to B——, now?”
she said.
“No, indeed!” said the woman; “the boats has stopped running.”