Uncle Tom's Cabin
“Yes, sir; I belonged to a man in Kentucky.”
“Was he unkind to you?”
“No, sir; he was a good master.”
“And was your mistress unkind to you?”
“No, sir—no! my mistress was always good to me.”
“What could induce you to leave a good home, then, and run away, and go
through such dangers?”
The woman looked up at Mrs. Bird, with a keen, scrutinizing glance, and
it did not escape her that she was dressed in deep mourning.
“Ma’am,” she said, suddenly, “have you ever lost a child?”
The question was unexpected, and it was thrust on a new wound; for it
was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in
the grave.
Mr. Bird turned around and walked to the window, and Mrs. Bird burst
into tears; but, recovering her voice, she said,
“Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one.”
“Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another,—left
’em buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I
never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort
and pride, day and night; and, ma’am, they were going to take him away
from me,—to _sell_ him,—sell him down south, ma’am, to go all alone,—a
baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn’t
stand it, ma’am. I knew I never should be good for anything, if they
did; and when I knew the papers were signed, and he was sold, I took him
and came off in the night; and they chased me,—the man that bought him,
and some of Mas’r’s folks,—and they were coming down right behind me,
and I heard ’em. I jumped right on to the ice; and how I got across, I
don’t know,—but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the bank.”
The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears are
dry; but every one around her was, in some way characteristic of
themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.
The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their pockets, in
search of those pocket-handkerchiefs which mothers know are never to be
found there, had thrown themselves disconsolately into the skirts of
their mother’s gown, where they were sobbing, and wiping their eyes and
noses, to their hearts’ content;—Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden
in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down
her black, honest face, was ejaculating, “Lord have mercy on us!” with
all the fervor of a camp-meeting;—while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes
very hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry
faces, occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervor. Our
senator was a statesman, and of course could not be expected to cry,
like other mortals; and so he turned his back to the company, and
looked out of the window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his
throat and wiping his spectacle-glasses, occasionally blowing his nose
in a manner that was calculated to excite suspicion, had any one been
in a state to observe critically.
“How came you to tell me you had a kind master?” he suddenly exclaimed,
gulping down very resolutely some kind of rising in his throat, and
turning suddenly round upon the woman.
“Because he _was_ a kind master; I’ll say that of him, any way;—and my
mistress was kind; but they couldn’t help themselves. They were owing
money; and there was some way, I can’t tell how, that a man had a hold
on them, and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and
heard him telling mistress that, and she begging and pleading for
me,—and he told her he couldn’t help himself, and that the papers were
all drawn;—and then it was I took him and left my home, and came away.
I knew ’t was no use of my trying to live, if they did it; for ’t
’pears like this child is all I have.”
“Have you no husband?”
“Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is real hard to him,
and won’t let him come to see me, hardly ever; and he’s grown harder
and harder upon us, and he threatens to sell him down south;—it’s like
I’ll never see _him_ again!”
The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led
a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but
there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that
spoke of something far otherwise.
“And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?” said Mrs. Bird.
“To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off, is
Canada?” said she, looking up, with a simple, confiding air, to Mrs.
Bird’s face.
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Bird, involuntarily.
“Is ’t a very great way off, think?” said the woman, earnestly.
“Much further than you think, poor child!” said Mrs. Bird; “but we will
try to think what can be done for you. Here, Dinah, make her up a bed
in your own room, close by the kitchen, and I’ll think what to do for
her in the morning. Meanwhile, never fear, poor woman; put your trust
in God; he will protect you.”
Mrs. Bird and her husband reentered the parlor. She sat down in her
little rocking-chair before the fire, swaying thoughtfully to and fro.
Mr. Bird strode up and down the room, grumbling to himself, “Pish!
pshaw! confounded awkward business!” At length, striding up to his
wife, he said,
“I say, wife, she’ll have to get away from here, this very night. That
fellow will be down on the scent bright and early tomorrow morning: if
’t was only the woman, she could lie quiet till it was over; but that
little chap can’t be kept still by a troop of horse and foot, I’ll
warrant me; he’ll bring it all out, popping his head out of some window
or door. A pretty kettle of fish it would be for me, too, to be caught
with them both here, just now! No; they’ll have to be got off tonight.”
“Tonight! How is it possible?—where to?”
“Well, I know pretty well where to,” said the senator, beginning to put
on his boots, with a reflective air; and, stopping when his leg was
half in, he embraced his knee with both hands, and seemed to go off in
deep meditation.
“It’s a confounded awkward, ugly business,” said he, at last, beginning
to tug at his boot-straps again, “and that’s a fact!” After one boot
was fairly on, the senator sat with the other in his hand, profoundly
studying the figure of the carpet. “It will have to be done, though,
for aught I see,—hang it all!” and he drew the other boot anxiously on,
and looked out of the window.
Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman,—a woman who never in her
life said, “I told you so!” and, on the present occasion, though pretty
well aware of the shape her husband’s meditations were taking, she very
prudently forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her
chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord’s intentions, when
he should think proper to utter them.
“You see,” he said, “there’s my old client, Van Trompe, has come over
from Kentucky, and set all his slaves free; and he has bought a place
seven miles up the creek, here, back in the woods, where nobody goes,
unless they go on purpose; and it’s a place that isn’t found in a
hurry. There she’d be safe enough; but the plague of the thing is,
nobody could drive a carriage there tonight, but _me_.”
“Why not? Cudjoe is an excellent driver.”
“Ay, ay, but here it is. The creek has to be crossed twice; and the
second crossing is quite dangerous, unless one knows it as I do. I have
crossed it a hundred times on horseback, and know exactly the turns to
take. And so, you see, there’s no help for it. Cudjoe must put in the
horses, as quietly as may be, about twelve o’clock, and I’ll take her
over; and then, to give color to the matter, he must carry me on to the
next tavern to take the stage for Columbus, that comes by about three
or four, and so it will look as if I had had the carriage only for
that. I shall get into business bright and early in the morning. But
I’m thinking I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that’s been
said and done; but, hang it, I can’t help it!”
“Your heart is better than your head, in this case, John,” said the
wife, laying her little white hand on his. “Could I ever have loved
you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?” And the little
woman looked so handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that
the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a
pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him; and so, what
could he do but walk off soberly, to see about the carriage. At the
door, however, he stopped a moment, and then coming back, he said, with
some hesitation.
“Mary, I don’t know how you’d feel about it, but there’s that drawer
full of things—of—of—poor little Henry’s.” So saying, he turned quickly
on his heel, and shut the door after him.
His wife opened the little bed-room door adjoining her room and, taking
the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small
recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer,
and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy like, had followed
close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at
their mother. And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in
your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you
like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you
are, if it has not been so.
Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a
form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and
even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping
from the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a
ball,—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break! She
sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands over it,
wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then
suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the
plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a
bundle.
“Mamma,” said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, “you going to
give away _those_ things?”
“My dear boys,” she said, softly and earnestly, “if our dear, loving
little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do
this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common
person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more
heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his
blessings with them!”
There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into
joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many
tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the
desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits
there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the
memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer.
After a while, Mrs. Bird opened a wardrobe, and, taking from thence a
plain, serviceable dress or two, she sat down busily to her work-table,
and, with needle, scissors, and thimble, at hand, quietly commenced the
“letting down” process which her husband had recommended, and continued
busily at it till the old clock in the corner struck twelve, and she
heard the low rattling of wheels at the door.
“Mary,” said her husband, coming in, with his overcoat in his hand,
“you must wake her up now; we must be off.”
Mrs. Bird hastily deposited the various articles she had collected in a
small plain trunk, and locking it, desired her husband to see it in the
carriage, and then proceeded to call the woman. Soon, arrayed in a
cloak, bonnet, and shawl, that had belonged to her benefactress, she
appeared at the door with her child in her arms. Mr. Bird hurried her
into the carriage, and Mrs. Bird pressed on after her to the carriage
steps. Eliza leaned out of the carriage, and put out her hand,—a hand