Uncle Tom's Cabin
spread out before her on the table. Carefully she rubbed and ironed
every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous exactness, every now
and then raising her hand to her face to wipe off the tears that were
coursing down her cheeks.
Tom sat by, with his Testament open on his knee, and his head leaning
upon his hand;—but neither spoke. It was yet early, and the children
lay all asleep together in their little rude trundle-bed.
Tom, who had, to the full, the gentle, domestic heart, which woe for
them! has been a peculiar characteristic of his unhappy race, got up
and walked silently to look at his children.
“It’s the last time,” he said.
Aunt Chloe did not answer, only rubbed away over and over on the coarse
shirt, already as smooth as hands could make it; and finally setting
her iron suddenly down with a despairing plunge, she sat down to the
table, and “lifted up her voice and wept.”
“S’pose we must be resigned; but oh Lord! how ken I? If I know’d
anything whar you ’s goin’, or how they’d sarve you! Missis says she’ll
try and ’deem ye, in a year or two; but Lor! nobody never comes up that
goes down thar! They kills ’em! I’ve hearn ’em tell how dey works ’em
up on dem ar plantations.”
“There’ll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here.”
“Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “s’pose dere will; but de Lord lets drefful
things happen, sometimes. I don’t seem to get no comfort dat way.”
“I’m in the Lord’s hands,” said Tom; “nothin’ can go no furder than he
lets it;—and thar’s _one_ thing I can thank him for. It’s _me_ that’s
sold and going down, and not you nur the chil’en. Here you’re
safe;—what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he’ll help me,—I
know he will.”
Ah, brave, manly heart,—smothering thine own sorrow, to comfort thy
beloved ones! Tom spoke with a thick utterance, and with a bitter
choking in his throat,—but he spoke brave and strong.
“Let’s think on our marcies!” he added, tremulously, as if he was quite
sure he needed to think on them very hard indeed.
“Marcies!” said Aunt Chloe; “don’t see no marcy in’t! ’tan’t right!
tan’t right it should be so! Mas’r never ought ter left it so that ye
_could_ be took for his debts. Ye’ve arnt him all he gets for ye, twice
over. He owed ye yer freedom, and ought ter gin ’t to yer years ago.
Mebbe he can’t help himself now, but I feel it’s wrong. Nothing can’t
beat that ar out o’ me. Sich a faithful crittur as ye’ve been,—and
allers sot his business ’fore yer own every way,—and reckoned on him
more than yer own wife and chil’en! Them as sells heart’s love and
heart’s blood, to get out thar scrapes, de Lord’ll be up to ’em!”
“Chloe! now, if ye love me, ye won’t talk so, when perhaps jest the
last time we’ll ever have together! And I’ll tell ye, Chloe, it goes
agin me to hear one word agin Mas’r. Wan’t he put in my arms a
baby?—it’s natur I should think a heap of him. And he couldn’t be
spected to think so much of poor Tom. Mas’rs is used to havin’ all
these yer things done for ’em, and nat’lly they don’t think so much on
’t. They can’t be spected to, no way. Set him ’longside of other
Mas’rs—who’s had the treatment and livin’ I’ve had? And he never would
have let this yer come on me, if he could have seed it aforehand. I
know he wouldn’t.”
“Wal, any way, thar’s wrong about it _somewhar_,” said Aunt Chloe, in
whom a stubborn sense of justice was a predominant trait; “I can’t jest
make out whar ’t is, but thar’s wrong somewhar, I’m _clar_ o’ that.”
“Yer ought ter look up to the Lord above—he’s above all—thar don’t a
sparrow fall without him.”
“It don’t seem to comfort me, but I spect it orter,” said Aunt Chloe.
“But dar’s no use talkin’; I’ll jes wet up de corn-cake, and get ye one
good breakfast, ’cause nobody knows when you’ll get another.”
In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes sold south, it
must be remembered that all the instinctive affections of that race are
peculiarly strong. Their local attachments are very abiding. They are
not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and
affectionate. Add to this all the terrors with which ignorance invests
the unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is set
before the negro from childhood as the last severity of punishment. The
threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind is the
threat of being sent down river. We have ourselves heard this feeling
expressed by them, and seen the unaffected horror with which they will
sit in their gossipping hours, and tell frightful stories of that “down
river,” which to them is
“That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.”[1]
[1] A slightly inaccurate quotation from _Hamlet_, Act III, scene I,
lines 369-370.
A missionary figure among the fugitives in Canada told us that many of
the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively
kind masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape,
in almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded
being sold south,—a doom which was hanging either over themselves or
their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African,
naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and
leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness,
and the more dread penalties of recapture.
The simple morning meal now smoked on the table, for Mrs. Shelby had
excused Aunt Chloe’s attendance at the great house that morning. The
poor soul had expended all her little energies on this farewell
feast,—had killed and dressed her choicest chicken, and prepared her
corn-cake with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband’s taste, and
brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantel-piece, some preserves
that were never produced except on extreme occasions.
“Lor, Pete,” said Mose, triumphantly, “han’t we got a buster of a
breakfast!” at the same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.
Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. “Thar now! crowing over
the last breakfast yer poor daddy’s gwine to have to home!”
“O, Chloe!” said Tom, gently.
“Wal, I can’t help it,” said Aunt Chloe, hiding her face in her apron;
“I ’s so tossed about, it makes me act ugly.”
The boys stood quite still, looking first at their father and then at
their mother, while the baby, climbing up her clothes, began an
imperious, commanding cry.
“Thar!” said Aunt Chloe, wiping her eyes and taking up the baby; “now
I’s done, I hope,—now do eat something. This yer’s my nicest chicken.
Thar, boys, ye shall have some, poor critturs! Yer mammy’s been cross
to yer.”
The boys needed no second invitation, and went in with great zeal for
the eatables; and it was well they did so, as otherwise there would
have been very little performed to any purpose by the party.
“Now,” said Aunt Chloe, bustling about after breakfast, “I must put up
yer clothes. Jest like as not, he’ll take ’em all away. I know thar
ways—mean as dirt, they is! Wal, now, yer flannels for rhumatis is in
this corner; so be careful, ’cause there won’t nobody make ye no more.
Then here’s yer old shirts, and these yer is new ones. I toed off these
yer stockings last night, and put de ball in ’em to mend with. But Lor!
who’ll ever mend for ye?” and Aunt Chloe, again overcome, laid her head
on the box side, and sobbed. “To think on ’t! no crittur to do for ye,
sick or well! I don’t railly think I ought ter be good now!”
The boys, having eaten everything there was on the breakfast-table,
began now to take some thought of the case; and, seeing their mother
crying, and their father looking very sad, began to whimper and put
their hands to their eyes. Uncle Tom had the baby on his knee, and was
letting her enjoy herself to the utmost extent, scratching his face and
pulling his hair, and occasionally breaking out into clamorous
explosions of delight, evidently arising out of her own internal
reflections.
“Ay, crow away, poor crittur!” said Aunt Chloe; “ye’ll have to come to
it, too! ye’ll live to see yer husband sold, or mebbe be sold yerself;
and these yer boys, they’s to be sold, I s’pose, too, jest like as not,
when dey gets good for somethin’; an’t no use in niggers havin’
nothin’!”
Here one of the boys called out, “Thar’s Missis a-comin’ in!”
“She can’t do no good; what’s she coming for?” said Aunt Chloe.
Mrs. Shelby entered. Aunt Chloe set a chair for her in a manner
decidedly gruff and crusty. She did not seem to notice either the
action or the manner. She looked pale and anxious.
“Tom,” she said, “I come to—” and stopping suddenly, and regarding the
silent group, she sat down in the chair, and, covering her face with
her handkerchief, began to sob.
“Lor, now, Missis, don’t—don’t!” said Aunt Chloe, bursting out in her
turn; and for a few moments they all wept in company. And in those
tears they all shed together, the high and the lowly, melted away all
the heart-burnings and anger of the oppressed. O, ye who visit the
distressed, do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with a
cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real sympathy?
“My good fellow,” said Mrs. Shelby, “I can’t give you anything to do
you any good. If I give you money, it will only be taken from you. But
I tell you solemnly, and before God, that I will keep trace of you, and
bring you back as soon as I can command the money;—and, till then,
trust in God!”
Here the boys called out that Mas’r Haley was coming, and then an
unceremonious kick pushed open the door. Haley stood there in very ill
humor, having ridden hard the night before, and being not at all
pacified by his ill success in recapturing his prey.
“Come,” said he, “ye nigger, ye’r ready? Servant, ma’am!” said he,
taking off his hat, as he saw Mrs. Shelby.
Aunt Chloe shut and corded the box, and, getting up, looked gruffly on
the trader, her tears seeming suddenly turned to sparks of fire.
Tom rose up meekly, to follow his new master, and raised up his heavy
box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby in her arms to go with him
to the wagon, and the children, still crying, trailed on behind.
Mrs. Shelby, walking up to the trader, detained him for a few moments,
talking with him in an earnest manner; and while she was thus talking,
the whole family party proceeded to a wagon, that stood ready harnessed
at the door. A crowd of all the old and young hands on the place stood
gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had
been looked up to, both as a head servant and a Christian teacher, by
all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him,
particularly among the women.
“Why, Chloe, you bar it better ’n we do!” said one of the women, who had
been weeping freely, noticing the gloomy calmness with which Aunt Chloe
stood by the wagon.
“I’s done _my_ tears!” she said, looking grimly at the trader, who was
coming up. “I does not feel to cry ’fore dat ar old limb, no how!”
“Get in!” said Haley to Tom, as he strode through the crowd of
servants, who looked at him with lowering brows.
Tom got in, and Haley, drawing out from under the wagon seat a heavy
pair of shackles, made them fast around each ankle.
A smothered groan of indignation ran through the whole circle, and Mrs.
Shelby spoke from the verandah,—“Mr. Haley, I assure you that
precaution is entirely unnecessary.”
“Don’ know, ma’am; I’ve lost one five hundred dollars from this yer
place, and I can’t afford to run no more risks.”
“What else could she spect on him?” said Aunt Chloe, indignantly, while
the two boys, who now seemed to comprehend at once their father’s
destiny, clung to her gown, sobbing and groaning vehemently.
“I’m sorry,” said Tom, “that Mas’r George happened to be away.”