Uncle Tom's Cabin
wear them, and to wear them just as they had a mind to; there were
those who had them set far over back—wide-awake men, who wanted a clear
prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats
sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in
fact, were quite a Shakespearean study.
Divers negroes, in very free-and-easy pantaloons, and with no
redundancy in the shirt line, were scuttling about, hither and thither,
without bringing to pass any very particular results, except expressing
a generic willingness to turn over everything in creation generally for
the benefit of Mas’r and his guests. Add to this picture a jolly,
crackling, rollicking fire, going rejoicingly up a great wide
chimney,—the outer door and every window being set wide open, and the
calico window-curtain flopping and snapping in a good stiff breeze of
damp raw air,—and you have an idea of the jollities of a Kentucky
tavern.
Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the
doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. His fathers were
mighty hunters,—men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free,
open heavens, with the stars to hold their candles; and their
descendant to this day always acts as if the house were his camp,—wears
his hat at all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the
tops of chairs or mantelpieces, just as his father rolled on the green
sward, and put his upon trees and logs,—keeps all the windows and doors
open, winter and summer, that he may get air enough for his great
lungs,—calls everybody “stranger,” with nonchalant _bonhommie_, and is
altogether the frankest, easiest, most jovial creature living.
Into such an assembly of the free and easy our traveller entered. He
was a short, thick-set man, carefully dressed, with a round,
good-natured countenance, and something rather fussy and particular in
his appearance. He was very careful of his valise and umbrella,
bringing them in with his own hands, and resisting, pertinaciously, all
offers from the various servants to relieve him of them. He looked
round the barroom with rather an anxious air, and, retreating with his
valuables to the warmest corner, disposed them under his chair, sat
down, and looked rather apprehensively up at the worthy whose heels
illustrated the end of the mantel-piece, who was spitting from right to
left, with a courage and energy rather alarming to gentlemen of weak
nerves and particular habits.
“I say, stranger, how are ye?” said the aforesaid gentleman, firing an
honorary salute of tobacco-juice in the direction of the new arrival.
“Well, I reckon,” was the reply of the other, as he dodged, with some
alarm, the threatening honor.
“Any news?” said the respondent, taking out a strip of tobacco and a
large hunting-knife from his pocket.
“Not that I know of,” said the man.
“Chaw?” said the first speaker, handing the old gentleman a bit of his
tobacco, with a decidedly brotherly air.
“No, thank ye—it don’t agree with me,” said the little man, edging off.
“Don’t, eh?” said the other, easily, and stowing away the morsel in his
own mouth, in order to keep up the supply of tobacco-juice, for the
general benefit of society.
The old gentleman uniformly gave a little start whenever his long-sided
brother fired in his direction; and this being observed by his
companion, he very good-naturedly turned his artillery to another
quarter, and proceeded to storm one of the fire-irons with a degree of
military talent fully sufficient to take a city.
“What’s that?” said the old gentleman, observing some of the company
formed in a group around a large handbill.
“Nigger advertised!” said one of the company, briefly.
Mr. Wilson, for that was the old gentleman’s name, rose up, and, after
carefully adjusting his valise and umbrella, proceeded deliberately to
take out his spectacles and fix them on his nose; and, this operation
being performed, read as follows:
“Ran away from the subscriber, my mulatto boy, George. Said George six
feet in height, a very light mulatto, brown curly hair; is very
intelligent, speaks handsomely, can read and write, will probably try
to pass for a white man, is deeply scarred on his back and shoulders,
has been branded in his right hand with the letter H.
“I will give four hundred dollars for him alive, and the same sum
for satisfactory proof that he has been _killed.”_
The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to end in a low
voice, as if he were studying it.
The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire-iron, as
before related, now took down his cumbrous length, and rearing aloft
his tall form, walked up to the advertisement and very deliberately
spit a full discharge of tobacco-juice on it.
“There’s my mind upon that!” said he, briefly, and sat down again.
“Why, now, stranger, what’s that for?” said mine host.
“I’d do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if he was
here,” said the long man, coolly resuming his old employment of cutting
tobacco. “Any man that owns a boy like that, and can’t find any better
way o’ treating on him, _deserves_ to lose him. Such papers as these is
a shame to Kentucky; that’s my mind right out, if anybody wants to
know!”
“Well, now, that’s a fact,” said mine host, as he made an entry in his
book.
“I’ve got a gang of boys, sir,” said the long man, resuming his attack
on the fire-irons, “and I jest tells ’em—‘Boys,’ says I,—‘_run_ now!
dig! put! jest when ye want to! I never shall come to look after you!’
That’s the way I keep mine. Let ’em know they are free to run any time,
and it jest breaks up their wanting to. More ’n all, I’ve got free
papers for ’em all recorded, in case I gets keeled up any o’ these
times, and they know it; and I tell ye, stranger, there an’t a fellow
in our parts gets more out of his niggers than I do. Why, my boys have
been to Cincinnati, with five hundred dollars’ worth of colts, and
brought me back the money, all straight, time and agin. It stands to
reason they should. Treat ’em like dogs, and you’ll have dogs’ works
and dogs’ actions. Treat ’em like men, and you’ll have men’s works.”
And the honest drover, in his warmth, endorsed this moral sentiment by
firing a perfect _feu de joi_ at the fireplace.
“I think you’re altogether right, friend,” said Mr. Wilson; “and this
boy described here _is_ a fine fellow—no mistake about that. He worked
for me some half-dozen years in my bagging factory, and he was my best
hand, sir. He is an ingenious fellow, too: he invented a machine for
the cleaning of hemp—a really valuable affair; it’s gone into use in
several factories. His master holds the patent of it.”
“I’ll warrant ye,” said the drover, “holds it and makes money out of
it, and then turns round and brands the boy in his right hand. If I had
a fair chance, I’d mark him, I reckon so that he’d carry it _one_
while.”
“These yer knowin’ boys is allers aggravatin’ and sarcy,” said a
coarse-looking fellow, from the other side of the room; “that’s why
they gets cut up and marked so. If they behaved themselves, they
wouldn’t.”
“That is to say, the Lord made ’em men, and it’s a hard squeeze gettin
’em down into beasts,” said the drover, dryly.
“Bright niggers isn’t no kind of ’vantage to their masters,” continued
the other, well entrenched, in a coarse, unconscious obtuseness, from
the contempt of his opponent; “what’s the use o’ talents and them
things, if you can’t get the use on ’em yourself? Why, all the use they
make on ’t is to get round you. I’ve had one or two of these fellers,
and I jest sold ’em down river. I knew I’d got to lose ’em, first or
last, if I didn’t.”
“Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, and leave out
their souls entirely,” said the drover.
Here the conversation was interrupted by the approach of a small
one-horse buggy to the inn. It had a genteel appearance, and a
well-dressed, gentlemanly man sat on the seat, with a colored servant
driving.
The whole party examined the new comer with the interest with which a
set of loafers in a rainy day usually examine every newcomer. He was
very tall, with a dark, Spanish complexion, fine, expressive black
eyes, and close-curling hair, also of a glossy blackness. His
well-formed aquiline nose, straight thin lips, and the admirable
contour of his finely-formed limbs, impressed the whole company
instantly with the idea of something uncommon. He walked easily in
among the company, and with a nod indicated to his waiter where to
place his trunk, bowed to the company, and, with his hat in his hand,
walked up leisurely to the bar, and gave in his name as Henry Butter,
Oaklands, Shelby County. Turning, with an indifferent air, he sauntered
up to the advertisement, and read it over.
“Jim,” he said to his man, “seems to me we met a boy something like
this, up at Beman’s, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Mas’r,” said Jim, “only I an’t sure about the hand.”
“Well, I didn’t look, of course,” said the stranger with a careless
yawn. Then walking up to the landlord, he desired him to furnish him
with a private apartment, as he had some writing to do immediately.
The landlord was all obsequious, and a relay of about seven negroes,
old and young, male and female, little and big, were soon whizzing
about, like a covey of partridges, bustling, hurrying, treading on each
other’s toes, and tumbling over each other, in their zeal to get
Mas’r’s room ready, while he seated himself easily on a chair in the
middle of the room, and entered into conversation with the man who sat
next to him.
The manufacturer, Mr. Wilson, from the time of the entrance of the
stranger, had regarded him with an air of disturbed and uneasy
curiosity. He seemed to himself to have met and been acquainted with
him somewhere, but he could not recollect. Every few moments, when the
man spoke, or moved, or smiled, he would start and fix his eyes on him,
and then suddenly withdraw them, as the bright, dark eyes met his with
such unconcerned coolness. At last, a sudden recollection seemed to
flash upon him, for he stared at the stranger with such an air of blank
amazement and alarm, that he walked up to him.
“Mr. Wilson, I think,” said he, in a tone of recognition, and extending
his hand. “I beg your pardon, I didn’t recollect you before. I see you
remember me,—Mr. Butler, of Oaklands, Shelby County.”
“Ye—yes—yes, sir,” said Mr. Wilson, like one speaking in a dream.
Just then a negro boy entered, and announced that Mas’r’s room was
ready.
“Jim, see to the trunks,” said the gentleman, negligently; then
addressing himself to Mr. Wilson, he added—“I should like to have a few
moments’ conversation with you on business, in my room, if you please.”
Mr. Wilson followed him, as one who walks in his sleep; and they
proceeded to a large upper chamber, where a new-made fire was
crackling, and various servants flying about, putting finishing touches
to the arrangements.
When all was done, and the servants departed, the young man
deliberately locked the door, and putting the key in his pocket, faced
about, and folding his arms on his bosom, looked Mr. Wilson full in the
face.
“George!” said Mr. Wilson.
“Yes, George,” said the young man.
“I couldn’t have thought it!”
“I am pretty well disguised, I fancy,” said the young man, with a
smile. “A little walnut bark has made my yellow skin a genteel brown,
and I’ve dyed my hair black; so you see I don’t answer to the
advertisement at all.”
“O, George! but this is a dangerous game you are playing. I could not
have advised you to it.”
“I can do it on my own responsibility,” said George, with the same
proud smile.
We remark, _en passant_, that George was, by his father’s side, of