Uncle Tom's Cabin
and I came to about the same point that I and my respected father did,
years before. So he told me that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and
would never do for business life; and advised me to take the bank-stock
and the New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing poetry, and let
him manage the plantation. So we parted, and I came here.”
“But why didn’t you free your slaves?”
“Well, I wasn’t up to that. To hold them as tools for money-making, I
could not;—have them to help spend money, you know, didn’t look quite
so ugly to me. Some of them were old house-servants, to whom I was much
attached; and the younger ones were children to the old. All were well
satisfied to be as they were.” He paused, and walked reflectively up
and down the room.
“There was,” said St. Clare, “a time in my life when I had plans and
hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift. I
had vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,—to free my
native land from this spot and stain. All young men have had such
fever-fits, I suppose, some time,—but then—”
“Why didn’t you?” said Miss Ophelia;—“you ought not to put your hand to
the plough, and look back.”
“O, well, things didn’t go with me as I expected, and I got the despair
of living that Solomon did. I suppose it was a necessary incident to
wisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor and
regenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood, and have been
floating and eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me, every time we
meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,—for he really does
something; his life is a logical result of his opinions and mine is a
contemptible _non sequitur_.”
“My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your
probation?”
“Satisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it? But, then, to
come back to this point,—we were on this liberation business. I don’t
think my feelings about slavery are peculiar. I find many men who, in
their hearts, think of it just as I do. The land groans under it; and,
bad as it is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master.
It takes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious,
improvident, degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as
to themselves. The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel
that as we do, because they do not mingle with the class they degrade
as we do. They are in our homes; they are the associates of our
children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a
race that children always will cling to and assimilate with. If Eva,
now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined. We might as
well allow the small-pox to run among them, and think our children
would not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious, and
think our children will not be affected by that. Yet our laws
positively and utterly forbid any efficient general educational system,
and they do it wisely, too; for, just begin and thoroughly educate one
generation, and the whole thing would be blown sky high. If we did not
give them liberty, they would take it.”
“And what do you think will be the end of this?” said Miss Ophelia.
“I don’t know. One thing is certain,—that there is a mustering among
the masses, the world over; and there is a _dies iræ_ coming on, sooner
or later. The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this
country. My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming,
when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy. And she
taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, ‘thy kingdom come.’ Sometimes I
think all this sighing, and groaning, and stirring among the dry bones
foretells what she used to tell me was coming. But who may abide the
day of His appearing?”
“Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the kingdom,” said
Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at her
cousin.
“Thank you for your good opinion, but it’s up and down with me,—up to
heaven’s gate in theory, down in earth’s dust in practice. But there’s
the teabell,—do let’s go,—and don’t say, now, I haven’t had one
downright serious talk, for once in my life.”
At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. “I suppose you’ll
think, cousin,” she said, “that we are all barbarians.”
“I think that’s a barbarous thing,” said Miss Ophelia, “but I don’t
think you are all barbarians.”
“Well, now,” said Marie, “I know it’s impossible to get along with some
of these creatures. They are so bad they ought not to live. I don’t
feel a particle of sympathy for such cases. If they’d only behave
themselves, it would not happen.”
“But, mamma,” said Eva, “the poor creature was unhappy; that’s what
made her drink.”
“O, fiddlestick! as if that were any excuse! I’m unhappy, very often. I
presume,” she said, pensively, “that I’ve had greater trials than ever
she had. It’s just because they are so bad. There’s some of them that
you cannot break in by any kind of severity. I remember father had a
man that was so lazy he would run away just to get rid of work, and lie
round in the swamps, stealing and doing all sorts of horrid things.
That man was caught and whipped, time and again, and it never did him
any good; and the last time he crawled off, though he couldn’t but just
go, and died in the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for
father’s hands were always treated kindly.”
“I broke a fellow in, once,” said St. Clare, “that all the overseers
and masters had tried their hands on in vain.”
“You!” said Marie; “well, I’d be glad to know when _you_ ever did
anything of the sort.”
“Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow,—a native-born African; and
he appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom in him to an uncommon
degree. He was a regular African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobody
could do anything with him; and he was sold round from overseer to
overseer, till at last Alfred bought him, because he thought he could
manage him. Well, one day he knocked down the overseer, and was fairly
off into the swamps. I was on a visit to Alf’s plantation, for it was
after we had dissolved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated; but
I told him that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that I
could break the man; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught him, I
should have him to experiment on. So they mustered out a party of some
six or seven, with guns and dogs, for the hunt. People, you know, can
get up as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is only
customary; in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I had only
put in as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught.
“Well, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scampered, and
finally we started him. He ran and bounded like a buck, and kept us
well in the rear for some time; but at last he got caught in an
impenetrable thicket of cane; then he turned to bay, and I tell you he
fought the dogs right gallantly. He dashed them to right and left, and
actually killed three of them with only his naked fists, when a shot
from a gun brought him down, and he fell, wounded and bleeding, almost
at my feet. The poor fellow looked up at me with manhood and despair
both in his eye. I kept back the dogs and the party, as they came
pressing up, and claimed him as my prisoner. It was all I could do to
keep them from shooting him, in the flush of success; but I persisted
in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well, I took him in hand, and
in one fortnight I had him tamed down as submissive and tractable as
heart could desire.”
“What in the world did you do to him?” said Marie.
“Well, it was quite a simple process. I took him to my own room, had a
good bed made for him, dressed his wounds, and tended him myself, until
he got fairly on his feet again. And, in process of time, I had free
papers made out for him, and told him he might go where he liked.”
“And did he go?” said Miss Ophelia.
“No. The foolish fellow tore the paper in two, and absolutely refused
to leave me. I never had a braver, better fellow,—trusty and true as
steel. He embraced Christianity afterwards, and became as gentle as a
child. He used to oversee my place on the lake, and did it capitally,
too. I lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid down his
life for me. For I was sick, almost to death; and when, through the
panic, everybody else fled, Scipio worked for me like a giant, and
actually brought me back into life again. But, poor fellow! he was
taken, right after, and there was no saving him. I never felt anybody’s
loss more.”
Eva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father, as he told the
story,—her small lips apart, her eyes wide and earnest with absorbing
interest.
As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, burst into
tears, and sobbed convulsively.
“Eva, dear child! what is the matter?” said St. Clare, as the child’s
small frame trembled and shook with the violence of her feelings. “This
child,” he added, “ought not to hear any of this kind of thing,—she’s
nervous.”
“No, papa, I’m not nervous,” said Eva, controlling herself, suddenly,
with a strength of resolution singular in such a child. “I’m not
nervous, but these things _sink into my heart_.”
“What do you mean, Eva?”
“I can’t tell you, papa, I think a great many thoughts. Perhaps some
day I shall tell you.”
“Well, think away, dear,—only don’t cry and worry your papa,” said St.
Clare, “Look here,—see what a beautiful peach I have got for you.”
Eva took it and smiled, though there was still a nervous twiching about
the corners of her mouth.
“Come, look at the gold-fish,” said St. Clare, taking her hand and
stepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and merry laughs were heard
through the silken curtains, as Eva and St. Clare were pelting each
other with roses, and chasing each other among the alleys of the court.
There is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected amid the
adventures of the higher born; but, if our readers will accompany us up
to a little loft over the stable, they may, perhaps, learn a little of
his affairs. It was a decent room, containing a bed, a chair, and a
small, rough stand, where lay Tom’s Bible and hymn-book; and where he
sits, at present, with his slate before him, intent on something that
seems to cost him a great deal of anxious thought.
The fact was, that Tom’s home-yearnings had become so strong that he
had begged a sheet of writing-paper of Eva, and, mustering up all his
small stock of literary attainment acquired by Mas’r George’s
instructions, he conceived the bold idea of writing a letter; and he
was busy now, on his slate, getting out his first draft. Tom was in a
good deal of trouble, for the forms of some of the letters he had
forgotten entirely; and of what he did remember, he did not know
exactly which to use. And while he was working, and breathing very
hard, in his earnestness, Eva alighted, like a bird, on the round of
his chair behind him, and peeped over his shoulder.
“O, Uncle Tom! what funny things you _are_ making, there!”
“I’m trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, and my little
chil’en,” said Tom, drawing the back of his hand over his eyes; “but,
some how, I’m feard I shan’t make it out.”
“I wish I could help you, Tom! I’ve learnt to write some. Last year I
could make all the letters, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”
So Eva put her golden head close to his, and the two commenced a grave
and anxious discussion, each one equally earnest, and about equally
ignorant; and, with a deal of consulting and advising over every word,
the composition began, as they both felt very sanguine, to look quite
like writing.
“Yes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful,” said Eva, gazing