Uncle Tom's Cabin
delightedly on it. “How pleased your wife’ll be, and the poor little
children! O, it’s a shame you ever had to go away from them! I mean to
ask papa to let you go back, some time.”
“Missis said that she would send down money for me, as soon as they
could get it together,” said Tom. “I’m ’spectin, she will. Young Mas’r
George, he said he’d come for me; and he gave me this yer dollar as a
sign;” and Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar.
“O, he’ll certainly come, then!” said Eva. “I’m so glad!”
“And I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let ’em know whar I was,
and tell poor Chloe that I was well off,—cause she felt so drefful,
poor soul!”
“I say Tom!” said St. Clare’s voice, coming in the door at this moment.
Tom and Eva both started.
“What’s here?” said St. Clare, coming up and looking at the slate.
“O, it’s Tom’s letter. I’m helping him to write it,” said Eva; “isn’t
it nice?”
“I wouldn’t discourage either of you,” said St. Clare, “but I rather
think, Tom, you’d better get me to write your letter for you. I’ll do
it, when I come home from my ride.”
“It’s very important he should write,” said Eva, “because his mistress
is going to send down money to redeem him, you know, papa; he told me
they told him so.”
St. Clare thought, in his heart, that this was probably only one of
those things which good-natured owners say to their servants, to
alleviate their horror of being sold, without any intention of
fulfilling the expectation thus excited. But he did not make any
audible comment upon it,—only ordered Tom to get the horses out for a
ride.
Tom’s letter was written in due form for him that evening, and safely
lodged in the post-office.
Miss Ophelia still persevered in her labors in the housekeeping line.
It was universally agreed, among all the household, from Dinah down to
the youngest urchin, that Miss Ophelia was decidedly “curis,”—a term by
which a southern servant implies that his or her betters don’t exactly
suit them.
The higher circle in the family—to wit, Adolph, Jane and Rosa—agreed
that she was no lady; ladies never keep working about as she did,—that
she had no _air_ at all; and they were surprised that she should be any
relation of the St. Clares. Even Marie declared that it was absolutely
fatiguing to see Cousin Ophelia always so busy. And, in fact, Miss
Ophelia’s industry was so incessant as to lay some foundation for the
complaint. She sewed and stitched away, from daylight till dark, with
the energy of one who is pressed on by some immediate urgency; and
then, when the light faded, and the work was folded away, with one turn
out came the ever-ready knitting-work, and there she was again, going
on as briskly as ever. It really was a labor to see her.
CHAPTER XX
Topsy
One morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her domestic cares,
St. Clare’s voice was heard, calling her at the foot of the stairs.
“Come down here, Cousin, I’ve something to show you.”
“What is it?” said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her sewing in her
hand.
“I’ve made a purchase for your department,—see here,” said St. Clare;
and, with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl, about eight or
nine years of age.
She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round shining eyes,
glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over
everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with astonishment at the
wonders of the new Mas’r’s parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set
of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which
stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd
mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a
kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity.
She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging;
and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, there
was something odd and goblin-like about her appearance,—something, as
Miss Ophelia afterwards said, “so heathenish,” as to inspire that good
lady with utter dismay; and turning to St. Clare, she said,
“Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?”
“For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she should go. I
thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim Crow line. Here,
Topsy,” he added, giving a whistle, as a man would to call the
attention of a dog, “give us a song, now, and show us some of your
dancing.”
The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, and
the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd negro melody, to
which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning round, clapping
her hands, knocking her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of
time, and producing in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which
distinguish the native music of her race; and finally, turning a
summerset or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, as odd and
unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly down on the
carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious
expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the
cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes.
Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement. St.
Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared to enjoy her
astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said,
“Topsy, this is your new mistress. I’m going to give you up to her; see
now that you behave yourself.”
“Yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her wicked eyes
twinkling as she spoke.
“You’re going to be good, Topsy, you understand,” said St. Clare.
“O yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands still
devoutly folded.
“Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?” said Miss Ophelia. “Your
house is so full of these little plagues, now, that a body can’t set
down their foot without treading on ’em. I get up in the morning, and
find one asleep behind the door, and see one black head poking out from
under the table, one lying on the door-mat,—and they are mopping and
mowing and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over the
kitchen floor! What on earth did you want to bring this one for?”
“For you to educate—didn’t I tell you? You’re always preaching about
educating. I thought I would make you a present of a fresh-caught
specimen, and let you try your hand on her, and bring her up in the way
she should go.”
“_I_ don’t want her, I am sure;—I have more to do with ’em now than I
want to.”
“That’s you Christians, all over!—you’ll get up a society, and get some
poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let
me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and
take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to
that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care, and so
on.”
“Augustine, you know I didn’t think of it in that light,” said Miss
Ophelia, evidently softening. “Well, it might be a real missionary
work,” said she, looking rather more favorably on the child.
St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia’s
conscientiousness was ever on the alert. “But,” she added, “I really
didn’t see the need of buying this one;—there are enough now, in your
house, to take all my time and skill.”
“Well, then, Cousin,” said St. Clare, drawing her aside, “I ought to
beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing speeches. You are so good,
after all, that there’s no sense in them. Why, the fact is, this
concern belonged to a couple of drunken creatures that keep a low
restaurant that I have to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing
her screaming, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright
and funny, too, as if something might be made of her;—so I bought her,
and I’ll give her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New
England bringing up, and see what it’ll make of her. You know I haven’t
any gift that way; but I’d like you to try.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her
new subject very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black
spider, supposing them to have benevolent designs toward it.
“She’s dreadfully dirty, and half naked,” she said.
“Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them clean and clothe her
up.”
Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions.
“Don’t see what Mas’r St. Clare wants of ’nother nigger!” said Dinah,
surveying the new arrival with no friendly air. “Won’t have her around
under _my_ feet, _I_ know!”
“Pah!” said Rosa and Jane, with supreme disgust; “let her keep out of
our way! What in the world Mas’r wanted another of these low niggers
for, I can’t see!”
“You go long! No more nigger dan you be, Miss Rosa,” said Dinah, who
felt this last remark a reflection on herself. “You seem to tink
yourself white folks. You an’t nerry one, black _nor_ white, I’d like
to be one or turrer.”
Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp that would undertake
to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new arrival; and so she
was forced to do it herself, with some very ungracious and reluctant
assistance from Jane.
It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the first toilet
of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this world, multitudes must
live and die in a state that it would be too great a shock to the
nerves of their fellow-mortals even to hear described. Miss Ophelia had
a good, strong, practical deal of resolution; and she went through all
the disgusting details with heroic thoroughness, though, it must be
confessed, with no very gracious air,—for endurance was the utmost to
which her principles could bring her. When she saw, on the back and
shoulders of the child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable
marks of the system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart
became pitiful within her.
“See there!” said Jane, pointing to the marks, “don’t that show she’s a
limb? We’ll have fine works with her, I reckon. I hate these nigger
young uns! so disgusting! I wonder that Mas’r would buy her!”
The “young un” alluded to heard all these comments with the subdued and
doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only scanning, with a keen
and furtive glance of her flickering eyes, the ornaments which Jane
wore in her ears. When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole
clothing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some
satisfaction, said she looked more Christian-like than she did, and in
her own mind began to mature some plans for her instruction.
Sitting down before her, she began to question her.
“How old are you, Topsy?”
“Dun no, Missis,” said the image, with a grin that showed all her
teeth.
“Don’t know how old you are? Didn’t anybody ever tell you? Who was your
mother?”
“Never had none!” said the child, with another grin.
“Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?”
“Never was born!” persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so
goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous, she might
have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land of
Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and
business-like, and she said, with some sternness,
“You mustn’t answer me in that way, child; I’m not playing with you.
Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were.”
“Never was born,” reiterated the creature, more emphatically; “never
had no father nor mother, nor nothin’. I was raised by a speculator,
with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us.”
The child was evidently sincere, and Jane, breaking into a short laugh,
said,
“Laws, Missis, there’s heaps of ’em. Speculators buys ’em up cheap,