Uncle Tom's Cabin
“You have started a serious question,” said St. Clare; “I wish you’d
answer it. What is to be done with a human being that can be governed
only by the lash,—_that_ fails,—it’s a very common state of things down
here!”
“I’m sure I don’t know; I never saw such a child as this.”
“Such children are very common among us, and such men and women, too.
How are they to be governed?” said St. Clare.
“I’m sure it’s more than I can say,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Or I either,” said St. Clare. “The horrid cruelties and outrages that
once and a while find their way into the papers,—such cases as Prue’s,
for example,—what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual
hardening process on both sides,—the owner growing more and more cruel,
as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like
laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline. I
saw this very early when I became an owner; and I resolved never to
begin, because I did not know when I should stop,—and I resolved, at
least, to protect my own moral nature. The consequence is, that my
servants act like spoiled children; but I think that better than for us
both to be brutalized together. You have talked a great deal about our
responsibilities in educating, Cousin. I really wanted you to _try_
with one child, who is a specimen of thousands among us.”
“It is your system makes such children,” said Miss Ophelia.
“I know it; but they are _made_,—they exist,—and what _is_ to be done
with them?”
“Well, I can’t say I thank you for the experiment. But, then, as it
appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and do the best I
can,” said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after this, did labor, with
a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on her new subject. She
instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to
teach her to read and sew.
In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned her letters
as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain reading; but the
sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature was as lithe as a cat,
and as active as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her
abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them slyly out of the
window, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied
her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away
altogether. Her motions were almost as quick as those of a practised
conjurer, and her command of her face quite as great; and though Miss
Ophelia could not help feeling that so many accidents could not
possibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without a
watchfulness which would leave her no time for anything else, detect
her.
Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. Her talent for
every species of drollery, grimace, and mimicry,—for dancing, tumbling,
climbing, singing, whistling, imitating every sound that hit her
fancy,—seemed inexhaustible. In her play-hours, she invariably had
every child in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with
admiration and wonder,—not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be
fascinated by her wild diablerie, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a
glittering serpent. Miss Ophelia was uneasy that Eva should fancy
Topsy’s society so much, and implored St. Clare to forbid it.
“Poh! let the child alone,” said St. Clare. “Topsy will do her good.”
“But so depraved a child,—are you not afraid she will teach her some
mischief?”
“She can’t teach her mischief; she might teach it to some children, but
evil rolls off Eva’s mind like dew off a cabbage-leaf,—not a drop sinks
in.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Miss Ophelia. “I know I’d never let a child
of mine play with Topsy.”
“Well, your children needn’t,” said St. Clare, “but mine may; if Eva
could have been spoiled, it would have been done years ago.”
Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper servants. They
soon found reason to alter their opinion. It was very soon discovered
that whoever cast an indignity on Topsy was sure to meet with some
inconvenient accident shortly after;—either a pair of ear-rings or some
cherished trinket would be missing, or an article of dress would be
suddenly found utterly ruined, or the person would stumble accidently
into a pail of hot water, or a libation of dirty slop would
unaccountably deluge them from above when in full gala dress;-and on
all these occasions, when investigation was made, there was nobody
found to stand sponsor for the indignity. Topsy was cited, and had up
before all the domestic judicatories, time and again; but always
sustained her examinations with most edifying innocence and gravity of
appearance. Nobody in the world ever doubted who did the things; but
not a scrap of any direct evidence could be found to establish the
suppositions, and Miss Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to
proceed to any length without it.
The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, as further to
shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for revenge on Rosa and Jane,
the two chamber maids, were always chosen in those seasons when (as not
unfrequently happened) they were in disgrace with their mistress, when
any complaint from them would of course meet with no sympathy. In
short, Topsy soon made the household understand the propriety of
letting her alone; and she was let alone, accordingly.
Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning
everything that was taught her with surprising quickness. With a few
lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss Ophelia’s
chamber in a way with which even that particular lady could find no
fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more
accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when
she chose,—but she didn’t very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after
three or four days of careful patient supervision, was so sanguine as
to suppose that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without
over-looking, and so go off and busy herself about something else,
Topsy would hold a perfect carnival of confusion, for some one or two
hours. Instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling
off the pillowcases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it
would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in
various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head downward
from the tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment;
dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia’s night-clothes, and enact various
performances with that,—singing and whistling, and making grimaces at
herself in the looking-glass; in short, as Miss Ophelia phrased it,
“raising Cain” generally.
On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very best scarlet
India Canton crape shawl wound round her head for a turban, going on
with her rehearsals before the glass in great style,—Miss Ophelia
having, with carelessness most unheard-of in her, left the key for once
in her drawer.
“Topsy!” she would say, when at the end of all patience, “what does
make you act so?”
“Dunno, Missis,—I spects cause I ’s so wicked!”
“I don’t know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy.”
“Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers whipped me. I an’t
used to workin’ unless I gets whipped.”
“Why, Topsy, I don’t want to whip you. You can do well, if you’ve a
mind to; what is the reason you won’t?”
“Laws, Missis, I ’s used to whippin’; I spects it’s good for me.”
Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a terrible
commotion, screaming, groaning and imploring, though half an hour
afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the balcony, and
surrounded by a flock of admiring “young uns,” she would express the
utmost contempt of the whole affair.
“Law, Miss Feely whip!—wouldn’t kill a skeeter, her whippins. Oughter
see how old Mas’r made the flesh fly; old Mas’r know’d how!”
Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and enormities,
evidently considering them as something peculiarly distinguishing.
“Law, you niggers,” she would say to some of her auditors, “does you
know you ’s all sinners? Well, you is—everybody is. White folks is
sinners too,—Miss Feely says so; but I spects niggers is the biggest
ones; but lor! ye an’t any on ye up to me. I ’s so awful wicked there
can’t nobody do nothin’ with me. I used to keep old Missis a swarin’ at
me half de time. I spects I ’s the wickedest critter in the world;” and
Topsy would cut a summerset, and come up brisk and shining on to a
higher perch, and evidently plume herself on the distinction.
Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays, teaching Topsy
the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon verbal memory, and committed with
a fluency that greatly encouraged her instructress.
“What good do you expect it is going to do her?” said St. Clare.
“Why, it always has done children good. It’s what children always have
to learn, you know,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Understand it or not,” said St. Clare.
“O, children never understand it at the time; but, after they are grown
up, it’ll come to them.”
“Mine hasn’t come to me yet,” said St. Clare, “though I’ll bear
testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly when I was a boy.”’
“Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I used to have great
hopes of you,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Well, haven’t you now?” said St. Clare.
“I wish you were as good as you were when you were a boy, Augustine.”
“So do I, that’s a fact, Cousin,” said St. Clare. “Well, go ahead and
catechize Topsy; may be you’ll make out something yet.”
Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discussion, with
hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss Ophelia, went on:
“Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell
from the state wherein they were created.”
Topsy’s eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.
“What is it, Topsy?” said Miss Ophelia.
“Please, Missis, was dat ar state Kintuck?”
“What state, Topsy?”
“Dat state dey fell out of. I used to hear Mas’r tell how we came down
from Kintuck.”
St. Clare laughed.
“You’ll have to give her a meaning, or she’ll make one,” said he.
“There seems to be a theory of emigration suggested there.”
“O! Augustine, be still,” said Miss Ophelia; “how can I do anything, if
you will be laughing?”
“Well, I won’t disturb the exercises again, on my honor;” and St. Clare
took his paper into the parlor, and sat down, till Topsy had finished
her recitations. They were all very well, only that now and then she
would oddly transpose some important words, and persist in the mistake,
in spite of every effort to the contrary; and St. Clare, after all his
promises of goodness, took a wicked pleasure in these mistakes, calling
Topsy to him whenever he had a mind to amuse himself, and getting her
to repeat the offending passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia’s
remonstrances.
“How do you think I can do anything with the child, if you will go on
so, Augustine?” she would say.
“Well, it is too bad,—I won’t again; but I do like to hear the droll
little image stumble over those big words!”
“But you confirm her in the wrong way.”
“What’s the odds? One word is as good as another to her.”
“You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to remember she is
a reasonable creature, and be careful of your influence over her.”
“O, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, ‘I ’s so wicked!’”
In very much this way Topsy’s training proceeded, for a year or
two,—Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with her, as a
kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became, in time, as
accustomed, as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia or sick headache.