Uncle Tom's Cabin
those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable disease so often
beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of the grave. Eva’s step
was again in the garden,—in the balconies; she played and laughed
again,—and her father, in a transport, declared that they should soon
have her as hearty as anybody. Miss Ophelia and the physician alone
felt no encouragement from this illusive truce. There was one other
heart, too, that felt the same certainty, and that was the little heart
of Eva. What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so
clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of
decaying nature, or the soul’s impulsive throb, as immortality draws
on? Be it what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet,
prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset,
sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart
reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.
For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though life was unfolding
before her with every brightness that love and wealth could give, had
no regret for herself in dying.
In that book which she and her simple old friend had read so much
together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the image of one
who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and mused, He had ceased
to be an image and a picture of the distant past, and come to be a
living, all-surrounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart
with more than mortal tenderness; and it was to Him, she said, she was
going, and to his home.
But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she was to leave
behind. Her father most,—for Eva, though she never distinctly thought
so, had an instinctive perception that she was more in his heart than
any other. She loved her mother because she was so loving a creature,
and all the selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and
perplexed her; for she had a child’s implicit trust that her mother
could not do wrong. There was something about her that Eva never could
make out; and she always smoothed it over with thinking that, after
all, it was mamma, and she loved her very dearly indeed.
She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was as
daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize; but Eva was
an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she had witnessed of
the evils of the system under which they were living had fallen, one by
one, into the depths of her thoughtful, pondering heart. She had vague
longings to do something for them,—to bless and save not only them, but
all in their condition,—longings that contrasted sadly with the
feebleness of her little frame.
“Uncle Tom,” she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, “I
can understand why Jesus _wanted_ to die for us.”
“Why, Miss Eva?”
“Because I’ve felt so, too.”
“What is it Miss Eva?—I don’t understand.”
“I can’t tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat,
you know, when you came up and I,—some had lost their mothers, and some
their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children—and
when I heard about poor Prue,—oh, wasn’t that dreadful!—and a great
many other times, I’ve felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying
could stop all this misery. _I would_ die for them, Tom, if I could,”
said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.
Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her father’s
voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as he looked after
her.
“It’s jest no use tryin’ to keep Miss Eva here,” he said to Mammy, whom
he met a moment after. “She’s got the Lord’s mark in her forehead.”
“Ah, yes, yes,” said Mammy, raising her hands; “I’ve allers said so.
She wasn’t never like a child that’s to live—there was allers something
deep in her eyes. I’ve told Missis so, many the time; it’s a comin’
true,—we all sees it,—dear, little, blessed lamb!”
Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. It was late in
the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed a kind of glory behind
her, as she came forward in her white dress, with her golden hair and
glowing cheeks, her eyes unnaturally bright with the slow fever that
burned in her veins.
St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had been buying
for her; but her appearance, as she came on, impressed him suddenly and
painfully. There is a kind of beauty so intense, yet so fragile, that
we cannot bear to look at it. Her father folded her suddenly in his
arms, and almost forgot what he was going to tell her.
“Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days,—are you not?”
“Papa,” said Eva, with sudden firmness “I’ve had things I wanted to say
to you, a great while. I want to say them now, before I get weaker.”
St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She laid her head
on his bosom, and said,
“It’s all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer. The time is
coming that I am going to leave you. I am going, and never to come
back!” and Eva sobbed.
“O, now, my dear little Eva!” said St. Clare, trembling as he spoke,
but speaking cheerfully, “you’ve got nervous and low-spirited; you
mustn’t indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here, I’ve bought a statuette
for you!”
“No, papa,” said Eva, putting it gently away, “don’t deceive
yourself!—I am _not_ any better, I know it perfectly well,—and I am
going, before long. I am not nervous,—I am not low-spirited. If it were
not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly happy. I want
to go,—I long to go!”
“Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart so sad? You have
had everything, to make you happy, that could be given you.”
“I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends’ sake, I would
be willing to live. There are a great many things here that make me
sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be there; but I don’t want
to leave you,—it almost breaks my heart!”
“What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva?”
“O, things that are done, and done all the time. I feel sad for our
poor people; they love me dearly, and they are all good and kind to me.
I wish, papa, they were all _free_.”
“Why, Eva, child, don’t you think they are well enough off now?”
“O, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what would become of
them? There are very few men like you, papa. Uncle Alfred isn’t like
you, and mamma isn’t; and then, think of poor old Prue’s owners! What
horrid things people do, and can do!” and Eva shuddered.
“My dear child, you are too sensitive. I’m sorry I ever let you hear
such stories.”
“O, that’s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and
never to have any pain,—never suffer anything,—not even hear a sad
story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all
their lives;—it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to
feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down
deep; I’ve thought and thought about them. Papa, isn’t there any way to
have all slaves made free?”
“That’s a difficult question, dearest. There’s no doubt that this way
is a very bad one; a great many people think so; I do myself; I heartily
wish that there were not a slave in the land; but, then, I don’t know
what is to be done about it!”
“Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind, and you always
have a way of saying things that is so pleasant, couldn’t you go all
round and try to persuade people to do right about this? When I am
dead, papa, then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. I would
do it, if I could.”
“When you are dead, Eva,” said St. Clare, passionately. “O, child,
don’t talk to me so! You are all I have on earth.”
“Poor old Prue’s child was all that she had,—and yet she had to hear it
crying, and she couldn’t help it! Papa, these poor creatures love their
children as much as you do me. O! do something for them! There’s poor
Mammy loves her children; I’ve seen her cry when she talked about them.
And Tom loves his children; and it’s dreadful, papa, that such things
are happening, all the time!”
“There, there, darling,” said St. Clare, soothingly; “only don’t
distress yourself, don’t talk of dying, and I will do anything you
wish.”
“And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom as soon
as”—she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone—“I am gone!”
“Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world,—anything you could ask me
to.”
“Dear papa,” said the child, laying her burning cheek against his, “how
I wish we could go together!”
“Where, dearest?” said St. Clare.
“To our Saviour’s home; it’s so sweet and peaceful there—it is all so
loving there!” The child spoke unconsciously, as of a place where she
had often been. “Don’t you want to go, papa?” she said.
St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent.
“You will come to me,” said the child, speaking in a voice of calm
certainty which she often used unconsciously.
“I shall come after you. I shall not forget you.”
The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them deeper and deeper,
as St. Clare sat silently holding the little frail form to his bosom.
He saw no more the deep eyes, but the voice came over him as a spirit
voice, and, as in a sort of judgment vision, his whole past life rose
in a moment before his eyes: his mother’s prayers and hymns; his own
early yearnings and aspirings for good; and, between them and this
hour, years of worldliness and scepticism, and what man calls
respectable living. We can think _much_, very much, in a moment. St.
Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke nothing; and, as it grew
darker, he took his child to her bed-room; and, when she was prepared
for rest; he sent away the attendants, and rocked her in his arms, and
sung to her till she was asleep.
CHAPTER XXV
The Little Evangelist
It was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in
the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclined on a
sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded,
under an awning of transparent gauze, from the outrages of the
mosquitos, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly bound
prayer-book. She was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined
she had been reading it,—though, in fact, she had been only taking a
succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.
Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small
Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as
driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied them.
“I say, Augustine,” said Marie after dozing a while, “I must send to
the city after my old Doctor Posey; I’m sure I’ve got the complaint of
the heart.”
“Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems
skilful.”
“I would not trust him in a critical case,” said Marie; “and I think I
may say mine is becoming so! I’ve been thinking of it, these two or
three nights past; I have such distressing pains, and such strange
feelings.”
“O, Marie, you are blue; I don’t believe it’s heart complaint.”
“I dare say _you_ don’t,” said Marie; “I was prepared to expect _that_.
You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the
matter with her; but you never think of me.”
“If it’s particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, I’ll
try and maintain you have it,” said St. Clare; “I didn’t know it was.”
“Well, I only hope you won’t be sorry for this, when it’s too late!”
said Marie; “but, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the
exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed what I have
long suspected.”
What the _exertions_ were which Marie referred to, it would have been
difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself,