Uncle Tom's Cabin
“Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion. Go
long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding her
exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which
seemed only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as
they tumbled precipitately over each other out of doors, where they
fairly screamed with merriment.
“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe, rather
complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies,
she poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began
rubbing off the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having
polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she
busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals
in pulling Tom’s nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands
in his woolly hair, which last operation seemed to afford her special
content.
“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take a
full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder,
and began capering and dancing with her, while Mas’r George snapped at
her with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned
again, roared after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they
“fairly took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her own
statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in
the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one
had roared and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of
composure.
“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in
pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose and you
Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the meetin’.”
“O mother, we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin’,—meetin’s is
so curis. We likes ’em.”
“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said Mas’r
George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.
Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to
push the thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’t will do
’em some good.”
The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to
consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.
“What we’s to do for cheers, now, _I_ declar I don’t know,” said Aunt
Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s weekly, for an
indefinite length of time, without any more “cheers,” there seemed some
encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.
“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,”
suggested Mose.
“You go long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some o’ your shines,” said
Aunt Chloe.
“Well, it’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!” said Mose.
“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, cause he al’ays hitches when he
gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’ other night,”
said Pete.
“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den he’d begin, ‘Come
saints and sinners, hear me tell,’ and den down he’d go,”—and Mose
imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the
floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.
“Come now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe; “an’t yer shamed?”
Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared
decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition seemed
rather to fail of effect.
“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote in them ar
bar’ls.”
“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s, Mas’r George was reading
’bout, in de good book,—dey never fails,” said Mose, aside to Pete.
“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete, “and let ’em all
down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was failin’, warnt it?”
During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks had been
rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on
each side, boards were laid across them, which arrangement, together
with the turning down of certain tubs and pails, and the disposing of
the rickety chairs, at last completed the preparation.
“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll stay to
read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “’pears like ’t will be so much more
interestin’.”
George very readily consented, for your boy is always ready for
anything that makes him of importance.
The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from the old
gray-headed patriarch of eighty, to the young girl and lad of fifteen.
A little harmless gossip ensued on various themes, such as where old
Aunt Sally got her new red headkerchief, and how “Missis was a going to
give Lizzy that spotted muslin gown, when she’d got her new berage made
up;” and how Mas’r Shelby was thinking of buying a new sorrel colt,
that was going to prove an addition to the glories of the place. A few
of the worshippers belonged to families hard by, who had got permission
to attend, and who brought in various choice scraps of information,
about the sayings and doings at the house and on the place, which
circulated as freely as the same sort of small change does in higher
circles.
After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all
present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could
prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild
and spirited. The words were sometimes the well-known and common hymns
sung in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite
character, picked up at camp-meetings.
The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung with great
energy and unction:
“Die on the field of battle,
Die on the field of battle,
Glory in my soul.”
Another special favorite had oft repeated the words—
“O, I’m going to glory,—won’t you come along with me?
Don’t you see the angels beck’ning, and a calling me away?
Don’t you see the golden city and the everlasting day?”
There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s banks,”
and “Canaan’s fields,” and the “New Jerusalem;” for the negro mind,
impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and
expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; and, as they sung, some
laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands
rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other
side of the river.
Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed, and
intermingled with the singing. One old gray-headed woman, long past
work, but much revered as a sort of chronicle of the past, rose, and
leaning on her staff, said—
“Well, chil’en! Well, I’m mighty glad to hear ye all and see ye all
once more, ’cause I don’t know when I’ll be gone to glory; but I’ve
done got ready, chil’en; ’pears like I’d got my little bundle all
tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a waitin’ for the stage to come along
and take me home; sometimes, in the night, I think I hear the wheels
a rattlin’, and I’m lookin’ out all the time; now, you jest be ready
too, for I tell ye all, chil’en,” she said, striking her staff hard on
the floor, “dat ar _glory_ is a mighty thing! It’s a mighty thing,
chil’en,—you don’no nothing about it,—it’s _wonderful_.” And the old
creature sat down, with streaming tears, as wholly overcome, while the
whole circle struck up—
“O Canaan, bright Canaan,
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”
Mas’r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation, often
interrupted by such exclamations as “The _sakes_ now!” “Only hear
that!” “Jest think on ’t!” “Is all that a comin’ sure enough?”
George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by
his mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw in
expositions of his own, from time to time, with a commendable
seriousness and gravity, for which he was admired by the young and
blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on all hands, that “a minister
couldn’t lay it off better than he did;” that “’t was reely ’mazin’!”
Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the
neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the _morale_
was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and
cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked
up to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the
simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified
even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially
excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike
earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture,
which seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his being, as to
have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously;
in the language of a pious old negro, he “prayed right up.” And so much
did his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences,
that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in
the abundance of the responses which broke out everywhere around him.
While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite
otherwise passed in the halls of the master.
The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the dining room
afore-named, at a table covered with papers and writing utensils.
Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, which, as they
were counted, he pushed over to the trader, who counted them likewise.
“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these yer.”
Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and signed them,
like a man that hurries over some disagreeable business, and then
pushed them over with the money. Haley produced, from a well-worn
valise, a parchment, which, after looking over it a moment, he handed
to Mr. Shelby, who took it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness.
“Wal, now, the thing’s _done_!” said the trader, getting up.
“It’s _done!_” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and, fetching a long
breath, he repeated, _“It’s done!”_
“Yer don’t seem to feel much pleased with it, ’pears to me,” said the
trader.
“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you’ll remember that you promised, on
your honor, you wouldn’t sell Tom, without knowing what sort of hands
he’s going into.”
“Why, you’ve just done it, sir,” said the trader.
“Circumstances, you well know, _obliged_ me,” said Shelby, haughtily.
“Wal, you know, they may ’blige _me_, too,” said the trader.
“Howsomever, I’ll do the very best I can in gettin’ Tom a good berth;
as to my treatin’ on him bad, you needn’t be a grain afeard. If there’s
anything that I thank the Lord for, it is that I’m never noways cruel.”
After the expositions which the trader had previously given of his
humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly reassured by
these declarations; but, as they were the best comfort the case
admitted of, he allowed the trader to depart in silence, and betook
himself to a solitary cigar.
CHAPTER V
Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby had retired to their apartment for the night. He
was lounging in a large easy-chair, looking over some letters that had
come in the afternoon mail, and she was standing before her mirror,
brushing out the complicated braids and curls in which Eliza had
arranged her hair; for, noticing her pale cheeks and haggard eyes, she
had excused her attendance that night, and ordered her to bed. The
employment, naturally enough, suggested her conversation with the girl
in the morning; and turning to her husband, she said, carelessly,
“By the by, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow that you lugged in to
our dinner-table today?”
“Haley is his name,” said Shelby, turning himself rather uneasily in