Uncle Tom's Cabin
St. Clare, that has larnin, and riches, and friends,—how much he might
do for the Lord!”
“Tom, you seem to think the Lord needs a great deal done for him,” said
St. Clare, smiling.
“We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs,” said Tom.
“Good theology, Tom; better than Dr. B. preaches, I dare swear,” said
St. Clare.
The conversation was here interrupted by the announcement of some
visitors.
Marie St. Clare felt the loss of Eva as deeply as she could feel
anything; and, as she was a woman that had a great faculty of making
everybody unhappy when she was, her immediate attendants had still
stronger reason to regret the loss of their young mistress, whose
winning ways and gentle intercessions had so often been a shield to
them from the tyrannical and selfish exactions of her mother. Poor old
Mammy, in particular, whose heart, severed from all natural domestic
ties, had consoled itself with this one beautiful being, was almost
heart-broken. She cried day and night, and was, from excess of sorrow,
less skilful and alert in her ministrations of her mistress than usual,
which drew down a constant storm of invectives on her defenceless head.
Miss Ophelia felt the loss; but, in her good and honest heart, it bore
fruit unto everlasting life. She was more softened, more gentle; and,
though equally assiduous in every duty, it was with a chastened and
quiet air, as one who communed with her own heart not in vain. She was
more diligent in teaching Topsy,—taught her mainly from the Bible,—did
not any longer shrink from her touch, or manifest an ill-repressed
disgust, because she felt none. She viewed her now through the softened
medium that Eva’s hand had first held before her eyes, and saw in her
only an immortal creature, whom God had sent to be led by her to glory
and virtue. Topsy did not become at once a saint; but the life and
death of Eva did work a marked change in her. The callous indifference
was gone; there was now sensibility, hope, desire, and the striving for
good,—a strife irregular, interrupted, suspended oft, but yet renewed
again.
One day, when Topsy had been sent for by Miss Ophelia, she came,
hastily thrusting something into her bosom.
“What are you doing there, you limb? You’ve been stealing something,
I’ll be bound,” said the imperious little Rosa, who had been sent to
call her, seizing her, at the same time, roughly by the arm.
“You go ’long, Miss Rosa!” said Topsy, pulling from her; “‘tan’t none
o’ your business!”
“None o’ your sa’ce!” said Rosa, “I saw you hiding something,—I know
yer tricks,” and Rosa seized her arm, and tried to force her hand into
her bosom, while Topsy, enraged, kicked and fought valiantly for what
she considered her rights. The clamor and confusion of the battle drew
Miss Ophelia and St. Clare both to the spot.
“She’s been stealing!” said Rosa.
“I han’t, neither!” vociferated Topsy, sobbing with passion.
“Give me that, whatever it is!” said Miss Ophelia, firmly.
Topsy hesitated; but, on a second order, pulled out of her bosom a
little parcel done up in the foot of one of her own old stockings.
Miss Ophelia turned it out. There was a small book, which had been
given to Topsy by Eva, containing a single verse of Scripture, arranged
for every day in the year, and in a paper the curl of hair that she had
given her on that memorable day when she had taken her last farewell.
St. Clare was a good deal affected at the sight of it; the little book
had been rolled in a long strip of black crape, torn from the funeral
weeds.
“What did you wrap _this_ round the book for?” said St. Clare, holding
up the crape.
“Cause,—cause,—cause ’t was Miss Eva. O, don’t take ’em away, please!”
she said; and, sitting flat down on the floor, and putting her apron
over her head, she began to sob vehemently.
It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous,—the little
old stockings,—black crape,—text-book,—fair, soft curl,—and Topsy’s
utter distress.
St. Clare smiled; but there were tears in his eyes, as he said,
“Come, come,—don’t cry; you shall have them!” and, putting them
together, he threw them into her lap, and drew Miss Ophelia with him
into the parlor.
“I really think you can make something of that concern,” he said,
pointing with his thumb backward over his shoulder. “Any mind that is
capable of a _real sorrow_ is capable of good. You must try and do
something with her.”
“The child has improved greatly,” said Miss Ophelia. “I have great
hopes of her; but, Augustine,” she said, laying her hand on his arm,
“one thing I want to ask; whose is this child to be?—yours or mine?”
“Why, I gave her to you,” said Augustine.
“But not legally;—I want her to be mine legally,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Whew! cousin,” said Augustine. “What will the Abolition Society think?
They’ll have a day of fasting appointed for this backsliding, if you
become a slaveholder!”
“O, nonsense! I want her mine, that I may have a right to take her to
the free States, and give her her liberty, that all I am trying to do
be not undone.”
“O, cousin, what an awful ‘doing evil that good may come’! I can’t
encourage it.”
“I don’t want you to joke, but to reason,” said Miss Ophelia. “There is
no use in my trying to make this child a Christian child, unless I save
her from all the chances and reverses of slavery; and, if you really
are willing I should have her, I want you to give me a deed of gift, or
some legal paper.”
“Well, well,” said St. Clare, “I will;” and he sat down, and unfolded a
newspaper to read.
“But I want it done now,” said Miss Ophelia.
“What’s your hurry?”
“Because now is the only time there ever is to do a thing in,” said
Miss Ophelia. “Come, now, here’s paper, pen, and ink; just write a
paper.”
St. Clare, like most men of his class of mind, cordially hated the
present tense of action, generally; and, therefore, he was considerably
annoyed by Miss Ophelia’s downrightness.
“Why, what’s the matter?” said he. “Can’t you take my word? One would
think you had taken lessons of the Jews, coming at a fellow so!”
“I want to make sure of it,” said Miss Ophelia. “You may die, or fail,
and then Topsy be hustled off to auction, spite of all I can do.”
“Really, you are quite provident. Well, seeing I’m in the hands of a
Yankee, there is nothing for it but to concede;” and St. Clare rapidly
wrote off a deed of gift, which, as he was well versed in the forms of
law, he could easily do, and signed his name to it in sprawling
capitals, concluding by a tremendous flourish.
“There, isn’t that black and white, now, Miss Vermont?” he said, as he
handed it to her.
“Good boy,” said Miss Ophelia, smiling. “But must it not be witnessed?”
“O, bother!—yes. Here,” he said, opening the door into Marie’s
apartment, “Marie, Cousin wants your autograph; just put your name down
here.”
“What’s this?” said Marie, as she ran over the paper. “Ridiculous! I
thought Cousin was too pious for such horrid things,” she added, as she
carelessly wrote her name; “but, if she has a fancy for that article, I
am sure she’s welcome.”
“There, now, she’s yours, body and soul,” said St. Clare, handing the
paper.
“No more mine now than she was before,” Miss Ophelia. “Nobody but God
has a right to give her to me; but I can protect her now.”
“Well, she’s yours by a fiction of law, then,” said St. Clare, as he
turned back into the parlor, and sat down to his paper.
Miss Ophelia, who seldom sat much in Marie’s company, followed him into
the parlor, having first carefully laid away the paper.
“Augustine,” she said, suddenly, as she sat knitting, “have you ever
made any provision for your servants, in case of your death?”
“No,” said St. Clare, as he read on.
“Then all your indulgence to them may prove a great cruelty, by and
by.”
St. Clare had often thought the same thing himself; but he answered,
negligently.
“Well, I mean to make a provision, by and by.”
“When?” said Miss Ophelia.
“O, one of these days.”
“What if you should die first?”
“Cousin, what’s the matter?” said St. Clare, laying down his paper and
looking at her. “Do you think I show symptoms of yellow fever or
cholera, that you are making post mortem arrangements with such zeal?”
“‘In the midst of life we are in death,’” said Miss Ophelia.
St. Clare rose up, and laying the paper down, carelessly, walked to the
door that stood open on the verandah, to put an end to a conversation
that was not agreeable to him. Mechanically, he repeated the last word
again,—_“Death!”_—and, as he leaned against the railings, and watched
the sparkling water as it rose and fell in the fountain; and, as in a
dim and dizzy haze, saw flowers and trees and vases of the courts, he
repeated, again the mystic word so common in every mouth, yet of such
fearful power,—“DEATH!” “Strange that there should be such a word,” he
said, “and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be
living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day,
and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!”
It was a warm, golden evening; and, as he walked to the other end of
the verandah, he saw Tom busily intent on his Bible, pointing, as he
did so, with his finger to each successive word, and whispering them to
himself with an earnest air.
“Want me to read to you, Tom?” said St. Clare, seating himself
carelessly by him.
“If Mas’r pleases,” said Tom, gratefully, “Mas’r makes it so much
plainer.”
St. Clare took the book and glanced at the place, and began reading one
of the passages which Tom had designated by the heavy marks around it.
It ran as follows:
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before
him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.” St. Clare
read on in an animated voice, till he came to the last of the verses.
“Then shall the king say unto him on his left hand, Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye
took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: I was sick, and in
prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they answer unto Him, Lord
when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or
sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he say
unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my
brethren, ye did it not to me.”
St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he read it
twice,—the second time slowly, and as if he were revolving the words in
his mind.
“Tom,” he said, “these folks that get such hard measure seem to have
been doing just what I have,—living good, easy, respectable lives; and
not troubling themselves to inquire how many of their brethren were
hungry or athirst, or sick, or in prison.”
Tom did not answer.
St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the verandah,
seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts; so absorbed was he,
that Tom had to remind him twice that the teabell had rung, before he
could get his attention.
St. Clare was absent and thoughtful, all tea-time. After tea, he and
Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the parlor almost in silence.
Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mosquito curtain,
and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia silently busied herself with
her knitting. St. Clare sat down to the piano, and began playing a soft
and melancholy movement with the Æolian accompaniment. He seemed in a
deep reverie, and to be soliloquizing to himself by music. After a
little, he opened one of the drawers, took out an old music-book whose