Uncle Tom's Cabin
This little affair being over, Simon sauntered up again to his
property.
“Now, Tom, I’ve relieved you of any extra baggage, you see. Take mighty
good care of them clothes. It’ll be long enough ’fore you get more. I
go in for making niggers careful; one suit has to do for one year, on
my place.”
Simon next walked up to the place where Emmeline was sitting, chained
to another woman.
“Well, my dear,” he said, chucking her under the chin, “keep up your
spirits.”
The involuntary look of horror, fright and aversion, with which the
girl regarded him, did not escape his eye. He frowned fiercely.
“None o’ your shines, gal! you’s got to keep a pleasant face, when I
speak to ye,—d’ye hear? And you, you old yellow poco moonshine!” he
said, giving a shove to the mulatto woman to whom Emmeline was chained,
“don’t you carry that sort of face! You’s got to look chipper, I tell
ye!”
“I say, all on ye,” he said retreating a pace or two back, “look at
me,—look at me,—look me right in the eye,—_straight_, now!” said he,
stamping his foot at every pause.
As by a fascination, every eye was now directed to the glaring
greenish-gray eye of Simon.
“Now,” said he, doubling his great, heavy fist into something
resembling a blacksmith’s hammer, “d’ye see this fist? Heft it!” he
said, bringing it down on Tom’s hand. “Look at these yer bones! Well, I
tell ye this yer fist has got as hard as iron _knocking down niggers_.
I never see the nigger, yet, I couldn’t bring down with one crack,”
said he, bringing his fist down so near to the face of Tom that he
winked and drew back. “I don’t keep none o’ yer cussed overseers; I
does my own overseeing; and I tell you things _is_ seen to. You’s every
one on ye got to toe the mark, I tell ye; quick,—straight,—the moment I
speak. That’s the way to keep in with me. Ye won’t find no soft spot in
me, nowhere. So, now, mind yerselves; for I don’t show no mercy!”
The women involuntarily drew in their breath, and the whole gang sat
with downcast, dejected faces. Meanwhile, Simon turned on his heel, and
marched up to the bar of the boat for a dram.
“That’s the way I begin with my niggers,” he said, to a gentlemanly
man, who had stood by him during his speech. “It’s my system to begin
strong,—just let ’em know what to expect.”
“Indeed!” said the stranger, looking upon him with the curiosity of a
naturalist studying some out-of-the-way specimen.
“Yes, indeed. I’m none o’ yer gentlemen planters, with lily fingers, to
slop round and be cheated by some old cuss of an overseer! Just feel of
my knuckles, now; look at my fist. Tell ye, sir, the flesh on ’t has
come jest like a stone, practising on nigger—feel on it.”
The stranger applied his fingers to the implement in question, and
simply said,
“’T is hard enough; and, I suppose,” he added, “practice has made your
heart just like it.”
“Why, yes, I may say so,” said Simon, with a hearty laugh. “I reckon
there’s as little soft in me as in any one going. Tell you, nobody
comes it over me! Niggers never gets round me, neither with squalling
nor soft soap,—that’s a fact.”
“You have a fine lot there.”
“Real,” said Simon. “There’s that Tom, they telled me he was suthin’
uncommon. I paid a little high for him, tendin’ him for a driver and a
managing chap; only get the notions out that he’s larnt by bein’
treated as niggers never ought to be, he’ll do prime! The yellow woman
I got took in on. I rayther think she’s sickly, but I shall put her
through for what she’s worth; she may last a year or two. I don’t go
for savin’ niggers. Use up, and buy more, ’s my way;-makes you less
trouble, and I’m quite sure it comes cheaper in the end;” and Simon
sipped his glass.
“And how long do they generally last?” said the stranger.
“Well, donno; ’cordin’ as their constitution is. Stout fellers last six
or seven years; trashy ones gets worked up in two or three. I used to,
when I fust begun, have considerable trouble fussin’ with ’em and
trying to make ’em hold out,—doctorin’ on ’em up when they’s sick, and
givin’ on ’em clothes and blankets, and what not, tryin’ to keep ’em
all sort o’ decent and comfortable. Law, ’t wasn’t no sort o’ use; I
lost money on ’em, and ’t was heaps o’ trouble. Now, you see, I just
put ’em straight through, sick or well. When one nigger’s dead, I buy
another; and I find it comes cheaper and easier, every way.”
The stranger turned away, and seated himself beside a gentleman, who
had been listening to the conversation with repressed uneasiness.
“You must not take that fellow to be any specimen of Southern
planters,” said he.
“I should hope not,” said the young gentleman, with emphasis.
“He is a mean, low, brutal fellow!” said the other.
“And yet your laws allow him to hold any number of human beings subject
to his absolute will, without even a shadow of protection; and, low as
he is, you cannot say that there are not many such.”
“Well,” said the other, “there are also many considerate and humane men
among planters.”
“Granted,” said the young man; “but, in my opinion, it is you
considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the brutality and
outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it were not for your
sanction and influence, the whole system could not keep foothold for an
hour. If there were no planters except such as that one,” said he,
pointing with his finger to Legree, who stood with his back to them,
“the whole thing would go down like a millstone. It is your
respectability and humanity that licenses and protects his brutality.”
“You certainly have a high opinion of my good nature,” said the
planter, smiling, “but I advise you not to talk quite so loud, as there
are people on board the boat who might not be quite so tolerant to
opinion as I am. You had better wait till I get up to my plantation,
and there you may abuse us all, quite at your leisure.”
The young gentleman colored and smiled, and the two were soon busy in a
game of backgammon. Meanwhile, another conversation was going on in the
lower part of the boat, between Emmeline and the mulatto woman with
whom she was confined. As was natural, they were exchanging with each
other some particulars of their history.
“Who did you belong to?” said Emmeline.
“Well, my Mas’r was Mr. Ellis,—lived on Levee-street. P’raps you’ve
seen the house.”
“Was he good to you?” said Emmeline.
“Mostly, till he tuk sick. He’s lain sick, off and on, more than six
months, and been orful oneasy. ’Pears like he warnt willin’ to have
nobody rest, day or night; and got so curous, there couldn’t nobody
suit him. ’Pears like he just grew crosser, every day; kep me up nights
till I got farly beat out, and couldn’t keep awake no longer; and cause
I got to sleep, one night, Lors, he talk so orful to me, and he tell me
he’d sell me to just the hardest master he could find; and he’d
promised me my freedom, too, when he died.”
“Had you any friends?” said Emmeline.
“Yes, my husband,—he’s a blacksmith. Mas’r gen’ly hired him out. They
took me off so quick, I didn’t even have time to see him; and I’s got
four children. O, dear me!” said the woman, covering her face with her
hands.
It is a natural impulse, in every one, when they hear a tale of
distress, to think of something to say by way of consolation. Emmeline
wanted to say something, but she could not think of anything to say.
What was there to be said? As by a common consent, they both avoided,
with fear and dread, all mention of the horrible man who was now their
master.
True, there is religious trust for even the darkest hour. The mulatto
woman was a member of the Methodist church, and had an unenlightened
but very sincere spirit of piety. Emmeline had been educated much more
intelligently,—taught to read and write, and diligently instructed in
the Bible, by the care of a faithful and pious mistress; yet, would it
not try the faith of the firmest Christian, to find themselves
abandoned, apparently, of God, in the grasp of ruthless violence? How
much more must it shake the faith of Christ’s poor little ones, weak in
knowledge and tender in years!
The boat moved on,—freighted with its weight of sorrow,—up the red,
muddy, turbid current, through the abrupt tortuous windings of the Red
river; and sad eyes gazed wearily on the steep red-clay banks, as they
glided by in dreary sameness. At last the boat stopped at a small town,
and Legree, with his party, disembarked.
CHAPTER XXXII
Dark Places
“The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of
cruelty.”[1]
[1] Ps. 74:20.
Trailing wearily behind a rude wagon, and over a ruder road, Tom and
his associates faced onward.
In the wagon was seated Simon Legree and the two women, still fettered
together, were stowed away with some baggage in the back part of it,
and the whole company were seeking Legree’s plantation, which lay a
good distance off.
It was a wild, forsaken road, now winding through dreary pine barrens,
where the wind whispered mournfully, and now over log causeways,
through long cypress swamps, the doleful trees rising out of the slimy,
spongy ground, hung with long wreaths of funeral black moss, while ever
and anon the loathsome form of the moccasin snake might be seen sliding
among broken stumps and shattered branches that lay here and there,
rotting in the water.
It is disconsolate enough, this riding, to the stranger, who, with
well-filled pocket and well-appointed horse, threads the lonely way on
some errand of business; but wilder, drearier, to the man enthralled,
whom every weary step bears further from all that man loves and prays
for.
So one should have thought, that witnessed the sunken and dejected
expression on those dark faces; the wistful, patient weariness with
which those sad eyes rested on object after object that passed them in
their sad journey.
Simon rode on, however, apparently well pleased, occasionally pulling
away at a flask of spirit, which he kept in his pocket.
“I say, _you!_” he said, as he turned back and caught a glance at the
dispirited faces behind him. “Strike up a song, boys,—come!”
The men looked at each other, and the “_come_” was repeated, with a
smart crack of the whip which the driver carried in his hands. Tom
began a Methodist hymn.
“Jerusalem, my happy home,
Name ever dear to me!
When shall my sorrows have an end,
Thy joys when shall—“[2]
[2] _Jerusalem, my happy home_,” anonymous hymn dating from the latter
part of the sixteenth century, sung to the tune of “St. Stephen.”
Words derive from St. Augustine’s _Meditations_.
“Shut up, you black cuss!” roared Legree; “did ye think I wanted any o’
yer infernal old Methodism? I say, tune up, now, something real
rowdy,—quick!”
One of the other men struck up one of those unmeaning songs, common
among the slaves.
“Mas’r see’d me cotch a coon,
High boys, high!
He laughed to split,—d’ye see the moon,
Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
Ho! yo! hi—e! _oh!”_
The singer appeared to make up the song to his own pleasure, generally
hitting on rhyme, without much attempt at reason; and the party took up
the chorus, at intervals,
“Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
High—e—oh! high—e—oh!”
It was sung very boisterouly, and with a forced attempt at merriment;
but no wail of despair, no words of impassioned prayer, could have had
such a depth of woe in them as the wild notes of the chorus. As if the
poor, dumb heart, threatened,—prisoned,—took refuge in that
inarticulate sanctuary of music, and found there a language in which to
breathe its prayer to God! There was a prayer in it, which Simon could
not hear. He only heard the boys singing noisily, and was well pleased;
he was making them “keep up their spirits.”
“Well, my little dear,” said he, turning to Emmeline, and laying his