{"id":496,"date":"2021-03-25T20:13:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T20:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-empire-amliterature\/?post_type=chapter&p=496"},"modified":"2021-07-12T16:12:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T16:12:31","slug":"harriet-beecher-stowe","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-empire-amliterature\/chapter\/harriet-beecher-stowe\/","title":{"raw":"Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin","rendered":"Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction: Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1886)<\/h2>\r\n\"Harriet\r\n\r\nHarriet Beecher Stowe was born into a severe Calvinist household in Litchfield, Connecticut. From there, she moved to Hartford to live with her older sister Catherine, the founder of the Hartford Female Seminary. After completing her education at the Seminary, Harriet became one of its teachers until 1832, when she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father Lyman Beecher (1775\u20131863) was made president of the Lane Theological Seminary. He later lost a number of students who left the seminary to protest Lyman\u2019s conservative position on Abolition, as evidenced in his supporting the colonization of free black slaves in Africa. Stowe\u2019s brother Henry Ward Beecher (1813\u20131887) began his influential preaching career in Cincinnati, supporting women\u2019s suffrage and condemning slavery. Stowe began her writing career in this border state, where she experienced first-hand the rising tensions over the slavery issue.\r\n\r\nIn 1836, Stowe married Calvin Stowe (1802\u20131886), one of the professors at Lane Theological Seminary, and bore eight children. Stowe sold stories to augment their income. The Mayflower, a collection of these stories, was published 1843. She also opposed slavery in \u201cImmediate Emancipation - A Sketch\u201d published in 1845. The same year as the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she and her husband moved to Maine, where Calvin Stowe taught at Bowdoin College.\r\n\r\nThere, at the prompting of a vision from God, Stowe wrote the book that made her famous, Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin. It ran from 1851 to 1852 as a serial in The National Era, an Abolitionist newspaper. When Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin was published in book form in 1852, it sold over 300,000 copies. It eventually sold in the millions, was performed as a stage drama, and was translated into several languages. Stowe became a celebrated figure in America and Europe. The impact this book had on American history was summed up by Abraham Lincoln who, upon first meeting Stowe, said, \u201cSo this is the little lady who made this big war.\u201d Stowe had hoped to convert true Christian hearts towards a voluntary aversion of slavery through her sympathetic depiction of the suffering and cruelties slaves endured.\r\n\r\nShe became a celebrated Abolitionist author, traveling to Europe in 1853; meeting with such black Abolitionist authors as Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass; publishing another anti-slavery novel entitled Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), and contributing to The Independent. Very much a product of its time, Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin contributed to the popular nineteenth-century genre of domestic fiction, novels that viewed culture and society from the woman\u2019s perspective.\r\n\r\nBecause you're reading excerpts, it may help to view the following video, which offers a summary of the plot\/s of Uncle Tom's Cabin.\u00a0 (Stop the video at 17:30 when the narrator starts talking about other novels.)\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LjwOQlT4stY[\/embed]\r\n

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Excerpts (1852)<\/h2>\r\n

CHAPTER VII\r\nThe Mother\u2019s Struggle<\/h3>\r\nIt is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom\u2019s cabin.\r\n\r\nHer husband\u2019s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then there was the parting from every familiar object,\u2014the place where she had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband,\u2014everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go from a home like that?\r\n\r\nBut stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.\r\n\r\nThe frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to a Friend above\u2014\u201cLord, help! Lord, save me!\u201d\r\n\r\nIf it were\u00a0your<\/i>\u00a0Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,\u2014if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o\u2019clock till morning to make good your escape,\u2014how fast could\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,\u2014the little sleepy head on your shoulder,\u2014the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?\r\n\r\nFor the child slept. At first, the novelty and alarm kept him waking; but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him, that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself sinking to sleep,\r\n\r\n\u201cMother, I don\u2019t need to keep awake, do I?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, my darling; sleep, if you want to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut, mother, if I do get asleep, you won\u2019t let him get me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo! so may God help me!\u201d said his mother, with a paler cheek, and a brighter light in her large dark eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019re\u00a0sure<\/i>, an\u2019t you, mother?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u00a0sure<\/i>!\u201d said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her; and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements! It seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams, from every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child. Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty.\r\n\r\nThe boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening daylight found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar objects upon the open highway.\r\n\r\nShe had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections, in the little village of T\u2014\u2014, not far from the Ohio river, and knew the road well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio river, were the first hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that, she could only hope in God.\r\n\r\nWhen horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.\r\n\r\nAfter a while, they came to a thick patch of woodland, through which murmured a clear brook. As the child complained of hunger and thirst, she climbed over the fence with him; and, sitting down behind a large rock which concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast out of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved that she could not eat; and when, putting his arms round her neck, he tried to wedge some of his cake into her mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her throat would choke her.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, no, Harry darling! mother can\u2019t eat till you are safe! We must go on\u2014on\u2014till we come to the river!\u201d And she hurried again into the road, and again constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly forward.\r\n\r\nShe was many miles past any neighborhood where she was personally known. If she should chance to meet any who knew her, she reflected that the well-known kindness of the family would be of itself a blind to suspicion, as making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a fugitive. As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.\r\n\r\nOn this presumption, she stopped at noon at a neat farmhouse, to rest herself, and buy some dinner for her child and self; for, as the danger decreased with the distance, the supernatural tension of the nervous system lessened, and she found herself both weary and hungry.\r\n\r\nThe good woman, kindly and gossipping, seemed rather pleased than otherwise with having somebody come in to talk with; and accepted, without examination, Eliza\u2019s statement, that she \u201cwas going on a little piece, to spend a week with her friends,\u201d\u2014all which she hoped in her heart might prove strictly true.\r\n\r\nAn hour before sunset, she entered the village of T\u2014\u2014, by the Ohio river, weary and foot-sore, but still strong in heart. Her first glance was at the river, which lay, like Jordan, between her and the Canaan of liberty on the other side.\r\n\r\nIt was now early spring, and the river was swollen and turbulent; great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid waters. Owing to the peculiar form of the shore on the Kentucky side, the land bending far out into the water, the ice had been lodged and detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round the bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming a temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and formed a great, undulating raft, filling up the whole river, and extending almost to the Kentucky shore.\r\n\r\nEliza stood, for a moment, contemplating this unfavorable aspect of things, which she saw at once must prevent the usual ferry-boat from running, and then turned into a small public house on the bank, to make a few inquiries.\r\n\r\nThe hostess, who was busy in various fizzing and stewing operations over the fire, preparatory to the evening meal, stopped, with a fork in her hand, as Eliza\u2019s sweet and plaintive voice arrested her.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cIsn\u2019t there any ferry or boat, that takes people over to B\u2014\u2014, now?\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, indeed!\u201d said the woman; \u201cthe boats has stopped running.\u201d\r\n\r\nEliza\u2019s look of dismay and disappointment struck the woman, and she said, inquiringly,\r\n\r\n\u201cMay be you\u2019re wanting to get over?\u2014anybody sick? Ye seem mighty anxious?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve got a child that\u2019s very dangerous,\u201d said Eliza. \u201cI never heard of it till last night, and I\u2019ve walked quite a piece today, in hopes to get to the ferry.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, now, that\u2019s onlucky,\u201d said the woman, whose motherly sympathies were much aroused; \u201cI\u2019m re\u2019lly consarned for ye. Solomon!\u201d she called, from the window, towards a small back building. A man, in leather apron and very dirty hands, appeared at the door.\r\n\r\n\u201cI say, Sol,\u201d said the woman, \u201cis that ar man going to tote them bar\u2019ls over tonight?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe said he should try, if \u2019t was any way prudent,\u201d said the man.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s a man a piece down here, that\u2019s going over with some truck this evening, if he durs\u2019 to; he\u2019ll be in here to supper tonight, so you\u2019d better set down and wait. That\u2019s a sweet little fellow,\u201d added the woman, offering him a cake.\r\n\r\nBut the child, wholly exhausted, cried with weariness.\r\n\r\n\u201cPoor fellow! he isn\u2019t used to walking, and I\u2019ve hurried him on so,\u201d said Eliza.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, take him into this room,\u201d said the woman, opening into a small bed-room, where stood a comfortable bed. Eliza laid the weary boy upon it, and held his hands in hers till he was fast asleep. For her there was no rest. As a fire in her bones, the thought of the pursuer urged her on; and she gazed with longing eyes on the sullen, surging waters that lay between her and liberty.\r\n\r\nHere we must take our leave of her for the present, to follow the course of her pursuers.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThough Mrs. Shelby had promised that the dinner should be hurried on table, yet it was soon seen, as the thing has often been seen before, that it required more than one to make a bargain. So, although the order was fairly given out in Haley\u2019s hearing, and carried to Aunt Chloe by at least half a dozen juvenile messengers, that dignitary only gave certain very gruff snorts, and tosses of her head, and went on with every operation in an unusually leisurely and circumstantial manner.\r\n\r\nFor some singular reason, an impression seemed to reign among the servants generally that Missis would not be particularly disobliged by delay; and it was wonderful what a number of counter accidents occurred constantly, to retard the course of things. One luckless wight contrived to upset the gravy; and then gravy had to be got up\u00a0de novo<\/i>, with due care and formality, Aunt Chloe watching and stirring with dogged precision, answering shortly, to all suggestions of haste, that she \u201cwarn\u2019t a going to have raw gravy on the table, to help nobody\u2019s catchings.\u201d One tumbled down with the water, and had to go to the spring for more; and another precipitated the butter into the path of events; and there was from time to time giggling news brought into the kitchen that \u201cMas\u2019r Haley was mighty oneasy, and that he couldn\u2019t sit in his cheer no ways, but was a walkin\u2019 and stalkin\u2019 to the winders and through the porch.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSarves him right!\u201d said Aunt Chloe, indignantly. \u201cHe\u2019ll get wus nor oneasy, one of these days, if he don\u2019t mend his ways.\u00a0His<\/i>\u00a0master\u2019ll be sending for him, and then see how he\u2019ll look!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019ll go to torment, and no mistake,\u201d said little Jake.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe desarves it!\u201d said Aunt Chloe, grimly; \u201che\u2019s broke a many, many, many hearts,\u2014I tell ye all!\u201d she said, stopping, with a fork uplifted in her hands; \u201cit\u2019s like what Mas\u2019r George reads in Ravelations,\u2014souls a callin\u2019 under the altar! and a callin\u2019 on the Lord for vengeance on sich!\u2014and by and by the Lord he\u2019ll hear \u2019em\u2014so he will!\u201d\r\n\r\nAunt Chloe, who was much revered in the kitchen, was listened to with open mouth; and, the dinner being now fairly sent in, the whole kitchen was at leisure to gossip with her, and to listen to her remarks.\r\n\r\n\u201cSich\u2019ll be burnt up forever, and no mistake; won\u2019t ther?\u201d said Andy.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d be glad to see it, I\u2019ll be boun\u2019,\u201d said little Jake.\r\n\r\n\u201cChil\u2019en!\u201d said a voice, that made them all start. It was Uncle Tom, who had come in, and stood listening to the conversation at the door.\r\n\r\n\u201cChil\u2019en!\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m afeard you don\u2019t know what ye\u2019re sayin\u2019. Forever is a\u00a0dre\u2019ful<\/i>\u00a0word, chil\u2019en; it\u2019s awful to think on \u2019t. You oughtenter wish that ar to any human crittur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t to anybody but the soul-drivers,\u201d said Andy; \u201cnobody can help wishing it to them, they \u2019s so awful wicked.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t natur herself kinder cry out on \u2019em?\u201d said Aunt Chloe. \u201cDon\u2019t dey tear der suckin\u2019 baby right off his mother\u2019s breast, and sell him, and der little children as is crying and holding on by her clothes,\u2014don\u2019t dey pull \u2019em off and sells \u2019em? Don\u2019t dey tear wife and husband apart?\u201d said Aunt Chloe, beginning to cry, \u201cwhen it\u2019s jest takin\u2019 the very life on \u2019em?\u2014and all the while does they feel one bit, don\u2019t dey drink and smoke, and take it oncommon easy? Lor, if the devil don\u2019t get them, what\u2019s he good for?\u201d And Aunt Chloe covered her face with her checked apron, and began to sob in good earnest.\r\n\r\n\u201cPray for them that \u2019spitefully use you, the good book says,\u201d says Tom.\r\n\r\n\u201cPray for \u2019em!\u201d said Aunt Chloe; \u201cLor, it\u2019s too tough! I can\u2019t pray for \u2019em.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s natur, Chloe, and natur \u2019s strong,\u201d said Tom, \u201cbut the Lord\u2019s grace is stronger; besides, you oughter think what an awful state a poor crittur\u2019s soul \u2019s in that\u2019ll do them ar things,\u2014you oughter thank God that you an\u2019t\u00a0like<\/i>\u00a0him, Chloe. I\u2019m sure I\u2019d rather be sold, ten thousand times over, than to have all that ar poor crittur\u2019s got to answer for.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo \u2019d I, a heap,\u201d said Jake. \u201cLor,\u00a0shouldn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0we cotch it, Andy?\u201d\r\n\r\nAndy shrugged his shoulders, and gave an acquiescent whistle.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m glad Mas\u2019r didn\u2019t go off this morning, as he looked to,\u201d said Tom; \u201cthat ar hurt me more than sellin\u2019, it did. Mebbe it might have been natural for him, but \u2019t would have come desp\u2019t hard on me, as has known him from a baby; but I\u2019ve seen Mas\u2019r, and I begin ter feel sort o\u2019 reconciled to the Lord\u2019s will now. Mas\u2019r couldn\u2019t help hisself; he did right, but I\u2019m feared things will be kinder goin\u2019 to rack, when I\u2019m gone Mas\u2019r can\u2019t be spected to be a pryin\u2019 round everywhar, as I\u2019ve done, a keepin\u2019 up all the ends. The boys all means well, but they \u2019s powerful car\u2019less. That ar troubles me.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe bell here rang, and Tom was summoned to the parlor.\r\n\r\n\u201cTom,\u201d said his master, kindly, \u201cI want you to notice that I give this gentleman bonds to forfeit a thousand dollars if you are not on the spot when he wants you; he\u2019s going today to look after his other business, and you can have the day to yourself. Go anywhere you like, boy.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThank you, Mas\u2019r,\u201d said Tom.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd mind yourself,\u201d said the trader, \u201cand don\u2019t come it over your master with any o\u2019 yer nigger tricks; for I\u2019ll take every cent out of him, if you an\u2019t thar. If he\u2019d hear to me, he wouldn\u2019t trust any on ye\u2014slippery as eels!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMas\u2019r,\u201d said Tom,\u2014and he stood very straight,\u2014\u201cI was jist eight years old when ole Missis put you into my arms, and you wasn\u2019t a year old. \u2018Thar,\u2019 says she, \u2018Tom, that\u2019s to be\u00a0your<\/i>\u00a0young Mas\u2019r; take good care on him,\u2019 says she. And now I jist ask you, Mas\u2019r, have I ever broke word to you, or gone contrary to you, \u2019specially since I was a Christian?\u201d\r\n\r\nMr. Shelby was fairly overcome, and the tears rose to his eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy good boy,\u201d said he, \u201cthe Lord knows you say but the truth; and if I was able to help it, all the world shouldn\u2019t buy you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd sure as I am a Christian woman,\u201d said Mrs. Shelby, \u201cyou shall be redeemed as soon as I can any way bring together means. Sir,\u201d she said to Haley, \u201ctake good account of who you sell him to, and let me know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLor, yes, for that matter,\u201d said the trader, \u201cI may bring him up in a year, not much the wuss for wear, and trade him back.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll trade with you then, and make it for your advantage,\u201d said Mrs. Shelby.\r\n\r\n\u201cOf course,\u201d said the trader, \u201call \u2019s equal with me; li\u2019ves trade \u2019em up as down, so I does a good business. All I want is a livin\u2019, you know, ma\u2019am; that\u2019s all any on us wants, I, s\u2019pose.\u201d\r\n\r\nMr. and Mrs. Shelby both felt annoyed and degraded by the familiar impudence of the trader, and yet both saw the absolute necessity of putting a constraint on their feelings. The more hopelessly sordid and insensible he appeared, the greater became Mrs. Shelby\u2019s dread of his succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice. She therefore graciously smiled, assented, chatted familiarly, and did all she could to make time pass imperceptibly.\r\n\r\nAt two o\u2019clock Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the morning.\r\n\r\nSam was there new oiled from dinner, with an abundance of zealous and ready officiousness. As Haley approached, he was boasting, in flourishing style, to Andy, of the evident and eminent success of the operation, now that he had \u201cfarly come to it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour master, I s\u2019pose, don\u2019t keep no dogs,\u201d said Haley, thoughtfully, as he prepared to mount.\r\n\r\n\u201cHeaps on \u2019em,\u201d said Sam, triumphantly; \u201cthar\u2019s Bruno\u2014he\u2019s a roarer! and, besides that, \u2019bout every nigger of us keeps a pup of some natur or uther.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPoh!\u201d said Haley,\u2014and he said something else, too, with regard to the said dogs, at which Sam muttered,\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t see no use cussin\u2019 on \u2019em, no way.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut your master don\u2019t keep no dogs (I pretty much know he don\u2019t) for trackin\u2019 out niggers.\u201d\r\n\r\nSam knew exactly what he meant, but he kept on a look of earnest and desperate simplicity.\r\n\r\n\u201cOur dogs all smells round considable sharp. I spect they\u2019s the kind, though they han\u2019t never had no practice. They \u2019s\u00a0far<\/i>\u00a0dogs, though, at most anything, if you\u2019d get \u2019em started. Here, Bruno,\u201d he called, whistling to the lumbering Newfoundland, who came pitching tumultuously toward them.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou go hang!\u201d said Haley, getting up. \u201cCome, tumble up now.\u201d\r\n\r\nSam tumbled up accordingly, dexterously contriving to tickle Andy as he did so, which occasioned Andy to split out into a laugh, greatly to Haley\u2019s indignation, who made a cut at him with his riding-whip.\r\n\r\n\u201cI \u2019s \u2019stonished at yer, Andy,\u201d said Sam, with awful gravity. \u201cThis yer\u2019s a seris bisness, Andy. Yer mustn\u2019t be a makin\u2019 game. This yer an\u2019t no way to help Mas\u2019r.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall take the straight road to the river,\u201d said Haley, decidedly, after they had come to the boundaries of the estate. \u201cI know the way of all of \u2019em,\u2014they makes tracks for the underground.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSartin,\u201d said Sam, \u201cdat\u2019s de idee. Mas\u2019r Haley hits de thing right in de middle. Now, der\u2019s two roads to de river,\u2014de dirt road and der pike,\u2014which Mas\u2019r mean to take?\u201d\r\n\r\nAndy looked up innocently at Sam, surprised at hearing this new geographical fact, but instantly confirmed what he said, by a vehement reiteration.\r\n\r\n\u201cCause,\u201d said Sam, \u201cI\u2019d rather be \u2019clined to \u2019magine that Lizy \u2019d take de dirt road, bein\u2019 it\u2019s the least travelled.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaley, notwithstanding that he was a very old bird, and naturally inclined to be suspicious of chaff, was rather brought up by this view of the case.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf yer warn\u2019t both on yer such cussed liars, now!\u201d he said, contemplatively as he pondered a moment.\r\n\r\nThe pensive, reflective tone in which this was spoken appeared to amuse Andy prodigiously, and he drew a little behind, and shook so as apparently to run a great risk of failing off his horse, while Sam\u2019s face was immovably composed into the most doleful gravity.\r\n\r\n\u201cCourse,\u201d said Sam, \u201cMas\u2019r can do as he\u2019d ruther, go de straight road, if Mas\u2019r thinks best,\u2014it\u2019s all one to us. Now, when I study \u2019pon it, I think de straight road de best,\u00a0deridedly<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShe would naturally go a lonesome way,\u201d said Haley, thinking aloud, and not minding Sam\u2019s remark.\r\n\r\n\u201cDar an\u2019t no sayin\u2019,\u201d said Sam; \u201cgals is pecular; they never does nothin\u2019 ye thinks they will; mose gen\u2019lly the contrary. Gals is nat\u2019lly made contrary; and so, if you thinks they\u2019ve gone one road, it is sartin you\u2019d better go t\u2019 other, and then you\u2019ll be sure to find \u2019em. Now, my private \u2019pinion is, Lizy took der road; so I think we\u2019d better take de straight one.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis profound generic view of the female sex did not seem to dispose Haley particularly to the straight road, and he announced decidedly that he should go the other, and asked Sam when they should come to it.\r\n\r\n\u201cA little piece ahead,\u201d said Sam, giving a wink to Andy with the eye which was on Andy\u2019s side of the head; and he added, gravely, \u201cbut I\u2019ve studded on de matter, and I\u2019m quite clar we ought not to go dat ar way. I nebber been over it no way. It\u2019s despit lonesome, and we might lose our way,\u2014whar we\u2019d come to, de Lord only knows.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNevertheless,\u201d said Haley, \u201cI shall go that way.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow I think on \u2019t, I think I hearn \u2019em tell that dat ar road was all fenced up and down by der creek, and thar, an\u2019t it, Andy?\u201d\r\n\r\nAndy wasn\u2019t certain; he\u2019d only \u201chearn tell\u201d about that road, but never been over it. In short, he was strictly noncommittal.\r\n\r\nHaley, accustomed to strike the balance of probabilities between lies of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it lay in favor of the dirt road aforesaid. The mention of the thing he thought he perceived was involuntary on Sam\u2019s part at first, and his confused attempts to dissuade him he set down to a desperate lying on second thoughts, as being unwilling to implicate Liza.\r\n\r\nWhen, therefore, Sam indicated the road, Haley plunged briskly into it, followed by Sam and Andy.\r\n\r\nNow, the road, in fact, was an old one, that had formerly been a thoroughfare to the river, but abandoned for many years after the laying of the new pike. It was open for about an hour\u2019s ride, and after that it was cut across by various farms and fences. Sam knew this fact perfectly well,\u2014indeed, the road had been so long closed up, that Andy had never heard of it. He therefore rode along with an air of dutiful submission, only groaning and vociferating occasionally that \u2019t was \u201cdesp\u2019t rough, and bad for Jerry\u2019s foot.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, I jest give yer warning,\u201d said Haley, \u201cI know yer; yer won\u2019t get me to turn off this road, with all yer fussin\u2019\u2014so you shet up!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMas\u2019r will go his own way!\u201d said Sam, with rueful submission, at the same time winking most portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very near the explosive point.\r\n\r\nSam was in wonderful spirits,\u2014professed to keep a very brisk lookout,\u2014at one time exclaiming that he saw \u201ca gal\u2019s bonnet\u201d on the top of some distant eminence, or calling to Andy \u201cif that thar wasn\u2019t \u2019Lizy\u2019 down in the hollow;\u201d always making these exclamations in some rough or craggy part of the road, where the sudden quickening of speed was a special inconvenience to all parties concerned, and thus keeping Haley in a state of constant commotion.\r\n\r\nAfter riding about an hour in this way, the whole party made a precipitate and tumultuous descent into a barn-yard belonging to a large farming establishment. Not a soul was in sight, all the hands being employed in the fields; but, as the barn stood conspicuously and plainly square across the road, it was evident that their journey in that direction had reached a decided finale.\r\n\r\n\u201cWan\u2019t dat ar what I telled Mas\u2019r?\u201d said Sam, with an air of injured innocence. \u201cHow does strange gentleman spect to know more about a country dan de natives born and raised?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou rascal!\u201d said Haley, \u201cyou knew all about this.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDidn\u2019t I tell yer I\u00a0knowd<\/i>, and yer wouldn\u2019t believe me? I telled Mas\u2019r \u2019t was all shet up, and fenced up, and I didn\u2019t spect we could get through,\u2014Andy heard me.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt was all too true to be disputed, and the unlucky man had to pocket his wrath with the best grace he was able, and all three faced to the right about, and took up their line of march for the highway.\r\n\r\nIn consequence of all the various delays, it was about three-quarters of an hour after Eliza had laid her child to sleep in the village tavern that the party came riding into the same place. Eliza was standing by the window, looking out in another direction, when Sam\u2019s quick eye caught a glimpse of her. Haley and Andy were two yards behind. At this crisis, Sam contrived to have his hat blown off, and uttered a loud and characteristic ejaculation, which startled her at once; she drew suddenly back; the whole train swept by the window, round to the front door.\r\n\r\nA thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza. Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child, and sprang down the steps towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of her just as she was disappearing down the bank; and throwing himself from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was after her like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment her feet to her scarce seemed to touch the ground, and a moment brought her to the water\u2019s edge. Right on behind they came; and, nerved with strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap\u2014impossible to anything but madness and despair; and Haley, Sam, and Andy, instinctively cried out, and lifted up their hands, as she did it.\r\n\r\nThe huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling\u2014leaping\u2014slipping\u2014springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone\u2014her stockings cut from her feet\u2014while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.\r\n\r\n\u201cYer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!\u201d said the man, with an oath.\r\n\r\nEliza recognized the voice and face for a man who owned a farm not far from her old home.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Mr. Symmes!\u2014save me\u2014do save me\u2014do hide me!\u201d said Elia.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, what\u2019s this?\u201d said the man. \u201cWhy, if \u2019tan\u2019t Shelby\u2019s gal!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy child!\u2014this boy!\u2014he\u2019d sold him! There is his Mas\u2019r,\u201d said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. \u201cO, Mr. Symmes, you\u2019ve got a little boy!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo I have,\u201d said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the steep bank. \u201cBesides, you\u2019re a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I see it.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d be glad to do something for ye,\u201d said he; \u201cbut then there\u2019s nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go\u00a0thar<\/i>,\u201d said he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. \u201cGo thar; they\u2019re kind folks. Thar\u2019s no kind o\u2019 danger but they\u2019ll help you,\u2014they\u2019re up to all that sort o\u2019 thing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Lord bless you!\u201d said Eliza, earnestly.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo \u2019casion, no \u2019casion in the world,\u201d said the man. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve done\u2019s of no \u2019count.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd, oh, surely, sir, you won\u2019t tell any one!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGo to thunder, gal! What do you take a feller for? In course not,\u201d said the man. \u201cCome, now, go along like a likely, sensible gal, as you are. You\u2019ve arnt your liberty, and you shall have it, for all me.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked firmly and swiftly away. The man stood and looked after her.\r\n\r\n\u201cShelby, now, mebbe won\u2019t think this yer the most neighborly thing in the world; but what\u2019s a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals in the same fix, he\u2019s welcome to pay back. Somehow I never could see no kind o\u2019 critter a strivin\u2019 and pantin\u2019, and trying to clar theirselves, with the dogs arter \u2019em and go agin \u2019em. Besides, I don\u2019t see no kind of \u2019casion for me to be hunter and catcher for other folks, neither.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do.\r\n\r\nHaley had stood a perfectly amazed spectator of the scene, till Eliza had disappeared up the bank, when he turned a blank, inquiring look on Sam and Andy.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat ar was a tolable fair stroke of business,\u201d said Sam.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe gal \u2019s got seven devils in her, I believe!\u201d said Haley. \u201cHow like a wildcat she jumped!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWal, now,\u201d said Sam, scratching his head, \u201cI hope Mas\u2019r\u2019ll \u2019scuse us trying dat ar road. Don\u2019t think I feel spry enough for dat ar, no way!\u201d and Sam gave a hoarse chuckle.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou<\/i>\u00a0laugh!\u201d said the trader, with a growl.\r\n\r\n\u201cLord bless you, Mas\u2019r, I couldn\u2019t help it now,\u201d said Sam, giving way to the long pent-up delight of his soul. \u201cShe looked so curi\u2019s, a leapin\u2019 and springin\u2019\u2014ice a crackin\u2019\u2014and only to hear her,\u2014plump! ker chunk! ker splash! Spring! Lord! how she goes it!\u201d and Sam and Andy laughed till the tears rolled down their cheeks.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll make ye laugh t\u2019 other side yer mouths!\u201d said the trader, laying about their heads with his riding-whip.\r\n\r\nBoth ducked, and ran shouting up the bank, and were on their horses before he was up.\r\n\r\n\u201cGood-evening, Mas\u2019r!\u201d said Sam, with much gravity. \u201cI berry much spect Missis be anxious \u2019bout Jerry. Mas\u2019r Haley won\u2019t want us no longer. Missis wouldn\u2019t hear of our ridin\u2019 the critters over Lizy\u2019s bridge tonight;\u201d and, with a facetious poke into Andy\u2019s ribs, he started off, followed by the latter, at full speed,\u2014their shouts of laughter coming faintly on the wind.\r\n

CHAPTER XIX\r\nMiss Ophelia\u2019s Experiences and Opinions Continued<\/h3>\r\n\u201cTom, you needn\u2019t get me the horses. I don\u2019t want to go,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not, Miss Eva?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThese things sink into my heart, Tom,\u201d said Eva,\u2014\u201cthey sink into my heart,\u201d she repeated, earnestly. \u201cI don\u2019t want to go;\u201d and she turned from Tom, and went into the house.\r\n\r\nA few days after, another woman came, in old Prue\u2019s place, to bring the rusks; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen.\r\n\r\n\u201cLor!\u201d said Dinah, \u201cwhat\u2019s got Prue?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPrue isn\u2019t coming any more,\u201d said the woman, mysteriously.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d said Dinah, \u201cshe an\u2019t dead, is she?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe doesn\u2019t exactly know. She\u2019s down cellar,\u201d said the woman, glancing at Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\nAfter Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to the door.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u00a0has<\/i>\u00a0got Prue, any how?\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nThe woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant, to speak, and answered, in low, mysterious tone.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, you mustn\u2019t tell nobody, Prue, she got drunk agin,\u2014and they had her down cellar,\u2014and thar they left her all day,\u2014and I hearn \u2019em saying that the\u00a0flies had got to her<\/i>,\u2014and\u00a0she\u2019s dead<\/i>!\u201d\r\n\r\nDinah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her side the spirit-like form of Evangeline, her large, mystic eyes dilated with horror, and every drop of blood driven from her lips and cheeks.\r\n\r\n\u201cLor bless us! Miss Eva\u2019s gwine to faint away! What go us all, to let her har such talk? Her pa\u2019ll be rail mad.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shan\u2019t faint, Dinah,\u201d said the child, firmly; \u201cand why shouldn\u2019t I hear it? It an\u2019t so much for me to hear it, as for poor Prue to suffer it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLor sakes<\/i>! it isn\u2019t for sweet, delicate young ladies, like you,\u2014these yer stories isn\u2019t; it\u2019s enough to kill \u2019em!\u201d\r\n\r\nEva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and melancholy step.\r\n\r\nMiss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman\u2019s story. Dinah gave a very garrulous version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which he had drawn from her that morning.\r\n\r\n\u201cAn abominable business,\u2014perfectly horrible!\u201d she exclaimed, as she entered the room where St. Clare lay reading his paper.\r\n\r\n\u201cPray, what iniquity has turned up now?\u201d said he.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat now? why, those folks have whipped Prue to death!\u201d said Miss Ophelia, going on, with great strength of detail, into the story, and enlarging on its most shocking particulars.\r\n\r\n\u201cI thought it would come to that, some time,\u201d said St. Clare, going on with his paper.\r\n\r\n\u201cThought so!\u2014an\u2019t you going to\u00a0do<\/i>\u00a0anything about it?\u201d said Miss Ophelia. \u201cHaven\u2019t you got any\u00a0selectmen<\/i>, or anybody, to interfere and look after such matters?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s commonly supposed that the\u00a0property<\/i>\u00a0interest is a sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their own possessions, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s to be done. It seems the poor creature was a thief and a drunkard; and so there won\u2019t be much hope to get up sympathy for her.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is perfectly outrageous,\u2014it is horrid, Augustine! It will certainly bring down vengeance upon you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy dear cousin, I didn\u2019t do it, and I can\u2019t help it; I would, if I could. If low-minded, brutal people will act like themselves, what am I to do? they have absolute control; they are irresponsible despots. There would be no use in interfering; there is no law that amounts to anything practically, for such a case. The best we can do is to shut our eyes and ears, and let it alone. It\u2019s the only resource left us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow can you shut your eyes and ears? How can you let such things alone?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole class,\u2014debased, uneducated, indolent, provoking,\u2014put, without any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority in our world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control, who haven\u2019t even an enlightened regard to their own interest,\u2014for that\u2019s the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a community so organized, what can a man of honorable and humane feelings do, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden his heart? I can\u2019t buy every poor wretch I see. I can\u2019t turn knight-errant, and undertake to redress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The most I can do is to try and keep out of the way of it.\u201d\r\n\r\nSt. Clare\u2019s fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he said,\r\n\r\n\u201cCome, cousin, don\u2019t stand there looking like one of the Fates; you\u2019ve only seen a peep through the curtain,\u2014a specimen of what is going on, the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to anything. \u2019T is like looking too close into the details of Dinah\u2019s kitchen;\u201d and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself with his paper.\r\n\r\nMiss Ophelia sat down, and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat there grim with indignation. She knit and knit, but while she mused the fire burned; at last she broke out\u2014\u201cI tell you, Augustine, I can\u2019t get over things so, if you can. It\u2019s a perfect abomination for you to defend such a system,\u2014that\u2019s\u00a0my<\/i>\u00a0mind!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat now?\u201d said St. Clare, looking up. \u201cAt it again, hey?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI say it\u2019s perfectly abominable for you to defend such a system!\u201d said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth.\r\n\r\n\u201cI<\/i>\u00a0defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend it?\u201d said St. Clare.\r\n\r\n\u201cOf course, you defend it,\u2014you all do,\u2014all you Southerners. What do you have slaves for, if you don\u2019t?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in this world ever does what they don\u2019t think is right? Don\u2019t you, or didn\u2019t you ever, do anything that you did not think quite right?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I do, I repent of it, I hope,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, rattling her needles with energy.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo do I,\u201d said St. Clare, peeling his orange; \u201cI\u2019m repenting of it all the time.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you keep on doing it for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDidn\u2019t you ever keep on doing wrong, after you\u2019d repented, my good cousin?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, only when I\u2019ve been very much tempted,\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I\u2019m very much tempted,\u201d said St. Clare; \u201cthat\u2019s just my difficulty.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I always resolve I won\u2019t and I try to break off.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I have been resolving I won\u2019t, off and on, these ten years,\u201d said St. Clare; \u201cbut I haven\u2019t, some how, got clear. Have you got clear of all your sins, cousin?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCousin Augustine,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and laying down her knitting-work, \u201cI suppose I deserve that you should reprove my short-comings. I know all you say is true enough; nobody else feels them more than I do; but it does seem to me, after all, there is some difference between me and you. It seems to me I would cut off my right hand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing what I thought was wrong. But, then, my conduct is so inconsistent with my profession, I don\u2019t wonder you reprove me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, now, cousin,\u201d said Augustine, sitting down on the floor, and laying his head back in her lap, \u201cdon\u2019t take on so awfully serious! You know what a good-for-nothing, saucy boy I always was. I love to poke you up,\u2014that\u2019s all,\u2014just to see you get earnest. I do think you are desperately, distressingly good; it tires me to death to think of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead.\r\n\r\n\u201cDismally so,\u201d said he; \u201cand I\u2014well, I never want to talk seriously in hot weather. What with mosquitos and all, a fellow can\u2019t get himself up to any very sublime moral flights; and I believe,\u201d said St. Clare, suddenly rousing himself up, \u201cthere\u2019s a theory, now! I understand now why northern nations are always more virtuous than southern ones,\u2014I see into that whole subject.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Augustine, you are a sad rattle-brain!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAm I? Well, so I am, I suppose; but for once I will be serious, now; but you must hand me that basket of oranges;\u2014you see, you\u2019ll have to \u2018stay me with flagons and comfort me with apples,\u2019 if I\u2019m going to make this effort. Now,\u201d said Augustine, drawing the basket up, \u201cI\u2019ll begin: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a fellow to hold two or three dozen of his fellow-worms in captivity, a decent regard to the opinions of society requires\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t see that you are growing more serious,\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cWait,\u2014I\u2019m coming on,\u2014you\u2019ll hear. The short of the matter is, cousin,\u201d said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into an earnest and serious expression, \u201con this abstract question of slavery there can, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters, who have money to make by it,\u2014clergymen, who have planters to please,\u2014politicians, who want to rule by it,\u2014may warp and bend language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their ingenuity; they can press nature and the Bible, and nobody knows what else, into the service; but, after all, neither they nor the world believe in it one particle the more. It comes from the devil, that\u2019s the short of it;\u2014and, to my mind, it\u2019s a pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in his own line.\u201d\r\n\r\nMiss Ophelia stopped her knitting, and looked surprised, and St. Clare, apparently enjoying her astonishment, went on.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou seem to wonder; but if you will get me fairly at it, I\u2019ll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business, accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,\u2014because I know how, and\u00a0can<\/i>\u00a0do it,\u2014therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I don\u2019t like work, Quashy shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery\u00a0is<\/i>. I defy anybody on earth to read our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books, and make anything else of it. Talk of the\u00a0abuses<\/i>\u00a0of slavery! Humbug! The\u00a0thing itself<\/i>\u00a0is the essence of all abuse! And the only reason why the land don\u2019t sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is because it is\u00a0used<\/i>\u00a0in a way infinitely better than it is. For pity\u2019s sake, for shame\u2019s sake, because we are men born of women, and not savage beasts, many of us do not, and dare not,\u2014we would\u00a0scorn<\/i>\u00a0to use the full power which our savage laws put into our hands. And he who goes the furthest, and does the worst, only uses within limits the power that the law gives him.\u201d\r\n\r\nSt. Clare had started up, and, as his manner was when excited, was walking, with hurried steps, up and down the floor. His fine face, classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed actually to burn with the fervor of his feelings. His large blue eyes flashed, and he gestured with an unconscious eagerness. Miss Ophelia had never seen him in this mood before, and she sat perfectly silent.\r\n\r\n\u201cI declare to you,\u201d said he, suddenly stopping before his cousin \u201c(It\u2019s no sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject), but I declare to you, there have been times when I have thought, if the whole country would sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I would willingly sink with it. When I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,\u2014when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and women,\u2014I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAugustine! Augustine!\u201d said Miss Ophelia, \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019ve said enough. I never, in my life, heard anything like this, even at the North.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt the North!\u201d said St. Clare, with a sudden change of expression, and resuming something of his habitual careless tone. \u201cPooh! your northern folks are cold-blooded; you are cool in everything! You can\u2019t begin to curse up hill and down as we can, when we get fairly at it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, but the question is,\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, yes, to be sure, the\u00a0question is<\/i>,\u2014and a deuce of a question it is! How came\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0in this state of sin and misery? Well, I shall answer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by ordinary generation. My servants were my father\u2019s, and, what is more, my mother\u2019s; and now they are mine, they and their increase, which bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, you know, came first from New England; and he was just such another man as your father,\u2014a regular old Roman,\u2014upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an iron will. Your father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks and stones, and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled in Louisiana, to rule over men and women, and force existence out of them. My mother,\u201d said St. Clare, getting up and walking to a picture at the end of the room, and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration, \u201cshe was divine!<\/i>\u00a0Don\u2019t look at me so!\u2014you know what I mean! She probably was of mortal birth; but, as far as ever I could observe, there was no trace of any human weakness or error about her; and everybody that lives to remember her, whether bond or free, servant, acquaintance, relation, all say the same. Why, cousin, that mother has been all that has stood between me and utter unbelief for years. She was a direct embodiment and personification of the New Testament,\u2014a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for in no other way than by its truth. O, mother! mother!\u201d said St. Clare, clasping his hands, in a sort of transport; and then suddenly checking himself, he came back, and seating himself on an ottoman, he went on:\r\n\r\n\u201cMy brother and I were twins; and they say, you know, that twins ought to resemble each other; but we were in all points a contrast. He had black, fiery eyes, coal-black hair, a strong, fine Roman profile, and a rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline, and fair complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and inactive. He was generous to his friends and equals, but proud, dominant, overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever set itself up against him. Truthful we both were; he from pride and courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about as boys generally do,\u2014off and on, and in general;\u2014he was my father\u2019s pet, and I my mother\u2019s.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was a morbid sensitiveness and acuteness of feeling in me on all possible subjects, of which he and my father had no kind of understanding, and with which they could have no possible sympathy. But mother did; and so, when I had quarreled with Alfred, and father looked sternly on me, I used to go off to mother\u2019s room, and sit by her. I remember just how she used to look, with her pale cheeks, her deep, soft, serious eyes, her white dress,\u2014she always wore white; and I used to think of her whenever I read in Revelations about the saints that were arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. She had a great deal of genius of one sort and another, particularly in music; and she used to sit at her organ, playing fine old majestic music of the Catholic church, and singing with a voice more like an angel than a mortal woman; and I would lay my head down on her lap, and cry, and dream, and feel,\u2014oh, immeasurably!\u2014things that I had no language to say!\r\n\r\n\u201cIn those days, this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as it has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family. My brother was begotten in his image.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies, beyond a certain line in society. In England the line is in one place, in Burmah in another, and in America in another; but the aristocrat of all these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship and distress and injustice in his own class, is a cool matter of course in another one. My father\u2019s dividing line was that of color.\u00a0Among his equals<\/i>, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered the negro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate link between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice or generosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to be sure, if anybody had asked him, plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, he might have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a man much troubled with spiritualism; religious sentiment he had none, beyond a veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper classes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man; everything was to move by system,\u2014to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now, if you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but \u2018shirk,\u2019 as you Vermonters say, and you\u2019ll see that there might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a sensitive child, like me.\r\n\r\n\u201cBesides all, he had an overseer,\u2014great, tall, slab-sided, two-fisted renegade son of Vermont\u2014(begging your pardon),\u2014who had gone through a regular apprenticeship in hardness and brutality and taken his degree to be admitted to practice. My mother never could endure him, nor I; but he obtained an entire ascendency over my father; and this man was the absolute despot of the estate.\r\n\r\n\u201cI was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that I have now for all kinds of human things,\u2014a kind of passion for the study of humanity, come in what shape it would. I was found in the cabins and among the field-hands a great deal, and, of course, was a great favorite; and all sorts of complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear; and I told them to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort of committee for a redress of grievances. We hindered and repressed a great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves on doing a vast deal of good, till, as often happens, my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained to my father that he couldn\u2019t manage the hands, and must resign his position. Father was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never flinched from anything that he thought necessary; and so he put down his foot, like a rock, between us and the field-hands. He told my mother, in language perfectly respectful and deferential, but quite explicit, that over the house-servants she should be entire mistress, but that with the field-hands he could allow no interference. He revered and respected her above all living beings; but he would have said it all the same to the virgin Mary herself, if she had come in the way of his system.\r\n\r\n\u201cI used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases with him,\u2014endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would listen to the most pathetic appeals with the most discouraging politeness and equanimity. \u2018It all resolves itself into this,\u2019 he would say; \u2018must I part with Stubbs, or keep him? Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency,\u2014a thorough business hand, and as humane as the general run. We can\u2019t have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a\u00a0whole<\/i>, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness. General rules will bear hard on particular cases.\u2019 This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. After he had said\u00a0that<\/i>, he commonly drew up his feet on the sofa, like a man that has disposed of a business, and betook himself to a nap, or the newspaper, as the case might be.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe fact is my father showed the exact sort of talent for a statesman. He could have divided Poland as easily as an orange, or trod on Ireland as quietly and systematically as any man living. At last my mother gave up, in despair. It never will be known, till the last account, what noble and sensitive natures like hers have felt, cast, utterly helpless, into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty, and which seems so to nobody about them. It has been an age of long sorrow of such natures, in such a hell-begotten sort of world as ours. What remained for her, but to train her children in her own views and sentiments? Well, after all you say about training, children will grow up substantially what they\u00a0are<\/i>\u00a0by nature, and only that. From the cradle, Alfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, all his sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and all mother\u2019s exhortations went to the winds. As to me, they sunk deep into me. She never contradicted, in form, anything my father said, or seemed directly to differ from him; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, with all the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the dignity and worth of the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn awe, when she would point up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, \u2019See there, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living, when all these stars are gone forever,\u2014will live as long as God lives!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cShe had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of Jesus healing a blind man. They were very fine, and used to impress me strongly. \u2018See there, Auguste,\u2019 she would say; \u2018the blind man was a beggar, poor and loathsome; therefore, he would not heal him\u00a0afar off!<\/i>\u00a0He called him to him, and put\u00a0his hands on him!<\/i>\u00a0Remember this, my boy.\u2019 If I had lived to grow up under her care, she might have stimulated me to I know not what of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint, reformer, martyr,\u2014but, alas! alas! I went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never saw her again!\u201d\r\n\r\nSt. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak for some minutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on:\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat poor, mean trash this whole business of human virtue is! A mere matter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographical position, acting with natural temperament. The greater part is nothing but an accident! Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church member and deacon, and in due time joins an Abolition society, and thinks us all little better than heathens. Yet he is, for all the world, in constitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see it leaking out in fifty different ways,\u2014just the same strong, overbearing, dominant spirit. You know very well how impossible it is to persuade some of the folks in your village that Squire Sinclair does not feel above them. The fact is, though he has fallen on democratic times, and embraced a democratic theory, he is to the heart an aristocrat, as much as my father, who ruled over five or six hundred slaves.\u201d\r\n\r\nMiss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture, and was laying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare stopped her.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, I know every word you are going to say. I do not say they\u00a0were<\/i>\u00a0alike, in fact. One fell into a condition where everything acted against the natural tendency, and the other where everything acted for it; and so one turned out a pretty wilful, stout, overbearing old democrat, and the other a wilful, stout old despot. If both had owned plantations in Louisiana, they would have been as like as two old bullets cast in the same mould.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat an undutiful boy you are!\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t mean them any disrespect,\u201d said St. Clare. \u201cYou know reverence is not my forte. But, to go back to my history:\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen father died, he left the whole property to us twin boys, to be divided as we should agree. There does not breathe on God\u2019s earth a nobler-souled, more generous fellow, than Alfred, in all that concerns his equals; and we got on admirably with this property question, without a single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to work the plantation together; and Alfred, whose outward life and capabilities had double the strength of mine, became an enthusiastic planter, and a wonderfully successful one.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut two years\u2019 trial satisfied me that I could not be a partner in that matter. To have a great gang of seven hundred, whom I could not know personally, or feel any individual interest in, bought and driven, housed, fed, worked like so many horned cattle, strained up to military precision,\u2014the question of how little of life\u2019s commonest enjoyments would keep them in working order being a constantly recurring problem,\u2014the necessity of drivers and overseers,\u2014the ever-necessary whip, first, last, and only argument,\u2014the whole thing was insufferably disgusting and loathsome to me; and when I thought of my mother\u2019s estimate of one poor human soul, it became even frightful!\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s all nonsense to talk to me about slaves\u00a0enjoying<\/i>\u00a0all this! To this day, I have no patience with the unutterable trash that some of your patronizing Northerners have made up, as in their zeal to apologize for our sins. We all know better. Tell me that any man living wants to work all his days, from day-dawn till dark, under the constant eye of a master, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible volition, on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging toil, and all for two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food and shelter to keep him in working order! Any man who thinks that human beings can, as a general thing, be made about as comfortable that way as any other, I wish he might try it. I\u2019d buy the dog, and work him, with a clear conscience!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI always have supposed,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, \u201cthat you, all of you, approved of these things, and thought them\u00a0right<\/i>\u2014according to Scripture.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHumbug! We are not quite reduced to that yet. Alfred who is as determined a despot as ever walked, does not pretend to this kind of defence;\u2014no, he stands, high and haughty, on that good old respectable ground,\u00a0the right of the strongest<\/i>; and he says, and I think quite sensibly, that the American planter is \u2018only doing, in another form, what the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the lower classes;\u2019 that is, I take it,\u00a0appropriating<\/i>\u00a0them, body and bone, soul and spirit, to their use and convenience. He defends both,\u2014and I think, at least,\u00a0consistently<\/i>. He says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and confined to an animal nature; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improvement, and becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he reasons, because, as I said, he is born an aristocrat;\u2014so I don\u2019t believe, because I was born a democrat.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow in the world can the two things be compared?\u201d said Miss Ophelia. \u201cThe English laborer is not sold, traded, parted from his family, whipped.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe is as much at the will of his employer as if he were sold to him. The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,\u2014the capitalist can starve him to death. As to family security, it is hard to say which is the worst,\u2014to have one\u2019s children sold, or see them starve to death at home.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut it\u2019s no kind of apology for slavery, to prove that it isn\u2019t worse than some other bad thing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI didn\u2019t give it for one,\u2014nay, I\u2019ll say, besides, that ours is the more bold and palpable infringement of human rights; actually buying a man up, like a horse,\u2014looking at his teeth, cracking his joints, and trying his paces and then paying down for him,\u2014having speculators, breeders, traders, and brokers in human bodies and souls,\u2014sets the thing before the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form, though the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the same; that is, appropriating one set of human beings to the use and improvement of another without any regard to their own.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI never thought of the matter in this light,\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I\u2019ve travelled in England some, and I\u2019ve looked over a good many documents as to the state of their lower classes; and I really think there is no denying Alfred, when he says that his slaves are better off than a large class of the population of England. You see, you must not infer, from what I have told you, that Alfred is what is called a hard master; for he isn\u2019t. He is despotic, and unmerciful to insubordination; he would shoot a fellow down with as little remorse as he would shoot a buck, if he opposed him. But, in general, he takes a sort of pride in having his slaves comfortably fed and accommodated.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen I was with him, I insisted that he should do something for their instruction; and, to please me, he did get a chaplain, and used to have them catechized Sunday, though, I believe, in his heart, that he thought it would do about as much good to set a chaplain over his dogs and horses. And the fact is, that a mind stupefied and animalized by every bad influence from the hour of birth, spending the whole of every week-day in unreflecting toil, cannot be done much with by a few hours on Sunday. The teachers of Sunday-schools among the manufacturing population of England, and among plantation-hands in our country, could perhaps testify to the same result,\u00a0there and here<\/i>. Yet some striking exceptions there are among us, from the fact that the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, \u201chow came you to give up your plantation life?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, we jogged on together some time, till Alfred saw plainly that I was no planter. He thought it absurd, after he had reformed, and altered, and improved everywhere, to suit my notions, that I still remained unsatisfied. The fact was, it was, after all, the THING that I hated\u2014the using these men and women, the perpetuation of all this ignorance, brutality and vice,\u2014just to make money for me!\r\n\r\n\u201cBesides, I was always interfering in the details. Being myself one of the laziest of mortals, I had altogether too much fellow-feeling for the lazy; and when poor, shiftless dogs put stones at the bottom of their cotton-baskets to make them weigh heavier, or filled their sacks with dirt, with cotton at the top, it seemed so exactly like what I should do if I were they, I couldn\u2019t and wouldn\u2019t have them flogged for it. Well, of course, there was an end of plantation discipline; and Alf and I came to about the same point that I and my respected father did, years before. So he told me that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and would never do for business life; and advised me to take the bank-stock and the New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing poetry, and let him manage the plantation. So we parted, and I came here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut why didn\u2019t you free your slaves?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I wasn\u2019t up to that. To hold them as tools for money-making, I could not;\u2014have them to help spend money, you know, didn\u2019t look quite so ugly to me. Some of them were old house-servants, to whom I was much attached; and the younger ones were children to the old. All were well satisfied to be as they were.\u201d He paused, and walked reflectively up and down the room.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was,\u201d said St. Clare, \u201ca time in my life when I had plans and hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift. I had vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,\u2014to free my native land from this spot and stain. All young men have had such fever-fits, I suppose, some time,\u2014but then\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you?\u201d said Miss Ophelia;\u2014\u201cyou ought not to put your hand to the plough, and look back.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, well, things didn\u2019t go with me as I expected, and I got the despair of living that Solomon did. I suppose it was a necessary incident to wisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor and regenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood, and have been floating and eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me, every time we meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,\u2014for he really does something; his life is a logical result of his opinions and mine is a contemptible\u00a0non sequitur<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your probation?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSatisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it? But, then, to come back to this point,\u2014we were on this liberation business. I don\u2019t think my feelings about slavery are peculiar. I find many men who, in their hearts, think of it just as I do. The land groans under it; and, bad as it is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master. It takes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious, improvident, degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as to themselves. The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel that as we do, because they do not mingle with the class they degrade as we do. They are in our homes; they are the associates of our children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children always will cling to and assimilate with. If Eva, now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined. We might as well allow the small-pox to run among them, and think our children would not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious, and think our children will not be affected by that. Yet our laws positively and utterly forbid any efficient general educational system, and they do it wisely, too; for, just begin and thoroughly educate one generation, and the whole thing would be blown sky high. If we did not give them liberty, they would take it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what do you think will be the end of this?\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. One thing is certain,\u2014that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a\u00a0dies ir\u00e6<\/i>\u00a0coming on, sooner or later. The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this country. My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming, when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy. And she taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, \u2019thy kingdom come.\u2019 Sometimes I think all this sighing, and groaning, and stirring among the dry bones foretells what she used to tell me was coming. But who may abide the day of His appearing?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAugustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the kingdom,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at her cousin.\r\n\r\n\u201cThank you for your good opinion, but it\u2019s up and down with me,\u2014up to heaven\u2019s gate in theory, down in earth\u2019s dust in practice. But there\u2019s the teabell,\u2014do let\u2019s go,\u2014and don\u2019t say, now, I haven\u2019t had one downright serious talk, for once in my life.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. \u201cI suppose you\u2019ll think, cousin,\u201d she said, \u201cthat we are all barbarians.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think that\u2019s a barbarous thing,\u201d said Miss Ophelia, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think you are all barbarians.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, now,\u201d said Marie, \u201cI know it\u2019s impossible to get along with some of these creatures. They are so bad they ought not to live. I don\u2019t feel a particle of sympathy for such cases. If they\u2019d only behave themselves, it would not happen.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut, mamma,\u201d said Eva, \u201cthe poor creature was unhappy; that\u2019s what made her drink.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, fiddlestick! as if that were any excuse! I\u2019m unhappy, very often. I presume,\u201d she said, pensively, \u201cthat I\u2019ve had greater trials than ever she had. It\u2019s just because they are so bad. There\u2019s some of them that you cannot break in by any kind of severity. I remember father had a man that was so lazy he would run away just to get rid of work, and lie round in the swamps, stealing and doing all sorts of horrid things. That man was caught and whipped, time and again, and it never did him any good; and the last time he crawled off, though he couldn\u2019t but just go, and died in the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for father\u2019s hands were always treated kindly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI broke a fellow in, once,\u201d said St. Clare, \u201cthat all the overseers and masters had tried their hands on in vain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou!\u201d said Marie; \u201cwell, I\u2019d be glad to know when\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0ever did anything of the sort.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow,\u2014a native-born African; and he appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom in him to an uncommon degree. He was a regular African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobody could do anything with him; and he was sold round from overseer to overseer, till at last Alfred bought him, because he thought he could manage him. Well, one day he knocked down the overseer, and was fairly off into the swamps. I was on a visit to Alf\u2019s plantation, for it was after we had dissolved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated; but I told him that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that I could break the man; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught him, I should have him to experiment on. So they mustered out a party of some six or seven, with guns and dogs, for the hunt. People, you know, can get up as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is only customary; in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I had only put in as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scampered, and finally we started him. He ran and bounded like a buck, and kept us well in the rear for some time; but at last he got caught in an impenetrable thicket of cane; then he turned to bay, and I tell you he fought the dogs right gallantly. He dashed them to right and left, and actually killed three of them with only his naked fists, when a shot from a gun brought him down, and he fell, wounded and bleeding, almost at my feet. The poor fellow looked up at me with manhood and despair both in his eye. I kept back the dogs and the party, as they came pressing up, and claimed him as my prisoner. It was all I could do to keep them from shooting him, in the flush of success; but I persisted in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well, I took him in hand, and in one fortnight I had him tamed down as submissive and tractable as heart could desire.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat in the world did you do to him?\u201d said Marie.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, it was quite a simple process. I took him to my own room, had a good bed made for him, dressed his wounds, and tended him myself, until he got fairly on his feet again. And, in process of time, I had free papers made out for him, and told him he might go where he liked.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd did he go?\u201d said Miss Ophelia.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. The foolish fellow tore the paper in two, and absolutely refused to leave me. I never had a braver, better fellow,\u2014trusty and true as steel. He embraced Christianity afterwards, and became as gentle as a child. He used to oversee my place on the lake, and did it capitally, too. I lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid down his life for me. For I was sick, almost to death; and when, through the panic, everybody else fled, Scipio worked for me like a giant, and actually brought me back into life again. But, poor fellow! he was taken, right after, and there was no saving him. I never felt anybody\u2019s loss more.\u201d\r\n\r\nEva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father, as he told the story,\u2014her small lips apart, her eyes wide and earnest with absorbing interest.\r\n\r\nAs he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, burst into tears, and sobbed convulsively.\r\n\r\n\u201cEva, dear child! what is the matter?\u201d said St. Clare, as the child\u2019s small frame trembled and shook with the violence of her feelings. \u201cThis child,\u201d he added, \u201cought not to hear any of this kind of thing,\u2014she\u2019s nervous.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, papa, I\u2019m not nervous,\u201d said Eva, controlling herself, suddenly, with a strength of resolution singular in such a child. \u201cI\u2019m not nervous, but these things\u00a0sink into my heart<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you mean, Eva?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t tell you, papa, I think a great many thoughts. Perhaps some day I shall tell you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, think away, dear,\u2014only don\u2019t cry and worry your papa,\u201d said St. Clare, \u201cLook here,\u2014see what a beautiful peach I have got for you.\u201d\r\n\r\nEva took it and smiled, though there was still a nervous twiching about the corners of her mouth.\r\n\r\n\u201cCome, look at the gold-fish,\u201d said St. Clare, taking her hand and stepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and merry laughs were heard through the silken curtains, as Eva and St. Clare were pelting each other with roses, and chasing each other among the alleys of the court.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThere is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected amid the adventures of the higher born; but, if our readers will accompany us up to a little loft over the stable, they may, perhaps, learn a little of his affairs. It was a decent room, containing a bed, a chair, and a small, rough stand, where lay Tom\u2019s Bible and hymn-book; and where he sits, at present, with his slate before him, intent on something that seems to cost him a great deal of anxious thought.\r\n\r\nThe fact was, that Tom\u2019s home-yearnings had become so strong that he had begged a sheet of writing-paper of Eva, and, mustering up all his small stock of literary attainment acquired by Mas\u2019r George\u2019s instructions, he conceived the bold idea of writing a letter; and he was busy now, on his slate, getting out his first draft. Tom was in a good deal of trouble, for the forms of some of the letters he had forgotten entirely; and of what he did remember, he did not know exactly which to use. And while he was working, and breathing very hard, in his earnestness, Eva alighted, like a bird, on the round of his chair behind him, and peeped over his shoulder.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Uncle Tom! what funny things you\u00a0are<\/i>\u00a0making, there!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, and my little chil\u2019en,\u201d said Tom, drawing the back of his hand over his eyes; \u201cbut, some how, I\u2019m feard I shan\u2019t make it out.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI wish I could help you, Tom! I\u2019ve learnt to write some. Last year I could make all the letters, but I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve forgotten.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo Eva put her golden head close to his, and the two commenced a grave and anxious discussion, each one equally earnest, and about equally ignorant; and, with a deal of consulting and advising over every word, the composition began, as they both felt very sanguine, to look quite like writing.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful,\u201d said Eva, gazing delightedly on it. \u201cHow pleased your wife\u2019ll be, and the poor little children! O, it\u2019s a shame you ever had to go away from them! I mean to ask papa to let you go back, some time.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMissis said that she would send down money for me, as soon as they could get it together,\u201d said Tom. \u201cI\u2019m \u2019spectin, she will. Young Mas\u2019r George, he said he\u2019d come for me; and he gave me this yer dollar as a sign;\u201d and Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, he\u2019ll certainly come, then!\u201d said Eva. \u201cI\u2019m so glad!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let \u2019em know whar I was, and tell poor Chloe that I was well off,\u2014cause she felt so drefful, poor soul!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI say Tom!\u201d said St. Clare\u2019s voice, coming in the door at this moment.\r\n\r\nTom and Eva both started.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s here?\u201d said St. Clare, coming up and looking at the slate.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, it\u2019s Tom\u2019s letter. I\u2019m helping him to write it,\u201d said Eva; \u201cisn\u2019t it nice?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t discourage either of you,\u201d said St. Clare, \u201cbut I rather think, Tom, you\u2019d better get me to write your letter for you. I\u2019ll do it, when I come home from my ride.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s very important he should write,\u201d said Eva, \u201cbecause his mistress is going to send down money to redeem him, you know, papa; he told me they told him so.\u201d\r\n\r\nSt. Clare thought, in his heart, that this was probably only one of those things which good-natured owners say to their servants, to alleviate their horror of being sold, without any intention of fulfilling the expectation thus excited. But he did not make any audible comment upon it,\u2014only ordered Tom to get the horses out for a ride.\r\n\r\nTom\u2019s letter was written in due form for him that evening, and safely lodged in the post-office.\r\n\r\nMiss Ophelia still persevered in her labors in the housekeeping line. It was universally agreed, among all the household, from Dinah down to the youngest urchin, that Miss Ophelia was decidedly \u201ccuris,\u201d\u2014a term by which a southern servant implies that his or her betters don\u2019t exactly suit them.\r\n\r\nThe higher circle in the family\u2014to wit, Adolph, Jane and Rosa\u2014agreed that she was no lady; ladies never keep working about as she did,\u2014that she had no\u00a0air<\/i>\u00a0at all; and they were surprised that she should be any relation of the St. Clares. Even Marie declared that it was absolutely fatiguing to see Cousin Ophelia always so busy. And, in fact, Miss Ophelia\u2019s industry was so incessant as to lay some foundation for the complaint. She sewed and stitched away, from daylight till dark, with the energy of one who is pressed on by some immediate urgency; and then, when the light faded, and the work was folded away, with one turn out came the ever-ready knitting-work, and there she was again, going on as briskly as ever. It really was a labor to see her.\r\n
\r\n

CHAPTER XL\r\nThe Martyr<\/h3>\r\n

\u201cDeem not the just by Heaven forgot!\r\nThough life its common gifts deny,\u2014\r\nThough, with a crushed and bleeding heart,\r\nAnd spurned of man, he goes to die!\r\nFor God hath marked each sorrowing day,\r\nAnd numbered every bitter tear,\r\nAnd heaven\u2019s long years of bliss shall pay\r\nFor all his children suffer here.\u201d BRYANT<\/small>.*<\/sup><\/p>\r\n\r\n

*This poem does not appear in the collected works of William Cullen Bryant, nor in the collected poems of his brother, John Howard Bryant. It was probably copied from a newspaper or magazine.<\/div>\r\nThe longest way must have its close,\u2014the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day. We have walked with our humble friend thus far in the valley of slavery; first through flowery fields of ease and indulgence, then through heart-breaking separations from all that man holds dear. Again, we have waited with him in a sunny island, where generous hands concealed his chains with flowers; and, lastly, we have followed him when the last ray of earthly hope went out in night, and seen how, in the blackness of earthly darkness, the firmament of the unseen has blazed with stars of new and significant lustre.\r\n\r\nThe morning-star now stands over the tops of the mountains, and gales and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates of day are unclosing.\r\n\r\nThe escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of Legree to the last degree; and his fury, as was to be expected, fell upon the defenceless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the tidings among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom\u2019s eye, a sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he did not join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him to do it; but, having had, of old, experience of his inflexibility when commanded to take part in any deed of inhumanity, he would not, in his hurry, stop to enter into any conflict with him.\r\n\r\nTom, therefore, remained behind, with a few who had learned of him to pray, and offered up prayers for the escape of the fugitives.\r\n\r\nWhen Legree returned, baffled and disappointed, all the long-working hatred of his soul towards his slave began to gather in a deadly and desperate form. Had not this man braved him,\u2014steadily, powerfully, resistlessly,\u2014ever since he bought him? Was there not a spirit in him which, silent as it was, burned on him like the fires of perdition?\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u00a0hate<\/i>\u00a0him!\u201d said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his bed; \u201cI\u00a0hate<\/i>\u00a0him! And isn\u2019t he MINE? Can\u2019t I do what I like with him? Who\u2019s to hinder, I wonder?\u201d And Legree clenched his fist, and shook it, as if he had something in his hands that he could rend in pieces.\r\n\r\nBut, then, Tom was a faithful, valuable servant; and, although Legree hated him the more for that, yet the consideration was still somewhat of a restraint to him.\r\n\r\nThe next morning, he determined to say nothing, as yet; to assemble a party, from some neighboring plantations, with dogs and guns; to surround the swamp, and go about the hunt systematically. If it succeeded, well and good; if not, he would summon Tom before him, and\u2014his teeth clenched and his blood boiled\u2014then<\/i>\u00a0he would break the fellow down, or\u2014there was a dire inward whisper, to which his soul assented.\r\n\r\nYe say that the\u00a0interest<\/i>\u00a0of the master is a sufficient safeguard for the slave. In the fury of man\u2019s mad will, he will wittingly, and with open eye, sell his own soul to the devil to gain his ends; and will he be more careful of his neighbor\u2019s body?\r\n\r\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Cassy, the next day, from the garret, as she reconnoitred through the knot-hole, \u201cthe hunt\u2019s going to begin again, today!\u201d\r\n\r\nThree or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, on the space in front of the house; and one or two leashes of strange dogs were struggling with the negroes who held them, baying and barking at each other.\r\n\r\nThe men are, two of them, overseers of plantations in the vicinity; and others were some of Legree\u2019s associates at the tavern-bar of a neighboring city, who had come for the interest of the sport. A more hard-favored set, perhaps, could not be imagined. Legree was serving brandy, profusely, round among them, as also among the negroes, who had been detailed from the various plantations for this service; for it was an object to make every service of this kind, among the negroes, as much of a holiday as possible.\r\n\r\nCassy placed her ear at the knot-hole; and, as the morning air blew directly towards the house, she could overhear a good deal of the conversation. A grave sneer overcast the dark, severe gravity of her face, as she listened, and heard them divide out the ground, discuss the rival merits of the dogs, give orders about firing, and the treatment of each, in case of capture.\r\n\r\nCassy drew back; and, clasping her hands, looked upward, and said, \u201cO, great Almighty God! we are\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0sinners; but what have\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0done, more than all the rest of the world, that we should be treated so?\u201d\r\n\r\nThere was a terrible earnestness in her face and voice, as she spoke.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for\u00a0you<\/i>, child,\u201d she said, looking at Emmeline, \u201cI\u2019d\u00a0go<\/i>\u00a0out to them; and I\u2019d thank any one of them that\u00a0would<\/i>\u00a0shoot me down; for what use will freedom be to me? Can it give me back my children, or make me what I used to be?\u201d\r\n\r\nEmmeline, in her child-like simplicity, was half afraid of the dark moods of Cassy. She looked perplexed, but made no answer. She only took her hand, with a gentle, caressing movement.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t!\u201d said Cassy, trying to draw it away; \u201cyou\u2019ll get me to loving you; and I never mean to love anything, again!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPoor Cassy!\u201d said Emmeline, \u201cdon\u2019t feel so! If the Lord gives us liberty, perhaps he\u2019ll give you back your daughter; at any rate, I\u2019ll be like a daughter to you. I know I\u2019ll never see my poor old mother again! I shall love you, Cassy, whether you love me or not!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe gentle, child-like spirit conquered. Cassy sat down by her, put her arm round her neck, stroked her soft, brown hair; and Emmeline then wondered at the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now soft with tears.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Em!\u201d said Cassy, \u201cI\u2019ve hungered for my children, and thirsted for them, and my eyes fail with longing for them! Here! here!\u201d she said, striking her breast, \u201cit\u2019s all desolate, all empty! If God would give me back my children, then I could pray.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must trust him, Cassy,\u201d said Emmeline; \u201che is our Father!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHis wrath is upon us,\u201d said Cassy; \u201che has turned away in anger.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, Cassy! He will be good to us! Let us hope in Him,\u201d said Emmeline,\u2014\u201cI always have had hope.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe hunt was long, animated, and thorough, but unsuccessful; and, with grave, ironic exultation, Cassy looked down on Legree, as, weary and dispirited, he alighted from his horse.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, Quimbo,\u201d said Legree, as he stretched himself down in the sitting-room, \u201cyou jest go and walk that Tom up here, right away! The old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter; and I\u2019ll have it out of his old black hide, or I\u2019ll know the reason why!\u201d\r\n\r\nSambo and Quimbo, both, though hating each other, were joined in one mind by a no less cordial hatred of Tom. Legree had told them, at first, that he had bought him for a general overseer, in his absence; and this had begun an ill will, on their part, which had increased, in their debased and servile natures, as they saw him becoming obnoxious to their master\u2019s displeasure. Quimbo, therefore, departed, with a will, to execute his orders.\r\n\r\nTom heard the message with a forewarning heart; for he knew all the plan of the fugitives\u2019 escape, and the place of their present concealment;\u2014he knew the deadly character of the man he had to deal with, and his despotic power. But he felt strong in God to meet death, rather than betray the helpless.\r\n\r\nHe sat his basket down by the row, and, looking up, said, \u201cInto thy hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, oh Lord God of truth!\u201d and then quietly yielded himself to the rough, brutal grasp with which Quimbo seized him.\r\n\r\n\u201cAy, ay!\u201d said the giant, as he dragged him along; \u201cye\u2019ll cotch it, now! I\u2019ll boun\u2019 Mas\u2019r\u2019s back \u2019s up\u00a0high!<\/i>\u00a0No sneaking out, now! Tell ye, ye\u2019ll get it, and no mistake! See how ye\u2019ll look, now, helpin\u2019 Mas\u2019r\u2019s niggers to run away! See what ye\u2019ll get!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe savage words none of them reached that ear!\u2014a higher voice there was saying, \u201cFear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do.\u201d Nerve and bone of that poor man\u2019s body vibrated to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation, seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing ear. His soul throbbed,\u2014his home was in sight,\u2014and the hour of release seemed at hand.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, Tom!\u201d said Legree, walking up, and seizing him grimly by the collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm of determined rage, \u201cdo you know I\u2019ve made up my mind to KILL YOU?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s very likely, Mas\u2019r,\u201d said Tom, calmly.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u00a0have<\/i>,\u201d said Legree, with a grim, terrible calmness, \u201cdone\u2014just\u2014that\u2014thing<\/i>, Tom, unless you\u2019ll tell me what you know about these yer gals!\u201d\r\n\r\nTom stood silent.\r\n\r\n\u201cD\u2019ye hear?\u201d said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed lion. \u201cSpeak!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI han\u2019t got nothing to tell, Mas\u2019r<\/i>,\u201d said Tom, with a slow, firm, deliberate utterance.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don\u2019t\u00a0know<\/i>?\u201d said Legree.\r\n\r\nTom was silent.\r\n\r\n\u201cSpeak!\u201d thundered Legree, striking him furiously. \u201cDo you know anything?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI know, Mas\u2019r; but I can\u2019t tell anything.\u00a0I can die!<\/i>\u201d\r\n\r\nLegree drew in a long breath; and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by the arm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said, in a terrible voice, \u201cHark \u2019e, Tom!\u2014ye think, \u2019cause I\u2019ve let you off before, I don\u2019t mean what I say; but, this time,\u00a0I\u2019ve made up my mind<\/i>, and counted the cost. You\u2019ve always stood it out again\u2019 me: now,\u00a0I\u2019ll conquer ye, or kill ye!<\/i>\u2014one or t\u2019 other. I\u2019ll count every drop of blood there is in you, and take \u2019em, one by one, till ye give up!\u201d\r\n\r\nTom looked up to his master, and answered, \u201cMas\u2019r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I\u2019d\u00a0give<\/i>\u00a0ye my heart\u2019s blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I\u2019d give \u2019em freely, as the Lord gave his for me. O, Mas\u2019r! don\u2019t bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than \u2019t will me! Do the worst you can, my troubles\u2019ll be over soon; but, if ye don\u2019t repent, yours won\u2019t\u00a0never<\/i>\u00a0end!\u201d\r\n\r\nLike a strange snatch of heavenly music, heard in the lull of a tempest, this burst of feeling made a moment\u2019s blank pause. Legree stood aghast, and looked at Tom; and there was such a silence, that the tick of the old clock could be heard, measuring, with silent touch, the last moments of mercy and probation to that hardened heart.\r\n\r\nIt was but a moment. There was one hesitating pause,\u2014one irresolute, relenting thrill,\u2014and the spirit of evil came back, with seven-fold vehemence; and Legree, foaming with rage, smote his victim to the ground.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nScenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear. What brother-man and brother-Christian must suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secret chamber, it so harrows the soul! And yet, oh my country! these things are done under the shadow of thy laws! O, Christ! thy church sees them, almost in silence!\r\n\r\nBut, of old, there was One whose suffering changed an instrument of torture, degradation and shame, into a symbol of glory, honor, and immortal life; and, where His spirit is, neither degrading stripes, nor blood, nor insults, can make the Christian\u2019s last struggle less than glorious.\r\n\r\nWas he alone, that long night, whose brave, loving spirit was bearing up, in that old shed, against buffeting and brutal stripes?\r\n\r\nNay! There stood by him ONE<\/small>,\u2014seen by him alone,\u2014\u201clike unto the Son of God.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe tempter stood by him, too,\u2014blinded by furious, despotic will,\u2014every moment pressing him to shun that agony by the betrayal of the innocent. But the brave, true heart was firm on the Eternal Rock. Like his Master, he knew that, if he saved others, himself he could not save; nor could utmost extremity wring from him words, save of prayers and holy trust.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019s most gone, Mas\u2019r,\u201d said Sambo, touched, in spite of himself, by the patience of his victim.\r\n\r\n\u201cPay away, till he gives up! Give it to him!\u2014give it to him!\u201d shouted Legree. \u201cI\u2019ll take every drop of blood he has, unless he confesses!\u201d\r\n\r\nTom opened his eyes, and looked upon his master. \u201cYe poor miserable critter!\u201d he said, \u201cthere ain\u2019t no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with all my soul!\u201d and he fainted entirely away.\r\n\r\n\u201cI b\u2019lieve, my soul, he\u2019s done for, finally,\u201d said Legree, stepping forward, to look at him. \u201cYes, he is! Well, his mouth\u2019s shut up, at last,\u2014that\u2019s one comfort!\u201d\r\n\r\nYes, Legree; but who shall shut up that voice in thy soul? that soul, past repentance, past prayer, past hope, in whom the fire that never shall be quenched is already burning!\r\n\r\nYet Tom was not quite gone. His wondrous words and pious prayers had struck upon the hearts of the imbruted blacks, who had been the instruments of cruelty upon him; and, the instant Legree withdrew, they took him down, and, in their ignorance, sought to call him back to life,\u2014as if\u00a0that<\/i>\u00a0were any favor to him.\r\n\r\n\u201cSartin, we \u2019s been doin\u2019 a drefful wicked thing!\u201d said Sambo; \u201chopes Mas\u2019r\u2019ll have to \u2019count for it, and not we.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey washed his wounds,\u2014they provided a rude bed, of some refuse cotton, for him to lie down on; and one of them, stealing up to the house, begged a drink of brandy of Legree, pretending that he was tired, and wanted it for himself. He brought it back, and poured it down Tom\u2019s throat.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Tom!\u201d said Quimbo, \u201cwe\u2019s been awful wicked to ye!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI forgive ye, with all my heart!\u201d said Tom, faintly.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Tom! do tell us who is\u00a0Jesus<\/i>, anyhow?\u201d said Sambo;\u2014\u201cJesus, that\u2019s been a standin\u2019 by you so, all this night!\u2014Who is he?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe word roused the failing, fainting spirit. He poured forth a few energetic sentences of that wondrous One,\u2014his life, his death, his everlasting presence, and power to save.\r\n\r\nThey wept,\u2014both the two savage men.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t I never hear this before?\u201d said Sambo; \u201cbut I do believe!\u2014I can\u2019t help it! Lord Jesus, have mercy on us!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPoor critters!\u201d said Tom, \u201cI\u2019d be willing to bar all I have, if it\u2019ll only bring ye to Christ! O, Lord! give me these two more souls, I pray!\u201d\r\n\r\nThat prayer was answered!\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n

CHAPTER XLI\r\nThe Young Master<\/h3>\r\nTwo days after, a young man drove a light wagon up through the avenue of China trees, and, throwing the reins hastily on the horse\u2019s neck, sprang out and inquired for the owner of the place.\r\n\r\nIt was George Shelby; and, to show how he came to be there, we must go back in our story.\r\n\r\nThe letter of Miss Ophelia to Mrs. Shelby had, by some unfortunate accident, been detained, for a month or two, at some remote post-office, before it reached its destination; and, of course, before it was received, Tom was already lost to view among the distant swamps of the Red River.\r\n\r\nMrs. Shelby read the intelligence with the deepest concern; but any immediate action upon it was an impossibility. She was then in attendance on the sick-bed of her husband, who lay delirious in the crisis of a fever. Master George Shelby, who, in the interval, had changed from a boy to a tall young man, was her constant and faithful assistant, and her only reliance in superintending his father\u2019s affairs. Miss Ophelia had taken the precaution to send them the name of the lawyer who did business for the St. Clares; and the most that, in the emergency, could be done, was to address a letter of inquiry to him. The sudden death of Mr. Shelby, a few days after, brought, of course, an absorbing pressure of other interests, for a season.\r\n\r\nMr. Shelby showed his confidence in his wife\u2019s ability, by appointing her sole executrix upon his estates; and thus immediately a large and complicated amount of business was brought upon her hands.\r\n\r\nMrs. Shelby, with characteristic energy, applied herself to the work of straightening the entangled web of affairs; and she and George were for some time occupied with collecting and examining accounts, selling property and settling debts; for Mrs. Shelby was determined that everything should be brought into tangible and recognizable shape, let the consequences to her prove what they might. In the mean time, they received a letter from the lawyer to whom Miss Ophelia had referred them, saying that he knew nothing of the matter; that the man was sold at a public auction, and that, beyond receiving the money, he knew nothing of the affair.\r\n\r\nNeither George nor Mrs. Shelby could be easy at this result; and, accordingly, some six months after, the latter, having business for his mother, down the river, resolved to visit New Orleans, in person, and push his inquiries, in hopes of discovering Tom\u2019s whereabouts, and restoring him.\r\n\r\nAfter some months of unsuccessful search, by the merest accident, George fell in with a man, in New Orleans, who happened to be possessed of the desired information; and with his money in his pocket, our hero took steamboat for Red River, resolving to find out and re-purchase his old friend.\r\n\r\nHe was soon introduced into the house, where he found Legree in the sitting-room.\r\n\r\nLegree received the stranger with a kind of surly hospitality.\r\n\r\n\u201cI understand,\u201d said the young man, \u201cthat you bought, in New Orleans, a boy, named Tom. He used to be on my father\u2019s place, and I came to see if I couldn\u2019t buy him back.\u201d\r\n\r\nLegree\u2019s brow grew dark, and he broke out, passionately: \u201cYes, I did buy such a fellow,\u2014and a h\u2014l of a bargain I had of it, too! The most rebellious, saucy, impudent dog! Set up my niggers to run away; got off two gals, worth eight hundred or a thousand apiece. He owned to that, and, when I bid him tell me where they was, he up and said he knew, but he wouldn\u2019t tell; and stood to it, though I gave him the cussedest flogging I ever gave nigger yet. I b\u2019lieve he\u2019s trying to die; but I don\u2019t know as he\u2019ll make it out.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere is he?\u201d said George, impetuously. \u201cLet me see him.\u201d The cheeks of the young man were crimson, and his eyes flashed fire; but he prudently said nothing, as yet.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019s in dat ar shed,\u201d said a little fellow, who stood holding George\u2019s horse.\r\n\r\nLegree kicked the boy, and swore at him; but George, without saying another word, turned and strode to the spot.\r\n\r\nTom had been lying two days since the fatal night, not suffering, for every nerve of suffering was blunted and destroyed. He lay, for the most part, in a quiet stupor; for the laws of a powerful and well-knit frame would not at once release the imprisoned spirit. By stealth, there had been there, in the darkness of the night, poor desolated creatures, who stole from their scanty hours\u2019 rest, that they might repay to him some of those ministrations of love in which he had always been so abundant. Truly, those poor disciples had little to give,\u2014only the cup of cold water; but it was given with full hearts.\r\n\r\nTears had fallen on that honest, insensible face,\u2014tears of late repentance in the poor, ignorant heathen, whom his dying love and patience had awakened to repentance, and bitter prayers, breathed over him to a late-found Saviour, of whom they scarce knew more than the name, but whom the yearning ignorant heart of man never implores in vain.\r\n\r\nCassy, who had glided out of her place of concealment, and, by overhearing, learned the sacrifice that had been made for her and Emmeline, had been there, the night before, defying the danger of detection; and, moved by the last few words which the affectionate soul had yet strength to breathe, the long winter of despair, the ice of years, had given way, and the dark, despairing woman had wept and prayed.\r\n\r\nWhen George entered the shed, he felt his head giddy and his heart sick.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it possible,\u2014is it possible?\u201d said he, kneeling down by him. \u201cUncle Tom, my poor, poor old friend!\u201d\r\n\r\nSomething in the voice penetrated to the ear of the dying. He moved his head gently, smiled, and said,\r\n

\u201cJesus can make a dying-bed\r\nFeel soft as down pillows are.\u201d<\/p>\r\nTears which did honor to his manly heart fell from the young man\u2019s eyes, as he bent over his poor friend.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, dear Uncle Tom! do wake,\u2014do speak once more! Look up! Here\u2019s Mas\u2019r George,\u2014your own little Mas\u2019r George. Don\u2019t you know me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMas\u2019r George!\u201d said Tom, opening his eyes, and speaking in a feeble voice; \u201cMas\u2019r George!\u201d He looked bewildered.\r\n\r\nSlowly the idea seemed to fill his soul; and the vacant eye became fixed and brightened, the whole face lighted up, the hard hands clasped, and tears ran down the cheeks.\r\n\r\n\u201cBless the Lord! it is,\u2014it is,\u2014it\u2019s all I wanted! They haven\u2019t forgot me. It warms my soul; it does my heart good! Now I shall die content! Bless the Lord, on my soul!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou shan\u2019t die! you\u00a0mustn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0die, nor think of it! I\u2019ve come to buy you, and take you home,\u201d said George, with impetuous vehemence.\r\n\r\n\u201cO, Mas\u2019r George, ye\u2019re too late. The Lord\u2019s bought me, and is going to take me home,\u2014and I long to go. Heaven is better than Kintuck.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, don\u2019t die! It\u2019ll kill me!\u2014it\u2019ll break my heart to think what you\u2019ve suffered,\u2014and lying in this old shed, here! Poor, poor fellow!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t call me poor fellow!\u201d said Tom, solemnly, \u201cI\u00a0have<\/i>\u00a0been poor fellow; but that\u2019s all past and gone, now. I\u2019m right in the door, going into glory! O, Mas\u2019r George!\u00a0Heaven has come!<\/i>\u00a0I\u2019ve got the victory!\u2014the Lord Jesus has given it to me! Glory be to His name!\u201d\r\n\r\nGeorge was awe-struck at the force, the vehemence, the power, with which these broken sentences were uttered. He sat gazing in silence.\r\n\r\nTom grasped his hand, and continued,\u2014\u201cYe mustn\u2019t, now, tell Chloe, poor soul! how ye found me;\u2014\u2018t would be so drefful to her. Only tell her ye found me going into glory; and that I couldn\u2019t stay for no one. And tell her the Lord\u2019s stood by me everywhere and al\u2019ays, and made everything light and easy. And oh, the poor chil\u2019en, and the baby;\u2014my old heart\u2019s been most broke for \u2019em, time and agin! Tell \u2019em all to follow me\u2014follow me! Give my love to Mas\u2019r, and dear good Missis, and everybody in the place! Ye don\u2019t know! \u2019Pears like I loves \u2019em all! I loves every creature everywhar!\u2014it\u2019s nothing\u00a0but<\/i>\u00a0love! O, Mas\u2019r George! what a thing \u2019t is to be a Christian!\u201d\r\n\r\nAt this moment, Legree sauntered up to the door of the shed, looked in, with a dogged air of affected carelessness, and turned away.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe old Satan!\u201d said George, in his indignation. \u201cIt\u2019s a comfort to think the devil will pay\u00a0him<\/i>\u00a0for this, some of these days!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cO, don\u2019t!\u2014oh, ye mustn\u2019t!\u201d said Tom, grasping his hand; \u201che\u2019s a poor mis\u2019able critter! it\u2019s awful to think on \u2019t! Oh, if he only could repent, the Lord would forgive him now; but I\u2019m \u2019feared he never will!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI hope he won\u2019t!\u201d said George; \u201cI never want to see\u00a0him<\/i>\u00a0in heaven!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHush, Mas\u2019r George!\u2014it worries me! Don\u2019t feel so! He an\u2019t done me no real harm,\u2014only opened the gate of the kingdom for me; that\u2019s all!\u201d\r\n\r\nAt this moment, the sudden flush of strength which the joy of meeting his young master had infused into the dying man gave way. A sudden sinking fell upon him; he closed his eyes; and that mysterious and sublime change passed over his face, that told the approach of other worlds.\r\n\r\nHe began to draw his breath with long, deep inspirations; and his broad chest rose and fell, heavily. The expression of his face was that of a conqueror.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho,\u2014who,\u2014who shall separate us from the love of Christ?\u201d he said, in a voice that contended with mortal weakness; and, with a smile, he fell asleep.\r\n\r\nGeorge sat fixed with solemn awe. It seemed to him that the place was holy; and, as he closed the lifeless eyes, and rose up from the dead, only one thought possessed him,\u2014that expressed by his simple old friend,\u2014\u201cWhat a thing it is to be a Christian!\u201d\r\n\r\nHe turned: Legree was standing, sullenly, behind him.\r\n\r\nSomething in that dying scene had checked the natural fierceness of youthful passion. The presence of the man was simply loathsome to George; and he felt only an impulse to get away from him, with as few words as possible.\r\n\r\nFixing his keen dark eyes on Legree, he simply said, pointing to the dead, \u201cYou have got all you ever can of him. What shall I pay you for the body? I will take it away, and bury it decently.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t sell dead niggers,\u201d said Legree, doggedly. \u201cYou are welcome to bury him where and when you like.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBoys,\u201d said George, in an authoritative tone, to two or three negroes, who were looking at the body, \u201chelp me lift him up, and carry him to my wagon; and get me a spade.\u201d\r\n\r\nOne of them ran for a spade; the other two assisted George to carry the body to the wagon.\r\n\r\nGeorge neither spoke to nor looked at Legree, who did not countermand his orders, but stood, whistling, with an air of forced unconcern. He sulkily followed them to where the wagon stood at the door.\r\n\r\nGeorge spread his cloak in the wagon, and had the body carefully disposed of in it,\u2014moving the seat, so as to give it room. Then he turned, fixed his eyes on Legree, and said, with forced composure,\r\n\r\n\u201cI have not, as yet, said to you what I think of this most atrocious affair;\u2014this is not the time and place. But, sir, this innocent blood shall have justice. I will proclaim this murder. I will go to the very first magistrate, and expose you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo!\u201d said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. \u201cI\u2019d like to see you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses?\u2014how you going to prove it?\u2014Come, now!\u201d\r\n\r\nGeorge saw, at once, the force of this defiance. There was not a white person on the place; and, in all southern courts, the testimony of colored blood is nothing. He felt, at that moment, as if he could have rent the heavens with his heart\u2019s indignant cry for justice; but in vain.\r\n\r\n\u201cAfter all, what a fuss, for a dead nigger!\u201d said Legree.\r\n\r\nThe word was as a spark to a powder magazine. Prudence was never a cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy. George turned, and, with one indignant blow, knocked Legree flat upon his face; and, as he stood over him, blazing with wrath and defiance, he would have formed no bad personification of his great namesake triumphing over the dragon.\r\n\r\nSome men, however, are decidedly bettered by being knocked down. If a man lays them fairly flat in the dust, they seem immediately to conceive a respect for him; and Legree was one of this sort. As he rose, therefore, and brushed the dust from his clothes, he eyed the slowly-retreating wagon with some evident consideration; nor did he open his mouth till it was out of sight.\r\n\r\nBeyond the boundaries of the plantation, George had noticed a dry, sandy knoll, shaded by a few trees; there they made the grave.\r\n\r\n\u201cShall we take off the cloak, Mas\u2019r?\u201d said the negroes, when the grave was ready.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, no,\u2014bury it with him! It\u2019s all I can give you, now, poor Tom, and you shall have it.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey laid him in; and the men shovelled away, silently. They banked it up, and laid green turf over it.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou may go, boys,\u201d said George, slipping a quarter into the hand of each. They lingered about, however.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf young Mas\u2019r would please buy us\u2014\u201d said one.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019d serve him so faithful!\u201d said the other.\r\n\r\n\u201cHard times here, Mas\u2019r!\u201d said the first. \u201cDo, Mas\u2019r, buy us, please!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t!\u2014I can\u2019t!\u201d said George, with difficulty, motioning them off; \u201cit\u2019s impossible!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe poor fellows looked dejected, and walked off in silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cWitness, eternal God!\u201d said George, kneeling on the grave of his poor friend; \u201coh, witness, that, from this hour, I will do\u00a0what one man can<\/i>\u00a0to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!\u201d\r\n\r\nThere is no monument to mark the last resting-place of our friend. He needs none! His Lord knows where he lies, and will raise him up, immortal, to appear with him when he shall appear in his glory.\r\n\r\nPity him not! Such a life and death is not for pity! Not in the riches of omnipotence is the chief glory of God; but in self-denying, suffering love! And blessed are the men whom he calls to fellowship with him, bearing their cross after him with patience. Of such it is written, \u201cBlessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.\u201d\r\n

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HIstorical background<\/h3>\r\n\"slave\r\n\r\nKahn Academy's course on American History<\/a> includes three videos that discuss Uncle Tom's Cabin in historical and cultural contexts.\r\n