University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.

It was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a
bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar.
Marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on
the verandah, closely secluded, under an awning of transparent
gauze, from the outrages of the mosquitos, and languidly
holding in her hand an elegantly bound prayer-book. She
was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined
she had been reading it, — though, in fact, she had been only
taking a succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up
a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone
out, with Tom as driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied
them.

“I say, Augustine,” said Marie after dozing a while, “I
must send to the city after my old Doctor Posey; I 'm sure
I 've got the complaint of the heart.”

“Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that
attends Eva seems skilful.”

“I would not trust him in a critical case,” said Marie; “and
I think I may say mine is becoming so! I 've been thinking
of it, these two or three nights past; I have such distressing
pains, and such strange feelings.”

“O, Marie, you are blue; I don't believe it 's heart complaint.”

“I dare say you don't,” said Marie; “I was prepared to
expect that. You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or

has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think
of me.”

“If it 's particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease,
why, I 'll try and maintain you have it,” said St.
Clare; “I did n't know it was.”

“Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this, when it 's
too late!” said Marie; “but, believe it or not, my distress
about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear
child, have developed what I have long suspected.”

What the exertions were which Marie referred to, it would
have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary
to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted
wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the
verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted.

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put
away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before
she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came, at St.
Clare's call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an
account of the services they had heard.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia's
room, which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened
on to the verandah, and violent reproof addressed to somebody.

“What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?” asked
St. Clare. “That commotion is of her raising, I 'll be
bound!”

And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation,
came dragging the culprit along.

“Come out here, now!” she said. “I will tell your master!”

“What 's the case now?” asked Augustine.

“The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child, any

longer! It 's past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure
it! Here, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study;
and what does she do, but spy out where I put my key, and
has gone to my bureau, and got a bonnet-trimming, and cut
it all to pieces, to make dolls' jackets! I never saw anything
like it, in my life!”

“I told you, Cousin,” said Marie, “that you 'd find out
that these creatures can't be brought up, without severity.
If I had my way, now,” she said, looking reproachfully at
St. Clare, “I 'd send that child out, and have her thoroughly
whipped; I 'd have her whipped till she could n't stand!”

“I don't doubt it,” said St. Clare. “Tell me of the
lovely rule of woman! I never saw above a dozen women
that would n't half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they
had their own way with them! — let alone a man.”

“There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St.
Clare!” said Marie. “Cousin is a woman of sense, and she
sees it now, as plain as I do.”

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that
belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had
been pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness
of the child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that
they should have felt just so in her circumstances; but
Marie's words went beyond her, and she felt less heat.

“I would n't have the child treated so, for the world,” she
said; “but, I am sure, Augustine, I don't know what to do.
I 've taught and taught; I 've talked till I 'm tired; I 've
whipped her; I 've punished her in every way I can think of,
and still she 's just what she was at first.”

“Come here, Tops, you monkey!” said St. Clare, calling
the child up to him.

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking

with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd
drollery.

“What makes you behave so?” said St. Clare, who could
not help being amused with the child's expression.

“Spects it 's my wicked heart,” said Topsy, demurely;
“Miss Feely says so.”

“Don't you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you?
She says she has done everything she can think of.”

“Lor, yes, Mas'r! old Missis used to say so, too. She
whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and
knock my head agin the door; but it did n't do me no good!
I spects, if they 's to pull every spire o' har out o' my head,
it would n't do no good, neither, — I 's so wicked! Laws!
I 's nothin but a nigger, no ways!”

“Well, I shall have to give her up,” said Miss Ophelia;
“I can't have that trouble any longer.”

“Well, I 'd just like to ask one question,” said St. Clare.

“What is it?”

“Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one
heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself,
what 's the use of sending one or two poor missionaries
off with it among thousands of just such? I suppose this
child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your heathen
are.”

Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva,
who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a
silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little glassroom
at the corner of the verandah, which St. Clare used as
a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into
this place.

“What 's Eva going about, now?” said St. Clare; “I
mean to see.”

And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered
the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his
finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia
to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor,
with their side faces towards them. Topsy, with her usual
air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her,
Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her
large eyes.

“What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you
try and be good? Don't you love anybody, Topsy?”

“Donno nothing 'bout love; I loves candy and sich, that 's
all,” said Topsy.

“But you love your father and mother?”

“Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva.”

“O, I know,” said Eva, sadly; “but had n't you any
brother, or sister, or aunt, or —”

“No, none on 'em, — never had nothing nor nobody.”

“But, Topsy, if you 'd only try to be good, you might —”

“Could n't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so
good,” said Topsy. “If I could be skinned, and come white,
I 'd try then.”

“But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss
Ophelia would love you, if you were good.”

Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common
mode of expressing incredulity.

“Don't you think so?” said Eva.

“No; she can't bar me, 'cause I 'm a nigger! — she 'd 's
soon have a toad touch her! There can't nobody love niggers,
and niggers can't do nothin'! I don't care,” said Topsy,
beginning to whistle.

“O, Topsy, poor child, I love you!” said Eva, with a
sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white

hand on Topsy's shoulder; “I love you, because you have n't
had any father, or mother, or friends; — because you 've been
a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good.
I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great
while; and it really grieves me, to have you be so naughty. I
wish you would try to be good, for my sake; — it 's only a
little while I shall be with you.”

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with
tears; — large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one,
and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment, a
ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the
darkness of her heathen soul! She laid her head down
between her knees, and wept and sobbed, — while the beautiful
child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some
bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

“Poor Topsy!” said Eva, “don't you know that Jesus
loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me.
He loves you just as I do, — only more, because he is better.
He will help you to be good; and you can go to Heaven at
last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were
white. Only think of it, Topsy! — you can be one of those
spirits bright, Uncle Tom sings about.”

“O, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!” said the child;
“I will try, I will try; I never did care nothin' about it
before.”

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. “It puts
me in mind of mother,” he said to Miss Ophelia. “It is true
what she told me; if we want to give sight to the blind, we
must be willing to do as Christ did, — call them to us, and
put our hands on them.”

“I 've always had a prejudice against negroes,” said Miss

Ophelia, “and it 's a fact, I never could bear to have that
child touch me; but, I don't think she knew it.”

“Trust any child to find that out,” said St. Clare;
“there 's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the
trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial
favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of
gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the
heart; — it 's a queer kind of a fact, — but so it is.”

“I don't know how I can help it,” said Miss Ophelia;
“they are disagreeable to me, — this child in particular, —
how can I help feeling so?”

“Eva does, it seems.”

“Well, she 's so loving! After all, though, she 's no more
than Christ-like,” said Miss Ophelia; “I wish I were like
her. She might teach me a lesson.”

“It would n't be the first time a little child had been used
to instruct an old disciple, if it were so,” said St. Clare.