 | CHAPTER I.
In which Sheppard Lee finds every thing black about him. Sheppard Lee |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
In which Sheppard Lee finds every thing black about him.
When I opened my eyes I found that I was lying
in a hovel, very mean of appearance, yet with
a certain neatness and cleanliness about it that prevented
it from looking squalid. It is true that the
floor, which was of planks, was somewhat awry
and dilapidated; that the little window, which, with
the door, furnished, or was meant to furnish, its
only light, was rather bountifully bedecked with
old hats and scraps of brown paper; and that the
walls of ill-plastered logs displayed divers gleaming
chinks, and vistas through them of the sunny
prospects without. Nevertheless, the place did not
look amiss for a poor man, and, in my experience
as a philanthropist, I had seen hundreds much more
miserable.
An old woman sat at the fireplace, nodding over
a stew, the fumes of which were both savoury and
agreeable. The old woman was, however, as black
as the outside of her stew-pan—in other words, a
negress; and this circumstance striking upon the
had lately befallen me. A terrible suspicion flashed
into my mind. Had I not—but before I could
ask myself the question, my hand, which I had
raised to scratch my head, came into contact with a
mop of elastic wool, such as never grew upon the
scalp of a white man. I started up in bed and
looked at my hands and arms; they were of the
hue of ebony—or, to speak more strictly, of smoked
mahogany. I saw a fragment of looking-glass
hanging on the wall within my reach. I snatched
it down, and took a survey of my physiognomy.
Miserable me! my face was as black as my arms
—and, indeed, somewhat more so—presenting a
sable globe, broken only by two red lips of immense
magnitude, and a brace of eyes as white and as
wide as plain China saucers, or peeled turnips.
“Whaw dah!” cried the old woman, roused by
the noise I made; “whaw dat, you nigga Tom?
what you doin' dah? Lorra bless us! if a nigga
break a neck, can't a nigga hold-a still?”
Alas! and had my fate brought me to this grievous
pass? Was there no other situation in life
sufficiently wretched, but that I must take up my
lot in the body of a miserable negro slave? How
idle had been all my past discontent! how foolish
the persuasion I had indulged five different times,
that I was, on each occasion, the most unhappy of
men! I had forgotten the state of the bondman,
the condition of the expatriated African. Now I
was at last to learn in reality what it was to be
wretchedness, the true repository of all the griefs
that can afflict a human being. Already I felt, in
imagination, the blow of the task-master on my
back, the fetter on my limb, the iron in my soul;
and when the old woman made a step towards me,
perhaps to discover why I made no reply to her
questions, I was so prepossessed with the idea of
whips and lashes, that I made a dodge under the
bedclothes, as if to escape a thwack.
“Golly matty! is de nigga mad?” cried the
Jezebel. “I say, you nigga Tom, what you doin'?
How you neck feel now?”
“My neck?” thought I, recollecting that it had
been broken, and wondering in what way it had
been mended. I clapped my hands to it; it was
very stiff and sore: while I felt at it, the old woman
told me some great doctor had twisted a great
“kink” out of it; but I bestowed little notice on
what she said. My mind ran upon other matters;
I could think of nothing but cowhides and cat-o'-nine-tails,
that were to welcome me to bondage.
“Aunty,” said I—why I addressed the old lady
thus I know not; but I have observed that negroes
always address their seniors by the titles of uncle
and aunt, and I suppose the instinct was on me—
“am I a slave?”
“What a fool nigga to ax a question!” said
she. “What you gwying to be, den, but old Massa
Jodge's nigga-boy Tom? What you git up
faw, ha?” —(I was making an attempt to rise)—
up faw, ha?”
“I intend to run away,” said I; and truly that
was the notion then uppermost in my mind; and it
is very likely I should have made a bolt for the
door that moment, had I not discovered an uncommon
weakness in my lower limbs, which prevented
my getting out of bed.
“Whaw! what a fool!” cried the beldam, regarding
me with surprise and contempt; “what
you do when you run away, ha? Who'll hab you?
who'll feed you? who'll take care of you? who'll
own a good-fo'-nothin' runaway nigga, I say, ha?
Kick him 'bout h'yah, kick him 'bout dah, poor
despise nigga wid no massa, jist as despise as any
free nigga! You run away, ha? what den?”
continued my sable monitress, warming into eloquence
as she spoke: “take up constable, clap him
in jail, salt him down cowskin. Dat all? No!
sell him low price, send Mississippi—what den?
Work in de cotton-field, pull at de cane. Dat all?
No! cussed overseer wid a long whip—cut h'yah,
cut dah, cut high, cut low—whip all day, cuff all
night—take all de skin off—oh! dey do whip to
de debbil in de Mississippi!” And as the old lady
concluded, to give more effect to her expressions,
she fell to rubbing her back and dodging her head
from side to side, until I had the liveliest idea in
the world of that very castigation of which I stood
in such horror.
| CHAPTER I.
In which Sheppard Lee finds every thing black about him. Sheppard Lee | |