University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE PRACTICAL TEST.

The hens cackled drowsily in the barnyard of
the white Marvyn-house; in the blue June-afternoon
sky sported great sailing islands of cloud,
whose white, glistening heads looked in and out
through the green apertures of maple and blossoming
apple-boughs; the shadows of the trees
had already turned eastward, when the one-horse
wagon of Mrs. Katy Scudder appeared at the
door, where Mrs. Marvyn stood, with a pleased,
quiet welcome in her soft, brown eyes. Mrs.
Scudder herself drove, sitting on a seat in front,
while the Doctor, apparelled in the most faultless
style, with white wrist-ruffles, plaited shirt-bosom,
immaculate wig, and well-brushed coat, sat by
Mary's side, serenely unconscious how many feminine
cares had gone to his getting-up. He did
not know of the privy consultations, the sewings,
stitchings, and starchings, the ironings, the brushings,
the foldings and unfoldings and timely arrangements,
that gave such dignity and respectability

to his outer man, any more than the serene
moon rising tranquilly behind a purple mountain-top
troubles her calm head with treatises on astronomy;
it is enough for her to shine, — she
thinks not how or why.

There is a vast amount of latent gratitude to
women lying undeveloped in the hearts of men,
which would come out plentifully, if they only
knew what they did for them. The Doctor was
so used to being well dressed, that he never
asked why. That his wig always sat straight
and even around his ample forehead, not facetiously
poked to one side, nor assuming rakish
airs, unsuited to clerical dignity, was entirely
owing to Mrs. Katy Scudder. That his best
broadcloth coat was not illustrated with shreds
and patches, fluff and dust, and hanging in ungainly
folds, was owing to the same. That his
long silk stockings never had a treacherous stitch
allowed to break out into a long running ladder
was due to her watchfulness; and that he wore
spotless ruffles on his wrists or at his bosom was
her doing also. The Doctor little thought, while
he, in common with good ministers generally,
gently traduced the Scriptural Martha and insisted
on the duty of heavenly abstractedness, how much
of his own leisure for spiritual contemplation was
due to the Martha-like talents of his hostess. But
then, the good soul had it in him to be grateful,

and would have been unboundedly so, if he had
known his indebtedness, — as, we trust, most of
our magnanimous masters would be.

Mr. Zebedee Marvyn was quietly sitting in the
front summer parlor, listening to the story of two
of his brother church-members, between whom some
difficulty had arisen in the settling of accounts:
Jim Bigelow, a small, dry, dapper little individual,
known as general jobber and factotum, and Abram
Griswold, a stolid, wealthy, well-to-do farmer. And
the fragments of conversation we catch are not
uninteresting, as showing Mr. Zebedee's habits of
thought and mode of treating those who came to
him for advice.

“I could 'ave got along better, if he'd 'a' paid
me regular every night,” said the squeaky voice
of little Jim; — “but he was allers puttin' me off
till it come even change, he said.”

“Well, 'ta'n't always handy,” replied the other,
“one doesn't like to break into a five-pound note
for nothing; and I like to let it run till it comes
even change.”

“But, brother,” said Mr. Zebedee, turning over
the great Bible that lay on the mahogany stand
in the corner, “we must go to the law and to
the testimony,” — and, turning over the leaves, he
read from Deuteronomy, xxiv.: —

“Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that
is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren

or of thy strangers that are in thy land within
thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his
hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for
he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he
cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto
thee.”

“You see what the Bible has to say on the
matter,” he said.

“Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you've got
me in a tight place,” said Mr. Griswold, rising;
and turning confusedly round, he saw the placid
figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room
unobserved in the midst of the conversation, and
was staring with that look of calm, dreamy abstraction
which often led people to suppose that
he heard and saw nothing of what was going forward.

All rose reverently; and while Mr. Zebedee was
shaking hands with the Doctor, and welcoming
him to his house, the other two silently withdrew,
making respectful obeisance.

Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary's hand gently
under her arm and taken her to her own sleeping-room,
as it was her general habit to do, that she
might show her the last book she had been reading,
and pour into her ear the thoughts that had
been kindled up by it.

Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck
of dust from the Doctor's coat and seeing him

seated in an arm-chair by the open window, took
out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she
was knitting for his winter wear, and, pinning her
knitting-sheath on her side, was soon trotting her
needles contentedly in front of him.

The ill-success of the Doctor's morning attempt at
enforcing his theology in practice rather depressed
his spirits. There was a noble innocence of nature
in him which looked at hypocrisy with a puzzled
and incredulous astonishment. How a man could
do so and be so was to him a problem at which
his thoughts vainly labored. Not that he was in
the least discouraged or hesitating in regard to
his own course. When he had made up his
mind to perform a duty, the question of success
no more entered his thoughts than those of the
granite boulder to which we have before compared
him. When the time came for him to roll,
he did roll with the whole force of his being; —
where he was to land was not his concern.

Mildly and placidly he sat with his hands resting
on his knees, while Mr. Zebedee and Mrs. Scudder
compared notes respecting the relative prospects
of corn, flax, and buckwheat, and thence passed to
the doings of Congress and the last proclamation
of General Washington, pausing once in a while, if,
peradventure, the Doctor might take up the conversation.
Still he sat dreamily eyeing the flies as they
fizzed down the panes of the half-open window.

“I think,” said Mr. Zebedee, “the prospects of
the Federal party were never brighter.”

The Doctor was a stanch Federalist, and generally
warmed to this allurement; but it did not
serve this time.

Suddenly drawing himself up, a light came into
his blue eyes, and he said to Mr. Marvyn, —

“I'm thinking, Deacon, if it is wrong to keep
back the wages of a servant till after the going
down of the sun, what those are to do who keep
them back all their lives.”

There was a way the Doctor had of hearing and
seeing when he looked as if his soul were afar
off, and bringing suddenly into present conversation
some fragment of the past on which he had
been leisurely hammering in the quiet chambers of
his brain, which was sometimes quite startling.

This allusion to a passage of Scripture which
Mr. Marvyn was reading when he came in, and
which nobody supposed he had attended to, startled
Mrs. Scudder, who thought, mentally, “Now
for it!” and laid down her knitting-work, and
eyed her cousin anxiously. Mrs. Marvyn and
Mary, who had glided in and joined the circle,
looked interested; and a slight flush rose and
overspread the thin cheeks of Mr. Marvyn, and his
blue eyes deepened in a moment with a thoughtful
shadow, as he looked inquiringly at the Doctor,
who proceeded: —

“My mind labors with this subject of the enslaving
of the Africans, Mr. Marvyn. We have
just been declaring to the world that all men are
born with an inalienable right to liberty. We
have fought for it, and the Lord of Hosts has
been with us; and can we stand before Him
with our foot upon our brother's neck?”

A generous, upright nature is always more sensitive
to blame than another, — sensitive in proportion
to the amount of its reverence for good,
— and Mr. Marvyn's face flushed, his eye kindled,
and his compressed respiration showed how deeply
the subject moved him. Mrs. Marvyn's eyes turned
on him an anxious look of inquiry. He answered,
however, calmly: —

“Doctor, I have thought of the subject myself.
Mrs. Marvyn has lately been reading a pamphlet
of Mr. Thomas Clarkson's on the slave-trade, and
she was saying to me only last night, that she
did not see but the argument extended equally to
holding slaves. One thing, I confess, stumbles
me: — Was there not an express permission given
to Israel to buy and hold slaves of old?”

“Doubtless,” said the Doctor; “but many permissions
were given to them which were local
and temporary; for if we hold them to apply to
the human race, the Turks might quote the Bible
for making slaves of us, if they could, — and the
Algerines have the Scripture all on their side, —

and our own blacks, at some future time, if they
can get the power, might justify themselves in
making slaves of us.”

“I assure you, Sir,” said Mr. Marvyn, “if I
speak, it is not to excuse myself. But I am
quite sure my servants do not desire liberty, and
would not take it, if it were offered.”

“Call them in and try it,” said the Doctor.
“If they refuse, it is their own matter.”

There was a gentle movement in the group at
the directness of this personal application; but
Mr. Marvyn replied, calmly, —

“Cato is up at the eight-acre lot, but you may
call in Candace. My dear, call Candace, and let
the Doctor put the question to her.”

Candace was at this moment sitting before the
ample fireplace in the kitchen, with two iron kettles
before her, nestled each in its bed of hickory
coals, which gleamed out from their white ashes
like sleepy, red eyes, opening and shutting. In
one was coffee, which she was burning, stirring
vigorously with a pudding-stick, — and in the other,
puffy doughnuts, in shapes of rings, hearts, and
marvellous twists, which Candace had such a special
proclivity for making, that Mrs. Marvyn's
table and closets never knew an intermission of
their presence.

“Candace, the Doctor wishes to see you,” said
Mrs. Marvyn.

“Bress his heart!” said Candace, looking up,
perplexed. “Wants to see me, does he? Can't
nobody hab me till dis yer coffee's done; a minnit's
a minnit in coffee; — but I'll be in dereckly,”
she added, in a patronizing tone. “Missis, you
jes' go 'long in, an' I'll be dar dereckly.”

A few moments after, Candace joined the group
in the sitting-room, having hastily tied a clean,
white apron over her blue linsey working-dress,
and donned the brilliant Madras which James had
lately given her, and which she had a barbaric
fashion of arranging so as to give to her head
the air of a gigantic butterfly. She sunk a dutiful
curtsy, and stood twirling her thumbs, while
the Doctor surveyed her gravely.

“Candace,” said he, “do you think it right that
the black race should be slaves to the white?”

The face and air of Candace presented a curious
picture at this moment; a sort of rude sense
of delicacy embarrassed her, and she turned a
deprecating look, first on Mrs. Marvyn and then
on her master.

“Don't mind us, Candace,” said Mrs. Marvyn;
“tell the Doctor the exact truth.”

Candace stood still a moment, and the spectators
saw a deeper shadow roll over her sable face,
like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and her
immense person heaved with her labored breathing.

“Ef I must speak, I must,” she said. “No, —

I neber did tink 'twas right. When Gineral
Washington was here, I hearn 'em read de Declaration
ob Independence and Bill o' Rights; an' I
tole Cato den, says I, `Ef dat ar' true, you an' I
are as free as anybody.' It stands to reason.
Why, look at me, — I a'n't a critter. I's neider
huffs nor horns. I's a reasonable bein', — a woman,
— as much a woman as anybody,” she said, holding
up her head with an air as majestic as a
palm-tree; — “an' Cato, — he's a man, born free
an' equal, ef dar's any truth in what you read, —
dat's all.”

“But, Candace, you've always been contented
and happy with us, have you not?” said Mr.
Marvyn.

“Yes, Mass'r, — I ha'n't got nuffin to complain
ob in dat matter. I couldn't hab no better friends
'n you an' Missis.”

“Would you like your liberty, if you could get
it, though?” said Mr. Marvyn. “Answer me honestly.”

“Why, to be sure I should! Who wouldn't?
Mind ye,” she said, earnestly raising her black,
heavy hand, “'ta'n't dat I want to go off, or want
to shirk work; but I want to feel free. Dem dat
isn't free has nuffin to gib to nobody; — dey can't
show what dey would do.”

“Well, Candace, from this day you are free,”
said Mr. Marvyn, solemnly.

Candace covered her face with both her fat
hands, and shook and trembled, and, finally, throwing
her apron over her head, made a desperate
rush for the door, and threw herself down in the
kitchen in a perfect tropical torrent of tears and
sobs.

“You see,” said the Doctor, “what freedom is
to every human creature. The blessing of the
Lord will be on this deed, Mr. Marvyn. `The
steps of a just man are ordered by the Lord, and
he delighteth in his way.'”

At this moment, Candace reappeared at the
door, her butterfly turban somewhat deranged with
the violence of her prostration, giving a whimsical
air to her portly person.

“I want ye all to know,” she said, with a clearing-up
snuff, “dat it's my will an' pleasure to go
right on doin' my work jes' de same; an', Missis,
please, I'll allers put three eggs in de crullers,
now; an' I won't turn de wash-basin down in de
sink, but hang it jam-up on de nail; an' I won't
pick up chips in a milk-pan, ef I'm in ever so big
a hurry; — I'll do eberyting jes' as ye tells me.
Now you try me an' see ef I won't!”

Candace here alluded to some of the little private
wilfulnesses which she had always obstinately cherished
as reserved rights, in pursuing domestic matters
with her mistress.

“I intend,” said Mr. Marvyn, “to make the

same offer to your husband, when he returns from
work to-night.”

“Laus, Mass'r, — why, Cato he'll do jes' as I
do, — dere a'n't no kind o' need o' askin' him.
'Course he will.”

A smile passed round the circle, because between
Candace and her husband there existed one
of those whimsical contrasts which one sometimes
sees in married life. Cato was a small-built, thin,
softly-spoken negro, addicted to a gentle chronic
cough; and, though a faithful and skilful servant,
seemed, in relation to his better half, much like a
hill of potatoes under a spreading apple-tree. Candace
held to him with a vehement and patronizing
fondness, so devoid of conjugal reverence as to
excite the comments of her friends.

“You must remember, Candace,” said a good
deacon to her one day, when she was ordering
him about at a catechizing, “you ought to give
honor to your husband; the wife is the weaker
vessel.”

“I de weaker vessel?” said Candace, looking
down from the tower of her ample corpulence on
the small, quiet man whom she had been fledging
with the ample folds of a worsted comforter, out
of which his little head and shining bead-eyes
looked, much like a blackbird in a nest, — “I de
weaker vessel? Umph!”

A whole woman's-rights' convention could not

have expressed more in a day than was given in
that single look and word. Candace considered a
husband as a thing to be taken care of, — a rather
inconsequent and somewhat troublesome species
of pet, to be humored, nursed, fed, clothed, and
guided in the way that he was to go, — an animal
that was always losing off buttons, catching
colds, wearing his best coat every day, and getting
on his Sunday hat in a surreptitious manner for
week-day occasions; but she often condescended to
express it as her opinion that he was a blessing,
and that she didn't know what she should do, if
it wasn't for Cato. In fact, he seemed to supply
her that which we are told is the great want in
woman's situation, — an object in life. She sometimes
was heard expressing herself very energetically
in disapprobation of the conduct of one of
her sable friends, named Jinny Stiles, who, after
being presented with her own freedom, worked
several years to buy that of her husband, but became
afterwards so disgusted with her acquisition
that she declared she would “neber buy anoder
nigger.”

“Now Jinny don't know what she's talkin' about,”
she would say. “S'pose he does cough and keep
her awake nights, and take a little too much
sometimes, a'n't he better'n no husband at all?
A body wouldn't seem to hab nuffin to lib for, ef
dev hadn't an ole man to look arter. Men is

nate'lly foolish about some tings, — but dey's good
deal better'n nuffin.”

And Candace, after this condescending remark,
would lift off with one hand a brass kettle in
which poor Cato might have been drowned, and
fly across the kitchen with it as if it were a
feather.