University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
AN EVENING IN UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.

The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close
adjoining to “the house,” as the negro par excellence designates
his master's dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch,
where, every summer, strawberries, raspberries, and a
variety of fruits and vegetables, flourished under careful tending.
The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet
bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and
interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be
seen. Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such
as marigolds, petunias, four-o'clocks, found an indulgent
corner in which to unfold their splendors, and were the delight
and pride of Aunt Chole's heart.

Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house
is over, and Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as
head cook, has left to inferior officers in the kitchen the
business of clearing away and washing dishes, and come
out into her own snug territories, to “get her ole man's

supper;” therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the
fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling
items in a stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting
the cover of a bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable
intimations of “something good.” A round, black,
shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she
might have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of
her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams
with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched
checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it,
a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the
first cook of the neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally
held and acknowledged to be.

A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of
her soul. Not a chicken or turkey or duck in the barn-yard
but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed
evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it
was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and
roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in
any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its varieties
of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous
to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders;
and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride
and merriment, as she would narrate the fruitless efforts that
one and another of her compeers had made to attain to her
elevation.

The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of
dinners and suppers “in style,” awoke all the energies of her
soul; and no sight was more welcome to her than a pile of
travelling trunks launched on the verandah, for then she
foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.

Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the

bake-pan; in which congenial operation we shall leave her till
we finish our picture of the cottage.

In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy
spread; and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting, of
some considerable size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt
Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in the upper walks
of life; and it and the bed by which it lay, and the whole
corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished consideration,
and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding
inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner
was the drawing-room of the establishment. In the other
corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently
designed for use. The wall over the fireplace was adorned
with some very brilliant scriptural prints, and a portrait of
General Washington, drawn and colored in a manner which
would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he had
happened to meet with its like.

On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed
boys, with glistening black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were
busy in superintending the first walking operations of the
baby, which, as is usually the case, consisted in getting up on
its feet, balancing a moment, and then tumbling down, — each
successive failure being violently cheered, as something decidedly
clever.

A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out
in front of the fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups
and saucers of a decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms
of an approaching meal. At this table was seated
Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby's best hand, who, as he is to be the
hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our readers.
He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a
full glossy black, and a face whose truly African features

were characterized by an expression of grave and steady good
sense, united with much kindliness and benevolence. There
was something about his whole air self-respecting and dignified,
yet united with a confiding and humble simplicity.

He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying
before him, on which he was carefully and slowly endeavoring
to accomplish a copy of some letters, in which operation he
was overlooked by young Mas'r George, a smart, bright boy
of thirteen, who appeared fully to realize the dignity of his
position as instructor.

“Not that way, Uncle Tom, — not that way,” said he,
briskly, as Uncle Tom laboriously brought up the tail of his g
the wrong side out; “that makes a q, you see.”

“La sakes, now, does it?” said Uncle Tom, looking with
a respectful, admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly
scrawled q's and g's innumerable for his edification; and
then, taking the pencil in his big, heavy fingers, he patiently
re-commenced.

“How easy white folks al'us does things!” said Aunt
Chloe, pausing while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap
of bacon on her fork, and regarding young Master George
with pride. “The way he can write, now! and read, too!
and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons to
us, — it 's mighty interestin'!”

“But, Aunt Chloe, I 'm getting mighty hungry,” said
George. “Is n't that cake in the skillet almost done?”

“Mose done, Mas'r George,” said Aunt Chloe, lifting the
lid and peeping in, — “browning beautiful — a real lovely
brown. Ah! let me alone for dat. Missis let Sally try to
make some cake, t'other day, jes to larn her, she said. `O,
go way, Missis,' says I; `it really hurts my feelin's, now, to

see good vittles spilt dat ar way! Cake ris all to one side —
no shape at all; no more than my shoe; — go way!”

And with this final expression of contempt for Sally's
greenness, Aunt Chloe whipped the cover off the bake-kettle,
and disclosed to view a neatly-baked pound-cake, of which no
city confectioner need to have been ashamed. This being
evidently the central point of the entertainment, Aunt Chloe
began now to bustle about earnestly in the supper department.

“Here you, Mose and Pete! get out de way, you niggers!
Get away, Mericky, honey,—mammy 'll give her baby some fin,
by and by. Now, Mas'r George, you jest take off dem books,
and set down now with my old man, and I 'll take up de
sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your plates
in less dan no time.”

“They wanted me to come to supper in the house,” said
George; “but I knew what was what too well for that, Aunt
Chloe.”

“So you did — so you did, honey,” said Aunt Chloe,
heaping the smoking batter-cakes on his plate; “you know'd
your old aunty 'd keep the best for you. O, let you alone
for dat! Go way!” And, with that, aunty gave George a
nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious,
and turned again to her griddle with great briskness.

“Now for the cake,” said Mas'r George, when the activity
of the griddle department had somewhat subsided; and, with
that, the youngster flourished a large knife over the article in
question.

“La bless you, Mas'r George!” said Aunt Chloe, with
earnestness, catching his arm, “you would n't be for cuttin' it
wid dat ar great heavy knife! Smash all down — spile all de
pretty rise of it. Here, I 've got a thin old knife, I keeps

sharp a purpose. Dar now, see! comes apart light as a feather!
Now eat away — you won't get anything to beat dat ar.”

“Tom Lincon says,” said George, speaking with his mouth
full, “that their Jinny is a better cook than you.”

“Dem Lincons an't much count, no way!” said Aunt
Chloe, contemptuously; “I mean, set along side our folks.
They 's 'spectable folks enough in a kinder plain way; but, as to
gettin' up anything in style, they don't begin to have a notion
on 't. Set Mas'r Lincon, now, alongside Mas'r Shelby!
Good Lor! and Missis Lincon, — can she kinder sweep it into
a room like my missis, — so kinder splendid, yer know! O,
go way! don't tell me nothin' of dem Lincons!” — and Aunt
Chloe tossed her head as one who hoped she did know something
of the world.

“Well, though, I 've heard you say,” said George, “that
Jinny was a pretty fair cook.”

“So I did,” said Aunt Chloe, — “I may say dat. Good,
plain, common cookin', Jinny 'll do; — make a good pone o'
bread, — bile her taters far, — her corn cakes is n't extra, not
extra now, Jinny's corn cakes is n't, but then they 's far, —
but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and what can she do?
Why, she makes pies — sartin she does; but what kinder
crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your
mouth, and lies all up like a puff? Now, I went over thar
when Miss Mary was gwine to be married, and Jinny she
jest showed me de weddin' pies. Jinny and I is good friends,
ye know. I never said nothin'; but go long, Mas'r George!
Why, I should n't sleep a wink for a week, if I had a batch
of pies like dem ar. Why, dey wan't no 'count 't all.”

“I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice,” said
George.

“Thought so! — did n't she? Thar she was, showing 'em,

as innocent — ye see, it 's jest here, Jinny don't know. Lor,
the family an't nothing! She can't be spected to know!
'Ta'nt no fault o' hern. Ah, Mas'r George, you does n't
know half your privileges in yer family and bringin' up!”
Here Aunt Chloe sighed, and rolled up her eyes with
emotion.

“I 'm sure, Aunt Chloe, I understand all my pie and pudding
privileges,” said George. “Ask Tom Lincon if I don't
crow over him, every time I meet him.”

Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a hearty
guffaw of laughter, at this witticism of young Mas'r's,
laughing till the tears rolled down her black, shining cheeks,
and varying the exercise with playfully slapping and poking
Mas'r Georgey, and telling him to go way, and that he was
a case — that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin would
kill her, one of these days; and, between each of these sanguinary
predictions, going off into a laugh, each longer and
stronger than the other, till George really began to think that
he was a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it became
him to be careful how he talked “as funny as he could.”

“And so ye telled Tom, did ye? O, Lor! what young
uns will be up ter! Ye crowed over Tom? O, Lor! Mas'r
George, if ye would n't make a hornbug laugh!”

“Yes,” said George, “I says to him, `Tom, you ought to
see some of Aunt Chloe's pies; they 're the right sort,'
says I.”

“Pity, now, Tom could n't,” said Aunt Chloe, on whose
benevolent heart the idea of Tom's benighted condition seemed
to make a strong impression. “Ye oughter just ask him here
to dinner, some o' these times, Mas'r George,” she added;
“it would look quite pretty of ye. Ye know, Mas'r George,
ye oughtenter feel 'bove nobody, on 'count yer privileges, 'cause

all our privileges is gi'n to us; we ought al'ays to 'member
that,” said Aunt Chloe, looking quite serious.

“Well, I mean to ask Tom here, some day next week,” said
George; “and you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and we 'll
make him stare. Won't we make him eat so he won't get
over it for a fortnight?”

“Yes, yes — sartin,” said Aunt Chloe, delighted; “you 'll
see. Lor! to think of some of our dinners! Yer mind dat
ar great chicken pie I made when we guv de dinner to General
Knox? I and Missis, we come pretty near quarrelling about
dat ar crust. What does get into ladies sometimes, I don't
know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest kind o'
'sponsibility on 'em, as ye may say, and is all kinder `seris'
and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin' round and
kinder interferin'! Now, Missis, she wanted me to do dis
way, and she wanted me to do dat way; and, finally, I got
kinder sarcy, and, says I, `Now, Missis, do jist look at dem
beautiful white hands o' yourn, with long fingers, and all a
sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when de dew 's on
'em; and look at my great black stumpin hands. Now, don't ye
think dat de Lord must have meant me to make de pie-crust,
and you to stay in de parlor? Dar! I was jist so sarcy,
Mas'r George.”

“And what did mother say?” said George.

“Say? — why, she kinder larfed in her eyes — dem great
handsome eyes o' hern; and, says she, `Well, Aunt Chloe, I
think you are about in the right on 't,' says she; and she
went off in de parlor. She oughter cracked me over de head
for bein' so sarcy; but dar 's whar 't is — I can't do nothin'
with ladies in de kitchen!”

“Well, you made out well with that dinner, — I remember
everybody said so,” said George.

“Did n't I? And wan't I behind de dinin'-room door dat
bery day? and did n't I see de General pass his plate three
times for some more dat bery pie? — and, says he, `You must
have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.' Lor! I was fit to
split myself.

“And de Gineral, he knows what cookin' is,” said Aunt
Chloe, drawing herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de
Gineral! He comes of one of de bery fustest families in Old
Virginny! He knows what 's what, now, as well as I do —
de Gineral. Ye see, there 's pints in all pies, Mas'r George;
but tan't everybody knows what they is, or as orter be. But
the Gineral, he knows; I knew by his 'marks he made. Yes,
he knows what de pints is!”

By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to
which even a boy can come (under uncommon circumstances,
when he really could not eat another morsel), and, therefore,
he was at leisure to notice the pile of woolly heads and glistening
eyes which were regarding their operations hungrily
from the opposite corner.

“Here, you Mose, Pete,” he said, breaking off liberal bits,
and throwing it at them; “you want some, don't you?
Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some cakes.”

And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the
chimney-corner, while Aunt Chloe, after baking a goodly pile
of cakes, took her baby on her lap, and began alternately filling
its mouth and her own, and distributing to Mose and Pete,
who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs as they rolled about
on the floor under the table, tickling each other, and occasionally
pulling the baby's toes.

“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and
then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when
the movement became too obstreperous. “Can't ye be decent

when white folks comes to see ye? Stop dat ar, now, will ye?
Better mind yerselves, or I 'll take ye down a button-hole
lower, when Mas'r George is gone!”

What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is
difficult to say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness
seemed to produce very little impression on the young sinners
addressed.

“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle
all the while, they can't behave theirselves.”

Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with
hands and faces well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous
kissing of the baby.

“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their
woolly heads. “Ye 'll all stick together, and never get clar,
if ye do dat fashion. Go long to de spring and wash yerselves!”
she said, seconding her exhortations by a slap, which
resounded very formidably, but which seemed only to knock
out so much more laugh from the young ones, as they tumbled
precipitately over each other out of doors, where they fairly
screamed with merriment.

“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said
Aunt Chloe, rather complacently, as, producing an old towel,
kept for such emergencies, she poured a little water out of
the cracked tea-pot on it, and began rubbing off the molasses
from the baby's face and hands; and, having polished her till
she shone, she set her down in Tom's lap, while she busied
herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the
intervals in pulling Tom's nose, scratching his face, and burying
her fat hands in his woolly hair, which last operation
seemed to afford her special content.

“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from
him to take a full-length view; then, getting up, he set her

on his broad shoulder, and began capering and dancing with
her, while Mas'r George snapped at her with his pocket-handkerchief,
and Mose and Pete, now returned again, roared
after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they “fairly
took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her
own statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily
occurrence in the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the
merriment, till every one had roared and tumbled and danced
themselves down to a state of composure.

“Well, now, I hopes you 're done,” said Aunt Chloe, who
had been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed;
“and now, you Mose and you Pete, get into thar; for we 's
goin' to have the meetin'.”

“O mother, we don't wanter. We wants to sit up to
meetin', — meetin's is so curis. We likes 'em.”

“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let 'em sit up,”
said Mas'r George, decisively, giving a push to the rude
machine.

Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly
delighted to push the thing under, saying, as she did so,
“Well, mebbe 't will do 'em some good.”

The house now resolved itself into a committee of the
whole, to consider the accommodations and arrangements for
the meeting.

“What we 's to do for cheers, now, I declar I don't know,”
said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle
Tom's, weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any
more “cheers,” there seemed some encouragement to hope
that a way would be discovered at present.

“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest
cheer, last week,” suggested Mose.

“You go long! I 'll boun' you pulled 'em out; some o'
your shines,” said Aunt Chloe.

“Well, it 'll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!”
said Mose.

“Den Uncle Peter mus'n't sit in it, cause he al'ays hitches
when he gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de
room, t' other night,” said Pete.

“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den
he 'd begin, `Come saints and sinners, hear me tell,' and den
down he 'd go,” — and Mose imitated precisely the nasal
tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor, to illustrate the
supposed catastrophe.

“Come now, be decent, can't ye?” said Aunt Chloe;
“an't yer shamed?”

Mas'r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh,
and declared decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the
maternal admonition seemed rather to fail of effect.

“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you 'll have to tote
in them ar bar'ls.”

“Mother's bar'ls is like dat ar widder's, Mas'r George
was reading 'bout, in de good book, — dey never fails,” said
Mose, aside to Pete.

“I 'm sure one on 'em caved in last week,” said Pete,
“and let 'em all down in de middle of de singin'; dat ar was
failin', warnt it?”

During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks
had been rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling,
by stones on each side, boards were laid across them, which
arrangement, together with the turning down of certain tubs
and pails, and the disposing of the rickety chairs, at last
completed the preparation.

“Mas'r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know

he 'll stay to read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “'pears like
't will be so much more interestin'.”

George very readily consented, for your boy is always
ready for anything that makes him of importance.

The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from
the old gray-headed patriarch of eighty, to the young girl
and lad of fifteen. A little harmless gossip ensued on various
themes, such as where old Aunt Sally got her new red head-kerchief,
and how “Missis was a going to give Lizzy that
spotted muslin gown, when she 'd got her new berage made
up;” and how Mas'r Shelby was thinking of buying a new
sorel colt, that was going to prove an addition to the glories
of the place. A few of the worshippers belonged to families
hard by, who had got permission to attend, and who brought
in various choice scraps of information, about the sayings and
doings at the house and on the place, which circulated as
freely as the same sort of small change does in higher
circles.

After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight
of all present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation
could prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in
airs at once wild and spirited. The words were sometimes
the well-known and common hymns sung in the churches
about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite character,
picked up at camp-meetings.

The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung
with great energy and unction:

Another special favorite had oft repeated the words —

There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan's
banks,” and “Canaan's fields,” and the “New Jerusalem;”
for the negro mind, impassioned and imaginative,
always attaches itself to hymns and expressions of a vivid and
pictorial nature; and, as they sung, some laughed, and some
cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands rejoicingly
with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other side
of the river.

Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed,
and intermingled with the singing. One old gray-headed
woman, long past work, but much revered as a sort of chronicle
of the past, rose, and leaning on her staff, said —

“Well, chil'en! Well, I 'm mighty glad to hear ye all
and see ye all once more, 'cause I don't know when I 'll be
gone to glory; but I 've done got ready, chil'en; 'pears like
I 'd got my little bundle all tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a
waitin' for the stage to come along and take me home; sometimes,
in the night, I think I hear the wheels a rattlin', and
I 'm lookin' out all the time; now, you jest be ready too, for
I tell ye all, chil'en,” she said, striking her staff hard on the
floor, “dat ar glory is a mighty thing! It 's a mighty thing,
chil'en, — you don'no nothing about it, — it 's wonderful.”
And the old creature sat down, with streaming tears, as
wholly overcome, while the whole circle struck up —

Mas'r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation,
often interrupted by such exclamations as “The sakes

now!” “Only hear that!” “Jest think on 't!” “Is
all that a comin' sure enough?”

George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious
things by his mother, finding himself an object of general
admiration, threw in expositions of his own, from time to
time, with a commendable seriousness and gravity, for which
he was admired by the young and blessed by the old; and
it was agreed, on all hands, that “a minister could n't lay it
off better than he did;” that “'t was reely 'mazin'!”

Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in
the neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in
which the morale was strongly predominant, together with a
greater breadth and cultivation of mind than obtained among
his companions, he was looked up to with great respect, as a
sort of minister among them; and the simple, hearty, sincere
style of his exhortations might have edified even better educated
persons. But it was in prayer that he especially
excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the
child-like earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the language
of Scripture, which seemed so entirely to have wrought
itself into his being, as to have become a part of himself, and
to drop from his lips unconsciously; in the language of a
pious old negro, he “prayed right up.” And so much did
his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of his
audiences, that there seemed often a danger that it would be
lost altogether in the abundance of the responses which broke
out everywhere around him.

While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one
quite otherwise passed in the halls of the master.

The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the

dining room afore-named, at a table covered with papers and
writing utensils.

Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills,
which, as they were counted, he pushed over to the trader,
who counted them likewise.

“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these
yer.”

Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and
signed them, like a man that hurries over some disagreeable
business, and then pushed them over with the money. Haley
produced, from a well-worn valise, a parchment, which, after
looking over it a moment, he handed to Mr. Shelby, who took
it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness.

“Wal, now, the thing 's done!” said the trader, getting
up.

“It 's done!” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and,
fetching a long breath, he repeated, “It 's done!”

“Yer don't seem to feel much pleased with it, 'pears to
me,” said the trader.

“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you 'll remember that
you promised, on your honor, you would n't sell Tom, without
knowing what sort of hands he 's going into.”

“Why, you 've just done it, sir,” said the trader.

“Circumstances, you well know, obliged me,” said Shelby,
haughtily.

“Wal, you know, they may 'blige me, too,” said the
trader. “Howsomever, I 'll do the very best I can in gettin'
Tom a good berth; as to my treatin' on him bad, you need n't
be a grain afeard. If there 's anything that I thank the
Lord for, it is that I 'm never noways cruel.”

After the expositions which the trader had previously
given of his humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly

reässured by these declarations; but, as they were
the best comfort the case admitted of, he allowed the trader
to depart in silence, and betook himself to a solitary cigar.