 | CHAPTER XIX.
MISS OHPELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CONTINUED. Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly |  |
19. CHAPTER XIX.
MISS OHPELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CONTINUED.
“Tom, you need n't get me the horses. I don't want to
go,” she said.
“Why not, Miss Eva?”
“These things sink into my heart, Tom,” said Eva,—
“they sink into my heart,” she repeated, earnestly. “I
don't want to go;” and she turned from Tom, and went into
the house.
A few days after, another woman came, in old Prue's
place, to bring the rusks; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen.
“Lor!” said Dinah, “what 's got Prue?”
“Prue is n't coming any more,” said the woman, mysteriously.
“Why not?” said Dinah. “She an't dead, is she?”
“We does n't exactly know. She 's down cellar,” said
the woman, glancing at Miss Ophelia.
After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed
the woman to the door.
“What has got Prue, any how?” she said.
The woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant, to speak, and
answered, in a low, mysterious tone.
“Well, you must n't tell nobody. Prue, she got drunk
agin, — and they had her down cellar, — and thar they left
her all day, — and I hearn 'em saying that the flies had got
to her, — and she's dead!”
Dinah 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.
“Lor bless us! Miss Eva 's gwine to faint away!
What got us all, to let her har such talk? Her pa 'll be
rail mad.”
“I shan't faint, Dinah,” said the child, firmly; “and why
should n't I hear it? It an't so much for me to hear it, as
for poor Prue to suffer it.”
“Lor sakes! it is n't for sweet, delicate young ladies, like
you, — these yer stories is n't; it 's enough to kill 'em!”
Eva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and
melancholy step.
Miss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman's story.
Dinah gave a very garrulous version of it, to which Tom
added the particulars which he had drawn from her that
morning.
“An abominable business, — perfectly horrible!” she exclaimed,
as she entered the room where St. Clare lay reading
his paper.
“Pray, what iniquity has turned up now?” said he.
“What now? why, those folks have whipped Prue to
death!” said Miss Ophelia, going on, with great strength of
detail, into the story, and enlarging on its most shocking
particulars.
“I thought it would come to that, some time,” said St.
Clare, going on with his paper.
“Thought so! — an't you going to do anything about it?”
said Miss Ophelia. “Have n't you got any selectmen, or
anybody, to interfere and look after such matters?”
“It 's commonly supposed that the property interest is a
sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their
own possessions, I don't know what 's to be done. It seems
the poor creature was a thief and a drunkard; and so there
won't be much hope to get up sympathy for her.”
“It is perfectly outrageous, — it is horrid, Augustine! It
will certainly bring down vengeance upon you.”
“My dear cousin, I did n't do it, and I can't 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 's the only resource left
us.”
“How can you shut your eyes and ears? How can you
let such things alone?”
“My dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole
class, — debased, uneducated, indolent, provoking, — put, 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 have n't even
an enlightened regard to their own interest, — for that 's 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't buy every poor wretch I see. I
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.”
St. Clare's fine countenance was for a moment overcast;
he looked annoyed, but suddenly calling up a gay smile, he
said,
“Come, cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the
Fates; you 've only seen a peep through the curtain, — a
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. 'T is
like looking too close into the details of Dinah's kitchen;”
and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself with
his paper.
Miss 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 —
“I tell you, Augustine, I can't get over things so, if you
can. It 's a perfect abomination for you to defend such a
system, — that 's my mind!”
“What now?” said St. Clare, looking up. “At it again,
hey?”
“I say it 's perfectly abominable for you to defend such a
system!” said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth.
“I defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend
it?” said St, Clare.
“Of course, you defend it, — you all do, — all you Southerners.
What do you have slaves for, if you don't?”
“Are you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in
this world ever does what they don't think is right? Don't
you, or did n't you ever, do anything that you did not think
quite right?”
“If I do, I repent of it, I hope,” said Miss Ophelia, rattling
her needles with energy.
“So do I,” said St. Clare, peeling his orange; “I 'm
repenting of it all the time.”
“What do you keep on doing it for?”
“Did n't you ever keep on doing wrong, after you 'd
repented, my good cousin?”
“Well, only when I 've been very much tempted,” said
Miss Ophelia.
“Well, I 'm very much tempted,” said St. Clare; “that's
just my difficulty.”
“But I always resolve I won't, and I try to break off.”
“Well, I have been resolving I won't, off and on, these
ten years,” said St. Clare; “but I have n't, some how, got
clear. Have you got clear of all your sins, cousin?”
“Cousin Augustine,” said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and
laying down her knitting-work, “I 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't wonder you reprove
me.”
“O, now, cousin,” said Augustine, sitting down on the
floor, and laying his head back in her lap, “don't take on so
awfully serious! You know what a good-for-nothing, saucy
boy I always was. I love to poke you up, — that 's all, —
just to see you get earnest. I do think you are desperately,
distressingly good; it tires me to death to think of it.”
“But this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste,” said
Miss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead.
“Dismally so,” said he; “and I — well, I never want
to talk seriously in hot weather. What with mosquitos and
all, a fellow can't get himself up to any very sublime moral
flights; and I believe,” said St. Clare, suddenly rousing himself
up, “there 's a theory, now! I understand now why
northern nations are always more virtuous than southern
ones, — I see into that whole subject.”
“O, Auguste, you are a sad rattle-brain!”
“Am I? Well, so I am, I suppose; but for once I will
be serious, now; but you must hand me that basket of
oranges; — you see, you 'll have to `stay me with flagons
and comfort me with apples,' if I 'm going to make this
effort. Now,” said Augustine, drawing the basket up, “I 'll
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 —”
“I don't see that you are growing more serious,” said
Miss Ophelia.
“Wait, — I 'm coming on, — you 'll hear. The short of
the matter is, cousin,” said he, his handsome face suddenly
settling into an earnest and serious expression, “on this
abstract question of slavery there can, as I think, be but one
opinion. Planters, who have money to make by it, — clergymen,
who have planters to please, — politicians, who want to
rule by it, — may 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,
respectable specimen of what he can do in his own line.”
Miss Ophelia stopped her knitting, and looked surprised;
and St. Clare, apparently enjoying her astonishment, went
on.
“You seem to wonder; but if you will get me fairly at it,
I 'll 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, — because I know how, and
can do it, — therefore, 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't 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 dryshod.
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 is. 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 abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing
itself is the essence of all abuse! And the only reason why
the land don't sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is
because it is used in a way infinitely better than it is. For
pity's sake, for shame's sake, because we are men born of
women, and not savage beasts, many of us do not, and dare
not, — we would scorn to 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.”
St. 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.
“I declare to you,” said he, suddenly stopping before his
cousin “(it 's 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, — when I have seen such men in
actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and
women, — I have been ready to curse my country, to curse
the human race!”
“Augustine! Augustine!” said Miss Ophelia, “I 'm sure
you 've said enough. I never, in my life, heard anything like
this, even at the North.”
“At the North!” said St. Clare, with a sudden change of
expression, and resuming something of his habitual careless
tone. “Pooh! your northern folks are cold-blooded; you
are cool in everything! You can't begin to curse up hill
and down as we can, when we get fairly at it.”
“Well, but the question is,” said Miss Ophelia.
“O, yes, to be sure, the question is, — and a deuce of a
question it is! How came you in this state of sin and
used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by ordinary generation.
My servants were my father's, and, what is more, my
mother's; 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, — a regular old Roman, —
upright, 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,” 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, “she was
divine! Don't look at me so! — you 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,
— a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for
in no other way than by its truth. O, mother! mother!”
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:
“My 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 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, — off and on,
and in general; — he was my father's pet, and I my mother's.
“There 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 quarrelled with Alfred, and father looked sternly
on me, I used to go off to mother's 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, — she 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, — oh, immeasurably!
— things that I had no language to say!
“In those days, this matter of slavery had never been
canvassed as it has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it.
“My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some pre
ëxistent 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.
“Now, 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's dividing line was that of color.
Among his equals, 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.
“Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he
was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man; everything
was to move by system, — to 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 `shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you 'll see that there
might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things
that looked horrible and distressing to a sensitive child, like
me.
“Besides all, he had an overseer, — a great, tall, slabsided,
two-fisted renegade son of Vermont — (begging your
pardon), — who had gone through a regular apprenticeship in
hardness and brutality, and taken his degree to be admitted
he obtained an entire ascendency over my father; and this
man was the absolute despot of the estate.
“I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that
I have now for all kinds of human things, — a 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 could n't
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.
“I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases
with him, — endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would
listen to the most pathetic appeals with the most discouraging
politeness and equanimity. `It all resolves itself into this,'
he would say; `must I part with Stubbs, or keep him?
Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency, —
a thorough business hand. and as humane as the general run.
his administration as a whole, 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.' This last maxim my father seemed to
consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. After he
had said that, 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.
“The 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 are by 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's exhortations went to the winds. As to me,
they sunk deep into me. She never contradicted, in form,
anything that 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, `See there, Auguste!
all these stars are gone forever, — will live as long as God
lives!'
“She had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of
Jesus healing a blind man. They were very fine, and used
to impress me strongly. `See there, Auguste, she would
say; `the blind man was a beggar, poor and loathsome; therefore,
he would not heal him afar off! He called him to
him, and put his hands on him! Remember this, my boy.'
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, — but, alas! alas! I
went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never saw
her again!”
St. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak
for some minutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on:
“What 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, — just that 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
over five or six hundred slaves.”
Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture,
and was laying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare
stopped her.
“Now, I know every word you are going to say. I do
not say they were alike, 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.”
“What an undutiful boy you are!” said Miss Ophelia.
“I don't mean them any disrespect,” said St. Clare.
“You know reverence is not my forte. But, to go back to
my history:
“When father died, he left the whole property to us twin
boys, to be divided as we should agree. There does not
breathe on God's 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.
“But two years' 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,
— the question of how little of life's commonest enjoyments
problem, — the necessity of drivers and overseers, — the
ever-necessary whip, first, last, and only argument, — the
whole thing was insufferably disgusting and loathsome to me;
and when I thought of my mother's estimate of one poor
human soul, it became even frightful!
“It 's all nonsense to talk to me about slaves enjoying all
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 'd buy the dog, and work him, with a
clear conscience!”
“I always have supposed,” said Miss Ophelia, “that you,
all of you, approved of these things, and thought them right,
— according to Scripture.”
“Humbug! 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; — no, he stands, high and
haughty, on that good old respectable ground, the right of
the strongest; and he says, and I think quite sensibly, that
the American planter is `only doing, in another form, what
the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the lower
classes;' that is, I take it, appropriating them, body and
bone, soul and spirit, to their use and convenience. He
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; — so I don't
believe, because I was born a democrat.”
“How in the world can the two things be compared?”
said Miss Ophelia. “The English laborer is not sold, traded,
parted from his family, whipped.”
“He 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, — the capitalist can starve him to death. As to
family security, it is hard to say which is the worst, — to
have one's children sold, or see them starve to death at
home.”
“But it 's no kind of apology for slavery, to prove that it
is n't worse than some other bad thing.”
“I did n't give it for one, — nay, I 'll say, besides, that
ours is the more bold and palpable infringement of human
rights; actually buying a man up, like a horse, — looking at
his teeth, cracking his joints, and trying his paces, and then
paying down for him, — having speculators, breeders, traders,
and brokers in human bodies and souls, — sets 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.”
“I never thought of the matter in this light,” said Miss
Ophelia.
“Well, I 've travelled in England some, and I 've 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 is n't. 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.
“When 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, there and here. Yet some striking exceptions
there are among us, from the fact that the negro is naturally
more impressible to religious sentiment than the white.”
“Well,” said Miss Ophelia, “how came you to give up
your plantation life?”
“Well, 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, — the using
brutality and vice, — just to make money for me!
“Besides, 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 could n't and would n't 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.”
“But why did n't you free your slaves?”
“Well, I was n't up to that. To hold them as tools for
money-making, I could not; — have them to help spend
money, you know, did n't 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.” He paused, and
walked reflectively up and down the room.
“There was,” said St. Clare, “a 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, — to free my native land from this
spot and stain. All young men have had such fever-fits, I
suppose, some time, — but then —”
“Why did n't you?” said Miss Ophelia; — “you ought
not to put your hand to the plough, and look back.”
“O, well, things did n't 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 drift-wood, 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, — for he really
does something; his life is a logical result of his opinions,
and mine is a contemptible non sequitur.”
“My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of
spending your probation?”
“Satisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it?
But, then, to come back to this point, — we were on this liberation
business. I don't 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 house; 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
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.”
“And what do you think will be the end of this?” said
Miss Ophelia.
“I don't know. One thing is certain, — that there is a
mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a
dies irœ coming 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, `Thy kingdom
come.' 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?”
“Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the
kingdom,” said Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and
looking anxiously at her cousin.
“Thank you for your good opinion; but it 's up and down
with me, — up to heaven's gate in theory, down in earth's
dust in practice. But there 's the tea-bell, — do let 's go, —
and don't say, now, I have n't had one downright serious talk,
for once in my life.”
At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. “I
suppose you 'll think, cousin,” she said, “that we are all
barbarians.”
“I think that 's a barbarous thing,” said Miss Ophelia,
“but I don't think you are all barbarians.”
“Well, now,” said Marie, “I know it 's impossible to get
along with some of these creatures. They are so bad they
such cases. If they 'd only behave themselves, it would not
happen.”
“But, mamma,” said Eva, “the poor creature was unhappy;
that 's what made her drink.”
“O, fiddlestick! as if that were any excuse! I 'm
unhappy, very often. I presume,” she said, pensively, “that
I 've had greater trials than ever she had. It 's just because
they are so bad. There 's 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 could n't but just go, and died in
the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for father's
hands were always treated kindly.”
“I broke a fellow in, once,” said St. Clare, “that all the
overseers and masters had tried their hands on in vain.”
“You!” said Marie; “well, I 'd be glad to know when
you ever did anything of the sort.”
“Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow, — a 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's
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
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 just 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.
“Well, 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.”
“What in the world did you do to him?” said Marie.
“Well, 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.”
“And did he go?” said Miss Ophelia.
“No. The foolish fellow tore the paper in two, and absolutely
refused to leave me. I never had a braver, better
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's loss more.”
Eva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father,
as he told the story, — her small lips apart, her eyes wide and
earnest with absorbing interest.
As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his
neck, burst into tears, and sobbed convulsively.
“Eva, dear child! what is the matter?” said St. Clare,
as the child's small frame trembled and shook with the
violence of her feelings. “This child,” he added, “ought
not to hear any of this kind of thing, — she 's nervous.”
“No, papa, I 'm not nervous,” said Eva, controlling herself,
suddenly, with a strength of resolution singular in such
a child. “I 'm not nervous, but these things sink into my
heart.”
“What do you mean, Eva?”
“I can't tell you, papa. I think a great many thoughts.
Perhaps some day I shall tell you.”
“Well, think away, dear, — only don't cry and worry your
papa,” said St. Clare. “Look here, — see what a beautiful
peach I have got for you!”
Eva took it, and smiled, though there was still a nervous
twitching about the corners of her mouth.
“Come, look at the gold-fish,” said St. Clare, taking her
hand and stepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and
Eva and St. Clare were pelting each other with roses, and
chasing each other among the alleys of the court.
There 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's 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.
The fact was, that Tom's 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'r George's 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.
“O, Uncle Tom! what funny things you are making,
there!”
“I 'm trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva,
and my little chil'en,” said Tom, drawing the back of his
hand over his eyes; “but, some how, I 'm feard I shan't make
it out.”
“I wish I could help you, Tom! I 've learnt to write
I 've forgotten.”
So Eva put her little 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.
“Yes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful,” said
Eva, gazing delightedly on it. “How pleased your wife 'll
be, and the poor little children! O, it 's a shame you ever
had to go away from them! I mean to ask papa to let you
go back, some time.”
“Missis said that she would send down money for me, as
soon as they could get it together,” said Tom. “I 'm 'spectin'
she will. Young Mas'r George, he said he 'd come for me;
and he gave me this yer dollar as a sign;” and Tom drew
from under his clothes the precious dollar.
“O, he 'll certainly come, then!” said Eva. “I 'm so
glad!”
“And I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let 'em
know whar I was, and tell poor Chloe that I was well off, —
cause she felt so drefful, poor soul!”
“I say, Tom!” said St. Clare's voice, coming in the door
at this moment.
Tom and Eva both started.
“What 's here?” said St. Clare, coming up and looking
at the slate.
“O, it 's Tom's letter. I 'm helping him to write it,”
said Eva; “is n't it nice?”
“I would n't discourage either of you,” said St. Clare,
“but I rather think, Tom, you 'd better get me to write
ride.”
“It 's very important he should write,” said Eva, “because
his mistress is going to send down money to redeem
him, you know, papa; he told me they told him so.”
St. 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, — only ordered
Tom to get the horses out for a ride.
Tom's letter was written in due form for him that evening,
and safely lodged in the post-office.
Miss 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 “curis,” — a term by which a southern
servant implies that his or her betters don't exactly suit
them.
The higher circle in the family — to wit, Adolph, Jane
and Rosa — agreed that she was no lady; ladies never kept
working about as she did; — that she had no air at 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's 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.
| CHAPTER XIX.
MISS OHPELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CONTINUED. Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly | |