Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 1 of 2

"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 dry-shod.
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 misery?
Well, I shall answer in the good old words you 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 active and
observing, I dreamy and inactive. 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 quarreled 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
preexistent 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,--great, tall, slab-sided,
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 to practice. My mother never
could endure him, nor I; but 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 couldn'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. We can't have perfection; and
if I keep him, I must sustain 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 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! the poorest,
meanest soul on our place will be living, when 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 the 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 the heart an aristocrat, as
much as my father, who ruled 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 would keep them in working
order being a constantly recurring 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 mothcr'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 defends both,--and I think, at least, _consistently_. He says
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
isn't worse than some other bad thing."

"I didn'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 isn'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 these men and women, the
perpetuation of all this ignorance, 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 couldn't
and wouldn'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 didn't you free your slaves?"

"Well, I wasn't up to that. To hold them as tools for money-making,
I could not;--have them to help spend money, you know, didn'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 didn't you?" said Miss Ophelia;--"you ought not to
put your hand to the plough, and look back."

"O, well, things didn'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 driftwood, 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 homes; 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 general
educational system, and they do it wisely, too; for, 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
irae_ 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 teabell,--do let's go,--and don't say, now, I
haven'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 ought
not to live. I don't feel a particle of sympathy for 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 couldn'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 man; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught
him, I should 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 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 fellow,--trusty
and true as steel. He embraced Christianity 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
twiching 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 merry
laughs were heard through the silken curtains, as 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 some.
Last year I could make all the letters, but I'm afraid I've
forgotten."

So Eva put her 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; "isn't it nice?"

"I wouldn't discourage either of you," said St. Clare,
"but I rather think, Tom, you'd better get me to write your letter
for you. I'll do it, when I come home from my 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 keep 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 XX

Topsy

One morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her
domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard, calling
her at the foot of the stairs.

"Come down here, Cousin, I've something to show you."

"What is it?" said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her
sewing in her hand.

"I've made a purchase for your department,--see here," said
St. Clare; and, with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl,
about eight or nine years of age.

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round
shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and
restless glances over everything in the room. Her mouth, half open
with astonishment at the wonders of the new Mas'r's parlor, displayed
a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided
in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction. The
expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning,
over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression of
the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was dressed in a single
filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; and stood with her hands
demurely folded before her. Altogether, there was something odd
and goblin-like about her appearance,--something, as Miss Ophelia
afterwards said, "so heathenish," as to inspire that good lady with
utter dismay; and turning to St. Clare, she said,

"Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing
here for?"

"For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she
should go. I thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim
Crow line. Here, Topsy," he added, giving a whistle, as a man
would to call the attention of a dog, "give us a song, now, and
show us some of your dancing."

The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked
drollery, and the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd
negro melody, to which she kept time with her hands and feet,
spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her knees together,
in a wild, fantastic sort of time, and producing in her throat all
those odd guttural sounds which distinguish the native music of
her race; and finally, turning a summerset or two, and giving a
prolonged closing note, as odd and unearthly as that of a steam-whistle,
she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with her hands
folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and solemnity
over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she shot
askance from the corners of her eyes.

Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement.
St. Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared to enjoy
her astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said,

"Topsy, this is your new mistress. I'm going to give you
up to her; see now that you behave yourself."

"Yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her
wicked eyes twinkling as she spoke.

"You're going to be good, Topsy, you understand," said St. Clare.

"O yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands
still devoutly folded.

"Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?" said Miss Ophelia.
"Your house is so full of these little plagues, now, that
a body can't set down their foot without treading on 'em. I get
up in the morning, and find one asleep behind the door, and see
one black head poking out from under the table, one lying on the
door-mat,--and they are mopping and mowing and grinning between
all the railings, and tumbling over the kitchen floor! What on
earth did you want to bring this one for?"

"For you to educate--didn't I tell you? You're always
preaching about educating. I thought I would make you a present
of a fresh-caught specimen, and let you try your hand on her, and
bring her up in the way she should go."

"_I_ don't want her, I am sure;--I have more to do with
'em now than I want to."

"That's you Christians, all over!--you'll get up a society,
and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such
heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into your
house with you, and take the labor of their conversion on yourselves!
No; when it comes to that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and
it's too much care, and so on."

"Augustine, you know I didn't think of it in that light,"
said Miss Ophelia, evidently softening. "Well, it might be a real
missionary work," said she, looking rather more favorably on the
child.

St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia's
conscientiousness was ever on the alert. "But," she added, "I
really didn't see the need of buying this one;--there are enough
now, in your house, to take all my time and skill."

"Well, then, Cousin," said St. Clare, drawing her aside,
"I ought to beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing speeches.
You are so good, after all, that there's no sense in them.
Why, the fact is, this concern belonged to a couple of drunken
creatures that keep a low restaurant that I have to pass by every
day, and I was tired of hearing her screaming, and them beating
and swearing at her. She looked bright and funny, too, as if
something might be made of her;--so I bought her, and I'll give
her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New England
bringing up, and see what it'll make of her. You know I haven't
any gift that way; but I'd like you to try."

"Well, I'll do what I can," said Miss Ophelia; and she
approached her new subject very much as a person might be supposed
to approach a black spider, supposing them to have benevolent
designs toward it.

"She's dreadfully dirty, and half naked," she said.

"Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them clean
and clothe her up."

Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions.

"Don't see what Mas'r St. Clare wants of 'nother nigger!"
said Dinah, surveying the new arrival with no friendly air.
"Won't have her around under _my_ feet, _I_ know!"

"Pah!" said Rosa and Jane, with supreme disgust; "let her
keep out of our way! What in the world Mas'r wanted another of
these low niggers for, I can't see!"

"You go long! No more nigger dan you be, Miss Rosa," said
Dinah, who felt this last remark a reflection on herself.
"You seem to tink yourself white folks. You an't nerry one,
black _nor_ white, I'd like to be one or turrer."

Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp that would
undertake to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new
arrival; and so she was forced to do it herself, with some very
ungracious and reluctant assistance from Jane.

It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the
first toilet of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this
world, multitudes must live and die in a state that it would be
too great a shock to the nerves of their fellow-mortals even to
hear described. Miss Ophelia had a good, strong, practical deal
of resolution; and she went through all the disgusting details with
heroic thoroughness, though, it must be confessed, with no very
gracious air,--for endurance was the utmost to which her principles
could bring her. When she saw, on the back and shoulders of the
child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable marks of the
system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart became
pitiful within her.

"See there!" said Jane, pointing to the marks, "don't that
show she's a limb? We'll have fine works with her, I reckon.
I hate these nigger young uns! so disgusting! I wonder that Mas'r
would buy her!"

The "young un" alluded to heard all these comments with the
subdued and doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only
scanning, with a keen and furtive glance of her flickering eyes,
the ornaments which Jane wore in her ears. When arrayed at last
in a suit of decent and whole clothing, her hair cropped short to
her head, Miss Ophelia, with some satisfaction, said she looked
more Christian-like than she did, and in her own mind began to
mature some plans for her instruction.

Sitting down before her, she began to question her.

"How old are you, Topsy?"

"Dun no, Missis," said the image, with a grin that showed
all her teeth.

"Don't know how old you are? Didn't anybody ever tell you?
Who was your mother?"

"Never had none!" said the child, with another grin.

"Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?"

"Never was born!" persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked
so goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous,
she might have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome
from the land of Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous,
but plain and business-like, and she said, with some sternness,

"You mustn't answer me in that way, child; I'm not playing
with you. Tell me where you were born, and who your father and
mother were."

"Never was born," reiterated the creature, more emphatically;
"never had no father nor mother, nor nothin'. I was raised by a
speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us."

The child was evidently sincere, and Jane, breaking into
a short laugh, said,

"Laws, Missis, there's heaps of 'em. Speculators buys 'em
up cheap, when they's little, and gets 'em raised for market."

"How long have you lived with your master and mistress?"

"Dun no, Missis."

"Is it a year, or more, or less?"

"Dun no, Missis."

"Laws, Missis, those low negroes,--they can't tell; they
don't know anything about time," said Jane; "they don't know what
a year is; they don't know their own ages.

"Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?"

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual.

"Do you know who made you?"

"Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh.

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes
twinkled, and she added,

"I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me."

"Do you know how to sew?" said Miss Ophelia, who thought
she would turn her inquiries to something more tangible.

"No, Missis."

"What can you do?--what did you do for your master and mistress?"

"Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait on folks."

"Were they good to you?"

"Spect they was," said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia cunningly.

Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. Clare
was leaning over the back of her chair.

"You find virgin soil there, Cousin; put in your own
ideas,--you won't find many to pull up."

Miss Ophelia's ideas of education, like all her other ideas,
were very set and definite; and of the kind that prevailed in New
England a century ago, and which are still preserved in some very
retired and unsophisticated parts, where there are no railroads.
As nearly as could be expressed, they could be comprised in very
few words: to teach them to mind when they were spoken to; to teach
them the catechism, sewing, and reading; and to whip them if they
told lies. And though, of course, in the flood of light that is
now poured on education, these are left far away in the rear, yet
it is an undisputed fact that our grandmothers raised some tolerably
fair men and women under this regime, as many of us can remember
and testify. At all events, Miss Ophelia knew of nothing else to
do; and, therefore, applied her mind to her heathen with the best
diligence she could command.

The child was announced and considered in the family as
Miss Ophelia's girl; and, as she was looked upon with no gracious
eye in the kitchen, Miss Ophelia resolved to confine her sphere of
operation and instruction chiefly to her own chamber. With a
self-sacrifice which some of our readers will appreciate, she
resolved, instead of comfortably making her own bed, sweeping and
dusting her own chamber,--which she had hitherto done, in utter scorn
of all offers of help from the chambermaid of the establishment,--to
condemn herself to the martyrdom of instructing Topsy to perform
these operations,--ah, woe the day! Did any of our readers ever do
the same, they will appreciate the amount of her self-sacrifice.

Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her chamber,
the first morning, and solemnly commencing a course of instruction
in the art and mystery of bed-making.

Behold, then, Topsy, washed and shorn of all the little
braided tails wherein her heart had delighted, arrayed in a clean
gown, with well-starched apron, standing reverently before Miss
Ophelia, with an expression of solemnity well befitting a funeral.

"Now, Topsy, I'm going to show you just how my bed is to
be made. I am very particular about my bed. You must learn exactly
how to do it."

"Yes, ma'am," says Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face of
woful earnestness.

"Now, Topsy, look here;--this is the hem of the sheet,--this
is the right side of the sheet, and this is the wrong;--will you
remember?"

"Yes, ma'am," says Topsy, with another sigh.

"Well, now, the under sheet you must bring over the
bolster,--so--and tuck it clear down under the mattress nice and
smooth,--so,--do you see?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, with profound attention.

"But the upper sheet," said Miss Ophelia, "must be brought
down in this way, and tucked under firm and smooth at the
foot,--so,--the narrow hem at the foot."

"Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, as before;--but we will add, what
Miss Ophelia did not see, that, during the time when the good lady's
back was turned in the zeal of her manipulations, the young disciple
had contrived to snatch a pair of gloves and a ribbon, which she
had adroitly slipped into her sleeves, and stood with her hands
dutifully folded, as before.

"Now, Topsy, let's see _you_ do this," said Miss Ophelia,
pulling off the clothes, and seating herself.

Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through the
exercise completely to Miss Ophelia's satisfaction; smoothing the
sheets, patting out every wrinkle, and exhibiting, through the
whole process, a gravity and seriousness with which her instructress
was greatly edified. By an unlucky slip, however, a fluttering
fragment of the ribbon hung out of one of her sleeves, just as she
was finishing, and caught Miss Ophelia's attention. Instantly, she
pounced upon it. "What's this? You naughty, wicked child,--you've
been stealing this!"

The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy's own sleeve, yet was she
not in the least disconcerted; she only looked at it with an
air of the most surprised and unconscious innocence.

"Laws! why, that ar's Miss Feely's ribbon, an't it? How could
it a got caught in my sleeve?

"Topsy, you naughty girl, don't you tell me a lie,--you
stole that ribbon!"

"Missis, I declar for 't, I didn't;--never seed it till
dis yer blessed minnit."

"Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "don't you now it's wicked to
tell lies?"

"I never tell no lies, Miss Feely," said Topsy, with virtuous
gravity; "it's jist the truth I've been a tellin now, and an't
nothin else."

"Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so."

"Laws, Missis, if you's to whip all day, couldn't say no
other way," said Topsy, beginning to blubber. "I never seed dat
ar,--it must a got caught in my sleeve. Miss Feeley must have left
it on the bed, and it got caught in the clothes, and so got in
my sleeve."

Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that
she caught the child and shook her.

"Don't you tell me that again!"

The shake brought the glove on to the floor, from the other sleeve.

"There, you!" said Miss Ophelia, "will you tell me now,
you didn't steal the ribbon?"

Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in
denying the ribbon.

"Now, Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "if you'll confess all about it,
I won't whip you this time."  Thus adjured, Topsy confessed
to the ribbon and gloves, with woful protestations of penitence.

"Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other things
since you have been in the house, for I let you run about all
day yesterday. Now, tell me if you took anything, and I shan't
whip you."

"Laws, Missis! I took Miss Eva's red thing she wars on her neck."

"You did, you naughty child!--Well, what else?"

"I took Rosa's yer-rings,--them red ones."

"Go bring them to me this minute, both of 'em."

"Laws, Missis! I can't,--they 's burnt up!"

"Burnt up!--what a story! Go get 'em, or I'll whip you."

Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans,
declared that she _could_ not. "They 's burnt up,--they was."

"What did you burn 'em for?" said Miss Ophelia.

"Cause I 's wicked,--I is. I 's mighty wicked, any how.
I can't help it."

Just at this moment, Eva came innocently into the room,
with the identical coral necklace on her neck.

"Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?" said Miss Ophelia.

"Get it? Why, I've had it on all day," said Eva.

"Did you have it on yesterday?"

"Yes; and what is funny, Aunty, I had it on all night. I forgot
to take it off when I went to bed."

Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered; the more so, as Rosa,
at that instant, came into the room, with a basket of newly-ironed
linen poised on her head, and the coral ear-drops shaking in her ears!

"I'm sure I can't tell anything what to do with such a child!"
she said, in despair. "What in the world did you tell me
you took those things for, Topsy?"

"Why, Missis said I must 'fess; and I couldn't think of
nothin' else to 'fess," said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.

"But, of course, I didn't want you to confess things you
didn't do," said Miss Ophelia; "that's telling a lie, just as much
as the other."

"Laws, now, is it?" said Topsy, with an air of innocent wonder.

"La, there an't any such thing as truth in that limb," said
Rosa, looking indignantly at Topsy. "If I was Mas'r St. Clare,
I'd whip her till the blood run. I would,--I'd let her catch it!"

"No, no Rosa," said Eva, with an air of command, which the
child could assume at times; "you mustn't talk so, Rosa. I can't
bear to hear it."

"La sakes! Miss Eva, you 's so good, you don't know nothing
how to get along with niggers. There's no way but to cut 'em well
up, I tell ye."

"Rosa!" said Eva, "hush! Don't you say another word of that
sort!" and the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deepened
its color.

Rosa was cowed in a moment.

"Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that's plain.
She can speak, for all the world, just like her papa," she said,
as she passed out of the room.

Eva stood looking at Topsy.

There stood the two children representatives of the two extremes
of society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head,
her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements;
and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor.
They stood the representatives of their races. The Saxon, born
of ages of cultivation, command, education, physical and moral
eminence; the Afric, born of ages of oppression, submission,
ignorance, toil and vice!

Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through
Eva's mind. But a child's thoughts are rather dim, undefined
instincts; and in Eva's noble nature many such were yearning and
working, for which she had no power of utterance. When Miss Ophelia
expatiated on Topsy's naughty, wicked conduct, the child looked
perplexed and sorrowful, but said, sweetly.

"Poor Topsy, why need you steal? You're going to be taken
good care of now. I'm sure I'd rather give you anything of mine,
than have you steal it."

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard
in her life; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the
wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in
the keen, round, glittering eye; but it was followed by the short
laugh and habitual grin. No! the ear that has never heard anything
but abuse is strangely incredulous of anything so heavenly as
kindness; and Topsy only thought Eva's speech something funny and
inexplicable,--she did not believe it.

But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the
case a puzzler; her rules for bringing up didn't seem to apply.
She thought she would take time to think of it; and, by the way of
gaining time, and in hopes of some indefinite moral virtues supposed
to be inherent in dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one
till she had arranged her ideas further on the subject.

"I don't see," said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, "how I'm
going to manage that child, without whipping her."

"Well, whip her, then, to your heart's content; I'll give
you full power to do what you like."

"Children always have to be whipped," said Miss Ophelia;
"I never heard of bringing them up without."

"O, well, certainly," said St. Clare; "do as you think best.
Only I'll make one suggestion: I've seen this child whipped
with a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came
handiest, &c.; and, seeing that she is used to that style of
operation, I think your whippings will have to be pretty energetic,
to make much impression."

"What is to be done with her, then?" said Miss Ophelia.

"You have started a serious question," said St. Clare; "I
wish you'd answer it. What is to be done with a human being that
can be governed only by the lash,--_that_ fails,--it's a very common
state of things down here!"

"I'm sure I don't know; I never saw such a child as this."

"Such children are very common among us, and such men and
women, too. How are they to be governed?" said St. Clare.

"I'm sure it's more than I can say," said Miss Ophelia.

"Or I either," said St. Clare. "The horrid cruelties and outrages
that once and a while find their way into the papers,--such
cases as Prue's, for example,--what do they come from? In many
cases, it is a gradual hardening process on both sides,--the owner
growing more and more cruel, as the servant more and more callous.
Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose
as the sensibilities decline. I saw this very early when I became
an owner; and I resolved never to begin, because I did not know
when I should stop,--and I resolved, at least, to protect my own
moral nature. The consequence is, that my servants act like spoiled
children; but I think that better than for us both to be brutalized
together. You have talked a great deal about our responsibilities
in educating, Cousin. I really wanted you to _try_ with one child,
who is a specimen of thousands among us."

"It is your system makes such children," said Miss Ophelia.

"I know it; but they are _made_,--they exist,--and what
_is_ to be done with them?"

"Well, I can't say I thank you for the experiment. But, then,
as it appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and
do the best I can," said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after
this, did labor, with a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on
her new subject. She instituted regular hours and employments for
her, and undertook to teach her to read and sew.

In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned
her letters as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain
reading; but the sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature
was as lithe as a cat, and as active as a monkey, and the confinement
of sewing was her abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them
slyly out of the window, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled,
broke, and dirtied her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw
a spool away altogether. Her motions were almost as quick as those
of a practised conjurer, and her command of her face quite as great;
and though Miss Ophelia could not help feeling that so many accidents
could not possibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without
a watchfulness which would leave her no time for anything else,
detect her.

Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment.
Her talent for every species of drollery, grimace, and mimicry,--for
dancing, tumbling, climbing, singing, whistling, imitating every
sound that hit her fancy,--seemed inexhaustible. In her play-hours,
she invariably had every child in the establishment at her heels,
open-mouthed with admiration and wonder,--not excepting Miss Eva,
who appeared to be fascinated by her wild diablerie, as a dove is
sometimes charmed by a glittering serpent. Miss Ophelia was uneasy
that Eva should fancy Topsy's society so much, and implored St.
Clare to forbid it.

"Poh! let the child alone," said St. Clare. "Topsy will
do her good."

"But so depraved a child,--are you not afraid she will
teach her some mischief?"

"She can't teach her mischief; she might teach it to some
children, but evil rolls off Eva's mind like dew off a
cabbage-leaf,--not a drop sinks in."

"Don't be too sure," said Miss Ophelia. "I know I'd never
let a child of mine play with Topsy."

"Well, your children needn't," said St. Clare, "but mine may;
if Eva could have been spoiled, it would have been done years ago."

Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper servants.
They soon found reason to alter their opinion. It was very soon
discovered that whoever cast an indignity on Topsy was sure to
meet with some inconvenient accident shortly after;--either a
pair of ear-rings or some cherished trinket would be missing, or
an article of dress would be suddenly found utterly ruined, or the
person would stumble accidently into a pail of hot water, or a
libation of dirty slop would unaccountably deluge them from above
when in full gala dress;-and on all these occasions, when investigation
was made, there was nobody found to stand sponsor for the indignity.
Topsy was cited, and had up before all the domestic judicatories,
time and again; but always sustained her examinations with most
edifying innocence and gravity of appearance. Nobody in the world
ever doubted who did the things; but not a scrap of any direct
evidence could be found to establish the suppositions, and Miss
Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to proceed to any length
without it.

The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, as
further to shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for revenge on
Rosa and Jane, the two chamber maids, were always chosen in those
seasons when (as not unfrequently happened) they were in disgrace
with their mistress, when any complaint from them would of course
meet with no sympathy. In short, Topsy soon made the household
understand the propriety of letting her alone; and she was let
alone, accordingly.

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations,
learning everything that was taught her with surprising quickness.
With a few lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss
Ophelia's chamber in a way with which even that particular lady
could find no fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother,
adjust pillows more accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more
perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose,--but she didn't very often
choose. If Miss Ophelia, after three or four days of careful
patient supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose that Topsy had
at last fallen into her way, could do without over-looking, and so
go off and busy herself about something else, Topsy would hold a
perfect carnival of confusion, for some one or two hours. Instead
of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the
pillowcases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it
would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking
out in various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head
downward from the tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over
the apartment; dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia's night-clothes,
and enact various performances with that,--singing and whistling,
and making grimaces at herself in the looking-glass; in short, as
Miss Ophelia phrased it, "raising Cain" generally.

On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very
best scarlet India Canton crape shawl wound round her head for a
turban, going on with her rehearsals before the glass in great
style,--Miss Ophelia having, with carelessness most unheard-of in
her, left the key for once in her drawer.

"Topsy!" she would say, when at the end of all patience,
"what does make you act so?"

"Dunno, Missis,--I spects cause I 's so wicked!"

"I don't know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy."

"Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers whipped me.
I an't used to workin' unless I gets whipped."

"Why, Topsy, I don't want to whip you. You can do well,
if you've a mind to; what is the reason you won't?"

"Laws, Missis, I 's used to whippin'; I spects it's good
for me."

Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made
a terrible commotion, screaming, groaning and imploring, though
half an hour afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the
balcony, and surrounded by a flock of admiring "young uns," she
would express the utmost contempt of the whole affair.

"Law, Miss Feely whip!--wouldn't kill a skeeter, her whippins.
Oughter see how old Mas'r made the flesh fly; old Mas'r
know'd how!"

Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and
enormities, evidently considering them as something peculiarly
distinguishing.

"Law, you niggers," she would say to some of her auditors,
"does you know you 's all sinners? Well, you is--everybody is.
White folks is sinners too,--Miss Feely says so; but I spects
niggers is the biggest ones; but lor! ye an't any on ye up to me.
I 's so awful wicked there can't nobody do nothin' with me. I used
to keep old Missis a swarin' at me half de time. I spects I 's
the wickedest critter in the world;" and Topsy would cut a summerset,
and come up brisk and shining on to a higher perch, and evidently
plume herself on the distinction.

Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays,
teaching Topsy the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon verbal
memory, and committed with a fluency that greatly encouraged
her instructress.

"What good do you expect it is going to do her?" said St. Clare.

"Why, it always has done children good. It's what children
always have to learn, you know," said Miss Ophelia.

"Understand it or not," said St. Clare.

"O, children never understand it at the time; but, after
they are grown up, it'll come to them."

"Mine hasn't come to me yet," said St. Clare, "though I'll
bear testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly when I
was a boy."'

"Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I used
to have great hopes of you," said Miss Ophelia.

"Well, haven't you now?" said St. Clare.

"I wish you were as good as you were when you were a boy,
Augustine."

"So do I, that's a fact, Cousin," said St. Clare. "Well, go
ahead and catechize Topsy; may be you'll make out something yet."

Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discussion,
with hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss Ophelia,
went on:

"Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own
will, fell from the state wherein they were created."

Topsy's eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.

"What is it, Topsy?" said Miss Ophelia.

"Please, Missis, was dat ar state Kintuck?"

"What state, Topsy?"

"Dat state dey fell out of. I used to hear Mas'r tell how
we came down from Kintuck."

St. Clare laughed.

"You'll have to give her a meaning, or she'll make one,"
said he. "There seems to be a theory of emigration suggested
there."

"O! Augustine, be still," said Miss Ophelia; "how can I do
anything, if you will be laughing?"

"Well, I won't disturb the exercises again, on my honor;"
and St. Clare took his paper into the parlor, and sat down, till
Topsy had finished her recitations. They were all very well, only
that now and then she would oddly transpose some important words,
and persist in the mistake, in spite of every effort to the contrary;
and St. Clare, after all his promises of goodness, took a wicked
pleasure in these mistakes, calling Topsy to him whenever he had
a mind to amuse himself, and getting her to repeat the offending
passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia's remonstrances.

"How do you think I can do anything with the child, if you
will go on so, Augustine?" she would say.

"Well, it is too bad,--I won't again; but I do like to hear
the droll little image stumble over those big words!"

"But you confirm her in the wrong way."

"What's the odds? One word is as good as another to her."

"You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to
remember she is a reasonable creature, and be careful of your
influence over her."

"O, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, `I 's
so wicked!'"

In very much this way Topsy's training proceeded, for a year
or two,--Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with
her, as a kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became,
in time, as accustomed, as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia
or sick headache.

St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child that a man
might in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. Topsy, whenever
her sins brought her into disgrace in other quarters, always took
refuge behind his chair; and St. Clare, in one way or other, would
make peace for her. From him she got many a stray picayune, which
she laid out in nuts and candies, and distributed, with careless
generosity, to all the children in the family; for Topsy, to do
her justice, was good-natured and liberal, and only spiteful in
self-defence. She is fairly introduced into our _corps be ballet_,
and will figure, from time to time, in her turn, with other performers.

CHAPTER XXI

Kentuck

Our readers may not be unwilling to glance back, for a
brief interval, at Uncle Tom's Cabin, on the Kentucky farm, and
see what has been transpiring among those whom he had left behind.

It was late in the summer afternoon, and the doors and
windows of the large parlor all stood open, to invite any stray
breeze, that might feel in a good humor, to enter. Mr. Shelby sat
in a large hall opening into the room, and running through the
whole length of the house, to a balcony on either end. Leisurely
tipped back on one chair, with his heels in another, he was enjoying
his after-dinner cigar. Mrs. Shelby sat in the door, busy about
some fine sewing; she seemed like one who had something on her
mind, which she was seeking an opportunity to introduce.

"Do you know," she said, "that Chloe has had a letter from Tom?"

"Ah! has she? Tom 's got some friend there, it seems. How is the
old boy?"

"He has been bought by a very fine family, I should think,"
said Mrs. Shelby,--"is kindly treated, and has not much to do."

"Ah! well, I'm glad of it,--very glad," said Mr. Shelby, heartily.
"Tom, I suppose, will get reconciled to a Southern residence;--hardly
want to come up here again."

"On the contrary he inquires very anxiously," said Mrs.
Shelby, "when the money for his redemption is to be raised."

"I'm sure _I_ don't know," said Mr. Shelby. "Once get business
running wrong, there does seem to be no end to it. It's like
jumping from one bog to another, all through a swamp; borrow
of one to pay another, and then borrow of another to pay one,--and
these confounded notes falling due before a man has time to smoke
a cigar and turn round,--dunning letters and dunning messages,--all
scamper and hurry-scurry."

"It does seem to me, my dear, that something might be done
to straighten matters. Suppose we sell off all the horses, and
sell one of your farms, and pay up square?"

"O, ridiculous, Emily! You are the finest woman in Kentucky;
but still you haven't sense to know that you don't understand
business;--women never do, and never can.

"But, at least," said Mrs. Shelby, "could not you give me
some little insight into yours; a list of all your debts, at least,
and of all that is owed to you, and let me try and see if I can't
help you to economize."

"O, bother! don't plague me, Emily!--I can't tell exactly.
I know somewhere about what things are likely to be; but there's
no trimming and squaring my affairs, as Chloe trims crust off her
pies. You don't know anything about business, I tell you."

And Mr. Shelby, not knowing any other way of enforcing his
ideas, raised his voice,--a mode of arguing very convenient and
convincing, when a gentleman is discussing matters of business with
his wife.

Mrs. Shelby ceased talking, with something of a sigh. The fact
was, that though her husband had stated she was a woman, she
had a clear, energetic, practical mind, and a force of character
every way superior to that of her husband; so that it would not
have been so very absurd a supposition, to have allowed her
capable of managing, as Mr. Shelby supposed. Her heart was set on
performing her promise to Tom and Aunt Chloe, and she sighed as
discouragements thickened around her.

"Don't you think we might in some way contrive to raise
that money? Poor Aunt Chloe! her heart is so set on it!"

"I'm sorry, if it is. I think I was premature in promising.
I'm not sure, now, but it's the best way to tell Chloe, and let
her make up her mind to it. Tom'll have another wife, in a year
or two; and she had better take up with somebody else."

"Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages
are as sacred as ours. I never could think of giving Chloe
such advice."

"It's a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a morality
above their condition and prospects. I always thought so."

"It's only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby."

"Well, well, Emily, I don't pretend to interfere with your
religious notions; only they seem extremely unfitted for people in
that condition."

"They are, indeed," said Mrs. Shelby, "and that is why,
from my soul, I hate the whole thing. I tell you, my dear, _I_
cannot absolve myself from the promises I make to these helpless
creatures. If I can get the money no other way I will take
music-scholars;--I could get enough, I know, and earn the money
myself."

"You wouldn't degrade yourself that way, Emily? I never
could consent to it."

"Degrade! would it degrade me as much as to break my faith
with the helpless? No, indeed!"

"Well, you are always heroic and transcendental," said Mr.
Shelby, "but I think you had better think before you undertake such
a piece of Quixotism."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of
Aunt Chloe, at the end of the verandah.

"If you please, Missis," said she.

"Well, Chloe, what is it?" said her mistress, rising, and
going to the end of the balcony.

"If Missis would come and look at dis yer lot o' poetry."

Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry,--an
application of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding
frequent corrections and advisings from the young members of the
family.

"La sakes!" she would say, "I can't see; one jis good as
turry,--poetry suthin good, any how;" and so poetry Chloe continued
to call it.

Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens
and ducks, over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of
consideration.

"I'm a thinkin whether Missis would be a havin a chicken
pie o' dese yer."

"Really, Aunt Chloe, I don't much care;--serve them any
way you like."

Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite
evident that the chickens were not what she was thinking of.
At last, with the short laugh with which her tribe often introduce
a doubtful proposal, she said,

"Laws me, Missis! what should Mas'r and Missis be a troublin
theirselves 'bout de money, and not a usin what's right in der
hands?" and Chloe laughed again.

"I don't understand you, Chloe," said Mrs. Shelby, nothing
doubting, from her knowledge of Chloe's manner, that she had heard
every word of the conversation that had passed between her and her
husband.

"Why, laws me, Missis!" said Chloe, laughing again, "other folks
hires out der niggers and makes money on 'em! Don't keep sich
a tribe eatin 'em out of house and home."

"Well, Chloe, who do you propose that we should hire out?"

"Laws! I an't a proposin nothin; only Sam he said der was one
of dese yer _perfectioners_, dey calls 'em, in Louisville, said
he wanted a good hand at cake and pastry; and said he'd give four
dollars a week to one, he did."

"Well, Chloe."

"Well, laws, I 's a thinkin, Missis, it's time Sally was put
along to be doin' something. Sally 's been under my care, now,
dis some time, and she does most as well as me, considerin; and if
Missis would only let me go, I would help fetch up de money.
I an't afraid to put my cake, nor pies nother, 'long side no
_perfectioner's_.

"Confectioner's, Chloe."

"Law sakes, Missis! 'tan't no odds;--words is so curis,
can't never get 'em right!"

"But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children?"

"Laws, Missis! de boys is big enough to do day's works; dey does
well enough; and Sally, she'll take de baby,--she's such
a peart young un, she won't take no lookin arter."

"Louisville is a good way off."

"Law sakes! who's afeard?--it's down river, somer near my
old man, perhaps?" said Chloe, speaking the last in the tone of a
question, and looking at Mrs. Shelby.

"No, Chloe; it's many a hundred miles off," said Mrs. Shelby.

Chloe's countenance fell.

"Never mind; your going there shall bring you nearer, Chloe.
Yes, you may go; and your wages shall every cent of them be laid
aside for your husband's redemption."

As when a bright sunbeam turns a dark cloud to silver, so
Chloe's dark face brightened immediately,--it really shone.

"Laws! if Missis isn't too good! I was thinking of dat ar
very thing; cause I shouldn't need no clothes, nor shoes, nor
nothin,--I could save every cent. How many weeks is der in a
year, Missis?"

"Fifty-two," said Mrs. Shelby.

"Laws! now, dere is? and four dollars for each on em. Why, how
much 'd dat ar be?"

"Two hundred and eight dollars," said Mrs. Shelby.

"Why-e!" said Chloe, with an accent of surprise and delight;
"and how long would it take me to work it out, Missis?"

"Some four or five years, Chloe; but, then, you needn't do
it all,--I shall add something to it."

"I wouldn't hear to Missis' givin lessons nor nothin.
Mas'r's quite right in dat ar;--'t wouldn't do, no ways. I hope
none our family ever be brought to dat ar, while I 's got hands."

"Don't fear, Chloe; I'll take care of the honor of the family,"
said Mrs. Shelby, smiling. "But when do you expect to go?"

"Well, I want spectin nothin; only Sam, he's a gwine to de
river with some colts, and he said I could go long with him; so I
jes put my things together. If Missis was willin, I'd go with Sam
tomorrow morning, if Missis would write my pass, and write me a
commendation."

"Well, Chloe, I'll attend to it, if Mr. Shelby has no
objections. I must speak to him."

Mrs. Shelby went up stairs, and Aunt Chloe, delighted, went
out to her cabin, to make her preparation.

"Law sakes, Mas'r George! ye didn't know I 's a gwine to
Louisville tomorrow!" she said to George, as entering her cabin,
he found her busy in sorting over her baby's clothes. "I thought
I'd jis look over sis's things, and get 'em straightened up. But
I'm gwine, Mas'r George,--gwine to have four dollars a week; and
Missis is gwine to lay it all up, to buy back my old man agin!"

"Whew!" said George, "here's a stroke of business, to be sure!
How are you going?"

"Tomorrow, wid Sam. And now, Mas'r George, I knows you'll
jis sit down and write to my old man, and tell him all about
it,--won't ye?"

"To be sure," said George; "Uncle Tom'll be right glad to hear
from us. I'll go right in the house, for paper and ink; and
then, you know, Aunt Chloe, I can tell about the new colts and all."

"Sartin, sartin, Mas'r George; you go 'long, and I'll get
ye up a bit o' chicken, or some sich; ye won't have many more
suppers wid yer poor old aunty."

CHAPTER XXII

"The Grass Withereth--the Flower Fadeth"

Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with
our friend Tom, till two years were gone. Though parted from
all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay
beyond, still was he never positively and consciously miserable;
for, so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but
a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and,
on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those
of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it
glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though
not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable.

Tom read, in his only literary cabinet, of one who had "learned
in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content."  It seemed
to him good and reasonable doctrine, and accorded well with the
settled and thoughtful habit which he had acquired from the
reading of that same book.

His letter homeward, as we related in the last chapter,
was in due time answered by Master George, in a good, round,
school-boy hand, that Tom said might be read "most acrost the room."
It contained various refreshing items of home intelligence, with
which our reader is fully acquainted: stated how Aunt Chloe had
been hired out to a confectioner in Louisville, where her skill
in the pastry line was gaining wonderful sums of money, all of
which, Tom was informed, was to be laid up to go to make up the
sum of his redemption money; Mose and Pete were thriving, and
the baby was trotting all about the house, under the care of Sally
and the family generally.

Tom's cabin was shut up for the present; but George expatiated
brilliantly on ornaments and additions to be made to it when Tom
came back.

The rest of this letter gave a list of George's school
studies, each one headed by a flourishing capital; and also told
the names of four new colts that appeared on the premises since
Tom left; and stated, in the same connection, that father and mother
were well. The style of the letter was decidedly concise and terse;
but Tom thought it the most wonderful specimen of composition that
had appeared in modern times. He was never tired of looking at
it, and even held a council with Eva on the expediency of getting
it framed, to hang up in his room. Nothing but the difficulty of
arranging it so that both sides of the page would show at once
stood in the way of this undertaking.

The friendship between Tom and Eva had grown with the
child's growth. It would be hard to say what place she held in
the soft, impressible heart of her faithful attendant. He loved
her as something frail and earthly, yet almost worshipped her as
something heavenly and divine. He gazed on her as the Italian
sailor gazes on his image of the child Jesus,--with a mixture of
reverence and tenderness; and to humor her graceful fancies, and
meet those thousand simple wants which invest childhood like a
many-colored rainbow, was Tom's chief delight. In the market, at
morning, his eyes were always on the flower-stalls for rare bouquets
for her, and the choicest peach or orange was slipped into his
pocket to give to her when he came back; and the sight that pleased
him most was her sunny head looking out the gate for his distant
approach, and her childish questions,--"Well, Uncle Tom, what have
you got for me today?"

Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return. Though a
child, she was a beautiful reader;--a fine musical ear, a quick
poetic fancy, and an instinctive sympathy with what's grand and
noble, made her such a reader of the Bible as Tom had never before
heard. At first, she read to please her humble friend; but soon
her own earnest nature threw out its tendrils, and wound itself
around the majestic book; and Eva loved it, because it woke in her
strange yearnings, and strong, dim emotions, such as impassioned,
imaginative children love to feel.

The parts that pleased her most were the Revelations and the
Prophecies,--parts whose dim and wondrous imagery, and fervent
language, impressed her the more, that she questioned vainly of
their meaning;--and she and her simple friend, the old child and
the young one, felt just alike about it. All that they knew was,
that they spoke of a glory to be revealed,--a wondrous something
yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why; and
though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that
which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul
awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities,--the
eternal past, the eternal future. The light shines only on a small
space around her; therefore, she needs must yearn towards the
unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from
out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and
answers in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imagery are so
many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics; she
folds them in her bosom, and expects to read them when she passes
beyond the veil.

At this time in our story, the whole St. Clare establishment is,
for the time being, removed to their villa on Lake Pontchartrain.
The heats of summer had driven all who were able to leave the
sultry and unhealthy city, to seek the shores of the lake, and
its cool sea-breezes.

St. Clare's villa was an East Indian cottage, surrounded by
light verandahs of bamboo-work, and opening on all sides into
gardens and pleasure-grounds. The common sitting-room opened on
to a large garden, fragrant with every picturesque plant and flower
of the tropics, where winding paths ran down to the very shores of
the lake, whose silvery sheet of water lay there, rising and falling
in the sunbeams,--a picture never for an hour the same, yet every
hour more beautiful.

It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles
the whole horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water
another sky. The lake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where
white-winged vessels glided hither and thither, like so many
spirits, and little golden stars twinkled through the glow, and
looked down at themselves as they trembled in the water.

Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat, in an arbor, at
the foot of the garden. It was Sunday evening, and Eva's Bible
lay open on her knee. She read,--"And I saw a sea of glass, mingled
with fire."

"Tom," said Eva, suddenly stopping, and pointing to the lake,
"there 't is."

"What, Miss Eva?"

"Don't you see,--there?" said the child, pointing to the
glassy water, which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden glow
of the sky. "There's a `sea of glass, mingled with fire.'"

"True enough, Miss Eva," said Tom; and Tom sang--

           "O, had I the wings of the morning,
            I'd fly away to Canaan's shore;
            Bright angels should convey me home,
            To the new Jerusalem."

"Where do you suppose new Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom?" said Eva.

"O, up in the clouds, Miss Eva."

"Then I think I see it," said Eva. "Look in those clouds!--they
look like great gates of pearl; and you can see beyond them--far,
far off--it's all gold. Tom, sing about `spirits bright.'"

Tom sung the words of a well-known Methodist hymn,

          "I see a band of spirits bright,
           That taste the glories there;
           They all are robed in spotless white,
           And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom, I've seen _them_," said Eva.

Tom had no doubt of it at all; it did not surprise him in
the least. If Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he would
have thought it entirely probable.

"They come to me sometimes in my sleep, those spirits;"
and Eva's eyes grew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low voice,

          "They are all robed in spotless white,
           And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom," said Eva, "I'm going there."

"Where, Miss Eva?"

The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky;
the glow of evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a
kind of unearthly radiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on
the skies.

"I'm going _there_," she said, "to the spirits bright, Tom;
_I'm going, before long_."

The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought
how often he had noticed, within six months, that Eva's little
hands had grown thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her
breath shorter; and how, when she ran or played in the garden,
as she once could for hours, she became soon so tired and languid.
He had heard Miss Ophelia speak often of a cough, that all her
medicaments could not cure; and even now that fervent cheek and
little hand were burning with hectic fever; and yet the thought
that Eva's words suggested had never come to him till now.

Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been;
but their names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles,
their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the
buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you
hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are
nothing to the peculiar charms of one who _is not_. It is as if
heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to
sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the wayward human
heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward
flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye,--when
the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the
ordinary words of children,--hope not to retain that child; for
the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks
out from its eyes.

Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou are
passing away; but they that love thee dearest know it not.

The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty
call from Miss Ophelia.

"Eva--Eva!--why, child, the dew is falling; you mustn't be
out there!"

Eva and Tom hastened in.

Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing.
She was from New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps
of that soft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so many of the
fairest and loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken,
seals them irrevocably for death.

She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brightening cheek;
nor could the lustre of the eye, and the airy buoyancy born of
fever, deceive her.

She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare; but he threw
back her suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike his
usual careless good-humor.

"Don't be croaking, Cousin,--I hate it!" he would say;
"don't you see that the child is only growing. Children always
lose strength when they grow fast."

"But she has that cough!"

"O! nonsense of that cough!--it is not anything. She has
taken a little cold, perhaps."

"Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and
Ellen and Maria Sanders."

"O! stop these hobgoblin' nurse legends. You old hands got
so wise, that a child cannot cough, or sneeze, but you see
desperation and ruin at hand. Only take care of the child, keep
her from the night air, and don't let her play too hard, and she'll
do well enough."

So St. Clare said; but he grew nervous and restless. He watched
Eva feverishly day by day, as might be told by the frequency
with which he repeated over that "the child was quite well"--that
there wasn't anything in that cough,--it was only some little
stomach affection, such as children often had. But he kept by her
more than before, took her oftener to ride with him, brought home
every few days some receipt or strengthening mixture,--"not," he
said, "that the child _needed_ it, but then it would not do her
any harm."

If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his
heart than anything else was the daily increasing maturity of
the child's mind and feelings. While still retaining all a child's
fanciful graces, yet she often dropped, unconsciously, words of
such a reach of thought, and strange unworldly wisdom, that they
seemed to be an inspiration. At such times, St. Clare would feel
a sudden thrill, and clasp her in his arms, as if that fond clasp
could save her; and his heart rose up with wild determination to
keep her, never to let her go.

The child's whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in works
of love and kindness. Impulsively generous she had always been;
but there was a touching and womanly thoughtfulness about her now,
that every one noticed. She still loved to play with Topsy, and
the various colored children; but she now seemed rather a spectator
than an actor of their plays, and she would sit for half an hour
at a time, laughing at the odd tricks of Topsy,--and then a shadow
would seem to pass across her face, her eyes grew misty, and her
thoughts were afar.

"Mamma," she said, suddenly, to her mother, one day, "why
don't we teach our servants to read?"

"What a question child! People never do."

"Why don't they?" said Eva.

"Because it is no use for them to read. It don't help them
to work any better, and they are not made for anything else."

"But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn God's will."

"O! they can get that read to them all _they_ need."

"It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to read
themselves. They need it a great many times when there is nobody
to read it."

"Eva, you are an odd child," said her mother.

"Miss Ophelia has taught Topsy to read," continued Eva.

"Yes, and you see how much good it does. Topsy is the
worst creature I ever saw!"

"Here's poor Mammy!" said Eva. "She does love the Bible
so much, and wishes so she could read! And what will she do when
I can't read to her?"

Marie was busy, turning over the contents of a drawer, as
she answered,

"Well, of course, by and by, Eva, you will have other things to
think of besides reading the Bible round to servants. Not but
that is very proper; I've done it myself, when I had health.
But when you come to be dressing and going into company, you won't
have time. See here!" she added, "these jewels I'm going to give
you when you come out. I wore them to my first ball. I can tell
you, Eva, I made a sensation."

Eva took the jewel-case, and lifted from it a diamond necklace.
Her large, thoughtful eyes rested on them, but it was plain her
thoughts were elsewhere.

"How sober you look child!" said Marie.

"Are these worth a great deal of money, mamma?"

"To be sure, they are. Father sent to France for them.
They are worth a small fortune."

"I wish I had them," said Eva, "to do what I pleased with!"

"What would you do with them?"

"I'd sell them, and buy a place in the free states, and take
all our people there, and hire teachers, to teach them to read
and write."

Eva was cut short by her mother's laughing.

"Set up a boarding-school! Wouldn't you teach them to play
on the piano, and paint on velvet?"

"I'd teach them to read their own Bible, and write their own
letters, and read letters that are written to them," said Eva,
steadily. "I know, mamma, it does come very hard on them that they
can't do these things. Tom feels it--Mammy does,--a great many of
them do. I think it's wrong."

"Come, come, Eva; you are only a child! You don't know anything
about these things," said Marie; "besides, your talking makes my
head ache."

Marie always had a headache on hand for any conversation
that did not exactly suit her.

Eva stole away; but after that, she assiduously gave Mammy
reading lessons.

CHAPTER XXIII

Henrique

About this time, St. Clare's brother Alfred, with his eldest son,
a boy of twelve, spent a day or two with the family at the lake.

No sight could be more singular and beautiful than that of these
twin brothers. Nature, instead of instituting resemblances between
them, had made them opposites on every point; yet a mysterious tie
seemed to unite them in a closer friendship than ordinary.

They used to saunter, arm in arm, up and down the alleys
and walks of the garden. Augustine, with his blue eyes and golden
hair, his ethereally flexible form and vivacious features; and
Alfred, dark-eyed, with haughty Roman profile, firmly-knit limbs,
and decided bearing. They were always abusing each other's opinions
and practices, and yet never a whit the less absorbed in each
other's society; in fact, the very contrariety seemed to unite
them, like the attraction between opposite poles of the magnet.

Henrique, the eldest son of Alfred, was a noble, dark-eyed,
princely boy, full of vivacity and spirit; and, from the first
moment of introduction, seemed to be perfectly fascinated by the
spirituelle graces of his cousin Evangeline.

Eva had a little pet pony, of a snowy whiteness. It was
easy as a cradle, and as gentle as its little mistress; and this
pony was now brought up to the back verandah by Tom, while a little
mulatto boy of about thirteen led along a small black Arabian,
which had just been imported, at a great expense, for Henrique.

Henrique had a boy's pride in his new possession; and, as he
advanced and took the reins out of the hands of his little groom,
he looked carefully over him, and his brow darkened.

"What's this, Dodo, you little lazy dog! you haven't rubbed
my horse down, this morning."

"Yes, Mas'r," said Dodo, submissively; "he got that dust
on his own self."

"You rascal, shut your mouth!" said Henrique, violently
raising his riding-whip. "How dare you speak?"

The boy was a handsome, bright-eyed mulatto, of just
Henrique's size, and his curling hair hung round a high, bold
forehead. He had white blood in his veins, as could be seen by
the quick flush in his cheek, and the sparkle of his eye, as he
eagerly tried to speak.

"Mas'r Henrique!--" he began.

Henrique struck him across the face with his riding-whip, and,
seizing one of his arms, forced him on to his knees, and beat
him till he was out of breath.

"There, you impudent dog! Now will you learn not to answer
back when I speak to you? Take the horse back, and clean
him properly. I'll teach you your place!"

"Young Mas'r," said Tom, "I specs what he was gwine to say was,
that the horse would roll when he was bringing him up from
the stable; he's so full of spirits,--that's the way he got that
dirt on him; I looked to his cleaning."

"You hold your tongue till you're asked to speak!" said
Henrique, turning on his heel, and walking up the steps to speak
to Eva, who stood in her riding-dress.

"Dear Cousin, I'm sorry this stupid fellow has kept you
waiting," he said. "Let's sit down here, on this seat till
they come. What's the matter, Cousin?--you look sober."

"How could you be so cruel and wicked to poor Dodo?" asked Eva.

"Cruel,--wicked!" said the boy, with unaffected surprise.
"What do you mean, dear Eva?"

"I don't want you to call me dear Eva, when you do so,"
said Eva.

"Dear Cousin, you don't know Dodo; it's the only way to manage
him, he's so full of lies and excuses. The only way is to put
him down at once,--not let him open his mouth; that's the way
papa manages."

"But Uncle Tom said it was an accident, and he never tells
what isn't true."

"He's an uncommon old nigger, then!" said Henrique. "Dodo will
lie as fast as he can speak."

"You frighten him into deceiving, if you treat him so."

"Why, Eva, you've really taken such a fancy to Dodo, that
I shall be jealous."

"But you beat him,--and he didn't deserve it."

"O, well, it may go for some time when he does, and don't
get it. A few cuts never come amiss with Dodo,--he's a regular
spirit, I can tell you; but I won't beat him again before you, if
it troubles you."

Eva was not satisfied, but found it in vain to try to make
her handsome cousin understand her feelings.

Dodo soon appeared, with the horses.

"Well, Dodo, you've done pretty well, this time," said his
young master, with a more gracious air. "Come, now, and hold Miss
Eva's horse while I put her on to the saddle."

Dodo came and stood by Eva's pony. His face was troubled;
his eyes looked as if he had been crying.

Henrique, who valued himself on his gentlemanly adroitness in
all matters of gallantry, soon had his fair cousin in the saddle,
and, gathering the reins, placed them in her hands.

But Eva bent to the other side of the horse, where Dodo
was standing, and said, as he relinquished the reins,--"That's
a good boy, Dodo;--thank you!"

Dodo looked up in amazement into the sweet young face; the
blood rushed to his cheeks, and the tears to his eyes.

"Here, Dodo," said his master, imperiously.

Dodo sprang and held the horse, while his master mounted.

"There's a picayune for you to buy candy with, Dodo," said
Henrique; "go get some."

And Henrique cantered down the walk after Eva. Dodo stood
looking after the two children. One had given him money; and one
had given him what he wanted far more,--a kind word, kindly spoken.
Dodo had been only a few months away from his mother. His master
had bought him at a slave warehouse, for his handsome face, to be
a match to the handsome pony; and he was now getting his breaking
in, at the hands of his young master.

The scene of the beating had been witnessed by the two
brothers St. Clare, from another part of the garden.

Augustine's cheek flushed; but he only observed, with his
usual sarcastic carelessness.

"I suppose that's what we may call republican education, Alfred?"

"Henrique is a devil of a fellow, when his blood's up,"
said Alfred, carelessly.

"I suppose you consider this an instructive practice for
him," said Augustine, drily.

"I couldn't help it, if I didn't. Henrique is a regular
little tempest;--his mother and I have given him up, long ago.
But, then, that Dodo is a perfect sprite,--no amount of whipping
can hurt him."

"And this by way of teaching Henrique the first verse of
a republican's catechism, `All men are born free and equal!'"

"Poh!" said Alfred; "one of Tom Jefferson's pieces of French
sentiment and humbug. It's perfectly ridiculous to have that going
the rounds among us, to this day."

"I think it is," said St. Clare, significantly.

"Because," said Alfred, "we can see plainly enough that all men
are _not_ born free, nor born equal; they are born anything else.
For my part, I think half this republican talk sheer humbug.
It is the educated, the intelligent, the wealthy, the refined, who
ought to have equal rights and not the canaille."

"If you can keep the canaille of that opinion," said Augustine.
"They took _their_ turn once, in France."

"Of course, they must be _kept down_, consistently, steadily,
as I _should_," said Alfred, setting his foot hard down as if he
were standing on somebody.

"It makes a terrible slip when they get up," said
Augustine,--"in St. Domingo, for instance."

"Poh!" said Alfred, "we'll take care of that, in this country.
We must set our face against all this educating, elevating talk,
that is getting about now; the lower class must not be educated."

"That is past praying for," said Augustine; "educated they will
be, and we have only to say how. Our system is educating them
in barbarism and brutality. We are breaking all humanizing ties,
and making them brute beasts; and, if they get the upper hand, such
we shall find them."

"They shall never get the upper hand!" said Alfred.

"That's right," said St. Clare; "put on the steam, fasten
down the escape-valve, and sit on it, and see where you'll land."

"Well," said Alfred, "we _will_ see. I'm not afraid to sit
on the escape-valve, as long as the boilers are strong, and
the machinery works well."

"The nobles in Louis XVI.'s time thought just so; and Austria
and Pius IX. think so now; and, some pleasant morning, you
may all be caught up to meet each other in the air, _when the
boilers burst_."

"_Dies declarabit_," said Alfred, laughing.

"I tell you," said Augustine, "if there is anything that is
revealed with the strength of a divine law in our times, it is that
the masses are to rise, and the under class become the upper one."

"That's one of your red republican humbugs, Augustine! Why didn't
you ever take to the stump;--you'd make a famous stump orator!
Well, I hope I shall be dead before this millennium of your greasy
masses comes on."

"Greasy or not greasy, they will govern _you_, when their
time comes," said Augustine; "and they will be just such rulers as
you make them. The French noblesse chose to have the people `_sans
culottes_,' and they had `_sans culotte_' governors to their hearts'
content. The people of Hayti--"

"O, come, Augustine! as if we hadn't had enough of that abominable,
contemptible Hayti![1]  The Haytiens were not Anglo Saxons; if
they had been there would have been another story. The Anglo
Saxon is the dominant race of the world, and _is to be so_."

[1]  In August 1791, as a consequence of the French Revolution,
the black slaves and mulattoes on Haiti rose in revolt against the
whites, and in the period of turmoil that followed enormous cruelties
were practised by both sides. The "Emperor" Dessalines, come to
power in 1804, massacred all the whites on the island. Haitian
bloodshed became an argument to show the barbarous nature of the
Negro, a doctrine Wendell Phillips sought to combat in his celebrated
lecture on Toussaint L'Ouverture.

"Well, there is a pretty fair infusion of Anglo Saxon blood
among our slaves, now," said Augustine. "There are plenty among
them who have only enough of the African to give a sort of tropical
warmth and fervor to our calculating firmness and foresight.
If ever the San Domingo hour comes, Anglo Saxon blood will lead on
the day. Sons of white fathers, with all our haughty feelings
burning in their veins, will not always be bought and sold and
traded. They will rise, and raise with them their mother's race."

"Stuff!--nonsense!"

"Well," said Augustine, "there goes an old saying to this
effect, `As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be;--they ate,
they drank, they planted, they builded, and knew not till the flood
came and took them.'"

"On the whole, Augustine, I think your talents might do for
a circuit rider," said Alfred, laughing. "Never you fear for
us; possession is our nine points. We've got the power. This
subject race," said he, stamping firmly, "is down and shall _stay_
down! We have energy enough to manage our own powder."

"Sons trained like your Henrique will be grand guardians of your
powder-magazines," said Augustine,--"so cool and self-possessed!
The proverb says, "`They that cannot govern themselves cannot
govern others.'"

"There is a trouble there" said Alfred, thoughtfully;
"there's no doubt that our system is a difficult one to train
children under. It gives too free scope to the passions, altogether,
which, in our climate, are hot enough. I find trouble with Henrique.
The boy is generous and warm-hearted, but a perfect fire-cracker
when excited. I believe I shall send him North for his education,
where obedience is more fashionable, and where he will associate
more with equals, and less with dependents."

"Since training children is the staple work of the human race,"
said Augustine, "I should think it something of a consideration
that our system does not work well there."

"It does not for some things," said Alfred; "for others, again,
it does. It makes boys manly and courageous; and the very
vices of an abject race tend to strengthen in them the opposite
virtues. I think Henrique, now, has a keener sense of the beauty
of truth, from seeing lying and deception the universal badge of
slavery."

"A Christian-like view of the subject, certainly!" said Augustine.

"It's true, Christian-like or not; and is about as
Christian-like as most other things in the world," said Alfred.

"That may be," said St. Clare.

"Well, there's no use in talking, Augustine. I believe we've
been round and round this old track five hundred times, more
or less. What do you say to a game of backgammon?"

The two brothers ran up the verandah steps, and were soon seated
at a light bamboo stand, with the backgammon-board between them.
As they were setting their men, Alfred said,

"I tell you, Augustine, if I thought as you do, I should
do something."

"I dare say you would,--you are one of the doing sort,--but what?"

"Why, elevate your own servants, for a specimen," said Alfred,
with a half-scornful smile.

"You might as well set Mount AEtna on them flat, and tell
them to stand up under it, as tell me to elevate my servants under
all the superincumbent mass of society upon them. One man can do
nothing, against the whole action of a community. Education, to
do anything, must be a state education; or there must be enough
agreed in it to make a current."

"You take the first throw," said Alfred; and the brothers
were soon lost in the game, and heard no more till the scraping of
horses' feet was heard under the verandah.

"There come the children," said Augustine, rising. "Look here,
Alf! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?"  And, in truth,
it _was_ a beautiful sight. Henrique, with his bold brow, and
dark, glossy curls, and glowing cheek, was laughing gayly as he
bent towards his fair cousin, as they came on. She was dressed in
a blue riding dress, with a cap of the same color. Exercise had
given a brilliant hue to her cheeks, and heightened the effect of
her singularly transparent skin, and golden hair.

"Good heavens! what perfectly dazzling beauty!" said Alfred.
"I tell you, Auguste, won't she make some hearts ache, one of
these days?"

"She will, too truly,--God knows I'm afraid so!" said St.
Clare, in a tone of sudden bitterness, as he hurried down to take
her off her horse.

"Eva darling! you're not much tired?" he said, as he clasped
her in his arms.

"No, papa," said the child; but her short, hard breathing
alarmed her father.

"How could you ride so fast, dear?--you know it's bad for you."

"I felt so well, papa, and liked it so much, I forgot."

St. Clare carried her in his arms into the parlor, and laid
her on the sofa.

"Henrique, you must be careful of Eva," said he; "you
mustn't ride fast with her."

"I'll take her under my care," said Henrique, seating
himself by the sofa, and taking Eva's hand.

Eva soon found herself much better. Her father and uncle
resumed their game, and the children were left together.

"Do you know, Eva, I'm sorry papa is only going to stay two
days here, and then I shan't see you again for ever so long!
If I stay with you, I'd try to be good, and not be cross to Dodo,
and so on. I don't mean to treat Dodo ill; but, you know, I've
got such a quick temper. I'm not really bad to him, though.
I give him a picayune, now and then; and you see he dresses well.
I think, on the whole, Dodo 's pretty well off."

"Would you think you were well off, if there were not one creature
in the world near you to love you?"

"I?--Well, of course not."

"And you have taken Dodo away from all the friends he ever had,
and now he has not a creature to love him;--nobody can be good
that way."

"Well, I can't help it, as I know of. I can't get his mother
and I can't love him myself, nor anybody else, as I know of."

"Why can't you?" said Eva.

"_Love_ Dodo! Why, Eva, you wouldn't have me! I may _like_
him well enough; but you don't _love_ your servants."

"I do, indeed."

"How odd!"

"Don't the Bible say we must love everybody?"

"O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but,
then, nobody ever thinks of doing them,--you know, Eva, nobody does."

Eva did not speak; her eyes were fixed and thoughtful for
a few moments.

"At any rate," she said, "dear Cousin, do love poor Dodo,
and be kind to him, for my sake!"

"I could love anything, for your sake, dear Cousin; for I
really think you are the loveliest creature that I ever saw!"
And Henrique spoke with an earnestness that flushed his handsome face.
Eva received it with perfect simplicity, without even a change of
feature; merely saying, "I'm glad you feel so, dear Henrique!
I hope you will remember."

The dinner-bell put an end to the interview.

CHAPTER XXIV

Foreshadowings

Two days after this, Alfred St. Clare and Augustine parted;
and Eva, who had been stimulated, by the society of her young
cousin, to exertions beyond her strength, began to fail rapidly.
St. Clare was at last willing to call in medical advice,--a thing
from which he had always shrunk, because it was the admission of
an unwelcome truth.

But, for a day or two, Eva was so unwell as to be confined
to the house; and the doctor was called.

Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child's gradually
decaying health and strength, because she was completely absorbed
in studying out two or three new forms of disease to which she
believed she herself was a victim. It was the first principle of
Marie's belief that nobody ever was or could be so great a sufferer
as _herself_; and, therefore, she always repelled quite indignantly
any suggestion that any one around her could be sick. She was
always sure, in such a case, that it was nothing but laziness, or
want of energy; and that, if they had had the suffering _she_ had,
they would soon know the difference.

Miss Ophelia had several times tried to awaken her maternal
fears about Eva; but to no avail.

"I don't see as anything ails the child," she would say;
"she runs about, and plays."

"But she has a cough."

"Cough! you don't need to tell _me_ about a cough. I've always
been subject to a cough, all my days. When I was of Eva's age,
they thought I was in a consumption. Night after night, Mammy
used to sit up with me. O! Eva's cough is not anything."

"But she gets weak, and is short-breathed."

"Law! I've had that, years and years; it's only a nervous affection."

"But she sweats so, nights!"

"Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night,
my clothes will be wringing wet. There won't be a dry thread
in my night-clothes and the sheets will be so that Mammy has to
hang them up to dry! Eva doesn't sweat anything like that!"

Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that Eva
was fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie,
all on a sudden, took a new turn.

"She knew it," she said; "she always felt it, that she was
destined to be the most miserable of mothers. Here she was, with
her wretched health, and her only darling child going down to the
grave before her eyes;"--and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and
rumpussed and scolded, with more energy than ever, all day, on the
strength of this new misery.

"My dear Marie, don't talk so!" said St. Clare. You ought
not to give up the case so, at once."

"You have not a mother's feelings, St. Clare! You never
could understand me!--you don't now."

"But don't talk so, as if it were a gone case!"

"I can't take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare.
If _you_ don't feel when your only child is in this alarming state,
I do. It's a blow too much for me, with all I was bearing before."

"It's true," said St. Clare, "that Eva is very delicate,
_that_ I always knew; and that she has grown so rapidly as to
exhaust her strength; and that her situation is critical. But just
now she is only prostrated by the heat of the weather, and by the
excitement of her cousin's visit, and the exertions she made.
The physician says there is room for hope."

"Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do;
it's a mercy if people haven't sensitive feelings, in this world.
I am sure I wish I didn't feel as I do; it only makes me completely
wretched! I wish I _could_ be as easy as the rest of you!"

And the "rest of them" had good reason to breathe the same
prayer, for Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology
for all sorts of inflictions on every one about her. Every word
that was spoken by anybody, everything that was done or was not
done everywhere, was only a new proof that she was surrounded by
hard-hearted, insensible beings, who were unmindful of her peculiar
sorrows. Poor Eva heard some of these speeches; and nearly cried
her little eyes out, in pity for her mamma, and in sorrow that she
should make her so much distress.

In a week or two, there was a great improvement of
symptoms,--one of those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable
disease so often beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of
the grave. Eva's step was again in the garden,--in the balconies;
she played and laughed again,--and her father, in a transport,
declared that they should soon have her as hearty as anybody. Miss
Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this
illusive truce. There was one other heart, too, that felt the same
certainty, and that was the little heart of Eva. What is it that
sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly
time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or
the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be it what it
may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic
certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet
as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed,
only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.

For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though life was
unfolding before her with every brightness that love and wealth
could give, had no regret for herself in dying.

In that book which she and her simple old friend had read
so much together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the
image of one who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and
mused, He had ceased to be an image and a picture of the distant
past, and come to be a living, all-surrounding reality. His love
enfolded her childish heart with more than mortal tenderness; and
it was to Him, she said, she was going, and to his home.

But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she
was to leave behind. Her father most,--for Eva, though she never
distinctly thought so, had an instinctive perception that she was
more in his heart than any other. She loved her mother because
she was so loving a creature, and all the selfishness that she had
seen in her only saddened and perplexed her; for she had a child's
implicit trust that her mother could not do wrong. There was
something about her that Eva never could make out; and she always
smoothed it over with thinking that, after all, it was mamma, and
she loved her very dearly indeed.

She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was
as daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize;
but Eva was an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she
had witnessed of the evils of the system under which they were
living had fallen, one by one, into the depths of her thoughtful,
pondering heart. She had vague longings to do something for
them,--to bless and save not only them, but all in their
condition,--longings that contrasted sadly with the feebleness of
her little frame.

"Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading to
her friend, "I can understand why Jesus _wanted_ to die for us."

"Why, Miss Eva?"

"Because I've felt so, too."

"What is it Miss Eva?--I don't understand."

"I can't tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on
the boat, you know, when you came up and I,--some had lost their
mothers, and some their husbands, and some mothers cried for their
little children--and when I heard about poor Prue,--oh, wasn't that
dreadful!--and a great many other times, I've felt that I would be
glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. _I would_
die for them, Tom, if I could," said the child, earnestly, laying
her little thin hand on his.

Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her
father's voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as
he looked after her.

"It's jest no use tryin' to keep Miss Eva here," he said to
Mammy, whom he met a moment after. "She's got the Lord's mark
in her forehead."

"Ah, yes, yes," said Mammy, raising her hands; "I've allers
said so. She wasn't never like a child that's to live--there was
allers something deep in her eyes. I've told Missis so, many the
time; it's a comin' true,--we all sees it,--dear, little, blessed lamb!"

Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. It was
late in the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed a kind
of glory behind her, as she came forward in her white dress, with
her golden hair and glowing cheeks, her eyes unnaturally bright
with the slow fever that burned in her veins.

St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had been
buying for her; but her appearance, as she came on, impressed
him suddenly and painfully. There is a kind of beauty so intense,
yet so fragile, that we cannot bear to look at it. Her father
folded her suddenly in his arms, and almost forgot what he was
going to tell her.

"Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days,--are you not?"

"Papa," said Eva, with sudden firmness "I've had things I
wanted to say to you, a great while. I want to say them
now, before I get weaker."

St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She laid
her head on his bosom, and said,

"It's all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer.
The time is coming that I am going to leave you. I am going, and
never to come back!" and Eva sobbed.

"O, now, my dear little Eva!" said St. Clare, trembling as
he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, "you've got nervous and
low-spirited; you mustn't indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here,
I've bought a statuette for you!"

"No, papa," said Eva, putting it gently away, "don't deceive
yourself!--I am _not_ any better, I know it perfectly well,--and
I am going, before long. I am not nervous,--I am not low-spirited.
If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly
happy. I want to go,--I long to go!"

"Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart so sad?
You have had everything, to make you happy, that could be
given you."

"I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends'
sake, I would be willing to live. There are a great many things
here that make me sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be
there; but I don't want to leave you,--it almost breaks my heart!"

"What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva?"

"O, things that are done, and done all the time. I feel sad
for our poor people; they love me dearly, and they are all good
and kind to me. I wish, papa, they were all _free_."

"Why, Eva, child, don't you think they are well enough off now?"

"O, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what would
become of them? There are very few men like you, papa. Uncle Alfred
isn't like you, and mamma isn't; and then, think of poor old Prue's
owners! What horrid things people do, and can do!" and Eva shuddered.

"My dear child, you are too sensitive. I'm sorry I ever
let you hear such stories."

"O, that's what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so
happy, and never to have any pain,--never suffer anything,--not
even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but
pain and sorrow, an their lives;--it seems selfish. I ought to
know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always
sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I've thought and thought
about them. Papa, isn't there any way to have all slaves made free?"

"That's a difficult question, dearest. There's no doubt that
this way is a very bad one; a great many people think so; I
do myself I heartily wish that there were not a slave in the land;
but, then, I don't know what is to be done about it!"

"Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind,
and you always have a way of saying things that is so pleasant,
couldn't you go all round and try to persuade people to do right
about this? When I am dead, papa, then you will think of me, and
do it for my sake. I would do it, if I could."

"When you are dead, Eva," said St. Clare, passionately.
"O, child, don't talk to me so! You are all I have on earth."

"Poor old Prue's child was all that she had,--and yet she
had to hear it crying, and she couldn't help it! Papa, these poor
creatures love their children as much as you do me. O! do something
for them! There's poor Mammy loves her children; I've seen her cry
when she talked about them. And Tom loves his children; and it's
dreadful, papa, that such things are happening, all the time!"

"There, there, darling," said St. Clare, soothingly; "only don't
distress yourself, don't talk of dying, and I will do anything
you wish."

"And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom
as soon as"--she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone--"I
am gone!"

"Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world,--anything you
could ask me to."

"Dear papa," said the child, laying her burning cheek
against his, "how I wish we could go together!"

"Where, dearest?" said St. Clare.

"To our Saviour's home; it's so sweet and peaceful there--it
is all so loving there!"  The child spoke unconsciously, as of a
place where she had often been. "Don't you want to go, papa?"
she said.

St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent.

"You will come to me," said the child, speaking in a voice
of calm certainty which she often used unconsciously.

"I shall come after you. I shall not forget you."

The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them deeper and
deeper, as St. Clare sat silently holding the little frail form
to his bosom. He saw no more the deep eyes, but the voice came
over him as a spirit voice, and, as in a sort of judgment vision,
his whole past life rose in a moment before his eyes: his mother's
prayers and hymns; his own early yearnings and aspirings for good;
and, between them and this hour, years of worldliness and scepticism,
and what man calls respectable living. We can think _much_, very
much, in a moment. St. Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke
nothing; and, as it grew darker, he took his child to her bed-room;
and, when she was prepared for rest; he sent away the attendants,
and rocked her in his arms, and sung to her till she was asleep.

CHAPTER XXV

The Little Evangelist

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I dare say _you_ don't," said Marie; "I was prepared to
expect _that_. You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or has
the least thing the matter with her; but you never think of me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come out here, now!" she said. "I _will_ tell your master!"

"What's the case now?" asked Augustine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking
with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What is it?"

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

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

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

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

"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and
be good? Don't you love _anybody_, Topsy?"

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

"But you love your father and mother?"

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

"O, I know," said Eva, sadly; "but hadn't you any brother,
or sister, or aunt, or--"

"No, none on 'em,--never had nothing nor nobody."

"But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might--"

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

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

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

"Don't you think so?" said Eva.

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

"O, Topsy, poor child, _I_ love you!" said Eva, with a sudden
burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on
Topsy's shoulder; "I love you, because you haven't had any father,
or mother, or friends;--because you've been a poor, abused child!
I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy,
and I think I shan't live a great while; and it really grieves me,
to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for
my sake;--it's only a little while I shall be with you."

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

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

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

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

"I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss
Ophelia, "and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that child
touch me; but, I don't think she knew it."

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

"I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; "they
_are_ disagreeable to me,--this child in particular,--how can I
help feeling so?"

"Eva does, it seems."

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

"It wouldn't be the first time a little child had been used
to instruct an old disciple, if it _were_ so," said St. Clare.

CHAPTER XXVI

Death

          Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
          In life's early morning, hath hid from our eyes.[1]

[1]  "Weep Not for Those," a poem by Thomas Moore (1779-1852).

Eva's bed-room was a spacious apartment, which, like all the
other robins in the house, opened on to the broad verandah.
The room communicated, on one side, with her father and mother's
apartment; on the other, with that appropriated to Miss Ophelia.
St. Clare had gratified his own eye and taste, in furnishing this
room in a style that had a peculiar keeping with the character of
her for whom it was intended. The windows were hung with curtains
of rose-colored and white muslin, the floor was spread with a
matting which had been ordered in Paris, to a pattern of his own
device, having round it a border of rose-buds and leaves, and a
centre-piece with full-flown roses. The bedstead, chairs, and
lounges, were of bamboo, wrought in peculiarly graceful and fanciful
patterns. Over the head of the bed was an alabaster bracket, on
which a beautiful sculptured angel stood, with drooping wings,
holding out a crown of myrtle-leaves. From this depended, over
the bed, light curtains of rose-colored gauze, striped with silver,
supplying that protection from mosquitos which is an indispensable
addition to all sleeping accommodation in that climate. The graceful
bamboo lounges were amply supplied with cushions of rose-colored
damask, while over them, depending from the hands of sculptured
figures, were gauze curtains similar to those of the bed. A light,
fanciful bamboo table stood in the middle of the room, where a
Parian vase, wrought in the shape of a white lily, with its buds,
stood, ever filled with flowers. On this table lay Eva's books and
little trinkets, with an elegantly wrought alabaster writing-stand,
which her father had supplied to her when he saw her trying to
improve herself in writing. There was a fireplace in the room,
and on the marble mantle above stood a beautifully wrought
statuette of Jesus receiving little children, and on either side
marble vases, for which it was Tom's pride and delight to offer
bouquets every morning. Two or three exquisite paintings of
children, in various attitudes, embellished the wall. In short,
the eye could turn nowhere without meeting images of childhood,
of beauty, and of peace. Those little eyes never opened, in the
morning light, without falling on something which suggested to the
heart soothing and beautiful thoughts.

The deceitful strength which had buoyed Eva up for a little
while was fast passing away; seldom and more seldom her light
footstep was heard in the verandah, and oftener and oftener she
was found reclined on a little lounge by the open window, her large,
deep eyes fixed on the rising and falling waters of the lake.

It was towards the middle of the afternoon, as she was so
reclining,--her Bible half open, her little transparent fingers
lying listlessly between the leaves,--suddenly she heard her mother's
voice, in sharp tones, in the verandah.

"What now, you baggage!--what new piece of mischief! You've been
picking the flowers, hey?" and Eva heard the sound of a smart slap.

"Law, Missis! they 's for Miss Eva," she heard a voice say,
which she knew belonged to Topsy.

"Miss Eva! A pretty excuse!--you suppose she wants _your_
flowers, you good-for-nothing nigger! Get along off with you!"

In a moment, Eva was off from her lounge, and in the verandah.

"O, don't, mother! I should like the flowers; do give them
to me; I want them!"

"Why, Eva, your room is full now."

"I can't have too many," said Eva. "Topsy, do bring them here."

Topsy, who had stood sullenly, holding down her head, now came
up and offered her flowers. She did it with a look of hesitation
and bashfulness, quite unlike the eldrich boldness and brightness
which was usual with her.

"It's a beautiful bouquet!" said Eva, looking at it.

It was rather a singular one,--a brilliant scarlet geranium,
and one single white japonica, with its glossy leaves. It was tied
up with an evident eye to the contrast of color, and the arrangement
of every leaf had carefully been studied.

Topsy looked pleased, as Eva said,--"Topsy, you arrange
flowers very prettily. Here," she said, "is this vase I haven't
any flowers for. I wish you'd arrange something every day for it."

"Well, that's odd!" said Marie. "What in the world do you
want that for?"

"Never mind, mamma; you'd as lief as not Topsy should do
it,--had you not?"

"Of course, anything you please, dear! Topsy, you hear your
young mistress;--see that you mind."

Topsy made a short courtesy, and looked down; and, as she
turned away, Eva saw a tear roll down her dark cheek.

"You see, mamma, I knew poor Topsy wanted to do something
for me," said Eva to her mother.

"O, nonsense! it's only because she likes to do mischief.
She knows she mustn't pick flowers,--so she does it; that's all
there is to it. But, if you fancy to have her pluck them, so be it."

"Mamma, I think Topsy is different from what she used to be;
she's trying to be a good girl."

"She'll have to try a good while before _she_ gets to be good,"
said Marie, with a careless laugh.

"Well, you know, mamma, poor Topsy! everything has always
been against her."

"Not since she's been here, I'm sure. If she hasn't been
talked to, and preached to, and every earthly thing done that
anybody could do;--and she's just so ugly, and always will be; you
can't make anything of the creature!"

"But, mamma, it's so different to be brought up as I've been,
with so many friends, so many things to make me good and
happy; and to be brought up as she's been, all the time, till she
came here!"

"Most likely," said Marie, yawning,--"dear me, how hot it is!"

"Mamma, you believe, don't you, that Topsy could become an
angel, as well as any of us, if she were a Christian?"

"Topsy! what a ridiculous idea! Nobody but you would ever
think of it. I suppose she could, though."

"But, mamma, isn't God her father, as much as ours? Isn't
Jesus her Saviour?"

"Well, that may be. I suppose God made everybody," said Marie.
"Where is my smelling-bottle?"

"It's such a pity,--oh! _such_ a pity!" said Eva, looking
out on the distant lake, and speaking half to herself.

"What's a pity?" said Marie.

"Why, that any one, who could be a bright angel, and live with
angels, should go all down, down down, and nobody help them!--oh dear!"

"Well, we can't help it; it's no use worrying, Eva! I don't
know what's to be done; we ought to be thankful for our own
advantages."

"I hardly can be," said Eva, "I'm so sorry to think of poor
folks that haven't any."

That's odd enough," said Marie;-- "I'm sure my religion
makes me thankful for my advantages."

"Mamma," said Eva, "I want to have some of my hair cut
off,--a good deal of it."

"What for?" said Marie.

"Mamma, I want to give some away to my friends, while I am
able to give it to them myself. Won't you ask aunty to come and
cut it for me?"

Marie raised her voice, and called Miss Ophelia, from the
other room.

The child half rose from her pillow as she came in, and,
shaking down her long golden-brown curls, said, rather playfully,
"Come aunty, shear the sheep!"

"What's that?" said St. Clare, who just then entered with
some fruit he had been out to get for her.

"Papa, I just want aunty to cut off some of my hair;--there's
too much of it, and it makes my head hot. Besides, I want to give
some of it away."

Miss Ophelia came, with her scissors.

"Take care,--don't spoil the looks of it!" said her father;
"cut underneath, where it won't show. Eva's curls are my pride."

"O, papa!" said Eva, sadly.

"Yes, and I want them kept handsome against the time I take
you up to your uncle's plantation, to see Cousin Henrique," said
St. Clare, in a gay tone.

"I shall never go there, papa;--I am going to a better country.
O, do believe me! Don't you see, papa, that I get weaker,
every day?"

"Why do you insist that I shall believe such a cruel thing,
Eva?" said her father.

"Only because it is _true_, papa: and, if you will believe
it now, perhaps you will get to feel about it as I do."

St. Clare closed his lips, and stood gloomily eying the long,
beautiful curls, which, as they were separated from the child's
head, were laid, one by one, in her lap. She raised them up,
looked earnestly at them, twined them around her thin fingers,
and looked from time to time, anxiously at her father.

"It's just what I've been foreboding!" said Marie; "it's just
what has been preying on my health, from day to day, bringing
me downward to the grave, though nobody regards it. I have seen
this, long. St. Clare, you will see, after a while, that I was right."

"Which will afford you great consolation, no doubt!" said
St. Clare, in a dry, bitter tone.

Marie lay back on a lounge, and covered her face with her
cambric handkerchief.

Eva's clear blue eye looked earnestly from one to the other.
It was the calm, comprehending gaze of a soul half loosed from its
earthly bonds; it was evident she saw, felt, and appreciated, the
difference between the two.

She beckoned with her hand to her father. He came and sat
down by her.

"Papa, my strength fades away every day, and I know I must go.
There are some things I want to say and do,--that I ought to do;
and you are so unwilling to have me speak a word on this subject.
But it must come; there's no putting it off. Do be willing I should
speak now!"

"My child, I _am_ willing!" said St. Clare, covering his
eyes with one hand, and holding up Eva's hand with the other.

"Then, I want to see all our people together. I have some
things I _must_ say to them," said Eva.

"_Well_," said St. Clare, in a tone of dry endurance.

Miss Ophelia despatched a messenger, and soon the whole of
the servants were convened in the room.

Eva lay back on her pillows; her hair hanging loosely about
her face, her crimson cheeks contrasting painfully with the
intense whiteness of her complexion and the thin contour of her
limbs and features, and her large, soul-like eyes fixed earnestly
on every one.

The servants were struck with a sudden emotion. The spiritual
face, the long locks of hair cut off and lying by her, her
father's averted face, and Marie's sobs, struck at once upon
the feelings of a sensitive and impressible race; and, as they came
in, they looked one on another, sighed, and shook their heads.
There was a deep silence, like that of a funeral.

Eva raised herself, and looked long and earnestly round at
every one. All looked sad and apprehensive. Many of the women
hid their faces in their aprons.

"I sent for you all, my dear friends," said Eva, "because I
love you. I love you all; and I have something to say to you,
which I want you always to remember. . . . I am going to leave you.
In a few more weeks you will see me no more--"

Here the child was interrupted by bursts of groans, sobs, and
lamentations, which broke from all present, and in which her
slender voice was lost entirely. She waited a moment, and then,
speaking in a tone that checked the sobs of all, she said,

"If you love me, you must not interrupt me so. Listen to what
I say. I want to speak to you about your souls. . . . Many of
you, I am afraid, are very careless. You are thinking only about
this world. I want you to remember that there is a beautiful world,
where Jesus is. I am going there, and you can go there. It is for
you, as much as me. But, if you want to go there, you must not
live idle, careless, thoughtless lives. You must be Christians.
You must remember that each one of you can become angels, and be
angels forever. . . . If you want to be Christians, Jesus will
help you. You must pray to him; you must read--"

The child checked herself, looked piteously at them, and
said, sorrowfully,

"O dear! you _can't_ read--poor souls!" and she hid her face in
the pillow and sobbed, while many a smothered sob from those she
was addressing, who were kneeling on the floor, aroused her.

"Never mind," she said, raising her face and smiling brightly
through her tears, "I have prayed for you; and I know Jesus will
help you, even if you can't read. Try all to do the best you can;
pray every day; ask Him to help you, and get the Bible read to you
whenever you can; and I think I shall see you all in heaven."

"Amen," was the murmured response from the lips of Tom and
Mammy, and some of the elder ones, who belonged to the Methodist
church. The younger and more thoughtless ones, for the time
completely overcome, were sobbing, with their heads bowed upon
their knees.

"I know," said Eva, "you all love me."

"Yes; oh, yes! indeed we do! Lord bless her!" was the
involuntary answer of all.

"Yes, I know you do! There isn't one of you that hasn't always
been very kind to me; and I want to give you something that,
when you look at, you shall always remember me, I'm going to give
all of you a curl of my hair; and, when you look at it, think that
I loved you and am gone to heaven, and that I want to see you all there."

It is impossible to describe the scene, as, with tears and sobs,
they gathered round the little creature, and took from her hands
what seemed to them a last mark of her love. They fell on
their knees; they sobbed, and prayed, and kissed the hem of her
garment; and the elder ones poured forth words of endearment,
mingled in prayers and blessings, after the manner of their
susceptible race.

As each one took their gift, Miss Ophelia, who was apprehensive
for the effect of all this excitement on her little patient,
signed to each one to pass out of the apartment.

At last, all were gone but Tom and Mammy.

"Here, Uncle Tom," said Eva, "is a beautiful one for you. O, I am
so happy, Uncle Tom, to think I shall see you in heaven,--for
I'm sure I shall; and Mammy,--dear, good, kind Mammy!" she said,
fondly throwing her arms round her old nurse,--"I know you'll be
there, too."

"O, Miss Eva, don't see how I can live without ye, no how!"
said the faithful creature. "'Pears like it's just taking everything
off the place to oncet!" and Mammy gave way to a passion of grief.

Miss Ophelia pushed her and Tom gently from the apartment,
and thought they were all gone; but, as she turned, Topsy was
standing there.

"Where did you start up from?" she said, suddenly.

"I was here," said Topsy, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"O, Miss Eva, I've been a bad girl; but won't you give _me_
one, too?"

"Yes, poor Topsy! to be sure, I will. There--every time
you look at that, think that I love you, and wanted you to be a
good girl!"

"O, Miss Eva, I _is_ tryin!" said Topsy, earnestly; "but,
Lor, it's so hard to be good! 'Pears like I an't used to it,
no ways!"

"Jesus knows it, Topsy; he is sorry for you; he will help you."

Topsy, with her eyes hid in her apron, was silently passed
from the apartment by Miss Ophelia; but, as she went, she hid the
precious curl in her bosom.

All being gone, Miss Ophelia shut the door. That worthy
lady had wiped away many tears of her own, during the scene; but
concern for the consequence of such an excitement to her young
charge was uppermost in her mind.

St. Clare had been sitting, during the whole time, with
his hand shading his eyes, in the same attitude.

When they were all gone, he sat so still.

"Papa!" said Eva, gently, laying her hand on his.

He gave a sudden start and shiver; but made no answer.

"Dear papa!" said Eva.

"_I cannot_," said St. Clare, rising, "I _cannot_ have it so!
The Almighty hath dealt _very bitterly_ with me!" and St. Clare
pronounced these words with a bitter emphasis, indeed.

"Augustine! has not God a right to do what he will with
his own?" said Miss Ophelia.

"Perhaps so; but that doesn't make it any easier to bear,"
said he, with a dry, hard, tearless manner, as he turned away.

"Papa, you break my heart!" said Eva, rising and throwing
herself into his arms; "you must not feel so!" and the child sobbed
and wept with a violence which alarmed them all, and turned her
father's thoughts at once to another channel.

"There, Eva,--there, dearest! Hush! hush! I was wrong; I
was wicked. I will feel any way, do any way,--only don't distress
yourself; don't sob so. I will be resigned; I was wicked to speak
as I did."

Eva soon lay like a wearied dove in her father's arms; and
he, bending over her, soothed her by every tender word he could
think of.

Marie rose and threw herself out of the apartment into her
own, when she fell into violent hysterics.

"You didn't give me a curl, Eva," said her father, smiling sadly.

"They are all yours, papa," said she, smiling--"yours and
mamma's; and you must give dear aunty as many as she wants. I only
gave them to our poor people myself, because you know, papa, they
might be forgotten when I am gone, and because I hoped it might
help them remember. . . . You are a Christian, are you not, papa?"
said Eva, doubtfully.

"Why do you ask me?"

"I don't know. You are so good, I don't see how you can
help it."

"What is being a Christian, Eva?"

"Loving Christ most of all," said Eva.

"Do you, Eva?"

"Certainly I do."

"You never saw him," said St. Clare.

"That makes no difference," said Eva. "I believe him, and
in a few days I shall _see_ him;" and the young face grew fervent,
radiant with joy.

St. Clare said no more. It was a feeling which he had seen
before in his mother; but no chord within vibrated to it.

Eva, after this, declined rapidly; there was no more any
doubt of the event; the fondest hope could not be blinded.
Her beautiful room was avowedly a sick room; and Miss Ophelia day
and night performed the duties of a nurse,--and never did her friends
appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well-trained
a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in every art
which could promote neatness and comfort, and keep out of sight
every disagreeable incident of sickness,--with such a perfect sense
of time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact accuracy in
remembering every prescription and direction of the doctors,-- she
was everything to him. They who had shrugged their shoulders at
her little peculiarities and setnesses, so unlike the careless
freedom of southern manners, acknowledged that now she was the
exact person that was wanted.

Uncle Tom was much in Eva's room. The child suffered much from
nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be carried;
and it was Tom's greatest delight to carry her little frail form
in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and down her room, now
out into the verandah; and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from
the lake,--and the child felt freshest in the morning,--he would
sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in the garden,
or, sitting down in some of their old seats, sing to her their
favorite old hymns.

Her father often did the same thing; but his frame was
slighter, and when he was weary, Eva would say to him,

"O, papa, let Tom take me. Poor fellow! it pleases him; and
you know it's all he can do now, and he wants to do something!"

"So do I, Eva!" said her father.

"Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me.
You read to me,--you sit up nights,--and Tom has only this
one thing, and his singing; and I know, too, he does it easier than
you can. He carries me so strong!"

The desire to do something was not confined to Tom. Every servant
in the establishment showed the same feeling, and in their way
did what they could.

Poor Mammy's heart yearned towards her darling; but she
found no opportunity, night or day, as Marie declared that the
state of her mind was such, it was impossible for her to rest; and,
of course, it was against her principles to let any one else rest.
Twenty times in a night, Mammy would be roused to rub her feet, to
bathe her head, to find her pocket-handkerchief, to see what the
noise was in Eva's room, to let down a curtain because it was too
light, or to put it up because it was too dark; and, in the daytime,
when she longed to have some share in the nursing of her pet, Marie
seemed unusually ingenious in keeping her busy anywhere and everywhere
all over the house, or about her own person; so that stolen interviews
and momentary glimpses were all she could obtain.

"I feel it my duty to be particularly careful of myself, now,"
she would say, "feeble as I am, and with the whole care and
nursing of that dear child upon me."

"Indeed, my dear," said St. Clare, "I thought our cousin
relieved you of that."

"You talk like a man, St. Clare,--just as if a mother _could_
be relieved of the care of a child in that state; but, then,
it's all alike,--no one ever knows what I feel! I can't throw
things off, as you do."

St. Clare smiled. You must excuse him, he couldn't help
it,--for St. Clare could smile yet. For so bright and placid was
the farewell voyage of the little spirit,--by such sweet and fragrant
breezes was the small bark borne towards the heavenly shores,--that
it was impossible to realize that it was death that was approaching.
The child felt no pain,--only a tranquil, soft weakness, daily and
almost insensibly increasing; and she was so beautiful, so loving,
so trustful, so happy, that one could not resist the soothing
influence of that air of innocence and peace which seemed to breathe
around her. St. Clare found a strange calm coming over him. It was
not hope,--that was impossible; it was not resignation; it was
only a calm resting in the present, which seemed so beautiful that
he wished to think of no future. It was like that hush of spirit
which we feel amid the bright, mild woods of autumn, when the bright
hectic flush is on the trees, and the last lingering flowers by
the brook; and we joy in it all the more, because we know that soon
it will all pass away.

The friend who knew most of Eva's own imaginings and
foreshadowings was her faithful bearer, Tom. To him she said what
she would not disturb her father by saying. To him she imparted
those mysterious intimations which the soul feels, as the cords
begin to unbind, ere it leaves its clay forever.

Tom, at last, would not sleep in his room, but lay all
night in the outer verandah, ready to rouse at every call.

"Uncle Tom, what alive have you taken to sleeping anywhere
and everywhere, like a dog, for?" said Miss Ophelia. "I thought
you was one of the orderly sort, that liked to lie in bed in a
Christian way."

"I do, Miss Feely," said Tom, mysteriously. "I do, but now--"

"Well, what now?"

"We mustn't speak loud; Mas'r St. Clare won't hear on 't;
but Miss Feely, you know there must be somebody watchin' for
the bridegroom."

"What do you mean, Tom?"

"You know it says in Scripture, `At midnight there was a
great cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh.'  That's what I'm
spectin now, every night, Miss Feely,--and I couldn't sleep out o'
hearin, no ways."

"Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you think so?"

"Miss Eva, she talks to me. The Lord, he sends his messenger
in the soul. I must be thar, Miss Feely; for when that ar blessed
child goes into the kingdom, they'll open the door so wide, we'll
all get a look in at the glory, Miss Feely."

"Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say she felt more unwell than
usual tonight?"

"No; but she telled me, this morning, she was coming
nearer,--thar's them that tells it to the child, Miss Feely.
It's the angels,--`it's the trumpet sound afore the break o' day,'"
said Tom, quoting from a favorite hymn.

This dialogue passed between Miss Ophelia and Tom, between
ten and eleven, one evening, after her arrangements had all been
made for the night, when, on going to bolt her outer door, she
found Tom stretched along by it, in the outer verandah.

She was not nervous or impressible; but the solemn, heart-felt
manner struck her. Eva had been unusually bright and cheerful,
that afternoon, and had sat raised in her bed, and looked over all
her little trinkets and precious things, and designated the friends
to whom she would have them given; and her manner was more animated,
and her voice more natural, than they had known it for weeks. Her
father had been in, in the evening, and had said that Eva appeared
more like her former self than ever she had done since her sickness;
and when he kissed her for the night, he said to Miss Ophelia,--"Cousin,
we may keep her with us, after all; she is certainly better;" and
he had retired with a lighter heart in his bosom than he had had there
for weeks.

But at midnight,--strange, mystic hour!--when the veil between
the frail present and the eternal future grows thin,--then
came the messenger!

There was a sound in that chamber, first of one who stepped
quickly. It was Miss Ophelia, who had resolved to sit up all night
with her little charge, and who, at the turn of the night, had
discerned what experienced nurses significantly call "a change."
The outer door was quickly opened, and Tom, who was watching outside,
was on the alert, in a moment.

"Go for the doctor, Tom! lose not a moment," said Miss Ophelia;
and, stepping across the room, she rapped at St. Clare's door.

"Cousin," she said, "I wish you would come."

Those words fell on his heart like clods upon a coffin.
Why did they? He was up and in the room in an instant, and bending
over Eva, who still slept.

What was it he saw that made his heart stand still? Why was
no word spoken between the two? Thou canst say, who hast seen
that same expression on the face dearest to thee;--that look
indescribable, hopeless, unmistakable, that says to thee that thy
beloved is no longer thine.

On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly
imprint,--only a high and almost sublime expression,--the overshadowing
presence of spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal life in that
childish soul.

They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the
ticking of the watch seemed too loud. In a few moments, Tom
returned, with the doctor. He entered, gave one look, and stood
silent as the rest.

"When did this change take place?" said he, in a low whisper,
to Miss Ophelia.

"About the turn of the night," was the reply.

Marie, roused by the entrance of the doctor, appeared,
hurriedly, from the next room.

"Augustine! Cousin!--O!--what!" she hurriedly began.

"Hush!" said St. Clare, hoarsely; _"she is dying!"_

Mammy heard the words, and flew to awaken the servants.
The house was soon roused,--lights were seen, footsteps heard,
anxious faces thronged the verandah, and looked tearfully through
the glass doors; but St. Clare heard and said nothing,--he saw
only _that look_ on the face of the little sleeper.

"O, if she would only wake, and speak once more!" he said;
and, stooping over her, he spoke in her ear,--"Eva, darling!"

The large blue eyes unclosed--a smile passed over her
face;--she tried to raise her head, and to speak.

"Do you know me, Eva?"

"Dear papa," said the child, with a last effort, throwing her
arms about his neck. In a moment they dropped again; and, as
St. Clare raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over
the face,--she struggled for breath, and threw up her little hands.

"O, God, this is dreadful!" he said, turning away in agony,
and wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what he was doing.
"O, Tom, my boy, it is killing me!"

Tom had his master's hands between his own; and, with tears
streaming down his dark cheeks, looked up for help where he had
always been used to look.

"Pray that this may be cut short!" said St. Clare,--"this
wrings my heart."

"O, bless the Lord! it's over,--it's over, dear Master!"
said Tom; "look at her."

The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted,--the
large clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes,
that spoke so much of heaven! Earth was past,--and earthly pain;
but so solemn, so mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of
that face, that it checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed
around her, in breathless stillness.

"Eva," said St. Clare, gently.

She did not hear.

"O, Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?" said her father.

A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she
said, brokenly,--"O! love,--joy,--peace!" gave one sigh and passed
from death unto life!

"Farewell, beloved child! the bright, eternal doors have closed
after thee; we shall see thy sweet face no more. O, woe for them
who watched thy entrance into heaven, when they shall wake and
find only the cold gray sky of daily life, and thou gone forever!"

CHAPTER XXVII

"This Is the Last of Earth"[1]

[1]  "This is the last of Earth! I am content," last words of
John Quincy Adams, uttered February 21, 1848.

The statuettes and pictures in Eva's room were shrouded in
white napkins, and only hushed breathings and muffled footfalls
were heard there, and the light stole in solemnly through windows
partially darkened by closed blinds.

The bed was draped in white; and there, beneath the drooping
angel-figure, lay a little sleeping form,--sleeping never to waken!

There she lay, robed in one of the simple white dresses she had
been wont to wear when living; the rose-colored light through
the curtains cast over the icy coldness of death a warm glow.
The heavy eyelashes drooped softly on the pure cheek; the head
was turned a little to one side, as if in natural steep, but
there was diffused over every lineament of the face that high
celestial expression, that mingling of rapture and repose, which
showed it was no earthly or temporary sleep, but the long, sacred
rest which "He giveth to his beloved."

There is no death to such as thou, dear Eva! neither darkness
nor shadow of death; only such a bright fading as when the morning
star fades in the golden dawn. Thine is the victory without the
battle,--the crown without the conflict.

So did St. Clare think, as, with folded arms, he stood
there gazing. Ah! who shall say what he did think? for, from the
hour that voices had said, in the dying chamber, "she is gone," it
had been all a dreary mist, a heavy "dimness of anguish."  He had
heard voices around him; he had had questions asked, and answered
them; they had asked him when he would have the funeral, and where
they should lay her; and he had answered, impatiently, that he
cared not.

Adolph and Rosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, fickle
and childish, as they generally were, they were soft-hearted and
full of feeling; and, while Miss Ophelia presided over the general
details of order and neatness, it was their hands that added those
soft, poetic touches to the arrangements, that took from the
death-room the grim and ghastly air which too often marks a New
England funeral.

There were still flowers on the shelves,--all white, delicate
and fragrant, with graceful, drooping leaves. Eva's little table,
covered with white, bore on it her favorite vase, with a single
white moss rose-bud in it. The folds of the drapery, the fall of
the curtains, had been arranged and rearranged, by Adolph and Rosa,
with that nicety of eye which characterizes their race. Even now,
while St. Clare stood there thinking, little Rosa tripped softly
into the chamber with a basket of white flowers. She stepped back
when she saw St. Clare, and stopped respectfully; but, seeing that
he did not observe her, she came forward to place them around
the dead. St. Clare saw her as in a dream, while she placed in
the small hands a fair cape jessamine, and, with admirable taste,
disposed other flowers around the couch.

The door opened again, and Topsy, her eyes swelled with
crying, appeared, holding something under her apron. Rosa made a
quick forbidding gesture; but she took a step into the room.

"You must go out," said Rosa, in a sharp, positive whisper;
"_you_ haven't any business here!"

"O, do let me! I brought a flower,--such a pretty one!"
said Topsy, holding up a half-blown tea rose-bud. "Do let me put
just one there."

"Get along!" said Rosa, more decidedly.

"Let her stay!" said St. Clare, suddenly stamping his foot.
"She shall come."

Rosa suddenly retreated, and Topsy came forward and laid her
offering at the feet of the corpse; then suddenly, with a wild
and bitter cry, she threw herself on the floor alongside the bed,
and wept, and moaned aloud.

Miss Ophelia hastened into the room, and tried to raise
and silence her; but in vain.

"O, Miss Eva! oh, Miss Eva! I wish I 's dead, too,--I do!"

There was a piercing wildness in the cry; the blood flushed
into St. Clare's white, marble-like face, and the first tears he
had shed since Eva died stood in his eyes.

"Get up, child," said Miss Ophelia, in a softened voice;
"don't cry so. Miss Eva is gone to heaven; she is an angel."

"But I can't see her!" said Topsy. "I never shall see
her!" and she sobbed again.

They all stood a moment in silence.

"_She_ said she _loved_ me," said Topsy,-- "she did! O, dear!
oh, dear! there an't _nobody_ left now,--there an't!"

"That's true enough" said St. Clare; "but do," he said to
Miss Ophelia, "see if you can't comfort the poor creature."

"I jist wish I hadn't never been born," said Topsy. "I didn't
want to be born, no ways; and I don't see no use on 't."

Miss Ophelia raised her gently, but firmly, and took her from
the room; but, as she did so, some tears fell from her eyes.

"Topsy, you poor child," she said, as she led her into her
room, "don't give up! _I_ can love you, though I am not like that
dear little child. I hope I've learnt something of the love of
Christ from her. I can love you; I do, and I'll try to help you
to grow up a good Christian girl."

Miss Ophelia's voice was more than her words, and more than
that were the honest tears that fell down her face. From that
hour, she acquired an influence over the mind of the destitute
child that she never lost.

"O, my Eva, whose little hour on earth did so much of good,"
thought St. Clare, "what account have I to give for my long years?"

There were, for a while, soft whisperings and footfalls in the
chamber, as one after another stole in, to look at the dead;
and then came the little coffin; and then there was a funeral, and
carriages drove to the door, and strangers came and were seated;
and there were white scarfs and ribbons, and crape bands, and
mourners dressed in black crape; and there were words read from
the Bible, and prayers offered; and St. Clare lived, and walked,
and moved, as one who has shed every tear;--to the last he saw only
one thing, that golden head in the coffin; but then he saw the
cloth spread over it, the lid of the coffin closed; and he walked,
when he was put beside the others, down to a little place at the
bottom of the garden, and there, by the mossy seat where she and
Tom had talked, and sung, and read so often, was the little grave.
St. Clare stood beside it,--looked vacantly down; he saw them lower
the little coffin; he heard, dimly, the solemn words, "I am the
resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live;" and, as the earth was cast in and filled
up the little grave, he could not realize that it was his Eva that
they were hiding from his sight.

Nor was it!--not Eva, but only the frail seed of that bright,
immortal form with which she shall yet come forth, in the
day of the Lord Jesus!

And then all were gone, and the mourners went back to the place
which should know her no more; and Marie's room was darkened,
and she lay on the bed, sobbing and moaning in uncontrollable grief,
and calling every moment for the attentions of all her servants.
Of course, they had no time to cry,--why should they? the grief
was _her_ grief, and she was fully convinced that nobody on earth
did, could, or would feel it as she did.

"St. Clare did not shed a tear," she said; "he didn't
sympathize with her; it was perfectly wonderful to think how
hard-hearted and unfeeling he was, when he must know how she
suffered."

So much are people the slave of their eye and ear, that many
of the servants really thought that Missis was the principal
sufferer in the case, especially as Marie began to have hysterical
spasms, and sent for the doctor, and at last declared herself dying;
and, in the running and scampering, and bringing up hot bottles,
and heating of flannels, and chafing, and fussing, that ensued,
there was quite a diversion.

Tom, however, had a feeling at his own heart, that drew him
to his master. He followed him wherever he walked, wistfully
and sadly; and when he saw him sitting, so pale and quiet, in Eva's
room, holding before his eyes her little open Bible, though seeing
no letter or word of what was in it, there was more sorrow to Tom
in that still, fixed, tearless eye, than in all Marie's moans and
lamentations.

In a few days the St. Clare family were back again in the city;
Augustine, with the restlessness of grief, longing for another
scene, to change the current of his thoughts. So they left the
house and garden, with its little grave, and came back to New
Orleans; and St. Clare walked the streets busily, and strove to
fill up the chasm in his heart with hurry and bustle, and change
of place; and people who saw him in the street, or met him at the
cafe, knew of his loss only by the weed on his hat; for there he
was, smiling and talking, and reading the newspaper, and speculating
on politics, and attending to business matters; and who could see
that all this smiling outside was but a hollowed shell over a heart
that was a dark and silent sepulchre?

"Mr. St. Clare is a singular man," said Marie to Miss Ophelia,
in a complaining tone. "I used to think, if there was anything
in the world he did love, it was our dear little Eva; but he
seems to be forgetting her very easily. I cannot ever get him
to talk about her. I really did think he would show more feeling!"

"Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me," said Miss
Ophelia, oracularly.

"O, I don't believe in such things; it's all talk. If people
have feeling, they will show it,--they can't help it; but,
then, it's a great misfortune to have feeling. I'd rather have
been made like St. Clare. My feelings prey upon me so!"

"Sure, Missis, Mas'r St. Clare is gettin' thin as a shader.
They say, he don't never eat nothin'," said Mammy. "I know he
don't forget Miss Eva; I know there couldn't nobody,--dear, little,
blessed cretur!" she added, wiping her eyes.

"Well, at all events, he has no consideration for me," said
Marie; "he hasn't spoken one word of sympathy, and he must know
how much more a mother feels than any man can."

"The heart knoweth its own bitterness," said Miss Ophelia,
gravely.

"That's just what I think. I know just what I feel,--nobody
else seems to. Eva used to, but she is gone!" and Marie lay back
on her lounge, and began to sob disconsolately.

Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals,
in whose eyes whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it
never had in possession. Whatever she had, she seemed to survey
only to pick flaws in it; but, once fairly away, there was no
end to her valuation of it.

While this conversation was taking place in the parlor
another was going on in St. Clare's library.

Tom, who was always uneasily following his master about, had seen
him go to his library, some hours before; and, after vainly waiting
for him to come out, determined, at last, to make an errand in.
He entered softly. St. Clare lay on his lounge, at the further
end of the room. He was lying on his face, with Eva's Bible open
before him, at a little distance. Tom walked up, and stood by
the sofa. He hesitated; and, while he was hesitating, St. Clare
suddenly raised himself up. The honest face, so full of grief, and
with such an imploring expression of affection and sympathy, struck
his master. He laid his hand on Tom's, and bowed down his forehead
on it.

"O, Tom, my boy, the whole world is as empty as an egg-shell."

"I know it, Mas'r,--I know it," said Tom; "but, oh, if Mas'r
could only look up,--up where our dear Miss Eva is,--up to
the dear Lord Jesus!"

"Ah, Tom! I do look up; but the trouble is, I don't see
anything, when I do, I wish I could."

Tom sighed heavily.

"It seems to be given to children, and poor, honest fellows,
like you, to see what we can't," said St. Clare. "How comes it?"

"Thou has `hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto
babes,'" murmured Tom; "`even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
thy sight.'"

"Tom, I don't believe,--I can't believe,--I've got the
habit of doubting," said St. Clare. "I want to believe this
Bible,--and I can't."

"Dear Mas'r, pray to the good Lord,--`Lord, I believe; help
thou my unbelief.'"

"Who knows anything about anything?" said St. Clare, his eyes
wandering dreamily, and speaking to himself. "Was all that
beautiful love and faith only one of the ever-shifting phases
of human feeling, having nothing real to rest on, passing away
with the little breath? And is there no more Eva,--no heaven,--no
Christ,--nothing?"

"O, dear Mas'r, there is! I know it; I'm sure of it," said
Tom, falling on his knees. "Do, do, dear Mas'r, believe it!"

"How do you know there's any Christ, Tom! You never saw
the Lord."

"Felt Him in my soul, Mas'r,--feel Him now! O, Mas'r, when
I was sold away from my old woman and the children, I was jest
a'most broke up. I felt as if there warn't nothin' left; and then
the good Lord, he stood by me, and he says, `Fear not, Tom;' and
he brings light and joy in a poor feller's soul,--makes all peace;
and I 's so happy, and loves everybody, and feels willin' jest to
be the Lord's, and have the Lord's will done, and be put jest where
the Lord wants to put me. I know it couldn't come from me, cause
I 's a poor, complainin'cretur; it comes from the Lord; and I know
He's willin' to do for Mas'r."

Tom spoke with fast-running tears and choking voice. St. Clare
leaned his head on his shoulder, and wrung the hard, faithful,
black hand.

"Tom, you love me," he said.

"I 's willin' to lay down my life, this blessed day, to
see Mas'r a Christian."

"Poor, foolish boy!" said St. Clare, half-raising himself.
"I'm not worth the love of one good, honest heart, like yours."

"O, Mas'r, dere's more than me loves you,--the blessed Lord
Jesus loves you."

"How do you know that Tom?" said St. Clare.

"Feels it in my soul. O, Mas'r! `the love of Christ, that
passeth knowledge.'"

"Singular!" said St. Clare, turning away, "that the story of a
man that lived and died eighteen hundred years ago can affect
people so yet. But he was no man," he added, suddenly. "No man
ever had such long and living power! O, that I could believe
what my mother taught me, and pray as I did when I was a boy!"

"If Mas'r pleases," said Tom, "Miss Eva used to read this
so beautifully. I wish Mas'r'd be so good as read it. Don't get
no readin', hardly, now Miss Eva's gone."

The chapter was the eleventh of John,--the touching account
of the raising of Lazarus, St. Clare read it aloud, often pausing
to wrestle down feelings which were roused by the pathos of
the story. Tom knelt before him, with clasped hands, and with an
absorbed expression of love, trust, adoration, on his quiet face.

"Tom," said his Master, "this is all _real_ to you!"

"I can jest fairly _see_ it Mas'r," said Tom.

"I wish I had your eyes, Tom."

"I wish, to the dear Lord, Mas'r had!"

"But, Tom, you know that I have a great deal more knowledge than
you; what if I should tell you that I don't believe this Bible?"

"O, Mas'r!" said Tom, holding up his hands, with a deprecating gesture.

"Wouldn't it shake your faith some, Tom?"

"Not a grain," said Tom.

"Why, Tom, you must know I know the most."

"O, Mas'r, haven't you jest read how he hides from the wise
and prudent, and reveals unto babes? But Mas'r wasn't in earnest,
for sartin, now?" said Tom, anxiously.

"No, Tom, I was not. I don't disbelieve, and I think there
is reason to believe; and still I don't. It's a troublesome bad
habit I've got, Tom."

"If Mas'r would only pray!"

"How do you know I don't, Tom?"

"Does Mas'r?"

"I would, Tom, if there was anybody there when I pray; but it's
all speaking unto nothing, when I do. But come, Tom, you pray now,
and show me how."

Tom's heart was full; he poured it out In prayer, like waters
that have been long suppressed. One thing was plain enough;
Tom thought there was somebody to hear, whether there were or not.
In fact, St. Clare felt himself borne, on the tide of his faith
and feeling, almost to the gates of that heaven he seemed so vividly
to conceive. It seemed to bring him nearer to Eva.

"Thank you, my boy," said St. Clare, when Tom rose. "I like
to hear you, Tom; but go, now, and leave me alone; some other
time, I'll talk more."

Tom silently left the room.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Reunion

Week after week glided away in the St. Clare mansion, and
the waves of life settled back to their usual flow, where that
little bark had gone down. For how imperiously, how coolly, in
disregard of all one's feeling, does the hard, cold, uninteresting
course of daily realities move on! Still must we eat, and drink,
and sleep, and wake again,--still bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer
questions,--pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, though all interest
in them be over; the cold mechanical habit of living remaining,
after all vital interest in it has fled.

All the interests and hopes of St. Clare's life had
unconsciously wound themselves around this child. It was for Eva
that he had managed his property; it was for Eva that he had planned
the disposal of his time; and, to do this and that for Eva,--to
buy, improve, alter, and arrange, or dispose something for her,--had
been so long his habit, that now she was gone, there seemed nothing
to be thought of, and nothing to be done.

True, there was another life,--a life which, once believed
in, stands as a solemn, significant figure before the otherwise
unmeaning ciphers of time, changing them to orders of mysterious,
untold value. St. Clare knew this well; and often, in many a weary
hour, he heard that slender, childish voice calling him to the
skies, and saw that little hand pointing to him the way of life;
but a heavy lethargy of sorrow lay on him,--he could not arise.
He had one of those natures which could better and more clearly
conceive of religious things from its own perceptions and
instincts, than many a matter-of-fact and practical Christian.
The gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and
relations of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose
whole life shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron,
Goethe, often speak words more wisely descriptive of the true
religious sentiment, than another man, whose whole life is governed
by it. In such minds, disregard of religion is a more fearful
treason,--a more deadly sin.

St. Clare had never pretended to govern himself by any
religious obligation; and a certain fineness of nature gave him
such an instinctive view of the extent of the requirements of
Christianity, that he shrank, by anticipation, from what he felt
would be the exactions of his own conscience, if he once did resolve
to assume them. For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially
in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better
than to undertake and come short.

Still St. Clare was, in many respects, another man. He read
his little Eva's Bible seriously and honestly; he thought more
soberly and practically of his relations to his servants,--enough
to make him extremely dissatisfied with both his past and present
course; and one thing he did, soon after his return to New Orleans,
and that was to commence the legal steps necessary to Tom's
emancipation, which was to be perfected as soon as he could get
through the necessary formalities. Meantime, he attached himself
to Tom more and more, every day. In all the wide world, there was
nothing that seemed to remind him so much of Eva; and he would
insist on keeping him constantly about him, and, fastidious and
unapproachable as he was with regard to his deeper feelings, he
almost thought aloud to Tom. Nor would any one have wondered at
it, who had seen the expression of affection and devotion with
which Tom continually followed his young master.

"Well, Tom," said St. Clare, the day after he had commenced
the legal formalities for his enfranchisement, "I'm going to make
a free man of you;--so have your trunk packed, and get ready to
set out for Kentuck."

The sudden light of joy that shone in Tom's face as he raised
his hands to heaven, his emphatic "Bless the Lord!" rather
discomposed St. Clare; he did not like it that Tom should be so
ready to leave him.

"You haven't had such very bad times here, that you need
be in such a rapture, Tom," he said drily.

"No, no, Mas'r! 'tan't that,--it's bein' a _freeman!_ that's
what I'm joyin' for."

"Why, Tom, don't you think, for your own part, you've been
better off than to be free?"

"_No, indeed_, Mas'r St. Clare," said Tom, with a flash of energy.
"No, indeed!"

"Why, Tom, you couldn't possibly have earned, by your work,
such clothes and such living as I have given you."

"Knows all that, Mas'r St. Clare; Mas'r's been too good; but,
Mas'r, I'd rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything,
and have 'em _mine_, than have the best, and have 'em any man's
else,--I had _so_, Mas'r; I think it's natur, Mas'r."

"I suppose so, Tom, and you'll be going off and leaving me,
in a month or so," he added, rather discontentedly. "Though why
you shouldn't, no mortal knows," he said, in a gayer tone; and,
getting up, he began to walk the floor.

"Not while Mas'r is in trouble," said Tom. "I'll stay with
Mas'r as long as he wants me,--so as I can be any use."

"Not while I'm in trouble, Tom?"  said St. Clare, looking sadly
out of the window. . . . "And when will _my_ trouble be over?"

"When Mas'r St. Clare's a Christian," said Tom.

"And you really mean to stay by till that day comes?" said
St. Clare, half smiling, as he turned from the window, and laid
his hand on Tom's shoulder. "Ah, Tom, you soft, silly boy!
I won't keep you till that day. Go home to your wife and children,
and give my love to all."

"I 's faith to believe that day will come," said Tom, earnestly,
and with tears in his eyes; "the Lord has a work for Mas'r."

"A work, hey?" said St. Clare, "well, now, Tom, give me
your views on what sort of a work it is;--let's hear."

"Why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the Lord; and
Mas'r St. Clare, that has larnin, and riches, and friends,--how
much he might do for the Lord!"

"Tom, you seem to think the Lord needs a great deal done
for him," said St. Clare, smiling.

"We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs," said Tom.

"Good theology, Tom; better than Dr. B. preaches, I dare
swear," said St. Clare.

The conversation was here interrupted by the announcement
of some visitors.

Marie St. Clare felt the loss of Eva as deeply as she could
feel anything; and, as she was a woman that had a great faculty of
making everybody unhappy when she was, her immediate attendants
had still stronger reason to regret the loss of their young mistress,
whose winning ways and gentle intercessions had so often been a
shield to them from the tyrannical and selfish exactions of her
mother. Poor old Mammy, in particular, whose heart, severed from
all natural domestic ties, had consoled itself with this one
beautiful being, was almost heart-broken. She cried day and night,
and was, from excess of sorrow, less skilful and alert in her
ministrations of her mistress than usual, which drew down a
constant storm of invectives on her defenceless head.

Miss Ophelia felt the loss; but, in her good and honest heart,
it bore fruit unto everlasting life. She was more softened,
more gentle; and, though equally assiduous in every duty, it was
with a chastened and quiet air, as one who communed with her own
heart not in vain. She was more diligent in teaching Topsy,--taught
her mainly from the Bible,--did not any longer shrink from her
touch, or manifest an ill-repressed disgust, because she felt none.
She viewed her now through the softened medium that Eva's hand had
first held before her eyes, and saw in her only an immortal creature,
whom God had sent to be led by her to glory and virtue. Topsy did
not become at once a saint; but the life and death of Eva did work
a marked change in her. The callous indifference was gone; there
was now sensibility, hope, desire, and the striving for good,--a
strife irregular, interrupted, suspended oft, but yet renewed again.

One day, when Topsy had been sent for by Miss Ophelia, she
came, hastily thrusting something into her bosom.

"What are you doing there, you limb? You've been stealing
something, I'll be bound," said the imperious little Rosa, who had
been sent to call her, seizing her, at the same time, roughly by
the arm.

"You go 'long, Miss Rosa!" said Topsy, pulling from her;
"'tan't none o' your business!"

"None o' your sa'ce!" said Rosa, "I saw you hiding something,--I
know yer tricks," and Rosa seized her arm, and tried to force her
hand into her bosom, while Topsy, enraged, kicked and fought
valiantly for what she considered her rights. The clamor and
confusion of the battle drew Miss Ophelia and St. Clare both
to the spot.

"She's been stealing!" said Rosa.

"I han't, neither!" vociferated Topsy, sobbing with passion.

"Give me that, whatever it is!" said Miss Ophelia, firmly.

Topsy hesitated; but, on a second order, pulled out of her
bosom a little parcel done up in the foot of one of her own
old stockings.

Miss Ophelia turned it out. There was a small book, which
had been given to Topsy by Eva, containing a single verse of
Scripture, arranged for every day in the year, and in a paper the
curl of hair that she had given her on that memorable day when she
had taken her last farewell.

St. Clare was a good deal affected at the sight of it; the
little book had been rolled in a long strip of black crape, torn
from the funeral weeds.

"What did you wrap _this_ round the book for?" said St.
Clare, holding up the crape.

"Cause,--cause,--cause 't was Miss Eva. O, don't take 'em
away, please!" she said; and, sitting flat down on the floor, and
putting her apron over her head, she began to sob vehemently.

It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous,--the
little old stockings,--black crape,--text-book,--fair, soft curl,--and
Topsy's utter distress.

St. Clare smiled; but there were tears in his eyes, as he said,

"Come, come,--don't cry; you shall have them!" and, putting
them together, he threw them into her lap, and drew Miss Ophelia
with him into the parlor.

"I really think you can make something of that concern,"
he said, pointing with his thumb backward over his shoulder.
"Any mind that is capable of a _real sorrow_ is capable of good.
You must try and do something with her."

"The child has improved greatly," said Miss Ophelia. "I have
great hopes of her; but, Augustine," she said, laying her hand
on his arm, "one thing I want to ask; whose is this child to
be?--yours or mine?"

"Why, I gave her to you, " said Augustine.

"But not legally;--I want her to be mine legally," said
Miss Ophelia.

"Whew! cousin," said Augustine. "What will the Abolition
Society think? They'll have a day of fasting appointed for this
backsliding, if you become a slaveholder!"

"O, nonsense! I want her mine, that I may have a right to
take her to the free States, and give her her liberty, that all I
am trying to do be not undone."

"O, cousin, what an awful `doing evil that good may come'!
I can't encourage it."

"I don't want you to joke, but to reason," said Miss Ophelia.
"There is no use in my trying to make this child a Christian child,
unless I save her from all the chances and reverses of slavery;
and, if you really are willing I should have her, I want you to
give me a deed of gift, or some legal paper."

"Well, well," said St. Clare, "I will;" and he sat down,
and unfolded a newspaper to read.

"But I want it done now," said Miss Ophelia.

"What's your hurry?"

"Because now is the only time there ever is to do a thing
in," said Miss Ophelia. "Come, now, here's paper, pen, and ink;
just write a paper."

St. Clare, like most men of his class of mind, cordially
hated the present tense of action, generally; and, therefore, he
was considerably annoyed by Miss Ophelia's downrightness.

"Why, what's the matter?" said he. "Can't you take my word?
One would think you had taken lessons of the Jews, coming at
a fellow so!"

"I want to make sure of it," said Miss Ophelia. "You may die,
or fail, and then Topsy be hustled off to auction, spite of
all I can do."

"Really, you are quite provident. Well, seeing I'm in the
hands of a Yankee, there is nothing for it but to concede;" and
St. Clare rapidly wrote off a deed of gift, which, as he was well
versed in the forms of law, he could easily do, and signed his name
to it in sprawling capitals, concluding by a tremendous flourish.

"There, isn't that black and white, now, Miss Vermont?" he
said, as he handed it to her.

"Good boy," said Miss Ophelia, smiling. "But must it not
be witnessed?"

"O, bother!--yes. Here," he said, opening the door into
Marie's apartment, "Marie, Cousin wants your autograph; just put
your name down here."

"What's this?" said Marie, as she ran over the paper.
"Ridiculous! I thought Cousin was too pious for such horrid things,"
she added, as she carelessly wrote her name; "but, if she has a
fancy for that article, I am sure she's welcome."

"There, now, she's yours, body and soul," said St. Clare,
handing the paper.

"No more mine now than she was before," Miss Ophelia.
"Nobody but God has a right to give her to me; but I can protect
her now."

"Well, she's yours by a fiction of law, then," said St. Clare,
as he turned back into the parlor, and sat down to his paper.

Miss Ophelia, who seldom sat much in Marie's company, followed
him into the parlor, having first carefully laid away the paper.

"Augustine," she said, suddenly, as she sat knitting, "have you
ever made any provision for your servants, in case of your death?"

"No," said St. Clare, as he read on.

"Then all your indulgence to them may prove a great cruelty,
by and by."

St. Clare had often thought the same thing himself; but he
answered, negligently.

"Well, I mean to make a provision, by and by."

"When?" said Miss Ophelia.

"O, one of these days."

"What if you should die first?"

"Cousin, what's the matter?" said St. Clare, laying down his
paper and looking at her. "Do you think I show symptoms
of yellow fever or cholera, that you are making post mortem
arrangements with such zeal?"

"`In the midst of life we are in death,'" said Miss Ophelia.

St. Clare rose up, and laying the paper down, carelessly,
walked to the door that stood open on the verandah, to put an end
to a conversation that was not agreeable to him. Mechanically, he
repeated the last word again,--_"Death!"_--and, as he leaned against
the railings, and watched the sparkling water as it rose and fell
in the fountain; and, as in a dim and dizzy haze, saw flowers and
trees and vases of the courts, he repeated, again the mystic word
so common in every mouth, yet of such fearful power,--"DEATH!"
"Strange that there should be such a word," he said, "and such a
thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and
beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next
be gone, utterly gone, and forever!"

It was a warm, golden evening; and, as he walked to the other
end of the verandah, he saw Tom busily intent on his Bible,
pointing, as he did so, with his finger to each successive word,
and whispering them to himself with an earnest air.

"Want me to read to you, Tom?" said St. Clare, seating
himself carelessly by him.

"If Mas'r pleases," said Tom, gratefully, "Mas'r makes it
so much plainer."

St. Clare took the book and glanced at the place, and began
reading one of the passages which Tom had designated by the heavy
marks around it. It ran as follows:

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his
glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall
separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep
from the goats."  St. Clare read on in an animated voice, till he
came to the last of the verses.

"Then shall the king say unto him on his left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire: for I was an hungered,
and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I
was a stranger, an ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not:
I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they
answer unto Him, Lord when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or
a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister
unto thee? Then shall he say unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not
to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me."

St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he read it
twice,--the second time slowly, and as if he were revolving the
words in his mind.

"Tom," he said, "these folks that get such hard measure seem
to have been doing just what I have,--living good, easy,
respectable lives; and not troubling themselves to inquire how many
of their brethren were hungry or athirst, or sick, or in prison."

Tom did not answer.

St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the
verandah, seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts; so
absorbed was he, that Tom had to remind him twice that the teabell
had rung, before he could get his attention.

St. Clare was absent and thoughtful, all tea-time. After tea,
he and Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the parlor
almost in silence.

Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mosquito
curtain, and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia silently busied
herself with her knitting. St. Clare sat down to the piano, and
began playing a soft and melancholy movement with the AEolian
accompaniment. He seemed in a deep reverie, and to be soliloquizing
to himself by music. After a little, he opened one of the drawers,
took out an old music-book whose leaves were yellow with age, and
began turning it over.

"There," he said to Miss Ophelia, "this was one of my mother's
books,--and here is her handwriting,--come and look at it.
She copied and arranged this from Mozart's Requiem." Miss
Ophelia came accordingly.

"It was something she used to sing often," said St. Clare.
"I think I can hear her now."

He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that
grand old Latin piece, the "Dies Irae."

Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn by the
sound to the very door, where he stood earnestly. He did not
understand the words, of course; but the music and manner of singing
appeared to affect him strongly, especially when St. Clare sang
the more pathetic parts. Tom would have sympathized more heartily,
if he had known the meaning of the beautiful words:

          Recordare Jesu pie
          Quod sum causa tuar viae
          Ne me perdas, illa die
          Querens me sedisti lassus
          Redemisti crucem passus
          Tantus laor non sit cassus.[1]

[1]  These lines have been thus rather inadequately translated:

          Think, O Jesus, for what reason
          Thou endured'st earth's spite and treason,
          Nor me lose, in that dread season;
          Seeking me, thy wom feet hasted,
          On the cross thy soul death tasted,
          Let not all these toils be wasted.
               [Mrs. Stowe's note.]

St. Clare threw a deep and pathetic expression into the words;
for the shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, and he seemed
to hear his mother's voice leading his. Voice and instrument
seemed both living, and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains
which the ethereal Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem.

When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his
hand a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor.

"What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!"
said he,--"a righting of all the wrongs of ages!--a solving of
all moral problems, by an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed,
a wonderful image."

"It is a fearful one to us," said Miss Ophelia.

"It ought to be to me, I suppose," said St. Clare stopping,
thoughtfully. "I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter
in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck
with it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged
to those who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no,--they
are condemned for _not_ doing positive good, as if that included
every possible harm."

"Perhaps," said Miss Ophelia, "it is impossible for a person
who does no good not to do harm."

"And what," said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with
deep feeling, "what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose
education, and the wants of society, have called in vain to some
noble purpose; who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of
the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been
a worker?"

"I should say," said Miss Ophelia, "that he ought to repent,
and begin now."

"Always practical and to the point!" said St. Clare, his face
breaking out into a smile. "You never leave me any time for
general reflections, Cousin; you always bring me short up against
the actual present; you have a kind of eternal _now_, always in
your mind."

"_Now_ is all the time I have anything to do with," said
Miss Ophelia.

"Dear little Eva,--poor child!" said St. Clare, "she had
set her little simple soul on a good work for me."

It was the first time since Eva's death that he had ever
said as many words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently
repressing very strong feeling.

"My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I think no
man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight
of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies
at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing
himself in the battle. That is, I mean that _I_ could not be a
Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with
a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing;
and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject,
their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have
engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing."

"If you knew all this," said Miss Ophelia, "why didn't you
do it?"

"O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which
consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for
not being martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very
easily, how others ought to be martyrs."

"Well, are you going to do differently now?" said Miss Ophelia.

"God only knows the future," said St. Clare. "I am braver than
I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose
can afford all risks."

"And what are you going to do?"

"My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find
it out," said St. Clare, "beginning with my own servants, for whom
I have yet done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may
appear that I can do something for a whole class; something to save
my country from the disgrace of that false position in which she
now stands before all civilized nations."

"Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will
voluntarily emancipate?" said Miss Ophelia.

"I don't know," said St. Clare. "This is a day of great deeds.
Heroism and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there,
in the earth. The Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs,
at an immense pecuniary loss; and, perhaps, among us may be
found generous spirits, who do not estimate honor and justice
by dollars and cents."

"I hardly think so," said Miss Ophelia.

"But, suppose we should rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would
educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom?
They never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are
too lazy and unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of
an idea of that industry and energy which is necessary to form
them into men. They will have to go north, where labor is the
fashion,--the universal custom; and tell me, now, is there enough
Christian philanthropy, among your northern states, to bear with
the process of their education and elevation? You send thousands
of dollars to foreign missions; but could you endure to have the
heathen sent into your towns and villages, and give your time, and
thoughts, and money, to raise them to the Christian standard?
That's what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing
to educate? How many families, in your town, would take a negro
man and woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make
them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted
to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade?
If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are
there in the northern states that would take them in? how many families
that would board them? and yet they are as white as many a woman,
north or south. You see, Cousin, I want justice done us. We are
in a bad position. We are the more _obvious_ oppressors of the
negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor
almost equally severe."

"Well, Cousin, I know it is so," said Miss Ophelia,--"I know it
was so with me, till I saw that it was my duty to overcome it;
but, I trust I have overcome it; and I know there are many good
people at the north, who in this matter need only to be _taught_
what their duty is, to do it. It would certainly be a greater
self-denial to receive heathen among us, than to send missionaries
to them; but I think we would do it."

"_You_ would I know," said St. Clare. "I'd like to see
anything you wouldn't do, if you thought it your duty!"

"Well, I'm not uncommonly good," said Miss Ophelia. "Others
would, if they saw things as I do. I intend to take Topsy home,
when I go. I suppose our folks will wonder, at first; but I think
they will be brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are
many people at the north who do exactly what you said."

"Yes, but they are a minority; and, if we should begin to
emancipate to any extent, we should soon hear from you."

Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments;
and St. Clare's countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression.

"I don't know what makes me think of my mother so much, tonight,"
he said."  I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were
near me. I keep thinking of things she used to say. Strange, what
brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!"

St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes
more, and then said,

"I believe I'll go down street, a few moments, and hear
the news, tonight."

He took his hat, and passed out.

Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and
asked if he should attend him.

"No, my boy," said St. Clare. "I shall be back in an hour."

Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful moonlight
evening, and he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the
fountain, and listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home,
and that he should soon be a free man, and able to return to it
at will. He thought how he should work to buy his wife and boys.
He felt the muscles of his brawny arms with a sort of joy, as he
thought they would soon belong to himself, and how much they could
do to work out the freedom of his family. Then he thought of his
noble young master, and, ever second to that, came the habitual
prayer that he had always offered for him; and then his thoughts
passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he now thought of among the
angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that bright face
and golden hair were looking upon him, out of the spray of the fountain.
And, so musing, he fell asleep, and dreamed he saw her coming bounding
towards him, just as she used to come, with a wreath of jessamine
in her hair, her cheeks bright, and her eyes radiant with delight;
but, as he looked, she seemed to rise from the ground; her cheeks
wore a paler hue,--her eyes had a deep, divine radiance, a golden
halo seemed around her head,--and she vanished from his sight; and
Tom was awakened by a loud knocking, and a sound of many voices at
the gate.

He hastened to undo it; and, with smothered voices and heavy
tread, came several men, bringing a body, wrapped in a cloak,
and lying on a shutter. The light of the lamp fell full on the
face; and Tom gave a wild cry of amazement and despair, that rung
through all the galleries, as the men advanced, with their burden,
to the open parlor door, where Miss Ophelia still sat knitting.

St. Clare had turned into a cafe, to look over an evening paper.
As he was reading, an affray arose between two gentlemen in the
room, who were both partially intoxicated. St. Clare and one
or two others made an effort to separate them, and St. Clare
received a fatal stab in the side with a bowie-knife, which he was
attempting to wrest from one of them.

The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and
screams, servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing
themselves on the ground, or running distractedly about, lamenting.
Tom and Miss Ophelia alone seemed to have any presence of mind;
for Marie was in strong hysteric convulsions. At Miss Ophelia's
direction, one of the lounges in the parlor was hastily prepared,
and the bleeding form laid upon it. St. Clare had fainted,
through pain and loss of blood; but, as Miss Ophelia applied
restoratives, he revived, opened his eyes, looked fixedly on them,
looked earnestly around the room, his eyes travelling wistfully
over every object, and finally they rested on his mother's picture.

The physician now arrived, and made his examination. It was
evident, from the expression of his face, that there was no hope;
but he applied himself to dressing the wound, and he and Miss
Ophelia and Tom proceeded composedly with this work, amid the
lamentations and sobs and cries of the affrighted servants, who
had clustered about the doors and windows of the verandah.

"Now," said the physician, "we must turn all these creatures
out; all depends on his being kept quiet."

St. Clare opened his eyes, and looked fixedly on the distressed
beings, whom Miss Ophelia and the doctor were trying to urge
from the apartment. "Poor creatures!" he said, and an expression
of bitter self-reproach passed over his face. Adolph absolutely
refused to go. Terror had deprived him of all presence of mind;
he threw himself along the floor, and nothing could persuade him
to rise. The rest yielded to Miss Ophelia's urgent representations,
that their master's safety depended on their stillness and obedience.

St. Clare could say but little; he lay with his eyes shut, but
it was evident that he wrestled with bitter thoughts. After a
while, he laid his hand on Tom's, who was kneeling beside him,
and said, "Tom! poor fellow!"

"What, Mas'r?" said Tom, earnestly.

"I am dying!" said St. Clare, pressing his hand; "pray!"

"If you would like a clergyman--" said the physician.

St. Clare hastily shook his head, and said again to Tom,
more earnestly, "Pray!"

And Tom did pray, with all his mind and strength, for the soul
that was passing,--the soul that seemed looking so steadily
and mournfully from those large, melancholy blue eyes. It was
literally prayer offered with strong crying and tears.

When Tom ceased to speak, St. Clare reached out and took his hand,
looking earnestly at him, but saying nothing. He closed his eyes,
but still retained his hold; for, in the gates of eternity,
the black hand and the white hold each other with an equal clasp.
He murmured softly to himself, at broken intervals,

          "Recordare Jesu pie--
                *  *  *  *
           Ne me perdas--illa die
           Querens me--sedisti lassus."

It was evident that the words he had been singing that evening
were passing through his mind,--words of entreaty addressed
to Infinite Pity. His lips moved at intervals, as parts of the
hymn fell brokenly from them.

"His mind is wandering," said the doctor.

"No! it is coming HOME, at last!" said St. Clare, energetically;
"at last! at last!"

The effort of speaking exhausted him. The sinking paleness
of death fell on him; but with it there fell, as if shed from the
wings of some pitying spirit, a beautiful expression of peace, like
that of a wearied child who sleeps.

So he lay for a few moments. They saw that the mighty hand
was on him. Just before the spirit parted, he opened his eyes, with
a sudden light, as of joy and recognition, and said _"Mother!"_
and then he was gone!

CHAPTER XXIX

The Unprotected

We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on
the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature
on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than
the slave in these circumstances.

The child who has lost a father has still the protection of
friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something,--has
acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law
regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of
merchandise. The only possible ackowledgment of any of the longings
and wants of a human and immortal creature, which are given to him,
comes to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his
master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing remains.

The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible
power humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this,
and the slave knows it best of all; so that he feels that there
are ten chances of his finding an abusive and tyrannical master,
to one of his finding a considerate and kind one. Therefore is
it that the wail over a kind master is loud and long, as well
it may be.

When St. Clare breathed his last, terror and consternation
took hold of all his household. He had been stricken down so in
a moment, in the flower and strength of his youth! Every room
and gallery of the house resounded with sobs and shrieks of despair.

Marie, whose nervous system had been enervated by a constant
course of self-indulgence, had nothing to support the terror of
the shock, and, at the time her husband breathed his last, was
passing from one fainting fit to another; and he to whom she had
been joined in the mysterious tie of marriage passed from her
forever, without the possibility of even a parting word.

Miss Ophelia, with characteristic strength and self-control,
had remained with her kinsman to the last,--all eye, all ear, all
attention; doing everything of the little that could be done, and
joining with her whole soul in the tender and impassioned prayers
which the poor slave had poured forth for the soul of his dying master.

When they were arranging him for his last rest, they found upon
his bosom a small, plain miniature case, opening with a spring.
It was the miniature of a noble and beautiful female face; and on
the reverse, under a crystal, a lock of dark hair. They laid them
back on the lifeless breast,--dust to dust,--poor mournful relics
of early dreams, which once made that cold heart beat so warmly!

Tom's whole soul was filled with thoughts of eternity; and while
he ministered around the lifeless clay, he did not once think
that the sudden stroke had left him in hopeless slavery. He felt
at peace about his master; for in that hour, when he had poured
forth his prayer into the bosom of his Father, he had found an
answer of quietness and assurance springing up within himself.
In the depths of his own affectionate nature, he felt able to
perceive something of the fulness of Divine love; for an old oracle
hath thus written,--"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and
God in him."  Tom hoped and trusted, and was at peace.

But the funeral passed, with all its pageant of black crape,
and prayers, and solemn faces; and back rolled the cool,
muddy waves of every-day life; and up came the everlasting
hard inquiry of "What is to be done next?"

It rose to the mind of Marie, as, dressed in loose morning-robes,
and surrounded by anxious servants, she sat up in a great
easy-chair, and inspected samples of crape and bombazine.
It rose to Miss Ophelia, who began to turn her thoughts towards
her northern home. It rose, in silent terrors, to the minds of
the servants, who well knew the unfeeling, tyrannical character of
the mistress in whose hands they were left. All knew, very well,
that the indulgences which had been accorded to them were not from
their mistress, but from their master; and that, now he was gone,
there would be no screen between them and every tyrannous infliction
which a temper soured by affliction might devise.

It was about a fortnight after the funeral, that Miss Ophelia,
busied one day in her apartment, heard a gentle tap at the door.
She opened it, and there stood Rosa, the pretty young quadroon,
whom we have before often noticed, her hair in disorder,
and her eyes swelled with crying.

"O, Miss Feeley," she said, falling on her knees, and catching
the skirt of her dress, "_do, do go_ to Miss Marie for me! do
plead for me! She's goin' to send me out to be whipped--look there!"
And she handed to Miss Ophelia a paper.

It was an order, written in Marie's delicate Italian hand, to the
master of a whipping-establishment to give the bearer fifteen lashes.

"What have you been doing?" said Miss Ophelia.

"You know, Miss Feely, I've got such a bad temper; it's very
bad of me. I was trying on Miss Marie's dress, and she slapped
my face; and I spoke out before I thought, and was saucy; and she
said that she'd bring me down, and have me know, once for all, that
I wasn't going to be so topping as I had been; and she wrote this,
and says I shall carry it. I'd rather she'd kill me, right out."

Miss Ophelia stood considering, with the paper in her hand.

"You see, Miss Feely," said Rosa, "I don't mind the whipping
so much, if Miss Marie or you was to do it; but, to be sent to a
_man!_ and such a horrid man,--the shame of it, Miss Feely!"

Miss Ophelia well knew that it was the universal custom to send
women and young girls to whipping-houses, to the hands of the
lowest of men,--men vile enough to make this their profession,--there
to be subjected to brutal exposure and shameful correction. She had
_known_ it before; but hitherto she had never realized it, till
she saw the slender form of Rosa almost convulsed with distress.
All the honest blood of womanhood, the strong New England blood of
liberty, flushed to her cheeks, and throbbed bitterly in her
indignant heart; but, with habitual prudence and self-control, she
mastered herself, and, crushing the paper firmly in her hand, she
merely said to Rosa,

"Sit down, child, while I go to your mistress."

"Shameful! monstrous! outrageous!" she said to herself, as
she was crossing the parlor.

She found Marie sitting up in her easy-chair, with Mammy
standing by her, combing her hair; Jane sat on the ground before
her, busy in chafing her feet.

"How do you find yourself, today?" said Miss Ophelia.

A deep sigh, and a closing of the eyes, was the only reply, for
a moment; and then Marie answered, "O, I don't know, Cousin;
I suppose I'm as well as I ever shall be!" and Marie wiped her eyes
with a cambric handkerchief, bordered with an inch deep of black.

"I came," said Miss Ophelia, with a short, dry cough, such as
commonly introduces a difficult subject,--"I came to speak with
you about poor Rosa."

Marie's eyes were open wide enough now, and a flush rose
to her sallow cheeks, as she answered, sharply,

"Well, what about her?"

"She is very sorry for her fault."

"She is, is she? She'll be sorrier, before I've done with her!
I've endured that child's impudence long enough; and now I'll
bring her down,--I'll make her lie in the dust!"

"But could not you punish her some other way,--some way
that would be less shameful?"

"I mean to shame her; that's just what I want. She has all
her life presumed on her delicacy, and her good looks, and her
lady-like airs, till she forgets who she is;--and I'll give her
one lesson that will bring her down, I fancy!"

"But, Cousin, consider that, if you destroy delicacy and
a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast."

"Delicacy!" said Marie, with a scornful laugh,--"a fine word
for such as she! I'll teach her, with all her airs, that she's
no better than the raggedest black wench that walks the streets!
She'll take no more airs with me!"

"You will answer to God for such cruelty!" said Miss Ophelia,
with energy.

"Cruelty,--I'd like to know what the cruelty is! I wrote orders
for only fifteen lashes, and told him to put them on lightly.
I'm sure there's no cruelty there!"

"No cruelty!" said Miss Ophelia. "I'm sure any girl might
rather be killed outright!"

"It might seem so to anybody with your feeling; but all these
creatures get used to it; it's the only way they can be kept
in order. Once let them feel that they are to take any airs about
delicacy, and all that, and they'll run all over you, just as my
servants always have. I've begun now to bring them under; and I'll
have them all to know that I'll send one out to be whipped, as soon
as another, if they don't mind themselves!" said Marie, looking
around her decidedly.

Jane hung her head and cowered at this, for she felt as if it
was particularly directed to her. Miss Ophelia sat for a moment,
as if she had swallowed some explosive mixture, and were ready
to burst. Then, recollecting the utter uselessness of contention
with such a nature, she shut her lips resolutely, gathered herself
up, and walked out of the room.

It was hard to go back and tell Rosa that she could do nothing
for her; and, shortly after, one of the man-servants came to say
that her mistress had ordered him to take Rosa with him to the
whipping-house, whither she was hurried, in spite of her tears
and entreaties.

A few days after, Tom was standing musing by the balconies,
when he was joined by Adolph, who, since the death of his master,
had been entirely crest-fallen and disconsolate. Adolph knew that
he had always been an object of dislike to Marie; but while his
master lived he had paid but little attention to it. Now that he
was gone, he had moved about in daily dread and trembling, not
knowing what might befall him next. Marie had held several
consultations with her lawyer; after communicating with St. Clare's
brother, it was determined to sell the place, and all the servants,
except her own personal property, and these she intended to take
with her, and go back to her father's plantation.

"Do ye know, Tom, that we've all got to be sold?" said
Adolph, and go back to her father's plantation.

"How did you hear that?" said Tom.

"I hid myself behind the curtains when Missis was talking with
the lawyer. In a few days we shall be sent off to auction, Tom."

"The Lord's will be done!" said Tom, folding his arms and
sighing heavily.

"We'll never get another such a master, said Adolph,
apprehensively; "but I'd rather be sold than take my chance
under Missis."

Tom turned away; his heart was full. The hope of liberty, the
thought of distant wife and children, rose up before his patient
soul, as to the mariner shipwrecked almost in port rises the vision
of the church-spire and loving roofs of his native village, seen
over the top of some black wave only for one last farewell. He drew
his arms tightly over his bosom, and choked back the bitter tears,
and tried to pray. The poor old soul had such a singular,
unaccountable prejudice in favor of liberty, that it was a hard
wrench for him; and the more he said, "Thy will be done," the worse
he felt.

He sought Miss Ophelia, who, ever since Eva's death, had
treated him with marked and respectful kindness.

"Miss Feely," he said, "Mas'r St. Clare promised me my freedom.
He told me that he had begun to take it out for me; and now,
perhaps, if Miss Feely would be good enough to speak bout it
to Missis, she would feel like goin' on with it, was it as Mas'r
St. Clare's wish."

"I'll speak for you, Tom, and do my best," said Miss Ophelia;
"but, if it depends on Mrs. St. Clare, I can't hope much for
you;--nevertheless, I will try."

This incident occurred a few days after that of Rosa, while
Miss Ophelia was busied in preparations to return north.

Seriously reflecting within herself, she considered that perhaps
she had shown too hasty a warmth of language in her former
interview with Marie; and she resolved that she would now endeavor
to moderate her zeal, and to be as conciliatory as possible. So
the good soul gathered herself up, and, taking her knitting, resolved
to go into Marie's room, be as agreeable as possible, and negotiate
Tom's case with all the diplomatic skill of which she was mistress.

She found Marie reclining at length upon a lounge, supporting
herself on one elbow by pillows, while Jane, who had been out
shopping, was displaying before her certain samples of thin black
stuffs.

"That will do," said Marie, selecting one; "only I'm not
sure about its being properly mourning."

"Laws, Missis," said Jane, volubly, "Mrs. General Derbennon
wore just this very thing, after the General died, last summer; it
makes up lovely!"

"What do you think?" said Marie to Miss Ophelia.

"It's a matter of custom, I suppose," said Miss Ophelia.
"You can judge about it better than I."

"The fact is," said Marie, "that I haven't a dress in the world
that I can wear; and, as I am going to break up the establishment,
and go off, next week, I must decide upon something."

"Are you going so soon?"

"Yes. St. Clare's brother has written, and he and the lawyer
think that the servants and furniture had better be put up
at auction, and the place left with our lawyer."

"There's one thing I wanted to speak with you about," said
Miss Ophelia. "Augustine promised Tom his liberty, and began the
legal forms necessary to it. I hope you will use your influence
to have it perfected."

"Indeed, I shall do no such thing!" said Marie, sharply. "Tom is
one of the most valuable servants on the place,--it couldn't be
afforded, any way. Besides, what does he want of liberty? He's a
great deal better off as he is."

"But he does desire it, very earnestly, and his master
promised it," said Miss Ophelia.

"I dare say he does want it," said Marie; "they all want it,
just because they are a discontented set,--always wanting what
they haven't got. Now, I'm principled against emancipating, in
any case. Keep a negro under the care of a master, and he does
well enough, and is respectable; but set them free, and they get
lazy, and won't work, and take to drinking, and go all down to
be mean, worthless fellows, I've seen it tried, hundreds of times.
It's no favor to set them free."

"But Tom is so steady, industrious, and pious."

"O, you needn't tell me! I've see a hundred like him.
He'll do very well, as long as he's taken care of,--that's all."

"But, then, consider," said Miss Ophelia, "when you set
him up for sale, the chances of his getting a bad master."

"O, that's all humbug!" said Marie; "it isn't one time in
a hundred that a good fellow gets a bad master; most masters are
good, for all the talk that is made. I've lived and grown up here,
in the South, and I never yet was acquainted with a master that
didn't treat his servants well,--quite as well as is worth while.
I don't feel any fears on that head."

"Well," said Miss Ophelia, energetically, "I know it was
one of the last wishes of your husband that Tom should have his
liberty; it was one of the promises that he made to dear little
Eva on her death-bed, and I should not think you would feel at
liberty to disregard it."

Marie had her face covered with her handkerchief at this appeal,
and began sobbing and using her smelting-bottle, with great
vehemence.

"Everybody goes against me!" she said. "Everybody is so
inconsiderate! I shouldn't have expected that _you_ would bring up
all these remembrances of my troubles to me,--it's so inconsiderate!
But nobody ever does consider,--my trials are so peculiar! It's so
hard, that when I had only one daughter, she should have been
taken!--and when I had a husband that just exactly suited me,--and
I'm so hard to be suited!--he should be taken! And you seem to have
so little feeling for me, and keep bringing it up to me so
carelessly,--when you know how it overcomes me! I suppose you mean
well; but it is very inconsiderate,--very!"  And Marie sobbed,
and gasped for breath, and called Mammy to open the window, and to
bring her the camphor-bottle, and to bathe her head, and unhook
her dress. And, in the general confusion that ensued, Miss Ophelia
made her escape to her apartment.

She saw, at once, that it would do no good to say anything more;
for Marie had an indefinite capacity for hysteric fits; and,
after this, whenever her husband's or Eva's wishes with regard to
the servants were alluded to, she always found it convenient to
set one in operation. Miss Ophelia, therefore, did the next best
thing she could for Tom,--she wrote a letter to Mrs. Shelby for
him, stating his troubles, and urging them to send to his relief.

The next day, Tom and Adolph, and some half a dozen other servants,
were marched down to a slave-warehouse, to await the convenience
of the trader, who was going to make up a lot for auction.

CHAPTER XXX

The Slave Warehouse

A slave warehouse! Perhaps some of my readers conjure up horrible
visions of such a place. They fancy some foul, obscure den, some
horrible _Tartarus "informis, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."_  
But no, innocent friend; in these days men have learned the art of
sinning expertly and genteelly, so as not to shock the eyes and
senses of respectable society. Human property is high in the
market; and is, therefore, well fed, well cleaned, tended, and
looked after, that it may come to sale sleek, and strong, and
shining. A slave-warehouse in New Orleans is a house externally
not much unlike many others, kept with neatness; and where every
day you may see arranged, under a sort of shed along the outside,
rows of men and women, who stand there as a sign of the property
sold within.

Then you shall be courteously entreated to call and examine,
and shall find an abundance of husbands, wives, brothers, sisters,
fathers, mothers, and young children, to be "sold separately, or
in lots to suit the convenience of the purchaser;" and that soul
immortal, once bought with blood and anguish by the Son of God,
when the earth shook, and the rocks rent, and the graves were
opened, can be sold, leased, mortgaged, exchanged for groceries or
dry goods, to suit the phases of trade, or the fancy of the purchaser.

It was a day or two after the conversation between Marie and Miss
Ophelia, that Tom, Adolph, and about half a dozen others of the
St. Clare estate, were turned over to the loving kindness of Mr.
Skeggs, the keeper of a depot on ---- street, to await the auction,
next day.

Tom had with him quite a sizable trunk full of clothing, as
had most others of them. They were ushered, for the night, into
a long room, where many other men, of all ages, sizes, and shades
of complexion, were assembled, and from which roars of laughter
and unthinking merriment were proceeding.

"Ah, ha! that's right. Go it, boys,--go it!" said Mr. Skeggs,
the keeper. "My people are always so merry! Sambo, I see!"
he said, speaking approvingly to a burly negro who was performing
tricks of low buffoonery, which occasioned the shouts which Tom
had heard.

As might be imagined, Tom was in no humor to join these
proceedings; and, therefore, setting his trunk as far as possible
from the noisy group, he sat down on it, and leaned his face
against the wall.

The dealers in the human article make scrupulous and systematic
efforts to promote noisy mirth among them, as a means of
drowning reflection, and rendering them insensible to their
condition. The whole object of the training to which the negro is
put, from the time he is sold in the northern market till he arrives
south, is systematically directed towards making him callous,
unthinking, and brutal. The slave-dealer collects his gang in
Virginia or Kentucky, and drives them to some convenient, healthy
place,--often a watering place,--to be fattened. Here they are
fed full daily; and, because some incline to pine, a fiddle is kept
commonly going among them, and they are made to dance daily; and
he who refuses to be merry--in whose soul thoughts of wife, or
child, or home, are too strong for him to be gay--is marked as
sullen and dangerous, and subjected to all the evils which the ill
will of an utterly irresponsible and hardened man can inflict
upon him. Briskness, alertness, and cheerfulness of appearance,
especially before observers, are constantly enforced upon them,
both by the hope of thereby getting a good master, and the fear of
all that the driver may bring upon them if they prove unsalable.

"What dat ar nigger doin here?" said Sambo, coming up to Tom,
after Mr. Skeggs had left the room. Sambo was a full black,
of great size, very lively, voluble, and full of trick and grimace.

"What you doin here?" said Sambo, coming up to Tom, and
poking him facetiously in the side. "Meditatin', eh?"

"I am to be sold at the auction, tomorrow!" said Tom, quietly.

"Sold at auction,--haw! haw! boys, an't this yer fun? I wish't
I was gwine that ar way!--tell ye, wouldn't I make em laugh?
But how is it,--dis yer whole lot gwine tomorrow?" said Sambo,
laying his hand freely on Adolph's shoulder.

"Please to let me alone!" said Adolph, fiercely, straightening
himself up, with extreme disgust.

"Law, now, boys! dis yer's one o' yer white niggers,--kind
o' cream color, ye know, scented!" said he, coming up to Adolph
and snuffing. "O Lor! he'd do for a tobaccer-shop; they could keep
him to scent snuff! Lor, he'd keep a whole shope agwine,--he would!"

"I say, keep off, can't you?" said Adolph, enraged.

"Lor, now, how touchy we is,--we white niggers! Look at
us now!" and Sambo gave a ludicrous imitation of Adolph's manner;
"here's de airs and graces. We's been in a good family, I specs."

"Yes," said Adolph; "I had a master that could have bought
you all for old truck!"

"Laws, now, only think," said Sambo, "the gentlemens that
we is!"

"I belonged to the St. Clare family," said Adolph, proudly.

"Lor, you did! Be hanged if they ar'n't lucky to get shet of ye.
Spects they's gwine to trade ye off with a lot o' cracked
tea-pots and sich like!" said Sambo, with a provoking grin.

Adolph, enraged at this taunt, flew furiously at his adversary,
swearing and striking on every side of him. The rest laughed
and shouted, and the uproar brought the keeper to the door.

"What now, boys? Order,--order!" he said, coming in and
flourishing a large whip.

All fled in different directions, except Sambo, who,
presuming on the favor which the keeper had to him as a licensed
wag, stood his ground, ducking his head with a facetious grin,
whenever the master made a dive at him.

"Lor, Mas'r, 'tan't us,--we 's reglar stiddy,--it's these
yer new hands; they 's real aggravatin',--kinder pickin' at us,
all time!"

The keeper, at this, turned upon Tom and Adolph, and
distributing a few kicks and cuffs without much inquiry, and
leaving general orders for all to be good boys and go to sleep,
left the apartment.

While this scene was going on in the men's sleeping-room,
the reader may be curious to take a peep at the corresponding
apartment allotted to the women. Stretched out in various attitudes
over the floor, he may see numberless sleeping forms of every shade
of complexion, from the purest ebony to white, and of all years,
from childhood to old age, lying now asleep. Here is a fine bright
girl, of ten years, whose mother was sold out yesterday, and who
tonight cried herself to sleep when nobody was looking at her.
Here, a worn old negress, whose thin arms and callous fingers tell
of hard toil, waiting to be sold tomorrow, as a cast-off article,
for what can be got for her; and some forty or fifty others, with
heads variously enveloped in blankets or articles of clothing, lie
stretched around them. But, in a corner, sitting apart from the
rest, are two females of a more interesting appearance than common.
One of these is a respectably-dressed mulatto woman between forty
and fifty, with soft eyes and a gentle and pleasing physiognomy.
She has on her head a high-raised turban, made of a gay red Madras
handkerchief, of the first quality, her dress is neatly fitted,
and of good material, showing that she has been provided for with
a careful hand. By her side, and nestling closely to her, is a
young girl of fifteen,--her daughter. She is a quadroon, as may
be seen from her fairer complexion, though her likeness to her
mother is quite discernible. She has the same soft, dark eye, with
longer lashes, and her curling hair is of a luxuriant brown. She
also is dressed with great neatness, and her white, delicate hands
betray very little acquaintance with servile toil. These two are
to be sold tomorrow, in the same lot with the St. Clare servants;
and the gentleman to whom they belong, and to whom the money for
their sale is to be transmitted, is a member of a Christian church
in New York, who will receive the money, and go thereafter to the
sacrament of his Lord and theirs, and think no more of it.

These two, whom we shall call Susan and Emmeline, had been the
personal attendants of an amiable and pious lady of New Orleans,
by whom they had been carefully and piously instructed and trained.
They had been taught to read and write, diligently instructed in
the truths of religion, and their lot had been as happy an one as
in their condition it was possible to be. But the only son of
their protectress had the management of her property; and, by
carelessness and extravagance involved it to a large amount, and
at last failed. One of the largest creditors was the respectable
firm of B. & Co., in New York. B. & Co. wrote to their lawyer in
New Orleans, who attached the real estate (these two articles and
a lot of plantation hands formed the most valuable part of it),
and wrote word to that effect to New York. Brother B., being, as
we have said, a Christian man, and a resident in a free State, felt
some uneasiness on the subject. He didn't like trading in slaves
and souls of men,--of course, he didn't; but, then, there were thirty
thousand dollars in the case, and that was rather too much money
to be lost for a principle; and so, after much considering, and
asking advice from those that he knew would advise to suit him,
Brother B. wrote to his lawyer to dispose of the business in the
way that seemed to him the most suitable, and remit the proceeds.

The day after the letter arrived in New Orleans, Susan and
Emmeline were attached, and sent to the depot to await a general
auction on the following morning; and as they glimmer faintly upon
us in the moonlight which steals through the grated window, we may
listen to their conversation. Both are weeping, but each quietly,
that the other may not hear.

"Mother, just lay your head on my lap, and see if you can't
sleep a little," says the girl, trying to appear calm.

"I haven't any heart to sleep, Em; I can't; it's the last
night we may be together!"

"O, mother, don't say so! perhaps we shall get sold
together,--who knows?"

"If 't was anybody's else case, I should say so, too, Em,"
said the woman; "but I'm so feard of losin' you that I don't see
anything but the danger."

"Why, mother, the man said we were both likely, and would
sell well."

Susan remembered the man's looks and words. With a deadly
sickness at her heart, she remembered how he had looked at Emmeline's
hands, and lifted up her curly hair, and pronounced her a first-rate
article. Susan had been trained as a Christian, brought up in the
daily reading of the Bible, and had the same horror of her child's
being sold to a life of shame that any other Christian mother might
have; but she had no hope,--no protection.

"Mother, I think we might do first rate, if you could get a place
as cook, and I as chambermaid or seamstress, in some family.
I dare say we shall. Let's both look as bright and lively
as we can, and tell all we can do, and perhaps we shall," said
Emmeline.

"I want you to brush your hair all back straight, tomorrow,"
said Susan.

"What for, mother? I don't look near so well, that way."

"Yes, but you'll sell better so."

"I don't see why!" said the child.

"Respectable families would be more apt to buy you, if they
saw you looked plain and decent, as if you wasn't trying to
look handsome. I know their ways better 'n you do," said Susan.

"Well, mother, then I will."

"And, Emmeline, if we shouldn't ever see each other again,
after tomorrow,--if I'm sold way up on a plantation somewhere, and
you somewhere else,--always remember how you've been brought up,
and all Missis has told you; take your Bible with you, and your
hymn-book; and if you're faithful to the Lord, he'll be faithful
to you."

So speaks the poor soul, in sore discouragement; for she
knows that tomorrow any man, however vile and brutal, however
godless and merciless, if he only has money to pay for her, may
become owner of her daughter, body and soul; and then, how is the
child to be faithful? She thinks of all this, as she holds her
daughter in her arms, and wishes that she were not handsome and
attractive. It seems almost an aggravation to her to remember how
purely and piously, how much above the ordinary lot, she has been
brought up. But she has no resort but to _pray_; and many such
prayers to God have gone up from those same trim, neatly-arranged,
respectable slave-prisons,--prayers which God has not forgotten,
as a coming day shall show; for it is written, "Who causeth one of
these little ones to offend, it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths
of the sea."

The soft, earnest, quiet moonbeam looks in fixedly, marking
the bars of the grated windows on the prostrate, sleeping forms.
The mother and daughter are singing together a wild and melancholy
dirge, common as a funeral hymn among the slaves:

     "O, where is weeping Mary?
      O, where is weeping Mary?
         'Rived in the goodly land.
      She is dead and gone to Heaven;
      She is dead and gone to Heaven;
         'Rived in the goodly land."

These words, sung by voices of a peculiar and melancholy
sweetness, in an air which seemed like the sighing of earthy despair
after heavenly hope, floated through the dark prison rooms with a
pathetic cadence, as verse after verse was breathed out:

     "O, where are Paul and Silas?
      O, where are Paul and Silas?
         Gone to the goodly land.
      They are dead and gone to Heaven;
      They are dead and gone to Heaven;
         'Rived in the goodly land."

Sing on poor souls! The night is short, and the morning
will part you forever!

But now it is morning, and everybody is astir; and the worthy
Mr. Skeggs is busy and bright, for a lot of goods is to be
fitted out for auction. There is a brisk lookout on the toilet;
injunctions passed around to every one to put on their best face
and be spry; and now all are arranged in a circle for a last review,
before they are marched up to the Bourse.

Mr. Skeggs, with his palmetto on and his cigar in his mouth,
walks around to put farewell touches on his wares.

"How's this?" he said, stepping in front of Susan and Emmeline.
"Where's your curls, gal?"

The girl looked timidly at her mother, who, with the smooth
adroitness common among her class, answers,

"I was telling her, last night, to put up her hair smooth
and neat, and not havin' it flying about in curls; looks more
respectable so."

"Bother!" said the man, peremptorily, turning to the girl;
"you go right along, and curl yourself real smart!"  He added,
giving a crack to a rattan he held in his hand, "And be back in
quick time, too!"

"You go and help her," he added, to the mother. "Them curls
may make a hundred dollars difference in the sale of her."

Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and
fro, over the marble pave. On every side of the circular area
were little tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and
auctioneers. Two of these, on opposite sides of the area, were
now occupied by brilliant and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically
forcing up, in English and French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs
in their various wares. A third one, on the other side, still
unoccupied, was surrounded by a group, waiting the moment of sale
to begin. And here we may recognize the St. Clare servants,--Tom,
Adolph, and others; and there, too, Susan and Emmeline, awaiting
their turn with anxious and dejected faces. Various spectators,
intending to purchase, or not intending, examining, and commenting
on their various points and faces with the same freedom that a set
of jockeys discuss the merits of a horse.

"Hulloa, Alf! what brings you here?" said a young exquisite,
slapping the shoulder of a sprucely-dressed young man, who was
examining Adolph through an eye-glass.

"Well! I was wanting a valet, and I heard that St. Clare's
lot was going. I thought I'd just look at his--"

"Catch me ever buying any of St. Clare's people! Spoilt niggers,
every one. Impudent as the devil!" said the other.

"Never fear that!" said the first. "If I get 'em, I'll soon
have their airs out of them; they'll soon find that they've
another kind of master to deal with than Monsieur St. Clare.
'Pon my word, I'll buy that fellow. I like the shape of him."

"You'll find it'll take all you've got to keep him. He's
deucedly extravagant!"

"Yes, but my lord will find that he _can't_ be extravagant
with _me_. Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few times, and
thoroughly dressed down! I'll tell you if it don't bring him to a
sense of his ways! O, I'll reform him, up hill and down,--you'll
see. I buy him, that's flat!"

Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of
faces thronging around him, for one whom he would wish to call
master. And if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of
selecting, out of two hundred men, one who was to become your
absolute owner and disposer, you would, perhaps, realize, just as
Tom did, how few there were that you would feel at all comfortable
in being made over to. Tom saw abundance of men,--great, burly,
gruff men; little, chirping, dried men; long-favored, lank, hard
men; and every variety of stubbed-looking, commonplace men, who
pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, putting them into
the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according to their
convenience; but he saw no St. Clare.

A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man,
in a checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons
much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd,
like one who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to
the group, began to examine them systematically. From the moment
that Tom saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting
horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently,
though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large,
light-gray eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff,
wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to
be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco,
the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with
great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large,
hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with
long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a very
free personal examination of the lot. He seized Tom by the jaw,
and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth; made him strip up
his sleeve, to show his muscle; turned him round, made him jump
and spring, to show his paces.

"Where was you raised?" he added, briefly, to these investigations.

"In Kintuck, Mas'r," said Tom, looking about, as if for deliverance.

"What have you done?"

"Had care of Mas'r's farm," said Tom.

"Likely story!" said the other, shortly, as he passed on.
He paused a moment before Dolph; then spitting a discharge of
tobacco-juice on his well-blacked boots, and giving a contemptuous
umph, he walked on. Again he stopped before Susan and Emmeline.
He put out his heavy, dirty hand, and drew the girl towards him;
passed it over her neck and bust, felt her arms, looked at her
teeth, and then pushed her back against her mother, whose patient
face showed the suffering she had been going through at every motion
of the hideous stranger.

The girl was frightened, and began to cry.

"Stop that, you minx!" said the salesman; "no whimpering
here,--the sale is going to begin." And accordingly the sale begun.

Adolph was knocked off, at a good sum, to the young gentlemen
who had previously stated his intention of buying him; and the
other servants of the St. Clare lot went to various bidders.

"Now, up with you, boy! d'ye hear?" said the auctioneer to Tom.

Tom stepped upon the block, gave a few anxious looks round;
all seemed mingled in a common, indistinct noise,--the clatter of
the salesman crying off his qualifications in French and English,
the quick fire of French and English bids; and almost in a moment
came the final thump of the hammer, and the clear ring on the last
syllable of the word _"dollars,"_ as the auctioneer announced his
price, and Tom was made over.--He had a master!

He was pushed from the block;--the short, bullet-headed man
seizing him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side,
saying, in a harsh voice, "Stand there, _you!_"

Tom hardly realized anything; but still the bidding went
on,--ratting, clattering, now French, now English. Down goes the
hammer again,--Susan is sold! She goes down from the block, stops,
looks wistfully back,--her daughter stretches her hands towards her.
She looks with agony in the face of the man who has bought
her,--a respectable middle-aged man, of benevolent countenance.

"O, Mas'r, please do buy my daughter!"

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it!" said the
gentleman, looking, with painful interest, as the young girl mounted
the block, and looked around her with a frightened and timid glance.

The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colorless cheek,
her eye has a feverish fire, and her mother groans to see
that she looks more beautiful than she ever saw her before.
The auctioneer sees his advantage, and expatiates volubly in
mingled French and English, and bids rise in rapid succession.

"I'll do anything in reason," said the benevolent-looking
gentleman, pressing in and joining with the bids. In a few moments
they have run beyond his purse. He is silent; the auctioneer grows
warmer; but bids gradually drop off. It lies now between an
aristocratic old citizen and our bullet-headed acquaintance.
The citizen bids for a few turns, contemptuously measuring his
opponent; but the bullet-head has the advantage over him, both in
obstinacy and concealed length of purse, and the controversy lasts
but a moment; the hammer falls,--he has got the girl, body and soul,
unless God help her!

Her master is Mr. Legree, who owns a cotton plantation on the
Red river. She is pushed along into the same lot with Tom and
two other men, and goes off, weeping as she goes.

The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but, then, the thing happens
every day! One sees girls and mothers crying, at these sales,
_always!_ it can't be helped, &c.; and he walks off, with his
acquisition, in another direction.

Two days after, the lawyer of the Christian firm of B. & Co.,
New York, send on their money to them. On the reverse of that
draft, so obtained, let them write these words of the great Paymaster,
to whom they shall make up their account in a future day: _"When
he maketh inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of the
humble!"_

CHAPTER XXXI

The Middle Passage

"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look
upon iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously,
and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is
more righteous than he?"                         --HAB. 1: 13.

On the lower part of a small, mean boat, on the Red river,
Tom sat,--chains on his wrists, chains on his feet, and a weight
heavier than chains lay on his heart. All had faded from his
sky,--moon and star; all had passed by him, as the trees and banks
were now passing, to return no more. Kentucky home, with wife and
children, and indulgent owners; St. Clare home, with all its
refinements and splendors; the golden head of Eva, with its saint-like
eyes; the proud, gay, handsome, seemingly careless, yet ever-kind
St. Clare; hours of ease and indulgent leisure,--all gone! and in
place thereof, _what_ remains?

It is one of the bitterest apportionments of a lot of slavery,
that the negro, sympathetic and assimilative, after acquiring,
in a refined family, the tastes and feelings which form the
atmosphere of such a place, is not the less liable to become
the bond-slave of the coarsest and most brutal,--just as a chair
or table, which once decorated the superb saloon, comes, at last,
battered and defaced, to the barroom of some filthy tavern, or some
low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The great difference is, that the
table and chair cannot feel, and the _man_ can; for even a legal
enactment that he shall be "taken, reputed, adjudged in law, to be
a chattel personal," cannot blot out his soul, with its own private
little world of memories, hopes, loves, fears, and desires.

Mr. Simon Legree, Tom's master, had purchased slaves at one
place and another, in New Orleans, to the number of eight, and
driven them, handcuffed, in couples of two and two, down to the
good steamer Pirate, which lay at the levee, ready for a trip up
the Red river.

Having got them fairly on board, and the boat being off, he came
round, with that air of efficiency which ever characterized him,
to take a review of them. Stopping opposite to Tom, who had been
attired for sale in his best broadcloth suit, with well-starched
linen and shining boots, he briefly expressed himself as follows:

"Stand up."

Tom stood up.

"Take off that stock!" and, as Tom, encumbered by his fetters,
proceeded to do it, he assisted him, by pulling it, with no
gentle hand, from his neck, and putting it in his pocket.

Legree now turned to Tom's trunk, which, previous to this, he
had been ransacking, and, taking from it a pair of old pantaloons
and dilapidated coat, which Tom had been wont to put on about his
stable-work, he said, liberating Tom's hands from the handcuffs,
and pointing to a recess in among the boxes,

"You go there, and put these on."

Tom obeyed, and in a few moments returned.

"Take off your boots," said Mr. Legree.

Tom did so.

"There," said the former, throwing him a pair of coarse, stout
shoes, such as were common among the slaves, "put these on."

In Tom's hurried exchange, he had not forgotten to transfer
his cherished Bible to his pocket. It was well he did so; for Mr.
Legree, having refitted Tom's handcuffs, proceeded deliberately to
investigate the contents of his pockets. He drew out a silk
handkerchief, and put it into his own pocket. Several little
trifles, which Tom had treasured, chiefly because they had amused
Eva, he looked upon with a contemptuous grunt, and tossed them over
his shoulder into the river.

Tom's Methodist hymn-book, which, in his hurry, he had
forgotten, he now held up and turned over.

Humph! pious, to be sure. So, what's yer name,--you belong
to the church, eh?"

"Yes, Mas'r," said Tom, firmly.

"Well, I'll soon have _that_ out of you. I have none o' yer
bawling, praying, singing niggers on my place; so remember.
Now, mind yourself," he said, with a stamp and a fierce glance
of his gray eye, directed at Tom, "_I'm_ your church now!
You understand,--you've got to be as _I_ say."

Something within the silent black man answered _No!_ and, as if
repeated by an invisible voice, came the words of an old prophetic
scroll, as Eva had often read them to him,--"Fear not! for I have
redeemed thee. I have called thee by name. Thou art MINE!"

But Simon Legree heard no voice. That voice is one he never
shall hear. He only glared for a moment on the downcast face
of Tom, and walked off. He took Tom's trunk, which contained a
very neat and abundant wardrobe, to the forecastle, where it was
soon surrounded by various hands of the boat. With much laughing,
at the expense of niggers who tried to be gentlemen, the articles
very readily were sold to one and another, and the empty trunk
finally put up at auction. It was a good joke, they all thought,
especially to see how Tom looked after his things, as they were
going this way and that; and then the auction of the trunk, that
was funnier than all, and occasioned abundant witticisms.

This little affair being over, Simon sauntered up again to
his property.

"Now, Tom, I've relieved you of any extra baggage, you see.
Take mighty good care of them clothes. It'll be long enough 'fore
you get more. I go in for making niggers careful; one suit has to
do for one year, on my place."

Simon next walked up to the place where Emmeline was sitting,
chained to another woman.

"Well, my dear," he said, chucking her under the chin,
"keep up your spirits."

The involuntary look of horror, fright and aversion, with which
the girl regarded him, did not escape his eye. He frowned fiercely.

"None o' your shines, gal! you's got to keep a pleasant face,
when I speak to ye,--d'ye hear? And you, you old yellow poco
moonshine!" he said, giving a shove to the mulatto woman to whom
Emmeline was chained, "don't you carry that sort of face! You's
got to look chipper, I tell ye!"

"I say, all on ye," he said retreating a pace or two back,
"look at me,--look at me,--look me right in the eye,--_straight_,
now!" said he, stamping his foot at every pause.

As by a fascination, every eye was now directed to the
glaring greenish-gray eye of Simon.

"Now," said he, doubling his great, heavy fist into something
resembling a blacksmith's hammer, "d'ye see this fist? Heft it!"
he said, bringing it down on Tom's hand. "Look at these yer bones!
Well, I tell ye this yer fist has got as hard as iron _knocking
down niggers_. I never see the nigger, yet, I couldn't bring down
with one crack," said he, bringing his fist down so near to the
face of Tom that he winked and drew back. "I don't keep none o'
yer cussed overseers; I does my own overseeing; and I tell you
things _is_ seen to. You's every one on ye got to toe the mark,
I tell ye; quick,--straight,--the moment I speak. That's the way
to keep in with me. Ye won't find no soft spot in me, nowhere.
So, now, mind yerselves; for I don't show no mercy!"

The women involuntarily drew in their breath, and the whole
gang sat with downcast, dejected faces. Meanwhile, Simon turned
on his heel, and marched up to the bar of the boat for a dram.

"That's the way I begin with my niggers," he said, to a
gentlemanly man, who had stood by him during his speech.
"It's my system to begin strong,--just let 'em know what
to expect."

"Indeed!" said the stranger, looking upon him with the
curiosity of a naturalist studying some out-of-the-way specimen.

"Yes, indeed. I'm none o' yer gentlemen planters, with lily
fingers, to slop round and be cheated by some old cuss of an
overseer! Just feel of my knuckles, now; look at my fist.
Tell ye, sir, the flesh on 't has come jest like a stone,
practising on nigger--feel on it."

The stranger applied his fingers to the implement in
question, and simply said,

"'T is hard enough; and, I suppose," he added, "practice
has made your heart just like it."

"Why, yes, I may say so," said Simon, with a hearty laugh.
"I reckon there's as little soft in me as in any one going.
Tell you, nobody comes it over me! Niggers never gets round me,
neither with squalling nor soft soap,--that's a fact."

"You have a fine lot there."

"Real," said Simon. "There's that Tom, they telled me he was
suthin' uncommon. I paid a little high for him, tendin' him
for a driver and a managing chap; only get the notions out that
he's larnt by bein' treated as niggers never ought to be, he'll
do prime! The yellow woman I got took in on. I rayther think she's
sickly, but I shall put her through for what she's worth; she
may last a year or two. I don't go for savin' niggers. Use up,
and buy more, 's my way;-makes you less trouble, and I'm quite
sure it comes cheaper in the end;" and Simon sipped his glass.

"And how long do they generally last?" said the stranger.

"Well, donno; 'cordin' as their constitution is. Stout fellers
last six or seven years; trashy ones gets worked up in two
or three. I used to, when I fust begun, have considerable trouble
fussin' with 'em and trying to make 'em hold out,--doctorin' on
'em up when they's sick, and givin' on 'em clothes and blankets,
and what not, tryin' to keep 'em all sort o' decent and comfortable.
Law, 't wasn't no sort o' use; I lost money on 'em, and 't was
heaps o' trouble. Now, you see, I just put 'em straight through,
sick or well. When one nigger's dead, I buy another; and I find
it comes cheaper and easier, every way."

The stranger turned away, and seated himself beside a gentleman,
who had been listening to the conversation with repressed
uneasiness.

"You must not take that fellow to be any specimen of Southern
planters," said he.

"I should hope not," said the young gentleman, with emphasis.

"He is a mean, low, brutal fellow!" said the other.

"And yet your laws allow him to hold any number of human
beings subject to his absolute will, without even a shadow of
protection; and, low as he is, you cannot say that there are not
many such."

"Well," said the other, "there are also many considerate
and humane men among planters."

"Granted," said the young man; "but, in my opinion, it is you
considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the
brutality and outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it
were not for your sanction and influence, the whole system could
not keep foothold for an hour. If there were no planters except
such as that one," said he, pointing with his finger to Legree,
who stood with his back to them, "the whole thing would go down like
a millstone. It is your respectability and humanity that licenses
and protects his brutality."

"You certainly have a high opinion of my good nature," said the
planter, smiling, "but I advise you not to talk quite so loud,
as there are people on board the boat who might not be quite so
tolerant to opinion as I am. You had better wait till I get up to
my plantation, and there you may abuse us all, quite at your leisure."

The young gentleman colored and smiled, and the two were soon
busy in a game of backgammon. Meanwhile, another conversation
was going on in the lower part of the boat, between Emmeline and
the mulatto woman with whom she was confined. As was natural, they
were exchanging with each other some particulars of their history.

"Who did you belong to?" said Emmeline.

"Well, my Mas'r was Mr. Ellis,--lived on Levee-street.
P'raps you've seen the house."

"Was he good to you?" said Emmeline.

"Mostly, till he tuk sick. He's lain sick, off and on, more
than six months, and been orful oneasy. 'Pears like he warnt
willin' to have nobody rest, day or night; and got so curous, there
couldn't nobody suit him. 'Pears like he just grew crosser, every
day; kep me up nights till I got farly beat out, and couldn't keep
awake no longer; and cause I got to sleep, one night, Lors, he talk
so orful to me, and he tell me he'd sell me to just the hardest
master he could find; and he'd promised me my freedom, too, when
he died."

"Had you any friends?" said Emmeline.

"Yes, my husband,--he's a blacksmith. Mas'r gen'ly hired
him out. They took me off so quick, I didn't even have time to
see him; and I's got four children. O, dear me!" said the woman,
covering her face with her hands.

It is a natural impulse, in every one, when they hear a tale
of distress, to think of something to say by way of consolation.
Emmeline wanted to say something, but she could not think of anything
to say. What was there to be said? As by a common consent, they
both avoided, with fear and dread, all mention of the horrible man
who was now their master.

True, there is religious trust for even the darkest hour.
The mulatto woman was a member of the Methodist church, and had an
unenlightened but very sincere spirit of piety. Emmeline had been
educated much more intelligently,--taught to read and write, and
diligently instructed in the Bible, by the care of a faithful and
pious mistress; yet, would it not try the faith of the firmest
Christian, to find themselves abandoned, apparently, of God, in
the grasp of ruthless violence? How much more must it shake the
faith of Christ's poor little ones, weak in knowledge and tender
in years!

The boat moved on,--freighted with its weight of sorrow,--up the
red, muddy, turbid current, through the abrupt tortuous windings
of the Red river; and sad eyes gazed wearily on the steep red-clay
banks, as they glided by in dreary sameness. At last the boat
stopped at a small town, and Legree, with his party, disembarked.

CHAPTER XXXII

Dark Places

"The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations
Of cruelty."[1]

[1]  Ps. 74:20.

Trailing wearily behind a rude wagon, and over a ruder road,
Tom and his associates faced onward.

In the wagon was seated Simon Legree and the two women, still
fettered together, were stowed away with some baggage in the
back part of it, and the whole company were seeking Legree's
plantation, which lay a good distance off.

It was a wild, forsaken road, now winding through dreary pine
barrens, where the wind whispered mournfully, and now over log
causeways, through long cypress swamps, the doleful trees rising
out of the slimy, spongy ground, hung with long wreaths of funeral
black moss, while ever and anon the loathsome form of the mocassin
snake might be seen sliding among broken stumps and shattered
branches that lay here and there, rotting in the water.

It is disconsolate enough, this riding, to the stranger, who,
with well-filled pocket and well-appointed horse, threads the
lonely way on some errand of business; but wilder, drearier,
to the man enthralled, whom every weary step bears further from
all that man loves and prays for.

So one should have thought, that witnessed the sunken and
dejected expression on those dark faces; the wistful, patient
weariness with which those sad eyes rested on object after object
that passed them in their sad journey.

Simon rode on, however, apparently well pleased, occasionally
pulling away at a flask of spirit, which he kept in his pocket.

"I say, _you!_" he said, as he turned back and caught a
glance at the dispirited faces behind him. "Strike up a song,
boys,--come!"

The men looked at each other, and the "_come_" was repeated,
with a smart crack of the whip which the driver carried in
his hands. Tom began a Methodist hymn.

          "Jerusalem, my happy home,
           Name ever dear to me!
           When shall my sorrows have an end,
           Thy joys when shall--"[2]

[2]  "_Jerusalem, my happy home_," anonymous hymn dating from
the latter part of the sixteenth century, sung to the tune of
"St. Stephen."  Words derive from St. Augustine's _Meditations_.

"Shut up, you black cuss!" roared Legree; "did ye think I
wanted any o' yer infernal old Methodism? I say, tune up,
now, something real rowdy,--quick!"

One of the other men struck up one of those unmeaning songs,
common among the slaves.

          "Mas'r see'd me cotch a coon,
           High boys, high!
           He laughed to split,--d'ye see the moon,
           Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
           Ho! yo! hi--e! oh!"_

The singer appeared to make up the song to his own pleasure,
generally hitting on rhyme, without much attempt at reason; and
the party took up the chorus, at intervals,

          "Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho!
           High--e--oh! high--e--oh!"

It was sung very boisterouly, and with a forced attempt at
merriment; but no wail of despair, no words of impassioned prayer,
could have had such a depth of woe in them as the wild notes of
the chorus. As if the poor, dumb heart, threatened,--prisoned,--took
refuge in that inarticulate sanctuary of music, and found there a
language in which to breathe its prayer to God! There was a prayer
in it, which Simon could not hear. He only heard the boys singing
noisily, and was well pleased; he was making them "keep up their spirits."

"Well, my little dear," said he, turning to Emmeline, and
laying his hand on her shoulder, "we're almost home!"

When Legree scolded and stormed, Emmeline was terrified; but
when he laid his hand on her, and spoke as he now did, she felt
as if she had rather he would strike her. The expression of his
eyes made her soul sick, and her flesh creep. Involuntarily she
clung closer to the mulatto woman by her side, as if she were
her mother.

"You didn't ever wear ear-rings," he said, taking hold of
her small ear with his coarse fingers.

"No, Mas'r!" said Emmeline, trembling and looking down.

"Well, I'll give you a pair, when we get home, if you're
a good girl. You needn't be so frightened; I don't mean to make
you work very hard. You'll have fine times with me, and live like
a lady,--only be a good girl."

Legree had been drinking to that degree that he was inclining to
be very gracious; and it was about this time that the enclosures
of the plantation rose to view. The estate had formerly belonged
to a gentleman of opulence and taste, who had bestowed some
considerable attention to the adornment of his grounds. Having died
insolvent, it had been purchased, at a bargain, by Legree, who used
it, as he did everything else, merely as an implement for
money-making. The place had that ragged, forlorn appearance, which
is always produced by the evidence that the care of the former
owner has been left to go to utter decay.

What was once a smooth-shaven lawn before the house, dotted
here and there with ornamental shrubs, was now covered with frowsy
tangled grass, with horseposts set up, here and there, in it, where
the turf was stamped away, and the ground littered with broken
pails, cobs of corn, and other slovenly remains. Here and there,
a mildewed jessamine or honeysuckle hung raggedly from some ornamental
support, which had been pushed to one side by being used as a
horse-post. What once was a large garden was now all grown over
with weeds, through which, here and there, some solitary exotic
reared its forsaken head. What had been a conservatory had now no
window-shades, and on the mouldering shelves stood some dry, forsaken
flower-pots, with sticks in them, whose dried leaves showed they
had once been plants.

The wagon rolled up a weedy gravel walk, under a noble avenue
of China trees, whose graceful forms and ever-springing foliage
seemed to be the only things there that neglect could not daunt
or alter,--like noble spirits, so deeply rooted in goodness,
as to flourish and grow stronger amid discouragement and decay.

The house had been large and handsome. It was built in a manner
common at the South; a wide verandah of two stories running round
every part of the house, into which every outer door opened, the
lower tier being supported by brick pillars.

But the place looked desolate and uncomfortable; some windows
stopped up with boards, some with shattered panes, and shutters
hanging by a single hinge,--all telling of coarse neglect
and discomfort.

Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, garnished
the ground in all directions; and three or four ferocious-looking
dogs, roused by the sound of the wagon-wheels, came tearing out,
and were with difficulty restrained from laying hold of Tom and
his companions, by the effort of the ragged servants who came
after them.

"Ye see what ye'd get!" said Legree, caressing the dogs
with grim satisfaction, and turning to Tom and his companions.
"Ye see what ye'd get, if ye try to run off. These yer dogs has
been raised to track niggers; and they'd jest as soon chaw one on
ye up as eat their supper. So, mind yerself! How now, Sambo!"
he said, to a ragged fellow, without any brim to his hat, who was
officious in his attentions. "How have things been going?"

Fust rate, Mas'r."

"Quimbo," said Legree to another, who was making zealous
demonstrations to attract his attention, "ye minded what I
telled ye?"

"Guess I did, didn't I?"

These two colored men were the two principal hands on the
plantation. Legree had trained them in savageness and brutality
as systematically as he had his bull-dogs; and, by long practice
in hardness and cruelty, brought their whole nature to about the
same range of capacities. It is a common remark, and one that is
thought to militate strongly against the character of the race,
that the negro overseer is always more tyrannical and cruel than
the white one. This is simply saying that the negro mind has been
more crushed and debased than the white. It is no more true of
this race than of every oppressed race, the world over. The slave
is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one.

Legree, like some potentates we read of in history, governed
his plantation by a sort of resolution of forces. Sambo and Quimbo
cordially hated each other; the plantation hands, one and all,
cordially hated them; and, by playing off one against another, he
was pretty sure, through one or the other of the three parties, to
get informed of whatever was on foot in the place.

Nobody can live entirely without social intercourse; and
Legree encouraged his two black satellites to a kind of coarse
familiarity with him,--a familiarity, however, at any moment liable
to get one or the other of them into trouble; for, on the slightest
provocation, one of them always stood ready, at a nod, to be a
minister of his vengeance on the other.

As they stood there now by Legree, they seemed an apt illustration
of the fact that brutal men are lower even than animals.
Their coarse, dark, heavy features; their great eyes, rolling
enviously on each other; their barbarous, guttural, half-brute
intonation; their dilapidated garments fluttering in the wind,--were
all in admirable keeping with the vile and unwholesome character
of everything about the place.

"Here, you Sambo," said Legree, "take these yer boys down to
the quarters; and here's a gal I've got for _you_," said he, as
he separated the mulatto woman from Emmeline, and pushed her towards
him;--"I promised to bring you one, you know."

The woman gave a start, and drawing back, said, suddenly,

"O, Mas'r! I left my old man in New Orleans."

"What of that, you--; won't you want one here? None o' your
words,--go long!" said Legree, raising his whip.

"Come, mistress," he said to Emmeline, "you go in here with me."

A dark, wild face was seen, for a moment, to glance at the
window of the house; and, as Legree opened the door, a female voice
said something, in a quick, imperative tone. Tom, who was looking,
with anxious interest, after Emmeline, as she went in, noticed
this, and heard Legree answer, angrily, "You may hold your tongue!
I'll do as I please, for all you!"

Tom heard no more; for he was soon following Sambo to the quarters.
The quarters was a little sort of street of rude shanties,
in a row, in a part of the plantation, far off from the house.
They had a forlorn, brutal, forsaken air. Tom's heart sunk when
he saw them. He had been comforting himself with the thought of
a cottage, rude, indeed, but one which he might make neat and quiet,
and where he might have a shelf for his Bible, and a place to be
alone out of his laboring hours. He looked into several; they were
mere rude shells, destitute of any species of furniture, except a
heap of straw, foul with dirt, spread confusedly over the floor,
which was merely the bare ground, trodden hard by the tramping of
innumerable feet.

"Which of these will be mine?" said he, to Sambo, submissively.

"Dunno; ken turn in here, I spose," said Sambo; "spects thar's
room for another thar; thar's a pretty smart heap o' niggers
to each on 'em, now; sure, I dunno what I 's to do with more."

It was late in the evening when the weary occupants of the
shanties came flocking home,--men and women, in soiled and tattered
garments, surly  and uncomfortable, and in no mood to look pleasantly
on new-comers. The small village was alive with no inviting sounds;
hoarse, guttural voices contending at the hand-mills where their
morsel of hard corn was yet to be ground into meal, to fit it for
the cake that was to constitute their only supper. From the earliest
dawn of the day, they had been in the fields, pressed to work
under the driving lash of the overseers; for it was now in the very
heat and hurry of the season, and no means was left untried to
press every one up to the top of their capabilities. "True," says
the negligent lounger; "picking cotton isn't hard work."  Isn't it?
And it isn't much inconvenience, either, to have one drop of water
fall on your head; yet the worst torture of the inquisition is
produced by drop after drop, drop after drop, falling moment after
moment, with monotonous succession, on the same spot; and work, in
itself not hard, becomes so, by being pressed, hour after hour,
with unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even the consciousness
of free-will to take from its tediousness. Tom looked in vain
among the gang, as they poured along, for companionable faces.
He saw only sullen, scowling, imbruted men, and feeble, discouraged
women, or women that were not women,--the strong pushing away the
weak,--the gross, unrestricted animal selfishness of human beings,
of whom nothing good was expected and desired; and who, treated in
every way like brutes, had sunk as nearly to their level as it was
possible for human beings to do. To a late hour in the night the
sound of the grinding was protracted; for the mills were few in
number compared with the grinders, and the weary and feeble ones
were driven back by the strong, and came on last in their turn.

"Ho yo!" said Sambo, coming to the mulatto woman, and
throwing down a bag of corn before her; "what a cuss yo name?"

"Lucy," said the woman.

"Wal, Lucy, yo my woman now. Yo grind dis yer corn, and
get _my_ supper baked, ye har?"

"I an't your woman, and I won't be!" said the woman, with
the sharp, sudden courage of despair; "you go long!"

"I'll kick yo, then!" said Sambo, raising his foot
threateningly.

"Ye may kill me, if ye choose,--the sooner the better!
Wish't I was dead!" said she.

"I say, Sambo, you go to spilin' the hands, I'll tell Mas'r
o' you," said Quimbo, who was busy at the mill, from which he had
viciously driven two or three tired women, who were waiting to
grind their corn.

"And, I'll tell him ye won't let the women come to the mills,
yo old nigger!" said Sambo. "Yo jes keep to yo own row."

Tom was hungry with his day's journey, and almost faint
for want of food.

"Thar, yo!" said Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, which
contained a peck of corn; "thar, nigger, grab, take car on 't,--yo
won't get no more, _dis_ yer week."

Tom waited till a late hour, to get a place at the mills; and
then, moved by the utter weariness of two women, whom he saw
trying to grind their corn there, he ground for them, put together
the decaying brands of the fire, where many had baked cakes before
them, and then went about getting his own supper. It was a new
kind of work there,--a deed of charity, small as it was; but it
woke an answering touch in their hearts,--an expression of womanly
kindness came over their hard faces; they mixed his cake for him,
and tended its baking; and Tom sat down by the light of the fire,
and drew out his Bible,--for he had need for comfort.

"What's that?" said one of the woman.

"A Bible," said Tom.

"Good Lord! han't seen un since I was in Kentuck."

"Was you raised in Kentuck?" said Tom, with interest.

"Yes, and well raised, too; never 'spected to come to dis
yer!" said the woman, sighing.

"What's dat ar book, any way?" said the other woman.

"Why, the Bible."

"Laws a me! what's dat?" said the woman.

"Do tell! you never hearn on 't?" said the other woman.
"I used to har Missis a readin' on 't, sometimes, in Kentuck; but,
laws o' me! we don't har nothin' here but crackin' and swarin'."

"Read a piece, anyways!" said the first woman, curiously,
seeing Tom attentively poring over it.

Tom read,-- "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest."

"Them's good words, enough," said the woman; "who says 'em?"

"The Lord," said Tom.

"I jest wish I know'd whar to find Him," said the woman.
"I would go; 'pears like I never should get rested again. My flesh
is fairly sore, and I tremble all over, every day, and Sambo's
allers a jawin' at me, 'cause I doesn't pick faster; and nights
it's most midnight 'fore I can get my supper; and den 'pears like
I don't turn over and shut my eyes, 'fore I hear de horn blow to
get up, and at it agin in de mornin'. If I knew whar de Lor was,
I'd tell him."

"He's here, he's everywhere," said Tom.

"Lor, you an't gwine to make me believe dat ar! I know de
Lord an't here," said the woman; "'tan't no use talking, though.
I's jest gwine to camp down, and sleep while I ken."

The women went off to their cabins, and Tom sat alone, by
the smouldering fire, that flickered up redly in his face.

The silver, fair-browed moon rose in the purple sky, and
looked down, calm and silent, as God looks on the scene of misery
and oppression,--looked calmly on the lone black man, as he sat,
with his arms folded, and his Bible on his knee.

"Is God HERE?"  Ah, how is it possible for the untaught heart
to keep its faith, unswerving, in the face of dire misrule,
and palpable, unrebuked injustice? In that simple heart waged
a fierce conflict; the crushing sense of wrong, the foreshadowing,
of a whole life of future misery, the wreck of all past hopes,
mournfully tossing in the soul's sight, like dead corpses of
wife, and child, and friend, rising from the dark wave, and
surging in the face of the half-drowned mariner! Ah, was it easy
_here_ to believe and hold fast the great password of Christian
faith, that "God IS, and is the REWARDER of them that diligently
seek Him"?

Tom rose, disconsolate, and stumbled into the cabin that had
been allotted to him. The floor was already strewn with weary
sleepers, and the foul air of the place almost repelled him; but
the heavy night-dews were chill, and his limbs weary, and, wrapping
about him a tattered blanket, which formed his only bed-clothing,
he stretched himself in the straw and fell asleep.

In dreams, a gentle voice came over his ear; he was sitting
on the mossy seat in the garden by Lake Pontchartrain, and Eva,
with her serious eyes bent downward, was reading to him from the
Bible; and he heard her read.

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,
and the rivers they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour."

Gradually the words seemed to melt and fade, as in a divine
music; the child raised her deep eyes, and fixed them lovingly on
him, and rays of warmth and comfort seemed to go from them to his
heart; and, as if wafted on the music, she seemed to rise on shining
wings, from which flakes and spangles of gold fell off like stars,
and she was gone.

Tom woke. Was it a dream? Let it pass for one. But who
shall say that that sweet young spirit, which in life so
yearned to comfort and console the distressed, was forbidden
of God to assume this ministry after death?

          It is a beautiful belief,
               That ever round our head
          Are hovering, on angel wings,
               The spirits of the dead.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Cassy

"And behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they
had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was
power, but they had no comforter."
                                     --ECCL. 4:1

It took but a short time to familiarize Tom with all that was to
be hoped or feared in his new way of life. He was an expert and
efficient workman in whatever he undertook; and was, both from
habit and principle, prompt and faithful. Quiet and peaceable in
his disposition, he hoped, by unremitting diligence, to avert from
himself at least a portion of the evils of his condition. He saw
enough of abuse and misery to make him sick and weary; but he
determined to toil on, with religious patience, committing himself
to Him that judgeth righteously, not without hope that some way of
escape might yet be opened to him.

Legree took a silent note of Tom's availability. He rated
him as a first-class hand; and yet he felt a secret dislike to
him,--the native antipathy of bad to good. He saw, plainly, that
when, as was often the case, his violence and brutality fell on
the helpless, Tom took notice of it; for, so subtle is the atmosphere
of opinion, that it will make itself felt, without words; and the
opinion even of a slave may annoy a master. Tom in various ways
manifested a tenderness of feeling, a commiseration for his
fellow-sufferers, strange and new to them, which was watched with
a jealous eye by Legree. He had purchased Tom with a view of
eventually making him a sort of overseer, with whom he might,
at times, intrust his affairs, in short absences; and, in his view,
the first, second, and third requisite for that place, was _hardness_.
Legree made up his mind, that, as Tom was not hard to his hand,
he would harden him forthwith; and some few weeks after Tom had
been on the place, he determined to commence the process.

One morning, when the hands were mustered for the field, Tom
noticed, with surprise, a new comer among them, whose appearance
excited his attention. It was a woman, tall and slenderly formed,
with remarkably delicate hands and feet, and dressed in neat and
respectable garments. By the appearance of her face, she might
have been between thirty-five and forty; and it was a face that,
once seen, could never be forgotten,--one of those that, at a glance,
seem to convey to us an idea of a wild, painful, and romantic history.
Her forehead was high, and her eyebrows marked with beautiful clearness.
Her straight, well-formed nose, her finely-cut mouth, and the
graceful contour of her head and neck, showed that she must once
have been beautiful; but her face was deeply wrinkled with lines
of pain, and of proud and bitter endurance. Her complexion was
sallow and unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features sharp, and
her whole form emaciated. But her eye was the most remarkable
feature,--so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by long lashes
of equal darkness, and so wildly, mournfully despairing. There was
a fierce pride and defiance in every line of her face, in every
curve of the flexible lip, in every motion of her body; but in her
eye was a deep, settled night of anguish,--an expression so hopeless
and unchanging as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride
expressed by her whole demeanor.

Where she came from, or who she was, Tom did not know. The first
he did know, she was walking by his side, erect and proud, in the
dim gray of the dawn. To the gang, however, she was known; for
there was much looking and turning of heads, and a smothered yet
apparent exultation among the miserable, ragged, half-starved
creatures by whom she was surrounded.

"Got to come to it, at last,--grad of it!" said one.

"He! he! he!" said another; "you'll know how good it is, Misse!"

"We'll see her work!"

"Wonder if she'll get a cutting up, at night, like the rest
of us!"

"I'd be glad to see her down for a flogging, I'll bound!"
said another.

The woman took no notice of these taunts, but walked on, with
the same expression of angry scorn, as if she heard nothing.
Tom had always lived among refined, and cultivated people, and he
felt intuitively, from her air and bearing, that she belonged to
that class; but how or why she could be fallen to those degrading
circumstances, he could not tell. The women neither looked at him
nor spoke to him, though, all the way to the field, she kept close
at his side.

Tom was soon busy at his work; but, as the woman was at no great
distance from him, he often glanced an eye to her, at her work.
He saw, at a glance, that a native adroitness and handiness made
the task to her an easier one than it proved to many. She picked
very fast and very clean, and with an air of scorn, as if she
despised both the work and the disgrace and humiliation of the
circumstances in which she was placed.

In the course of the day, Tom was working near the mulatto
woman who had been bought in the same lot with himself. She was
evidently in a condition of great suffering, and Tom often heard her
praying, as she wavered and trembled, and seemed about to fall down.
Tom silently as he came near to her, transferred several handfuls
of cotton from his own sack to hers.

"O, don't, don't!" said the woman, looking surprised; "it'll
get you into trouble."

Just then Sambo came up. He seemed to have a special spite
against this woman; and, flourishing his whip, said, in brutal,
guttural tones, "What dis yer, Luce,--foolin' a'" and, with the
word, kicking the woman with his heavy cowhide shoe, he struck Tom
across the face with his whip.

Tom silently resumed his task; but the woman, before at
the last point of exhaustion, fainted.

"I'll bring her to!" said the driver, with a brutal grin.
"I'll give her something better than camphire!" and, taking a pin
from his coat-sleeve, he buried it to the head in her flesh.
The woman groaned, and half rose. "Get up, you beast, and work,
will yer, or I'll show yer a trick more!"

The woman seemed stimulated, for a few moments, to an
unnatural strength, and worked with desperate eagerness.

"See that you keep to dat ar," said the man, "or yer'll
wish yer's dead tonight, I reckin!"

"That I do now!"  Tom heard her say; and again he heard her
say, "O, Lord, how long! O, Lord, why don't you help us?"

At the risk of all that he might suffer, Tom came forward
again, and put all the cotton in his sack into the woman's.

"O, you mustn't! you donno what they'll do to ye!" said
the woman.

"I can bar it!" said Tom, "better 'n you;" and he was at
his place again. It passed in a moment.

Suddenly, the stranger woman whom we have described, and who
had, in the course of her work, come near enough to hear Tom's
last words, raised her heavy black eyes, and fixed them, for a
second, on him; then, taking a quantity of cotton from her basket,
she placed it in his.

"You know nothing about this place," she said, "or you wouldn't
have done that. When you've been here a month, you'll be done
helping anybody; you'll find it hard enough to take care of your
own skin!"

"The Lord forbid, Missis!" said Tom, using instinctively to his
field companion the respectful form proper to the high bred
with whom he had lived.

"The Lord never visits these parts," said the woman, bitterly,
as she went nimbly forward with her work; and again the
scornful smile curled her lips.

But the action of the woman had been seen by the driver,
across the field; and, flourishing his whip, he came up to her.

"What! what!" he said to the woman, with an air of triumph,
"You a foolin'? Go along! yer under me now,--mind yourself, or
yer'll cotch it!"

A glance like sheet-lightning suddenly flashed from those
black eyes; and, facing about, with quivering lip and dilated
nostrils, she drew herself up, and fixed a glance, blazing with
rage and scorn, on the driver.

"Dog!" she said, "touch _me_, if you dare! I've power enough,
yet, to have you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to inches!
I've only to say the word!"

"What de devil you here for, den?" said the man, evidently
cowed, and sullenly retreating a step or two. "Didn't mean no
harm, Misse Cassy!"

"Keep your distance, then!" said the woman. And, in truth, the
man seemed greatly inclined to attend to something at the other
end of the field, and started off in quick time.

The woman suddenly turned to her work, and labored with a
despatch that was perfectly astonishing to Tom. She seemed to
work by magic. Before the day was through, her basket was filled,
crowded down, and piled, and she had several times put largely
into Tom's. Long after dusk, the whole weary train, with their
baskets on their heads, defiled up to the building appropriated to the
storing and weighing the cotton. Legree was there, busily conversing
with the two drivers.

"Dat ar Tom's gwine to make a powerful deal o' trouble; kept
a puttin' into Lucy's basket.--One o' these yer dat will get
all der niggers to feelin' bused, if Masir don't watch him!"
said Sambo.

"Hey-dey! The black cuss!" said Legree. "He'll have to
get a breakin' in, won't he, boys?"

Both negroes grinned a horrid grin, at this intimation.

"Ay, ay! Let Mas'r Legree alone, for breakin' in! De debil
heself couldn't beat Mas'r at dat!" said Quimbo.

"Wal, boys, the best way is to give him the flogging to do,
till he gets over his notions. Break him in!"

"Lord, Mas'r'll have hard work to get dat out o' him!"

"It'll have to come out of him, though!" said Legree, as
he rolled his tobacco in his mouth.

"Now, dar's Lucy,--de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de
place!" pursued Sambo.

"Take care, Sam; I shall begin to think what's the reason
for your spite agin Lucy."

"Well, Mas'r knows she sot herself up agin Mas'r, and
wouldn't have me, when he telled her to."

"I'd a flogged her into 't," said Legree, spitting, only
there's such a press o' work, it don't seem wuth a while to upset
her jist now. She's slender; but these yer slender gals will bear
half killin' to get their own way!"

"Wal, Lucy was real aggravatin' and lazy, sulkin' round;
wouldn't do nothin,--and Tom he tuck up for her."

"He did, eh! Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of
flogging her. It'll be a good practice for him, and he won't put
it on to the gal like you devils, neither."

"Ho, ho! haw! haw! haw!" laughed both the sooty wretches;
and the diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not unapt
expression of the fiendish character which Legree gave them.

"Wal, but, Mas'r, Tom and Misse Cassy, and dey among 'em,
filled Lucy's basket. I ruther guess der weight 's in it, Mas'r!"

"_I do the weighing!_" said Legree, emphatically.

Both the drivers again laughed their diabolical laugh.

"So!" he added, "Misse Cassy did her day's work."

"She picks like de debil and all his angels!"

"She's got 'em all in her, I believe!" said Legree; and,
growling a brutal oath, he proceeded to the weighing-room.

Slowly the weary, dispirited creatures, wound their way
into the room, and, with crouching reluctance, presented their
baskets to be weighed.

Legree noted on a slate, on the side of which was pasted
a list of names, the amount.

Tom's basket was weighed and approved; and he looked, with an
anxious glance, for the success of the woman he had befriended.

Tottering with weakness, she came forward, and delivered
her basket. It was of full weight, as Legree well perceived; but,
affecting anger, he said,

"What, you lazy beast! short again! stand aside, you'll
catch it, pretty soon!"

The woman gave a groan of utter despair, and sat down on
a board.

The person who had been called Misse Cassy now came forward, and,
with a haughty, negligent air, delivered her basket. As she delivered
it, Legree looked in her eyes with a sneering yet inquiring glance.

She fixed her black eyes steadily on him, her lips moved slightly,
and she said something in French. What it was, no one knew; but
Legree's face became perfectly demoniacal in its expression, as
she spoke; he half raised his hand, as if to strike,--a gesture
which she regarded with fierce disdain, as she turned and walked away.

"And now," said Legree, "come here, you Tom. You see, I
telled ye I didn't buy ye jest for the common work; I mean to
promote ye, and make a driver of ye; and tonight ye may jest as
well begin to get yer hand in. Now, ye jest take this yer gal and
flog her; ye've seen enough on't to know how."

I beg Mas'r's pardon," said Tom; "hopes Mas'r won't set me
at that. It's what I an't used to,--never did,--and can't do,
no way possible."

"Ye'll larn a pretty smart chance of things ye never did know,
before I've done with ye!" said Legree, taking up a cowhide,
and striking Tom a heavy blow cross the cheek, and following up
the infliction by a shower of blows.

"There!" he said, as he stopped to rest; "now, will ye tell
me ye can't do it?"

"Yes, Mas'r," said Tom, putting up his hand, to wipe the blood,
that trickled down his face. "I'm willin' to work, night
and day, and work while there's life and breath in me; but this
yer thing I can't feel it right to do;--and, Mas'r, I _never_ shall
do it,--_never_!"

Tom had a remarkably smooth, soft voice, and a habitually
respectful manner, that had given Legree an idea that he would be
cowardly, and easily subdued. When he spoke these last words, a
thrill of amazement went through every one; the poor woman clasped
her hands, and said, "O Lord!" and every one involuntarily looked
at each other and drew in their breath, as if to prepare for the
storm that was about to burst.

Legree looked stupefied and confounded; but at last burst
forth,--"What! ye blasted black beast! tell _me_ ye don't
think it _right_ to do what I tell ye! What have any of you cussed
cattle to do with thinking what's right? I'll put a stop to it!
Why, what do ye think ye are? May be ye think ye'r a gentleman
master, Tom, to be a telling your master what's right, and what ain't!
So you pretend it's wrong to flog the gal!"

"I think so, Mas'r," said Tom; "the poor crittur's sick and feeble;
't would be downright cruel, and it's what I never will do, nor
begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my
raising my hand agin any one here, I never shall,--I'll die first!"

Tom spoke in a mild voice, but with a decision that could not
be mistaken. Legree shook with anger; his greenish eyes glared
fiercely, and his very whiskers seemed to curl with passion; but,
like some ferocious beast, that plays with its victim before he
devours it, he kept back his strong impulse to proceed to immediate
violence, and broke out into bitter raillery.

"Well, here's a pious dog, at last, let down among us
sinners!--a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners
about our sins! Powerful holy critter, he must be! Here, you rascal,
you make believe to be so pious,--didn't you never hear, out of yer
Bible, `Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I
pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside
yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body and soul?" he
said, giving Tom a violent kick with his heavy boot; "tell me!"

In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal
oppression, this question shot a gleam of joy and triumph through
Tom's soul. He suddenly stretched himself up, and, looking earnestly
to heaven, while the tears and blood that flowed down his face
mingled, he exclaimed,

"No! no! no! my soul an't yours, Mas'r! You haven't bought
it,--ye can't buy it! It's been bought and paid for, by one that
is able to keep it;--no matter, no matter, you can't harm me!"

"I can't!" said Legree, with a sneer; "we'll see,--we'll see!
Here, Sambo, Quimbo, give this dog such a breakin' in as he
won't get over, this month!"

The two gigantic negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with
fiendish exultation in their faces, might have formed no unapt
personification of powers of darkness. The poor woman screamed
with apprehension, and all rose, as by a general impulse, while
they dragged him unresisting from the place.

CHAPTER XXXIV

The Quadroon's Story

And behold the tears of such as are oppressed; and on the side
of their oppressors there was power. Wherefore I praised the
dead that are already dead more than the living that are yet alive.
                                        --ECCL. 4:1.

It was late at night, and Tom lay groaning and bleeding alone, in
an old forsaken room of the gin-house, among pieces of broken
machinery, piles of damaged cotton, and other rubbish which had
there accumulated.

The night was damp and close, and the thick air swarmed with
myriads of mosquitos, which increased the restless torture of his
wounds; whilst a burning thirst--a torture beyond all others--filled
up the uttermost measure of physical anguish.

"O, good Lord! _Do_ look down,--give me the victory!--give
me the victory over all!" prayed poor Tom, in his anguish.

A footstep entered the room, behind him, and the light of
a lantern flashed on his eyes.

"Who's there? O, for the Lord's massy, please give me some water!"

The woman Cassy--for it was she,--set down her lantern, and,
pouring water from a bottle, raised his head, and gave him drink.
Another and another cup were drained, with feverish eagerness.

"Drink all ye want," she said; "I knew how it would be. It isn't
the first time I've been out in the night, carrying water to
such as you."

"Thank you, Missis," said Tom, when he had done drinking.

"Don't call me Missis! I'm a miserable slave, like yourself,--a
lower one than you can ever be!" said she, bitterly; "but now,"
said she, going to the door, and dragging in a small pallaise, over
which she had spread linen cloths wet with cold water, "try, my
poor fellow, to roll yourself on to this."

Stiff with wounds and bruises, Tom was a long time in
accomplishing this movement; but, when done, he felt a sensible
relief from the cooling application to his wounds.

The woman, whom long practice with the victims of brutality had
made familiar with many healing arts, went on to make many
applications to Tom's wounds, by means of which he was soon
somewhat relieved.

"Now," said the woman, when she had raised his head on a roll
of damaged cotton, which served for a pillow, "there's the
best I can do for you."

Tom thanked her; and the woman, sitting down on the floor, drew
up her knees, and embracing them with her arms, looked fixedly
before her, with a bitter and painful expression of countenance.
Her bonnet fell back, and long wavy streams of black hair fell
around her singular and melancholy-face.

"It's no use, my poor fellow!" she broke out, at last, "it's of
no use, this you've been trying to do. You were a brave
fellow,--you had the right on your side; but it's all in vain, and
out of the question, for you to struggle. You are in the devil's
hands;--he is the strongest, and you must give up!"

Give up! and, had not human weakness and physical agony whispered
that, before? Tom started; for the bitter woman, with her wild
eyes and melancholy voice, seemed to him an embodiment of the
temptation with which he had been wrestling.

"O Lord! O Lord!" he groaned, "how can I give up?"

"There's no use calling on the Lord,--he never hears," said
the woman, steadily; "there isn't any God, I believe; or, if there
is, he's taken sides against us. All goes against us, heaven
and earth. Everything is pushing us into hell. Why shouldn't we go?"

Tom closed his eyes, and shuddered at the dark, atheistic words.

"You see," said the woman, "_you_ don't know anything about
it--I do. I've been on this place five years, body and soul,
under this man's foot; and I hate him as I do the devil! Here you
are, on a lone plantation, ten miles from any other, in the swamps;
not a white person here, who could testify, if you were burned
alive,--if you were scalded, cut into inch-pieces, set up for the
dogs to tear, or hung up and whipped to death. There's no law
here, of God or man, that can do you, or any one of us, the least
good; and, this man! there's no earthly thing that he's too good
to do. I could make any one's hair rise, and their teeth chatter,
if I should only tell what I've seen and been knowing to, here,--and
it's no use resisting! Did I _want_ to live with him? Wasn't I a
woman delicately bred; and he,--God in heaven! what was he, and
is he? And yet, I've lived with him, these five years, and cursed
every moment of my life,--night and day! And now, he's got a new
one,--a young thing, only fifteen, and she brought up, she says, piously.
Her good mistress taught her to read the Bible; and she's brought
her Bible here--to hell with her!"--and the woman laughed a wild
and doleful laugh, that rung, with a strange, supernatural sound,
through the old ruined shed.

Tom folded his hands; all was darkness and horror.

"O Jesus! Lord Jesus! have you quite forgot us poor critturs?"
burst forth, at last;-- "help, Lord, I perish!"

The woman sternly continued:

"And what are these miserable low dogs you work with, that you
should suffer on their account? Every one of them would turn
against you, the first time they got a chance. They are all of
'em as low and cruel to each other as they can be; there's no use
in your suffering to keep from hurting them."

"Poor critturs!" said Tom,-- "what made 'em cruel?--and, if
I give out, I shall get used to 't, and grow, little by little,
just like 'em! No, no, Missis! I've lost everything,--wife, and
children, and home, and a kind Mas'r,--and he would have set me
free, if he'd only lived a week longer; I've lost everything in
_this_ world, and it's clean gone, forever,--and now I _can't_ lose
Heaven, too; no, I can't get to be wicked, besides all!"

"But it can't be that the Lord will lay sin to our account,"
said the woman; "he won't charge it to us, when we're forced to
it; he'll charge it to them that drove us to it."

"Yes," said Tom; "but that won't keep us from growing wicked.
If I get to be as hard-hearted as that ar' Sambo, and as wicked,
it won't make much odds to me how I come so; it's the bein'
so,--that ar's what I'm a dreadin'."

The woman fixed a wild and startled look on Tom, as if a new
thought had struck her; and then, heavily groaning, said,

"O God a' mercy! you speak the truth! O--O--O!"--and, with
groans, she fell on the floor, like one crushed and writhing under
the extremity of mental anguish.

There was a silence, a while, in which the breathing of both
parties could be heard, when Tom faintly said, "O, please, Missis!"

The woman suddenly rose up, with her face composed to its
usual stern, melancholy expression.

"Please, Missis, I saw 'em throw my coat in that ar' corner,
and in my coat-pocket is my Bible;--if Missis would please get it
for me."

Cassy went and got it. Tom opened, at once, to a heavily
marked passage, much worn, of the last scenes in the life of Him
by whose stripes we are healed.

"If Missis would only be so good as read that ar',--it's
better than water."

Cassy took the book, with a dry, proud air, and looked over
the passage. She then read aloud, in a soft voice, and with a
beauty of intonation that was peculiar, that touching account of
anguish and of glory. Often, as she read, her voice faltered, and
sometimes failed her altogether, when she would stop, with an air
of frigid composure, till she had mastered herself. When she came
to the touching words, "Father forgive them, for they know not what
they do," she threw down the book, and, burying her face in the heavy
masses of her hair, she sobbed aloud, with a convulsive violence.

Tom was weeping, also, and occasionally uttering a smothered
ejaculation.

"If we only could keep up to that ar'!" said Tom;--"it seemed
to come so natural to him, and we have to fight so hard for 't!
O Lord, help us! O blessed Lord Jesus, do help us!"

"Missis," said Tom, after a while, "I can see that, some how,
you're quite 'bove me in everything; but there's one thing Missis
might learn even from poor Tom. Ye said the Lord took sides
against us, because he lets us be 'bused and knocked round; but ye
see what come on his own Son,--the blessed Lord of Glory,--wan't
he allays poor? and have we, any on us, yet come so low as he come?
The Lord han't forgot us,--I'm sartin' o' that ar'. If we suffer
with him, we shall also reign, Scripture says; but, if we deny Him,
he also will deny us. Didn't they all suffer?--the Lord and
all his? It tells how they was stoned and sawn asunder, and wandered
about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and was destitute, afflicted,
tormented. Sufferin' an't no reason to make us think the Lord's
turned agin us; but jest the contrary, if only we hold on to him,
and doesn't give up to sin."

"But why does he put us where we can't help but sin?" said
the woman.

"I think we _can_ help it," said Tom.

"You'll see," said Cassy; "what'll you do? Tomorrow they'll
be at you again. I know 'em; I've seen all their doings; I can't
bear to think of all they'll bring you to;--and they'll make you
give out, at last!"

"Lord Jesus!" said Tom, "you _will_ take care of my soul?
O Lord, do!--don't let me give out!"

"O dear!" said Cassy; "I've heard all this crying and praying
before; and yet, they've been broken down, and brought under.
There's Emmeline, she's trying to hold on, and you're
trying,--but what use? You must give up, or be killed by inches."

"Well, then, I _will_ die!" said Tom. "Spin it out as long as
they can, they can't help my dying, some time!--and, after that,
they can't do no more. I'm clar, I'm set! I _know_ the Lord'll
help me, and bring me through."

The woman did not answer; she sat with her black eyes
intently fixed on the floor.

"May be it's the way," she murmured to herself; "but those that
_have_ given up, there's no hope for them!--none! We live in
filth, and grow loathsome, till we loathe ourselves! And we long
to die, and we don't dare to kill ourselves!--No hope! no hope! no
hope?--this girl now,--just as old as I was!

"You see me now," she said, speaking to Tom very rapidly;
"see what I am! Well, I was brought up in luxury; the first I
remember is, playing about, when I was a child, in splendid
parlors,--when I was kept dressed up like a doll, and company and
visitors used to praise me. There was a garden opening from the
saloon windows; and there I used to play hide-and-go-seek, under
the orange-trees, with my brothers and sisters. I went to a
convent, and there I learned music, French and embroidery, and
what not; and when I was fourteen, I came out to my father's funeral.
He died very suddenly, and when the property came to be settled,
they found that there was scarcely enough to cover the debts; and
when the creditors took an inventory of the property, I was set down
in it. My mother was a slave woman, and my father had always meant
to set me free; but he had not done it, and so I was set down in
the list. I'd always known who I was, but never thought much about it.
Nobody ever expects that a strong, healthy man is going to die.
My father was a well man only four hours before he died;--it was
one of the first cholera cases in New Orleans. The day after the
funeral, my father's wife took her children, and went up to her
father's plantation. I thought they treated me strangely, but
didn't know. There was a young lawyer who they left to settle the
business; and he came every day, and was about the house, and spoke
very politely to me. He brought with him, one day, a young man,
whom I thought the handsomest I had ever seen. I shall never forget
that evening. I walked with him in the garden. I was lonesome and
full of sorrow, and he was so kind and gentle to me; and he told me
that he had seen me before I went to the convent, and that he had
loved me a great while, and that he would be my friend and
protector;--in short, though he didn't tell me, he had paid two
thousand dollars for me, and I was his property,--I became his
willingly, for I loved him. Loved!" said the woman, stopping.
"O, how I _did_ love that man! How I love him now,--and always
shall, while I breathe! He was so beautiful, so high, so noble!
He put me into a beautiful house, with servants, horses, and
carriages, and furniture, and dresses. Everything that money
could buy, he gave me; but I didn't set any value on all that,--I
only cared for him. I loved him better than my God and my own soul,
and, if I tried, I couldn't do any other way from what he wanted me to.

"I wanted only one thing--I did want him to _marry_ me. I thought,
if he loved me as he said he did, and if I was what he seemed
to think I was, he would be willing to marry me and set me free.
But he convinced me that it would be impossible; and he told
me that, if we were only faithful to each other, it was marriage
before God. If that is true, wasn't I that man's wife? Wasn't I
faithful? For seven years, didn't I study every look and motion,
and only live and breathe to please him? He had the yellow fever,
and for twenty days and nights I watched with him. I alone,--and
gave him all his medicine, and did everything for him; and then he
called me his good angel, and said I'd saved his life. We had two
beautiful children. The first was a boy, and we called him Henry.
He was the image of his father,--he had such beautiful eyes, such
a forehead, and his hair hung all in curls around it; and he had
all his father's spirit, and his talent, too. Little Elise, he
said, looked like me. He used to tell me that I was the most
beautiful woman in Louisiana, he was so proud of me and the children.
He used to love to have me dress them up, and take them and me
about in an open carriage, and hear the remarks that people would
make on us; and he used to fill my ears constantly with the fine
things that were said in praise of me and the children. O, those
were happy days! I thought I was as happy as any one could be; but
then there came evil times. He had a cousin come to New Orleans,
who was his particular friend,--he thought all the world of him;--but,
from the first time I saw him, I couldn't tell why, I dreaded him;
for I felt sure he was going to bring misery on us. He got Henry
to going out with him, and often he would not come home nights till
two or three o'clock. I did not dare say a word; for Henry was so
high spirited, I was afraid to. He got him to the gaming-houses; and
he was one of the sort that, when he once got a going there, there
was no holding back. And then he introduced him to another lady,
and I saw soon that his heart was gone from me. He never told me,
but I saw it,--I knew it, day after day,--I felt my heart breaking,
but I could not say a word! At this, the wretch offered to buy me
and the children of Henry, to clear off his gamblng debts, which
stood in the way of his marrying as he wished;--and _he sold us_.
He told me, one day, that he had business in the country, and should
be gone two or three weeks. He spoke kinder than usual, and said
he should come back; but it didn't deceive me. I knew that the
time had come; I was just like one turned into stone; I couldn't
speak, nor shed a tear. He kissed me and kissed the children, a
good many times, and went out. I saw him get on his horse, and I
watched him till he was quite out of sight; and then I fell down,
and fainted.

"Then _he_ came, the cursed wretch! he came to take possession.
He told me that he had bought me and my children; and showed me
the papers. I cursed him before God, and told him I'd die sooner
than live with him."

"`Just as you please,' said he; `but, if you don't behave
reasonably, I'll sell both the children, where you shall never see
them again.'  He told me that he always had meant to have me, from
the first time he saw me; and that he had drawn Henry on, and got
him in debt, on purpose to make him willing to sell me. That he
got him in love with another woman; and that I might know, after
all that, that he should not give up for a few airs and tears, and
things of that sort.

"I gave up, for my hands were tied. He had my children;--whenever
I resisted his will anywhere, he would talk about selling them,
and he made me as submissive as he desired. O, what a life it was!
to live with my heart breaking, every day,--to keep on, on, on,
loving, when it was only misery; and to be bound, body and soul,
to one I hated. I used to love to read to Henry, to play to him,
to waltz with him, and sing to him; but everything I did for this
one was a perfect drag,--yet I was afraid to refuse anything.
He was very imperious, and harsh to the children. Elise was a timid
little thing; but Henry was bold and high-spirited, like his father,
and he had never been brought under, in the least, by any one. He was
always finding fault, and quarrelling with him; and I used to live
in daily fear and dread. I tried to make the child respectful;--I
tried to keep them apart, for I held on to those children like
death; but it did no good. _He sold both those children_. He took
me to ride, one day, and when I came home, they were nowhere to
be found! He told me he had sold them; he showed me the money,
the price of their blood. Then it seemed as if all good forsook me.
I raved and cursed,--cursed God and man; and, for a while, I believe,
he really was afraid of me. But he didn't give up so. He told me
that my children were sold, but whether I ever saw their faces
again, depended on him; and that, if I wasn't quiet, they should
smart for it. Well, you can do anything with a woman, when you've
got her children. He made me submit; he made me be peaceable; he
flattered me with hopes that, perhaps, he would buy them back; and
so things went on, a week or two. One day, I was out walking, and
passed by the calaboose; I saw a crowd about the gate, and heard
a child's voice,--and suddenly my Henry broke away from two or
three men who were holding the poor boy screamed and looked into
my face, and held on to me, until, in tearing him off, they tore
the skirt of my dress half away; and they carried him in, screaming
`Mother! mother! mother!'  There was one man stood there seemed to
pity me. I offered him all the money I had, if he'd only interfere.
He shook his head, and said that the boy had been impudent and
disobedient, ever since he bought him; that he was going to break
him in, once for all. I turned and ran; and every step of the way,
I thought that I heard him scream. I got into the house; ran, all
out of breath, to the parlor, where I found Butler. I told him,
and begged him to go and interfere. He only laughed, and told me
the boy had got his deserts. He'd got to be broken in,--the sooner
the better; `what did I expect?' he asked.

"It seemed to me something in my head snapped, at that moment.
I felt dizzy and furious. I remember seeing a great sharp
bowie-knife on the table; I remember something about catching it,
and flying upon him; and then all grew dark, and I didn't know any
more,--not for days and days.

"When I came to myself, I was in a nice room,--but not mine.
An old black woman tended me; and a doctor came to see me, and
there was a great deal of care taken of me. After a while, I
found that he had gone away, and left me at this house to be sold;
and that's why they took such pains with me.

"I didn't mean to get well, and hoped I shouldn't; but, in spite
of me the fever went off and I grew healthy, and finally got up.
Then, they made me dress up, every day; and gentlemen used to
come in and stand and smoke their cigars, and look at me, and ask
questions, and debate my price. I was so gloomy and silent, that
none of them wanted me. They threatened to whip me, if I wasn't
gayer, and didn't take some pains to make myself agreeable. At length,
one day, came a gentleman named Stuart. He seemed to have some
feeling for me; he saw that something dreadful was on my heart,
and he came to see me alone, a great many times, and finally
persuaded me to tell him. He bought me, at last, and promised
to do all he could to find and buy back my children. He went
to the hotel where my Henry was; they told him he had been sold
to a planter up on Pearl river; that was the last that I ever heard.
Then he found where my daughter was; an old woman was keeping her.
He offered an immense sum for her, but they would not sell her.
Butler found out that it was for me he wanted her; and he sent me
word that I should never have her. Captain Stuart was very kind
to me; he had a splendid plantation, and took me to it. In the
course of a year, I had a son born. O, that child!--how I loved it!
How just like my poor Henry the little thing looked! But I had
made up my mind,--yes, I had. I would never again let a child
live to grow up! I took the little fellow in my arms, when
he was two weeks old, and kissed him, and cried over him; and then
I gave him laudanum, and held him close to my bosom, while he slept
to death. How I mourned and cried over it! and who ever dreamed
that it was anything but a mistake, that had made me give it the
laudanum? but it's one of the few things that I'm glad of, now.
I am not sorry, to this day; he, at least, is out of pain. What
better than death could I give him, poor child! After a while, the
cholera came, and Captain Stuart died; everybody died that wanted
to live,--and I,--I, though I went down to death's door,--_I lived!_
Then I was sold, and passed from hand to hand, till I grew faded
and wrinkled, and I had a fever; and then this wretch bought me,
and brought me here,--and here I am!"

The woman stopped. She had hurried on through her story, with
a wild, passionate utterance; sometimes seeming to address it
to Tom, and sometimes speaking as in a soliloquy. So vehement and
overpowering was the force with which she spoke, that, for a season,
Tom was beguiled even from the pain of his wounds, and, raising himself
on one elbow, watched her as she paced restlessly up and down, her
long black hair swaying heavily about her, as she moved.

"You tell me," she said, after a pause, "that there is a God,--a
God that looks down and sees all these things. May be it's so.
The sisters in the convent used to tell me of a day of judgment,
when everything is coming to light;--won't there be vengeance, then!

"They think it's nothing, what we suffer,--nothing, what our
children suffer! It's all a small matter; yet I've walked the
streets when it seemed as if I had misery enough in my one heart
to sink the city. I've wished the houses would fall on me, or the
stones sink under me. Yes! and, in the judgment day, I will stand
up before God, a witness against those that have ruined me and my
children, body and soul!

"When I was a girl, I thought I was religious; I used to love
God and prayer. Now, I'm a lost soul, pursued by devils that
torment me day and night; they keep pushing me on and on--and I'll
do it, too, some of these days!" she said, clenching her hand,
while an insane light glanced in her heavy black eyes. "I'll send
him where he belongs,--a short way, too,--one of these nights, if
they burn me alive for it!"  A wild, long laugh rang through the
deserted room, and ended in a hysteric sob; she threw herself on
the floor, in convulsive sobbing and struggles.

In a few moments, the frenzy fit seemed to pass off; she
rose slowly, and seemed to collect herself.

"Can I do anything more for you, my poor fellow?" she said,
approaching where Tom lay; "shall I give you some more water?"

There was a graceful and compassionate sweetness in her voice
and manner, as she said this, that formed a strange contrast
with the former wildness.

Tom drank the water, and looked earnestly and pitifully
into her face.

"O, Missis, I wish you'd go to him that can give you living waters!"

"Go to him! Where is he? Who is he?" said Cassy.

"Him that you read of to me,--the Lord."

"I used to see the picture of him, over the altar, when I
was a girl," said Cassy, her dark eyes fixing themselves in an
expression of mournful reverie; "but, _he isn't here!_ there's
nothing here, but sin and long, long, long despair! O!"  She laid
her land on her breast and drew in her breath, as if to lift a
heavy weight.

Tom looked as if he would speak again; but she cut him short,
with a decided gesture.

"Don't talk, my poor fellow. Try to sleep, if you can."
And, placing water in his reach, and making whatever little
arrangements for his comforts she could, Cassy left the shed.

CHAPTER XXXV

The Tokens

          "And slight, withal, may be the things that bring
           Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
           Aside forever; it may be a sound,
           A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound,--
           Striking the electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound."
                         CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CAN. 4.

The sitting-room of Legree's establishment was a large, long
room, with a wide, ample fireplace. It had once been hung with
a showy and expensive paper, which now hung mouldering, torn
and discolored, from the damp walls. The place had that peculiar
sickening, unwholesome smell, compounded of mingled damp, dirt and
decay, which one often notices in close old houses. The wall-paper
was defaced, in spots, by slops of beer and wine; or garnished with
chalk memorandums, and long sums footed up, as if somebody had been
practising arithmetic there. In the fireplace stood a brazier full
of burning charcoal; for, though the weather was not cold, the
evenings always seemed damp and chilly in that great room; and
Legree, moreover, wanted a place to light his cigars, and heat his
water for punch. The ruddy glare of the charcoal displayed the
confused and unpromising aspect of the room,--saddles, bridles,
several sorts of harness, riding-whips, overcoats, and various
articles of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused
variety; and the dogs, of whom we have before spoken, had encamped
themselves among them, to suit their own taste and convenience.

Legree was just mixing himself a tumbler of punch, pouring his
hot water from a cracked and broken-nosed pitcher, grumbling,
as he did so,

"Plague on that Sambo, to kick up this yer row between me and
the new hands! The fellow won't be fit to work for a week,
now,--right in the press of the season!"

"Yes, just like you," said a voice, behind his chair. It was
the woman Cassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy.

"Hah! you she-devil! you've come back, have you?"

"Yes, I have," she said, coolly; "come to have my own way, too!"

"You lie, you jade! I'll be up to my word. Either behave
yourself, or stay down to the quarters, and fare and work with
the rest."

"I'd rather, ten thousand times," said the woman, "live in
the dirtiest hole at the quarters, than be under your hoof!"

"But you _are_ under my hoof, for all that," said he, turning
upon her, with a savage grin; "that's one comfort. So, sit
down here on my knee, my dear, and hear to reason," said he,
laying hold on her wrist.

"Simon Legree, take care!" said the woman, with a sharp flash
of her eye, a glance so wild and insane in its light as to
be almost appalling. "You're afraid of me, Simon," she said,
deliberately; "and you've reason to be! But be careful, for I've
got the devil in me!"

The last words she whispered in a hissing tone, close to
his ear.

"Get out! I believe, to my soul, you have!" said Legree,
pushing her from him, and looking uncomfortably at her.
"After all, Cassy," he said, "why can't you be friends with me,
as you used to?"

"Used to!" said she, bitterly. She stopped short,--a word
of choking feelings, rising in her heart, kept her silent.

Cassy had always kept over Legree the kind of influence that
a strong, impassioned woman can ever keep over the most brutal
man; but, of late, she had grown more and more irritable and
restless, under the hideous yoke of her servitude, and her
irritability, at times, broke out into raving insanity; and this
liability made her a sort of object of dread to Legree, who had
that superstitious horror of insane persons which is common to
coarse and uninstructed minds. When Legree brought Emmeline to
the house, all the smouldering embers of womanly feeling flashed
up in the worn heart of Cassy, and she took part with the girl;
and a fierce quarrel ensued between her and Legree. Legree, in a
fury, swore she should be put to field service, if she would not
be peaceable. Cassy, with proud scorn, declared she _would_ go to
the field. And she worked there one day, as we have described, to
show how perfectly she scorned the threat.

Legree was secretly uneasy, all day; for Cassy had an influence
over him from which he could not free himself. When she presented
her basket at the scales, he had hoped for some concession,
and addressed her in a sort of half conciliatory, half scornful
tone; and she had answered with the bitterest contempt.

The outrageous treatment of poor Tom had roused her still
more; and she had followed Legree to the house, with no particular
intention, but to upbraid him for his brutality.

"I wish, Cassy," said Legree, "you'd behave yourself decently."

"_You_ talk about behaving decently! And what have you been
doing?--you, who haven't even sense enough to keep from spoiling
one of your best hands, right in the most pressing season, just
for your devilish temper!"

"I was a fool, it's a fact, to let any such brangle come up,"
said Legree; "but, when the boy set up his will, he had to be
broke in."

"I reckon you won't break _him_ in!"

"Won't I?" said Legree, rising, passionately. "I'd like to
know if I won't? He'll be the first nigger that ever came it
round me! I'll break every bone in his body, but he _shall_
give up!"

Just then the door opened, and Sambo entered. He came
forward, bowing, and holding out something in a paper.

"What's that, you dog?" said Legree.

"It's a witch thing, Mas'r!"

"A what?"

"Something that niggers gets from witches. Keeps 'em from
feelin' when they 's flogged. He had it tied round his neck, with
a black string."

Legree, like most godless and cruel men, was superstitious.
He took the paper, and opened it uneasily.

There dropped out of it a silver dollar, and a long, shining
curl of fair hair,--hair which, like a living thing, twined itself
round Legree's fingers.

"Damnation!" he screamed, in sudden passion, stamping on the
floor, and pulling furiously at the hair, as if it burned him.
"Where did this come from? Take it off!--burn it up!--burn it up!"
he screamed, tearing it off, and throwing it into the charcoal.
"What did you bring it to me for?"

Sambo stood, with his heavy mouth wide open, and aghast with
wonder; and Cassy, who was preparing to leave the apartment,
stopped, and looked at him in perfect amazement.

"Don't you bring me any more of your devilish things!" said he,
shaking his fist at Sambo, who retreated hastily towards the door;
and, picking up the silver dollar, he sent it smashing through
the window-pane, out into the darkness.

Sambo was glad to make his escape. When he was gone, Legree
seemed a little ashamed of his fit of alarm. He sat doggedly
down in his chair, and began sullenly sipping his tumbler
of punch.

Cassy prepared herself for going out, unobserved by him; and
slipped away to minister to poor Tom, as we have already related.

And what was the matter with Legree? and what was there in a
simple curl of fair hair to appall that brutal man, familiar with
every form of cruelty? To answer this, we must carry the reader
backward in his history. Hard and reprobate as the godless man
seemed now, there had been a time when he had been rocked on the
bosom of a mother,--cradled with prayers and pious hymns,--his now
seared brow bedewed with the waters of holy baptism. In early
childhood, a fair-haired woman had led him, at the sound of Sabbath
bell, to worship and to pray. Far in New England that mother had
trained her only son, with long, unwearied love, and patient prayers.
Born of a hard-tempered sire, on whom that gentle woman had wasted
a world of unvalued love, Legree had followed in the steps of
his father. Boisterous, unruly, and tyrannical, he despised all her
counsel, and would none of her reproof; and, at an early age, broke
from her, to seek his fortunes at sea. He never came home but
once, after; and then, his mother, with the yearning of a heart
that must love something, and has nothing else to love, clung to
him, and sought, with passionate prayers and entreaties, to win
him from a life of sin, to his soul's eternal good.

That was Legree's day of grace; then good angels called him;
then he was almost persuaded, and mercy held him by the hand.
His heart inly relented,--there was a conflict,--but sin got the
victory, and he set all the force of his rough nature against the
conviction of his conscience. He drank and swore,--was wilder and
more brutal than ever. And, one night, when his mother, in the
last agony of her despair, knelt at his feet, he spurned her from
him,--threw her senseless on the floor, and, with brutal curses,
fled to his ship. The next Legree heard of his mother was, when,
one night, as he was carousing among drunken companions, a letter
was put into his hand. He opened it, and a lock of long, curling
hair fell from it, and twined about his fingers. The letter told
him his mother was dead, and that, dying, she blest and forgave him.