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