Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  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 and patient supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without overlooking, 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 pillow-cases, 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 scenic 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 a 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 head-ache.

  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 de ballet, and will figure, from time to time, in her turn, with other performers.

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  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 in one chair, with his heels in another, he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar. Mrs. Shelby sat in th
e 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 around,—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 something 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 introduced 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 to-morrow 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 to-morrow!" 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?"

  "To-morrow, 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."

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  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.