“But it an’t all I want, by a long jump,” said Tom. “Ye don’t think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing, Haley; I’ve learned to hold an eel, when I catch him. You’ve got to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this child don’t start a peg. I know yer.”
“Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a clean profit of somewhere about a thousand or sixteen hundred, why, Tom, you’re onreasonable,” said Haley.
“Yes, and hasn’t we business booked for five weeks to come, — all we can do? And suppose we leaves all, and goes to bush-whacking round arter yer young uns, and finally doesn’t catch the gal, — and gals allers is the devil to catch, — what’s then? would you pay us a cent — would you? I think I see you a doin’ it — ugh! No, no; flap down your fifty. If we get the job, and it pays, I’ll hand it back; if we don’t, it’s for our trouble, — that’s far, an’t it, Marks?”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Marks, with a conciliatory tone; “it’s only a retaining fee, you see, — he! he! he! — we lawyers, you know. Wal, we must all keep good-natured, — keep easy, yer know. Tom’ll have the boy for yer, anywhere ye’ll name; won’t ye, Tom?”
“If I find the young un, I’ll bring him on to Cincinnati, and leave him at Granny Belcher’s, on the landing,” said Loker.
Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and taking a long paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his keen black eyes on it, began mumbling over its contents: “Barnes — Shelby County — boy Jim, three hundred dollars for him, dead or alive.
“Edwards — Dick and Lucy — man and wife, six hundred dollars; wench Polly and two children — six hundred for her or her head.
“I’m jest a runnin’ over our business, to see if we can take up this yer handily. Loker,” he said, after a pause, “we must set Adams and Springer on the track of these yer; they’ve been booked some time.”
“They’ll charge too much,” said Tom.
“I’ll manage that ar; they ‘s young in the business, and must spect to work cheap,” said Marks, as he continued to read. “Ther’s three on ’em easy cases, ‘cause all you’ve got to do is to shoot ‘em, or swear they is shot; they couldn’t, of course, charge much for that. Them other cases,” he said, folding the paper, “will bear puttin’ off a spell. So now let’s come to the particulars. Now, Mr. Haley, you saw this yer gal when she landed?”
“To be sure, — plain as I see you.”
“And a man helpin’ on her up the bank?” said Loker.
“To be sure, I did.”
“Most likely,” said Marks, “she’s took in somewhere; but where, ‘s a question. Tom, what do you say?”
“We must cross the river tonight, no mistake,” said Tom.
“But there’s no boat about,” said Marks. “The ice is running awfully, Tom; an’t it dangerous?”
“Don’no nothing ‘bout that, — only it’s got to be done,” said Tom, decidedly.
“Dear me,” said Marks, fidgeting, “it’ll be — I say,” he said, walking to the window, “it’s dark as a wolf’s mouth, and, Tom—”
“The long and short is, you’re scared, Marks; but I can’t help that, — you’ve got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a day or two, till the gal ‘s been carried on the underground line up to Sandusky or so, before you start.”
“O, no; I an’t a grain afraid,” said Marks, “only—”
“Only what?” said Tom.
“Well, about the boat. Yer see there an’t any boat.”
“I heard the woman say there was one coming along this evening, and that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck or nothing, we must go with him,” said Tom.
“I s’pose you’ve got good dogs,” said Haley.
“First rate,” said Marks. “But what’s the use? you han’t got nothin’ o’ hers to smell on.”
“Yes, I have,” said Haley, triumphantly. “Here’s her shawl she left on the bed in her hurry; she left her bonnet, too.”
“That ar’s lucky,” said Loker; “fork over.”
“Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on her unawars,” said Haley.
“That ar’s a consideration,” said Marks. “Our dogs tore a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, ‘fore we could get ’em off.”
“Well, ye see, for this sort that’s to be sold for their looks, that ar won’t answer, ye see,” said Haley.
“I do see,” said Marks. “Besides, if she’s got took in, ‘tan’t no go, neither. Dogs is no ‘count in these yer up states where these critters gets carried; of course, ye can’t get on their track. They only does down in plantations, where niggers, when they runs, has to do their own running, and don’t get no help.”
“Well,” said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar to make some inquiries, “they say the man’s come with the boat; so, Marks—”
That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated for the night.
If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the society into which this scene introduces them, let us beg them to begin and conquer their prejudices in time. The catching business, we beg to remind them, is rising to the dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession. If all the broad land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one great market for bodies and souls, and human property retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy.
While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy, in a state of high felicitation, pursued their way home.
Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his exultation by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by divers odd motions and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes he would sit backward, with his face to the horse’s tail and sides, and then, with a whoop and a somerset, come right side up in his place again, and, drawing on a grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding tones for laughing and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his sides with his arms, he would burst forth in peals of laughter, that made the old woods ring as they passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up to the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs. Shelby flew to the railings.
“Is that you, Sam? Where are they?”
“Mas’r Haley ‘s a-restin’ at the tavern; he’s drefful fatigued, Missis.”
“And Eliza, Sam?”
“Wal, she’s clar ‘cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o’ Canaan.”
“Why, Sam, what do you mean?” said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.
“Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy’s done gone over the river into ‘Hio, as ‘markably as if de Lord took her over in a charrit of fire and two hosses.”
Sam’s vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress’ presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.
“Come up here, Sam,” said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the verandah, “and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,” said he, passing his arm round her, “you are cold and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much.”
“Feel too much! Am not I a woman, — a mother? Are we not both responsible to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this sin to our charge.”
“What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we were obliged to.”
“There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,” said Mrs. Shelby. “I can’t reason it away.”
“Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!” called Sam, under the verandah; “take these yer hosses to der barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?” and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.
; “Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was,” said Mr. Shelby. “Where is Eliza, if you know?”
“Wal, Mas’r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin’ on the floatin’ ice. She crossed most ‘markably; it wasn’t no less nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the ‘Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk.”
“Sam, I think this rather apocryphal, — this miracle. Crossing on floating ice isn’t so easily done,” said Mr. Shelby.
“Easy! couldn’t nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now,” said Sam, “‘t was jist dis yer way. Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead, — (I’s so zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizy, that I couldn’t hold in, no way), — and when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out de side door; she went down de river bank; — Mas’r Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter. Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and over t’ other side ice a sawin’ and a jiggling up and down, kinder as ‘t were a great island. We come right behind her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough, — when she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’ other side of the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a jumpin’, — the ice went crack! c’wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a boundin’ like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal’s got in her an’t common, I’m o’ ‘pinion.”
Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told his story.
“God be praised, she isn’t dead!” she said; “but where is the poor child now?”
“De Lord will pervide,” said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. “As I’ve been a sayin’, dis yer ‘s a providence and no mistake, as Missis has allers been a instructin’ on us. Thar’s allers instruments ris up to do de Lord’s will. Now, if ‘t hadn’t been for me today, she’d a been took a dozen times. Warn’t it I started off de hosses, dis yer mornin’ and kept ’em chasin’ till nigh dinner time? And didn’t I car Mas’r Haley night five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he’d a come up with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer ‘s all providences.”
“They are a kind of providences that you’ll have to be pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,” said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command, under the circumstances.
Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most penitential style.
“Mas’r quite right, — quite; it was ugly on me, — there’s no disputin’ that ar; and of course Mas’r and Missis wouldn’t encourage no such works. I’m sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me ‘s ‘mazin’ tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar Mas’r Haley; he an’t no gen’l’man no way; anybody’s been raised as I’ve been can’t help a seein’ dat ar.”
“Well, Sam,” said Mrs. Shelby, “as you appear to have a proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner today. You and Andy must be hungry.”
“Missis is a heap too good for us,” said Sam, making his bow with alacrity, and departing.
It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised him to eminence in political life, — a talent of making capital out of everything that turned up, to be invested for his own especial praise and glory; and having done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the satisfaction of the parlor, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing largely in the kitchen.
“I’ll speechify these yer niggers,” said Sam to himself, “now I’ve got a chance. Lord, I’ll reel it off to make ’em stare!”
It must be observed that one of Sam’s especial delights had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and then, descending among the various brethren of his own color, assembled on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with the most ludicrous burlesques and imitations, all delivered with the most imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; and though the auditors immediately about him were generally of his own color, it not infrequently happened that they were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer complexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam’s great self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his office.
Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department, as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although “Missis’ orders” would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal by enlisting the spirit also. He therefore appeared before Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf of a persecuted fellow-creature, — enlarged upon the fact that Missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be wanting to make up the balance in his solids and fluids, — and thus unequivocally acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking department, and all thereto pertaining.
The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam’s suavities; and if he had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated, happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of olla podrida of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days past. Savory morsels of ham, golden blocks of corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared in picturesque confusion; and Sam, as monarch of all he surveyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, and patronizing Andy at his right hand.
The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination of the day’s exploits. Now was Sam’s hour of glory. The story of the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing which might be necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some of our fashionable dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any of its gilding by passing through his hands. Roars of laughter attended the narration, and were taken up and prolonged by all the smaller fry, who were lying, in any quantity, about on the floor, or perched in every corner. In the height of the uproar and laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable gravity, only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the sententious elevation of his oratory.
“Yer see, fellow-countrymen,” said Sam, elevating a turkey’s leg, with energy, “yer see, now what dis yer chile ‘s up ter, for fendin’ yer all, — yes, all on yer. For him as tries to get one o’ our people is as good as tryin’ to get all; yer see the principle ‘s de same, — dat ar’s clar. And any one o’ these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter any our people, why, he’s got me in his way; I’m the feller he’s got to set in with, — I’m the feller for yer all to come to
, bredren, — I’ll stand up for yer rights, — I’ll fend ’em to the last breath!”
“Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin’, that you’d help this yer Mas’r to cotch Lizy; seems to me yer talk don’t hang together,” said Andy.
“I tell you now, Andy,” said Sam, with awful superiority, “don’t yer be a talkin’ ‘bout what yer don’t know nothin’ on; boys like you, Andy, means well, but they can’t be spected to collusitate the great principles of action.”
Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word collusitate, which most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider as a settler in the case, while Sam proceeded.
“Dat ar was conscience, Andy; when I thought of gwine arter Lizy, I railly spected Mas’r was sot dat way. When I found Missis was sot the contrar, dat ar was conscience more yet, — cause fellers allers gets more by stickin’ to Missis’ side, — so yer see I ‘s persistent either way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes, principles,” said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken’s neck,—”what’s principles good for, if we isn’t persistent, I wanter know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone, — tan’t picked quite clean.”
Sam’s audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he could not but proceed.
“Dis yer matter ‘bout persistence, feller-niggers,” said Sam, with the air of one entering into an abstruse subject, “dis yer ‘sistency ‘s a thing what an’t seed into very clar, by most anybody. Now, yer see, when a feller stands up for a thing one day and night, de contrar de next, folks ses (and nat’rally enough dey ses), why he an’t persistent, — hand me dat ar bit o’ corn-cake, Andy. But let’s look inter it. I hope the gen’lmen and der fair sex will scuse my usin’ an or’nary sort o’ ‘parison. Here! I’m a trying to get top o’ der hay. Wal, I puts up my larder dis yer side; ‘tan’t no go; — den, cause I don’t try dere no more, but puts my larder right de contrar side, an’t I persistent? I’m persistent in wantin’ to get up which ary side my larder is; don’t you see, all on yer?”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 10