Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

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by Harriet Beecher Stowe


  Mr. Jekyl was not now talking to convince Tom Gordon, but himself; for spite of himself, Nina’s questions had awakened in his mind a sufficient degree of misgiving to make it necessary for him to pass in review the arguments by which he generally satisfied himself. Mr. Jekyl was a theologian, and a man of principle. His metaphysical talent, indeed, made him a point of reference among his Christian brethren; and he spent much of his leisure time in reading theological treatises. His favorite subject of all was the nature of true virtue; and this, he had fixed in his mind, consisted in a love of the greatest good. According to his theology, right consisted in creating the greatest amount of happiness; and every creature had rights to be happy in proportion to his capacity of enjoyment or being. He whose capacity was ten pounds had a right to place his own happiness before that of him who had five, because, in that way, five pounds more of happiness would exist in the general whole. He considered the right of the Creator to consist in the fact that he had a greater amount of capacity than all creatures put together, and, therefore, was bound to promote his own happiness before all of them put together. He believed that the Creator made himself his first object in all that He did; and, descending from Him, all creatures were to follow the same rule, in proportion to their amount of being; the greater capacity of happiness always taking precedence of the less. Thus, Mr. Jekyl considered that the Creator brought into the world yearly myriads of human beings with no other intention than to make them everlastingly miserable; and that this was right, because his capacity of enjoyment being greater than all theirs put together, He had a right to gratify himself in this way.

  Mr. Jekyl’s belief in slavery was founded on his theology. He assumed that the white race had the largest amount of being; therefore, it had a right to take precedence of the black. On this point he held long and severe arguments with his partner, Mr. Israel McFogg, who, belonging to a different school of theology, referred the whole matter to no natural fitness, but to a divine decree, by which it pleased the Creator in the time of Noah to pronounce a curse upon Canaan. The fact that the African race did not descend from Canaan was, it is true, a slight difficulty in the chain of the argument; but theologians are daily in the habit of surmounting much greater ones. Either way, whether by metaphysical fitness or divine decree, the two partners attained the same practical result.

  Mr. Jekyl, though a coarse-grained man, had started from the hands of nature no more hard hearted or unfeeling than many others; but his mind, having for years been immersed in the waters of law and theology, had slowly petrified into such a steady consideration of the greatest general good, that he was wholly inaccessible to any emotion of particular humanity. The trembling, eager tone of pity, in which Nina had spoken of the woman and children who were about to be made victims of a legal process, had excited but a moment’s pause. What considerations of temporal loss and misery can shake the constancy of the theologian who has accustomed himself to contemplate and discuss, as a cool intellectual exercise, the eternal misery of generations? — who worships a God that creates myriads only to glorify himself in their eternal torments?

  CHAPTER XVI

  MILLY’S STORY

  NINA spent the evening in the drawing-room; and her brother, in the animation of a new pursuit, forgetful of the difference of the morning, exerted himself to be agreeable, and treated her with more consideration and kindness than he had done any time since his arrival. He even made some off-hand advances towards Clayton, which the latter received with good humor, and which went further than she supposed to raise the spirits of Nina; and so, on the whole, she passed a more than usually agreeable evening. On retiring to her room, she found Milly, who had been for some time patiently waiting for her, having dispatched her mistress to bed some time since.

  “Well, Miss Nina, I am going on my travels in de morning. Thought I must have a little time to see you, lamb, ‘fore I goes.”

  “I can’t bear to have you go, Milly! I don’t like that man you are going with.”

  “I spects he’s a nice man,” said Milly. “Of course he’ll look me out a nice place, because he has always took good care of Miss Loo’s affairs. So you never trouble yourself ‘bout me! I tell you, chile, I never gets where I can’t find de Lord; and when I finds Him, I gets along.

  ‘ De Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”

  “But you have never been used to living except in our family,” said Nina, “and, somehow, I feel afraid. If they don’t treat you well, come back, Milly; will you?”

  “Laws, chile, I isn’t much ‘feard but what I’ll get along well enough. When people keep about dere business, doing de best dey ken, folks doesn’t often trouble dem. I never yet seed de folks I couldn’t suit,” she added, with a glow of honest pride. “No, chile, it isn’t for myself I’s fearing; it’s just for you, chile. Chile, you don’t know what it is to live in dis yer world, and I wants you to get de Best Friend to go with you. Why, dear lamb, you wants somebody to go to and open your heart; somebody dat’ll love you, and always stand by you; somebody dat’ll always lead you right, you know. You has more cares than such a young thing ought for to have; great many looking to you, and ‘pending on you. Now, if your ma was alive, it would be different; but just now, I see how ’tis; dere’ll be a hundred things you’ll be thinking and feeling, and nobody to say ’em to. And now, chile, you must learn to go to de Lord. Why, chile, He loves you! Chile, He loves you just as you be; if you only saw how much, it would melt your heart right down. I told you I was going some time fur to tell you my sperience — how I first found Jesus. Oh Lord, Lord! but it is a long story.”

  Nina, whose quick sympathies were touched by the earnestness of her old friend, and still more aroused by the allusion to her mother, answered, —

  “Oh yes, come, tell me about it!” And drawing a low ottoman, she sat down, and laid her head on the lap of her humble friend.

  “Well, well, you see, chile,” said Milly, her large dark eyes fixing themselves on vacancy, and speaking in a slow and dreamy voice, “a body’s life, in dis yer world, is a mighty strange thing! You see, chile, my mother — well, dey brought her from Africa; my father, too. Heaps and heaps my mother has told me about dat ar. Dat ar was a mighty fine country, where dey had gold in the rivers, and such great, big, tall trees, with de strangest beautiful flowers on them you ever did see! Laws, laws! well, dey brought my mother and my father into Charleston, and dere Mr. Campbell, — dat was your ma’s father, honey, — he bought dem right out of de ship; but dey had five children, and dey was all sold, and dey never knowed where dey went to. Father and mother couldn’t speak a word of English when dey come ashore; and she told me often how she couldn’t speak a word to nobody, to tell ’em how it hurt her.

  “Laws, when I was a chile, I ‘member how often, when de day’s work was done, she used to come out and sit and look up at de stars, and groan, groan, and groan! I was a little thing, playing round; and I used to come up to her, dancing, and saying, —

  “‘Mammy, what makes you groan so? what’s de matter of you?’

  “‘Matter enough, chile!’ she used to say. ‘I’s a-thinking of my poor children. I likes to look at de stars, because dey sees de same stars dat I do.’Pears like we was in one room; but I don’t know where dey is! Dey don’t know where I be!’

  “Den she’d say to me, —

  “‘ Now, chile, you may be sold away from your mammy. Der’s no knowing what may happen to you, chile; but if you gets into any trouble, as I does, you mind, chile, you ask God to help you.’

  “‘Who is God, mammy,’ says I, ‘anyhow?’

  “‘Why, chile,’ says she, ‘He made dese yer stars.’ “And den I wanted mammy to tell me more about it; only she says, —

  “‘He can do anything he likes; and if ye are in any kind of trouble, He can help you.’

  “Well, to be sure, I didn’t mind much about it — all dancing round, because pretty well don’t need much help. But she said dat ar to me so many times, I coul
dn’t help ‘member it. ‘Chile, troubles will come; and when dey does come, you ask God, and He will help you.’

  “Well, sure enough, I wasn’t sold from her, but she was took from me, because Mr. Campbell’s brother went off to live in Orleans, and parted de hands. My father and mother was took to Orleans, and I was took to Virginny. Well, you see, I growed up along with de young ladies, — your ma, Miss Harrit, Miss Loo, and de rest on ‘em, — and I had heaps of fun. Dey all like Milly. Dey couldn’t nobody run, nor jump, nor ride a horse, nor row a boat, like Milly; and so it was Milly here, and Milly dere, and whatever de young ladies wanted, it was Milly made de way for it.

  “Well, dere was a great difference among dem young ladies. Dere was Miss Loo — she was de prettiest, and she had a great many beaux; but den, dere was your ma —— everybody loved her; and den dere was Miss Harrit — she had right smart of life in her, and was always for doing something — always right busy ‘tending to something or other, and she liked me because I’d always go in with her. Well, well! dem dar was pleasant times enough; but when I got to be about fourteen or fifteen, I began to feel kind o’ bad — sort of strange and heavy. I really didn’t know why, but ‘peared like’s when I got older, I felt I was in bondage.

  “‘Member one day your ma came in, and seed me looking out of window, and she says to me, —

  “‘Milly, what makes you so dull lately?’

  Oh,’ says I, ‘I, somehow, I don’t have good times.’

  “‘Why? ‘ says she; ‘why not? Don’t everybody make much of you, and don’t you have everything that you want?’

  “‘Oh, well,’ says I, ‘missis, I’s a poor slave-girl, for all dat.’

  “Chile, your ma was a weety thing, like you. I ‘member just how she looked dat minute. I felt sorry, ‘cause I thought I’d hurt her feelings. But says she, —

  “‘Milly, I don’t wonder you feel so. I know I should feel so myself, if I was in your place.’

  “Afterwards, she told Miss Loo and Miss Harrit; but dey laughed, and said dey guessed der wasn’t many girls who were as well off as Milly. Well, den, Miss Harrit, she was married de first. She married Mr. Charles Blair; and when she was married, nothing was to do but she must have me to go with her. I liked Miss Harrit; but den, honey, I’d liked it much better if it had been your ma. I’d always counted that I wanted to belong to your ma, and I think your ma wanted me; but den, she was still, and Miss Harrit she was one of de sort dat never lost nothing by not asking for it. She was one of de sort dat always got things by hook or by crook. She always had more clothes, and more money, and more everything, dan de rest of them, ‘cause she was always wide awake, and looking out for herself.

  “Well, Mr. Blair’s place was away off in another part of Yirginny, and I went dere with her. Well, she wa’n’t very happy, noways, she wa’n’t; because Mr. Blair, he was a high fellow. Laws, Miss Nina, when I tells you dis yere one you’ve got here is a good one, and I ‘vise you to take him, it’s because I knows what comes o’ girls marrying high fellows. Don’t care how good looking dey is, nor what dere manners is, — it’s just de ruin of girls that has them. Law, when he was a-courting Miss Harrit, it was all nobody but her. She was going to be his angel, and he was going to give up all sorts of bad ways, and live such a good life! Ah! she married him; it all went to smoke!’Fore de month was well over he got a-going in his old ways; and den it was go, go, all de time, carousing and drinking, — parties at home, parties abroad, — money flying like de water.

  “Well, dis made a great change in Miss Harrit. She didn’t laugh no more; she got sharp and cross, and she wa’n’t good to me like what she used to be. She took to be jealous of me and her husband. She might have saved herself de trouble. I shouldn’t have touched him with a pair of tongs. But he was always running after everything that came in his way; so no wonder. But ‘tween them both I led a bad life of it.

  “Well, things dragged kind along in this way. She had three children, and at last he was killed, one day, falling off his horse when he was too drunk to hold the bridle. Good riddance, too, I thought. And den, after he’s dead, Miss Harrit, she seemed to grow more quiet like, and setting herself picking up what pieces and crumbs was left for her and de children. And I ‘member she had one of her uncles dere a good many days helping her in counting up de debts. Well, dey was talking one day in missis’ room, and dere was a little light closet on one side, where I got set down to do some fine stitching; but dey was too busy in their ‘counts to think anything ‘bout me. It seemed dat de place and de people was all to be sold off to pay de debts, — all ‘cept a few of us, who were to go off with missis, and begin again on a small place, — and I heard him telling her about it.

  “‘ While your children are small,’ he says, ‘you can live small, and keep things close, and raise enough on the place for ye all; and den you can be making the most of your property. Niggers is rising in de market. Since Missouri came in, they’s worth double; and so you can just sell de increase of ’em for a good sum. Now, there’s that black girl Milly, of yourn.’ — You may be sure, now, I pricked up my ears, Miss Nina.—’ You don’t often see a girl of finer breed than she is,’ says he, just as if I’d been a cow, you know. ‘Have you got her a husband?’

  “‘No,’ said Miss Harrit; and then says she, ‘I believe Milly is something of a coquette among the young men. She’s never settled on anybody yet,’ says she.

  ‘“Well,’ says he, ‘that must be attended to, ‘cause that girl’s children will be an estate of themselves. Why, I’ve known women to have twenty! and her children wouldn’t any of ’em be worth less than eight hundred dollars. There’s a fortune at once. If dey’s like her, dey’ll be as good as cash in the market, any day. You can send out and sell one, if you happen to be in any straits, just as soon as you can draw a note on the bank.’

  “Oh, laws, Miss Nina, I tell you dis yer fell on me like so much lead.’Cause, you see, I’d been keeping company with a very nice young man, and I was going to ask Miss Harrit about it dat very day; but, dere — I laid down my work dat minute, and thinks, says I, ‘True as de Lord’s in heaven I won’t never be married in dis world!’ And I cried ‘bout it, off and on, all day, and at night I told Paul ‘bout it. He was de one, you know. But Paul, he tried to make it all smooth. He guessed it wouldn’t happen; he guessed missis would think better on ‘t. At any rate, we loved each other, and why shouldn’t we take as much comfort as we could? Well, I went to Miss Harrit, and told her just what I thought ‘bout it. Allers had spoke my mind to Miss Harrit ‘bout everything, and I wa’n’t going to stop den. And she laughed at me, and told me not to cry ‘fore I’s hurt. Well, things went on so two or three weeks, and finally Paul he persuaded me. And so we was married. When our first child was born, Paul was so pleased, he thought strange that I wa’n’t.

  “‘Paul,’ said I, ‘dis yer child ain’t ourn; it maybe took from us, and sold, any day.’

  “‘Well, well,’ says he, ‘Milly, it may be God’s child, anyway, even if it ain’t ourn.’

  “‘Cause, you see, Miss Nina, Paul, he was a Christian. Ah, well, honey, I can’t tell you; after dat I had a great many chil’en, girls and boys, growing up round me. Well, I’s had fourteen chil’en, dear, and dey’s all been sold from me, every single one of ‘em. Lord, it’s a heavy cross! heavy, heavy! None knows but dem dat bears it!”

  “What a shame!” said Nina. “How could Aunt Harriet be such a wicked woman! — an aunt of mine do so!”

  “Chile, chile,” said Milly, “we doesn’t none of us know what’s in us. When Miss Harrit and I was gals together, hunting hens’ eggs and rowing de boat in de river, — well, I wouldn’t have thought it would have been so, and she wouldn’t have thought so, neither. But den, what little’s bad in girls when dey’s young and handsome, and all de world smiling on ’em — Oh, honey, it gets drefful strong when dey gets grown women, and de wrinkles comes in der faces! Always, when she was a girl, — whether it was eggs, or berr
ies, or chincapins, or what, — it was Miss Harrit’s nature to get and to keep; and when she got old, dat all turned to money.”

  “Oh! but,” said Nina, “it does seem impossible that a woman — a lady born, too, and my aunt — could do such a thing!”

  “Ah, ah, honey! ladies born have some bad stuff in dem, sometimes, like de rest of us. But den, honey, it was de most natural thing in de world, come to look on’t; for now, see here, honey, dere was your aunt — she was poor, and she was pestered for money. Dere was Mas’r George’s bills and Peter’s bills to pay, and Miss Susy’s; and every one of ’em must have everything, and dey was all calling for money, money; and dere has been times she didn’t know which way to turn. Now, you see, when a woman is pestered to pay two hundred here and tree hundred dere, and when she has got more niggers on her place dan she can keep, and den a man calls in and lays down eight hundred dollars in gold and bills before her, and says, ‘I want dat ar Lucy or George of yourn,’ why, don’t you see? Dese yer soul-drivers is always round, tempting folks dey know is poor; and dey always have der money as handy as de devil has his. But den, I oughtn’t fur to be hard upon dem poor soul-drivers, neither, ‘cause dey ain’t taught no better. It’s dese yer Christians, dat profess Christ, dat makes great talks ‘bout religion, dat has der Bibles, and turns der backs upon swearing soul-drivers, and tinks dey ain’t fit to speak to — it’s dem, honey, dat’s de root of de whole business. Now, dere was dat uncle of hern, — mighty great Christian he was, with his prayer-meetings, and all dat! — he was always a-putting her up to it. Oh, dere’s been times — dere was times ‘long first, Miss Nina, when my first chil’en was sold — dat, I tell you, I poured out my soul to Miss Harrit, and I’ve seen dat ar woman cry so dat I was sorry for her. And she said to me, ‘Milly, I’ll never do it again.’ But, Lord! I didn’t trust her, — not a word on ‘t,—’cause I knowed she would. I knowed dere was dat in her heart dat de devil wouldn’t let go of. I knowed he’d no kind of objection to her ‘musing herself with meetin’s, and prayers, and all dat; but he’d no notion to let go his grip on her heart.

 

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