“What shall I read to you, Tiff? What do you want to hear?”
“Well, I wants to find out de shortest way I ken, how dese yer chil’en’s to he got to heaven!” said Tiff. “Dis yer world is mighty well long as it holds out; hut den, yer see, it don’t last forever! Tings is passing away!” Nina thought a moment. The great question of questions, so earnestly proposed to her! The simple, childlike old soul hanging confidingly on her answer! At last she said, with a seriousness quite unusual with her: —
“Tiff, I think the best thing I can do is to read to you about our Saviour. He came down into this world to show us the way to heaven. And I’ll read you, when I come here days, all that there is about Him — all He said and did; and then, perhaps, you’ll see the way yourself. Perhaps,” she added, with a sigh, “I shall, too!”
As she spoke, a sudden breeze of air shook the clusters of a prairie rose, which was climbing into the tree under which she was sitting, and a shower of rose leaves fell around her.
“Yes,” she said to herself, as the rose leaves fell on her book, “it’s quite true, what he says. Everything is passing!”
And now, amid the murmur of the pine-trees, and the rustling of the garden vines, came on the ear of the listeners the first words of that sweet and ancient story:—”Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the East, saying, ‘Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship Him.’”
Probably more cultivated minds would have checked the progress of the legend by a thousand questions, statistical and geographical, as to where Jerusalem was, and who the wise men were, and how far the East was from Jerusalem, and whether it was probable they would travel so far. But Nina was reading to children, and to an old child-man, in whose grotesque and fanciful nature there was yet treasured a believing sweetness, like the amulets supposed to belong to the good genii of the fairy tales. The quick fancy of her auditors made reality of the story as it went along. A cloudy Jerusalem built itself up immediately in their souls, and became as well known to them as the neighboring town of E — . Herod, the king, became a real walking personage in their minds, with a crown on his head. And Tiff immediately discerned a resemblance between him and a certain domineering old General Eaton, who used greatly to withstand the cause of virtue, and the Peytons, in the neighborhood where he was brought up. Tiff’s indignation, when the slaughter of the innocents was narrated, was perfectly outrageous. He declared he wouldn’t have believed that of King Herod, bad as he was! and good hearted and inoffensive as Tiff was in general, it really seemed to afford him comfort “dat de debil had got dat ar man ‘fore now.”
“Sarves him right, too!” said Tiff, striking fiercely at a weed with his hoe. “Killing all dem por little chil’en! Why, what harm had dey done him, anyway? Wonder what he thought of hisself!”
Nina found it necessary to tranquillize the good creature, to get a hearing for the rest of the story. She went on reading of the wild night-journey of the wise men, and how the star went before them till it stood over the place where the child was. How they went in, and saw the young child, and Mary his mother, and fell down before him, offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
“Lord bless you! I wish I’d ‘a’ been dar!” said Tiff. “And dat ar chile was de Lord of glory, sure ‘nough, Miss Nina! I hearn ’em sing dis yer hymn at de camp-meeting —— you know, ‘bout cold on his cradle. You know it goes dis yer way.” And Tiff sung, to a kind of rocking lullaby, words whose poetic imagery had hit his fancy before he knew their meaning.
“Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining,
Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore, in slumber reclining,
Maker, and Saviour, and Monarch of all.”
Nina had never realized, till she felt it in the undoubting faith of her listeners, the wild, exquisite poetry of that legend, which, like an immortal lily, blooms in the heart of Christianity as spotless and as tender now as eighteen hundred years ago. That child of Bethlehem, when afterwards he taught in Galilee, spoke of seed which fell into a good and honest heart; and words could not have been more descriptive of the nature which was now receiving this seed of paradise.
When Nina had finished her reading, she found her own heart touched by the effect which she had produced. The nursing, child-loving Old Tiff was ready, in a moment, to bow before his Redeemer, enshrined in the form of an infant; and it seemed as if the air around him had been made sacred by the sweetness of the story.
As Nina was mounting her horse to return, Tiff brought out a little basket full of wild raspberries.
“Tiff wants to give you something,” he said.
“Thank you, Uncle Tiff. How delightful! Now, if you’ll only give me a cluster of your Michigan rose!”
Proud and happy was Tiff, and pulling down the very topmost cluster of his rose, he presented it to her. Alas! before Nina reached home, it hung drooping from the heat.
“The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.”
CHAPTER XXXI
THE WARNING
IN life organized as it is at the South there are two currents: one, the current of the master’s fortunes, feelings, and hopes; the other, that of the slave’s. It is a melancholy fact in the history of the human race, as yet, that there have been multitudes who follow the triumphal march of life only as captives, to whom the voice of the trumpet, the waving of the banners, the shouts of the people, only add to the bitterness of inthrallment.
While life to Nina was daily unfolding in brighter colors, the slave-brother at her side was destined to feel an additional burden on his already unhappy lot.
It was toward evening, after having completed his daily cares, that he went to the post-office for the family letters. Among these, one was directed to himself, and he slowly perused it as he rode home through the woods. It was as follows: —
MY DEAR BROTHER, — I told you how comfortably we were living on our place — I and my children. Since then, everything has been changed. Mr. Tom Gordon came here and put in, a suit for the estate, and attached me and my children as slaves. He is a dreadful man. The case has been tried and gone against us. The judge said that both deeds of emancipation — both the one executed in Ohio and the one here — were of no effect; that my boy was a slave, and could no more hold property than a mule before a plough. I had some good friends here, and people pitied me very much; but nobody could help me. Tom Gordon is a bad man — a very bad man. I cannot tell you all that he said to me. I only tell you that I will kill myself and my children before we will be his slaves. Harry, I havé been free, and I know what liberty is. My children have been brought up free, and if I can help it they never shall know what slavery is. I have got away, and am hiding with a colored family here in Natchez. I hope to get to Cincinnati, where I have friends.
My dear brother, I did hope to do something for you. Now I cannot. Nor can you do anything for me. The law is on the side of our oppressors; but I hope God will help us. Farewell! Your affectionate
SISTER.
It is difficult to fathom the feelings of a person brought up in a position so wholly unnatural as that of Harry. The feelings which had been cultivated in him by education, an’d the indulgence of his nominal possessors, were those of an honorable and gentlemanly man. His position was absolutely that of the common slave, without one legal claim to anything on earth, one legal right of protection in any relation of life. What any man of strong nature would feel on hearing such tidings from a sister, Harry felt.
In a moment there rose up before his mind the picture of Nina in all her happiness and buoyancy — in all the fortunate accessories in her lot. Had the vague thoughts which crowded on his mind been expressed in words, they might have been something like these: —
“I have two sisters, daughters of one father, both beautiful, both amiable and
good; but one has rank, and position, and wealth, and ease, and pleasure; the other is an outcast, unprotected, given up to the brutal violence of a vile and wicked man. She has been a good wife, and a good mother. Her husband has done all he could to save her; but the cruel hand of the law grasps her and her children, and hurls them back into the abyss from which it was his life-study to raise them. And I can do nothing! I am not even a man! And this curse is on me, and on my wife, and on my children and children’s children, forever! Yes, what does the judge say in this letter? ‘He can no more own anything than the mule before his plough!’ That’s to be the fate of every child of mine! And yet people say, ‘You have all you want; why are you not happy?’ I wish they could try it! Do they think broadcloth coats and gold watches can comfort a man for all this?”
Harry rode along, with his hands clenched upon the letter, the reins drooping from the horse’s neck, in the same unfrequented path where he had twice before met Dred. Looking up, he saw him the third time, standing silently, as if he had risen from the ground.
“Where did you come from?” said he. “Seems to me you are always at hand when anything is going against me!”
“Went not my spirit with thee?” said Dred. “Have I not seen it all? It is because we will bear this that we have it to bear, Harry.”
“But,” said Harry, “what can we do?”
“Do? What does the wild horse do? Launch out our hoofs! rear up, and come down on them! What does the rattlesnake do? Lie in their path, and bite! Why did they make slaves of us? They tried the wild Indians first. Why didn’t they keep to them? They wouldn’t be slaves, and we will! They that will bear the yoke may bear it!”
“But,” said Harry, “Dred, this is all utterly hopeless. Without any means, or combination, or leaders, we should only rush on to our own destruction.”
“Let us die, then!” said Dred. “What if we do die? What great matter is that? If they bruise our head, we can sting their heels! Nat Turner — they killed him; but the fear of him almost drove them to set free their slaves! Yes, it was argued among them. They came within two or three votes of it in their assembly. A little more fear, and they would have done it. If my father had succeeded, the slaves in Carolina would be free to-day. Die? — Why not die? Christ was crucified! Has everything dropped out of you, that you can’t die — that you’ll crawl like worms, for the sake of living?”
“I’m not afraid of death myself,” said Harry. “God knows I wouldn’t care if I did die; but” —
“Yes, I know,” said Dred. “She that letteth will let, till she be taken out of the way. I tell you, Harry, there’s a seal been loosed — there’s a vial poured out on the air; and the destroying angel standeth over Jerusalem, with his sword drawn!”
“What do you mean by that?” said Harry.
Dred stood silent for a moment; his frame assumed the rigid tension of a cataleptic state, and his voice sounded like that of a person speaking from a distance, yet there was a strange distinctness in it.
“The words of the prophet, and the vision that he hath from the Lord, when he saw the vision, falling into a trance, and having his eyes open, and behold he saw a roll flying through the heavens, and it was written, within and without, with mourning and lamentation and woe! Behold, it cometh! Behold, the slain of the Lord shall be many! They shall fall in the house and by the way! The bride shall fall in her chamber, and the child shall die in its cradle! There shall be a cry in the land of Egypt, for there shall not be a house where there is not one dead!”
“Dred! Dred! Dred!” said Harry, pushing him by the shoulder; “come out of this — come out! It’s frightful!”
Dred stood looking before him, with his head inclined forward, his hand upraised, and his eyes strained, with the air of one who is trying to make out something through a thick fog. “I see her!” he said. “Who is that by her? His back is turned. Ah! I see — it is he! And there’s Harry and Milly! Try hard — try! You won’t do it. No, no use sending for the doctor. There’s not one to be had. They are all too busy. Rub her hands! Yes. But — it’s no good. ‘Whom the Lord loveth he taketh away from the evil to come.’ Lay her down. Yes, it is Death! Death! Death!”
Harry had often seen the strange moods of Dred, and he shuddered now, because he partook somewhat in the common superstitions, which prevailed among the slaves, of his prophetic power. He shook and called him; but he turned slowly away, and with eyes that seemed to see nothing, yet guiding himself with his usual dextrous agility, he plunged again into the thickness of the swamp, and was soon lost to view.
After his return home it was with the sensation of chill at his heart that he heard Aunt Nesbit reading to Nina portions of a letter, describing the march through some northern cities of the cholera, which was then making fearful havoc on our American shore. “Nobody seems to know how to manage it,” the letter said; “physicians are all at a loss. It seems to spurn all laws. It bursts upon cities like a thunderbolt, scatters desolation and death, and is gone with equal rapidity. People rise in the morning well, and are buried before evening. In one day houses are swept of a whole family.”
“Ah,” said Harry to himself, “I see the meaning now, but what does it portend to us?”
How the strange foreshadowing had risen to the mind of Dred we shall not say. Whether there be mysterious electric sympathies which, floating through the air, bear dim presentiments on their wings, or whether some stray piece of intelligence had dropped on his ear, and been interpreted by the burning fervor of his soul, we know not. The news, however, left very little immediate impression on the daily circle at Canema. It was a dread reality in the far distance. Harry only pondered it with anxious fear.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE MORNING STAR
NINA continued her visits to Tiff’s garden on almost every pleasant morning or evening. Tiff had always some little offering, either berries or flowers, to present, or a nice little luncheon of fish or birds, cooked in some mode of peculiar delicacy; and which, served up in sylvan style, seemed to have something of the wild relish of the woods. In return, she continued to read the story so interesting to him; and it was astonishing how little explanation it needed — how plain honesty of heart, and lovingness of nature, interpreted passages over which theologians have wrangled in vain. It was not long before Tiff had impersonated to himself each of the disciples, particularly Peter; so that, when anything was said by him, Tiff would nod his head significantly, and say, “Ah, ah! dat ar’s just like him! He’s allers a-puttin’ in; but he’s a good man, arter all!”
What impression was made on the sensitive young nature, through whom, as a medium, Tiff received this fresh revelation, we may, perhaps, imagine. There are times in life when the soul, like a half-grown climbing vine, hangs wavering tremulously, stretching out its tendrils for something to ascend by. Such are generally the great transition periods of life, when we are passing from the ideas and conditions of one stage of existence to those of another. Such times are most favorable for the presentation of the higher truths of religion. In the hazy, slumberous stillness of that midsummer atmosphere, in the long, silent rides through the pines, Nina half awakened from the thoughtless dreams of childhood, yearning for something nobler than she yet had lived for, thought over, and revolved in her mind, this beautiful and spotless image of God, revealed in man, which her daily readings presented; and the world that he created seemed to whisper to her in every pulsation of its air, in every breath of its flowers, in the fanning of its winds, “He still liveth, and he loveth thee.” The voice of the Good Shepherd fell on the ear of the wandering lamb, calling her to his arms; and Nina found herself one day unconsciously repeating, as she returned through the woods, words which she had often heard read at church: —
“When thou saidst unto me, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”
Nina had often dreaded the idea of becoming a Christian, as one shrinks from the idea of a cold, dreary passage which must be passed t
o gain a quiet home. But suddenly, as if by some gentle invisible hand, the veil seemed to be drawn which hid the face of Almighty Love from her view. She beheld the earth and the heavens transfigured in the light of his smile. A strange and unspeakable joy arose within her, as if some loving presence were always near her. It was with her when she lay down at night, and when she awoke in the morning the strange happiness had not departed. Her feelings may be best expressed by an extract from a letter which she wrote at this time to Clayton: —
It seems to me that I have felt a greater change in me within the last two months than in my whole life before. When I look back at what I was in New York, three months ago, actually I hardly know myself. It seems to me in those old days that life was only a frolic to me, as it is to the kitten. I don’t really think that there was much harm in me, only the want of good. In those days, sometimes I used to have a sort of dim longing to he better, particularly when Livy Ray was at school. It seemed as if she woke up something that had been asleep in me; but she went away, and I fell asleep again, and life went on like a dream. Then I became acquainted with you, and you began to rouse me again, and for some time I thought I didn’t like to wake; it was just as it is when one lies asleep in the morning — it’s so pleasant to sleep and dream, that one resists any one who tries to bring him back to life. I used to feel quite pettish when I first knew you, and sometimes wished you’d let me alone, because I saw that you belonged to a different kind of sphere from what I’d been living in. And I had a presentiment that, if I let you go on, life would have to be something more than a joke with me. But you would, like a very indiscreet man as you are, you would insist on being in sober earnest.
I used to think that I had no heart; I begin to think I have a good deal now. Every day it seems as if I could love more and more; and a great many things are growing clear to me that I didn’t use to understand, and I’m growing happier every day.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 102