Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Original Edition | Liberty - Chapter 2

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books presents Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe,
chapter two. The mother Eliza had been brought up by
her mistress from girlhood as a petted and indulged favorite.
The traveler in the South must often have remarked that
peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner,

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which seems in many cases to be a particular gift
to the Quadroon and Mulatto women. These natural graces in
the Quadroon are often united with beauty of the most
dazzling kind, and in almost every case, with a personal
appearance prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have described her,

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is not a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance as
we saw her years ago in Kentucky. Save under the
protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached maturity without
those temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to
a slave. She had been married to a bright and
talented young Mulatto man who was a slave on a

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neighboring estate and bore the name of George Harris. This
young man had been hired out by his master to
work in a bagging factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity
caused him to be considered the first hand in the place.
He had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which,
considering the education and circumstances of the inventor, displayed quite

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as much mechanical genius as Whitney's cotton gin. Note. A
machine of this description was really the invention of a
young colored man in Kentucky, Missus Stowe's note. He was
possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was
a general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young
man was, in the eye of the law, not a

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man but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject
to the control of a vulgar, narrow minded, tyrannical master.
This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George's invention,
took a ride over to the factory to see what
this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with
great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing

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so valuable a slave. He was waited upon over the factory,
shown the machinery by George, who, in high spirits, talked
so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly,
that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority.
What business had this slave to be marching round the
country inventing machines and holding up his head among gentlemen.

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He'd soon put a stop to it. He'd take him
back and put him to hoeing and digging, and see
if he'd step about so smart. Accordingly, the manufacturer and
all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded George's
wages and announced his intention of taking him home. But
mister Harris remonstrated the manufacturer, isn't this rather sudden? What

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if it is the man mine? We would be willing, sir,
to increase the rate of compensation. No object at all, Sir.
I don't need to hire any of my hands out
unless I've a mind to. But Sir, he seems peculiarly
adapted to this business. Dare say he may be never
was much adapted to anything that I set him about.

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I'll be bound, but only think of his inventing this machine,
interposed one of the workmen. Rather unluckily. Oh yes, a
machine for saving work is it, he'd invent that I'll
be bound let a nigger alone for that any time.
They are all labor saving machines themselves, every one of them. No,
he shall tramp. George had stood like one transfixed at

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hearing his doom. Thus suddenly pronounced by a power that
he knew was irresistible. He folded his arms tightly pressed
in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter feelings
burned in his bosom and sent streams of fire through
his veins. He breathed short, and his large, dark eyes
flashed like live coles, and he might have broken out

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into some dangerous abolition had not the kindly manufacturer touched
him on the arm and said, in a low tone,
give way, George, go with him for the present. We'll
try to help you. Yet the tyrant observed the whisper
and conjectured its import though he could not hear what
was said, and he inwardly strengthened himself in his determination
to keep the power he possessed over his victim. George

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was taken home and put to the meanest drudgery of
the farm. He had been able to repress every disrespectful word,
but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow were
part of a natural language that could not be repressed,
indubitable signs which showed too plainly that the man could
not become a thing. It was during the happy period

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of his employment in the factory that George had seen
and married his wife. During that period, being much trusted
and favored by his employer, he had free liberty to
come and go at discretion. The marriage was highly approved
by missus Shelby, who, with a little womanly complacency in matchmaking,
felt pleased to unite her handsome favorite with one of

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her own class who seemed in every way suited to her.
And so they were married in her mistress's great parlor,
and her mistress herself adorned the bride's beautiful hair with
orange blossoms, and threw over it the bridal veil, which
certainly could scarce have rested on a fairer head. And
there was no lack of white gloves and cake and wine,

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of admiring guests to praise the bride's beauty and her
mistress's indulgence and liberality. For a year or two, Eliza
saw her husband frequently, and there was nothing to interrupt
their happiness except the loss of two infant children, to
whom she was passionately attached, and whom she mourned with
a grief so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance

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from her mistress, who sought, with maternal anxiety to direct
her naturally passionate feelings within the bounds of reason and religion.
After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually
become tranquilized and settled, and every bleeding tie and throbbing
nerve once more entwined with that little life, seemed to

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become sound and healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman
up to the time that her husband was rudely torn
from his kind employer and brought under the iron sway
of his legal owner. The manufacturer, true to his word,
visited mister Harris a week or two after George had
been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of
the occasion had passed away, and tried every possible inducement

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to lead him to restore him to his former employment.
You needn't trouble yourself to talk any longer, said he doggedly.
I know my own business, sir. I did not presume
to interfere with it, sir. I only thought that you
might think it for your interest to let your man
to us on the terms proposed. Oh, I understand the

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matter well enough. I saw your winking and whispering the
day I took him out of the factory. But don't
come it over me that way. It's a free country, sir.
The man's mind, and I do what I please with him.
That's it. And so fell George's last hope. Nothing before
him but a life of toil and drudgery, rendered more
bitter by every little smarting, vexation and indignity which tyrannical

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ingenuity could devise. A very humane jurist once said, the
worst use you can put a man to is to
hang him. No, there is another use that a man
can be put to that is worse. End of Chapter two.
Dream Audio Books hopes you have enjoyed this program.