Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Original Edition | Liberty - Chapter 15

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books presents Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet beecher Stowe,
Chapter fifteen of Tom's New Master, and various other matters.
Since the thread of our humble hero's life has now
become interwoven with that of higher ones, it is necessary
to give some brief introduction to them. Augustine Saint Clair

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was the son of a wealthy planter of Louisiana. The
family had its origin in Canada of two brothers very
similar in temperament and character. One had settled on a
flourishing farm in Vermont, and the other became an opulent
planter in Louisiana. The mother of Augustine was a Huguenot
French lady whose family had emigrated to Louisiana during the

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days of its early settlement. Augustine and another brother were
the only children of their parents, having inherited from his
mother an exceeding delicacy of constitution, he was at the
instance of physicians during many many years of his boyhood,
sent to the care of his uncle in Vermont in
order that his constitution might be strengthened by the cold

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of a more bracing climate. In childhood, he was remarkable
for an extreme and marked sensitiveness of character, more akin
to the softness of woman than the ordinary hardness of
his own sex. Time, however, overgrew this softness with the
rough bark of manhood, and but few knew how living
and fresh it still lay. At the core. His talents

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were of the very first order, although his mind showed
a preference always for the ideal and the esthetic, and
there was about him that repugnance to the actual business
of life, which is the common result of this balance
of the faculties. Soon after the completion of his college course,
his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate

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effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came, the hour that
comes only once. His star rose in the horizon that
star rises so often in Vain, to be remembered only
as a thing of dreams, And it rose for him
in Vain to drop the figure he saw and one
the love of a high minded and beautiful woman in

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one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He
returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when most unexpectedly,
his letters were returned to him by mail with a
short note from her guardian stating to him that ere
this reached him, the lady would be the wife of another.
Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done,

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to fling the whole thing from his heart by one
desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he
threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society,
and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter,
was the accepted lover of the reigning bell of the season,
And as soon as arrangements could be made, he became

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the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright
dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars, and of course
everybody thought him a happy fellow. The married couple were
enjoying their honeymoon and entertaining a brilliant circle of friends
in their splendid villa near Lake ponsher Train, when one
day a letter was brought to him in that well

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remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was
in full tide of gay and successful conversation in a
whole room full of company. He turned deadly pale when
he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure and
finished the playful warfare of badinage, which he was at
the moment carrying on with a lady opposite, and a

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short time after was missed from the circle. In his
room alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse
than idle and useless to be read. It was from her,
giving a long account of a persecution to which she
had been exposed by her guardian's family to lead her
to unite herself with their son. And she related how

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for a long time his letters had ceased to arrive,
how she had written time and again till she became
weary and doubtful, how her health had failed under her anxieties,
and how at last she had discovered the whole fraud
which had been practiced on them both. The letter ended
with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions of undying affection,

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which were more bitter than death to the unhappy young man.
He wrote to her immediately, I have received yours, but
too late I believed all I heard. I was desperate.
I am married, and all is over. Only forget it
is all that remains for either of us. And thus

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ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine
Saint Clair. But the real remained the real, like the flat, bare,
oozy tide mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all
its company of gliding both oats and white winged ships,
its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down,

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and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare, exceedingly real. Of course,
in a novel, people's hearts break and they die, and
that is the end of it. And in a story
this is very convenient. But in real life we do
not die. When all that makes life bright dies to us,

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there is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading,
and all that makes up what is commonly called living
yet to be gone through. And this yet remained to Augustine.
Had his wife been a whole woman, she might yet

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have done something, as woman can, to mend the broken
threads of life and weave again into a tissue of brightness.
But Marie Saint Clair could not even see that they
had been broken. As before stated, she consisted of a
fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred
thousand dollars, And none of these items were precisely the

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ones to minister to a mind diseased. When Augustine pale
as death was found lying on the sofa and pleaded
sudden sick headache as the cause of his distress, she
recommended to him to smell of hard shorn and when
the paleness and headache came on week after week, she
only said that she never thought mister Saint Clair was sickly,

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but it seems he was very liable to sick headaches,
and that it was a very unfortunate thing for her,
because he didn't enjoy going into company with her, and
it seemed odd to go so much alone. When they
were just married, Augustine was glad in his heart that
he had married so undiscerning a woman, But as the
glosses and civilities of the honeymoon wore away, he discovered

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that a beautiful young woman who has lived all her
life to be caressed and waited on, might prove quite
a hard mistress in domestic life. Marie never had possessed
much capability of affection or much sensibility, and the little
that she had had been merged into a most intense
and unconscious selfishness, a selfishness the more hopeless from its

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quiet obtuseness its utter ignorance of any claims but her own.
From her infancy she had been surrounded with servants who
lived only to study her caprices. The idea that they
had either feelings or rights had never dawned upon her,
even in distant perspective. Her father, whose only child she
had been, had never denied her anything that lay within

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the compass of human possibility. And when she entered life, beautiful, accomplished,
and an heiress, she had of course all the eligibles
and nona eligibles of the other sex sighing at her feet,
and she had no doubt that Augustine was a most
fortunate man in having obtained her. It is a great
mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will

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be an easy creditor in the exchange of affections. There
is not on earth a more merciless exactor of love
from others than a thoroughly selfish woman. And the more
unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she exacts
love to the uttermost farthing. When therefore Saint Clair began
to drop off those gallantries and small attentions which flowed

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at first through the habitude of courtship. He found his
sultana no way ready to resign her slave. There were
abundance of tears, poutings, and small tempests. There were discontents,
pinings upbraidings. Saint Clair was good natured and self indulgent,
and sought to buy off with presents and flatteries, And

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when Marie became mother to a beautiful daughter, he really
felt awakened for a time to something like tenderness. Saint
Clair's mother had been a woman of uncommon elevation and
purity of character, and he gave to his child his
mother's name, fondly, fancying that she would prove reproduction of
her image. The thing had been remarked with petulant jealousy

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by his wife, and she regarded her husband's absorbing devotion
to the child with suspicion and dislike. All that was
given to her seemed so much taken from herself. From
the time of the birth of this child, her health
gradually sunk a life of constant inaction bodily and mental.
The friction of ceaseless enuy and discontent united to the

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ordinary weakness which attended the period of maternity. In course
of a few years changed the blooming young Bell into
a yellow faded, sickly woman whose time was divided among
a variety of fanciful diseases, and who considered herself, in
every sense, the most ill used and suffering person in existence.
There was no end of her various complaints, but her

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principal forte appeared to lie in sick headache, which sometimes
would confine her to her room three days out of six.
As of course, all family arrangements fell into the hands
of servants. Saint Clair found his manage anything but comfortable.
His only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he feared that
with no one to look after her and attend to her,

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her health and life might yet fall a sacrifice to
her mother's inefficiency. He had taken her with him on
a tour to Vermont, and had persuaded his cousin, Miss
Ophelia Saint Clair, to return with him to his southern residence.
And they are now returning on this boat where we
have introduced them to our readers. And now, while the
distant domes and spires of New Orleans rise to our view,

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there is yet time for an introduction to Miss Ophelia,
whoever has traveled in the New England States, will remember,
in some cool village the large farm house with its clean,
swept grassy yard shaded by the dense and massive foliage
of the sugar maple, And remember the air of order
and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose that seemed to

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breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost or out of order,
not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle
of litter in the turfy yard with its clumps of
lilac bushes growing up under the windows. Within. He will
remember wide, clean rooms where nothing ever seems to be
doing or going to be done, where everything is once

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and forever rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements
move with the punctual exactness of the old clock in
the corner. In the family keeping room as it is termed.
He will remember the staid, respectable old bookcase with its
glass doors, where Rollin's History, Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,

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and Scott's Family Bible stands side by side in decorous order,
with multitudes of other books equally solemn and respectable notes
Rollin's History, the Ancient History, ten volumes, seventeen thirty seventeen
thirty eight by the French historian train KARLS. Rollin sixteen
sixty one to seventeen forty one. Scott's Family Bible seventeen

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eighty eight seventeen ninety two, edited with notes by the
English biblical commentator Thomas Scott, seventeen forty seven eighteen twenty one.
There are no servants in the house but the lady
in the snowy cap with the spectacles, who sit sewing
every afternoon among her daughters, as if nothing ever had
been done or were to be done. She and her girls,

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in some long forgotten fore part of the day did
up the work, and for the rest of the time,
probably at all hours when you would see them, it
is done up. The old kitchen floor never seems stained
or spotted, the tables, the chairs, and the various cooking
utensils never seem deranged or disordered, though three and sometimes

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four meals a day are got there, though the family
washing and ironing is there performed, and though pounds of
butter and cheese are in sight, silent and mysterious manner
there brought into existence on such a farm in such
a house and family. Miss Ophelia had spent a quiet
existence of some forty five years when her cousin invited

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her to visit his southern mansion. The eldest of a
large family, she was still considered by her father and
mother as one of the children, and the proposal that
she should go to Orleans was a most momentous one
to the family circle. The old gray headed father took
down Morse's atlas out of the bookcase and looked out
the exact latitude and longitude, and read Flint's travels in

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the South and West to make up his own mind
as to the nature of the country. Notes The Serigraphic
Atlas of the United States eighteen forty two to eighteen
forty five by Sidney Edwards Morse seventeen ninety four to
eighteen seventy one, son of the geographer Jedediah Morse and
brother of the painter inventor Samuel F. B. Morse. Note

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Recollection of the Last Ten Years eighteen twenty six by
Timothy Flint seventeen eighty to eighteen forty, missionary of Presbyterianism
to the Trance Allegheny West. The good mother inquired anxiously
if Orleans wasn't an awful, wicked place, saying that it
seemed to her most equal to going on the Sandwich Islands,

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or anywhere among the heathen. It was known at the minister's,
and at the doctor's, and at Miss Peabody's milliner's shop,
that Ophelia Saint Clair was talking about going away down
to Orleans with her cousin, and of course the whole
village could do no less than help this very important
process of taking about the matter. The minister, who inclined

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strongly to abolitionist views, was quite doubtful whether such a
step might not tend somewhat to encourage the Southerners in
holding on to their slaves, while the doctor, who was
a staunch colonizationist, inclined to the opinion that Miss Phelia
ought to go to show the Orleans people that we
don't think hardly of them. After all, he was of opinion,

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in fact, that southern people needed encouraging. When, however, the
fact that she had resolved to go was fully before
the public mind. She was solemnly invited out to Tea
by all her friends and neighbors. For the space of
a fortnight, and her prospects and plans duly canvassed and
inquired into Miss Moseley, who came into the house to
help to do the dressmaking, acquired daily accessions of importance

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from the developments. With regard to Miss Ophelia's wardrobe, which
she had been enabled to make. It was credibly ascertained
that Squire Sinclair, as his name was commonly contracted in
the neighborhood, had counted out fifty dollars and given them
to Miss Ophelia, and told her to buy any clothes
she thought best, and that two new silk dresses and
a bonnet had been sent for from Boston. As to

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the propriety of this extraordinary outlay, the public mind was divided,
some affirming that it was well enough, all things considered
for once in one's life, and others stoutly affirming that
the money had better have been sent to the missionaries.
But all parties agreed that there had been no such
parasol seen in those parts as had been sent on

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from New York, and that she had one silk dress
that might fairly be trusted to stand alone. Whatever might
be said of its mistress, There were credible rumors also
of a hem stitched pocket handkerchief, and report even went
so far as to state that Missophelia had one pocket
handkerchief with lace all around it. It was even added
that it was worked in the corners. But this latter

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point was never satisfactorily ascertained, and remains in fact unsettled
to this day. Missophelia, as you now behold her, stands
before you in a very shining brown linen traveling dress. Tall,
square formed, and angular. Her face was thin and rather
sharp in its outlines, the lips compressed like those of

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a person who is in the habit of making up
her mind, definitely on all subjace, while the keen dark
eyes had a peculiarly searching advised movement and traveled over
everything as if they were looking for something to take
care of. All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic,
and though she was never much of a talker, her

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words were remarkably direct and to the purpose when she
did speak. In her habits, she was a living impersonation
of order, method, and exactness. In punctuality, she was as
inevitable as a clock and as inexorable as a railroad engine.
And she held in most decided contempt and abomination anything
of a contrary character the great sin of sins. In

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her eyes, the sum of all evils was expressed by
one very common and important word in her vocabulary, shiftlessness.
Her finale an ultimatum of contempt, consisted in a very
emphatic pronunciation of the word shiftless, And by this she
characterized all modes of procedure which had not a direct
and inevitable relation to accomplishment of some purpose than definitely

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had in mind. People who did nothing, or who did
not know exactly what they were going to do, or
who did not take the most direct way to accomplish
what they set their hands to, were objects of her
entire contempt, a contempt shown less frequently by anything she
said than by a kind of stony grimness, as if
she scorned to say anything about the matter. As to

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mental cultivation, she had a clear, strong, active mind, was
well and thoroughly read in history and the older English classics,
and thought with great strength within certain narrow limits. Her
theological tenets were all made up, labeled in most positive
and distinct forms, and put by like the bundles in
her patch trunk. There were just so many of them,

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and there were never to be any more. So also
were her ideas with regard to most matters of practical life,
such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the various
political relations of her native village. And underlying all deeper
than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle
of her being conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant and

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all absorbing, As with New England women, it is the
granite formation which lies deepest and rises out even to
the tops of the highest mountains. Miss Ophelia was the
absolute bond slave of the ought. Once make her certain
that the path of duty, as she commonly phrased it,
lay in any given direction, and fire and water could

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not keep her from it, she would walk straight down
into a well or up to a loaded cannon's mouth,
if she were only quite sure that there the path lay.
Her standard of right was so high, so all embracing,
so minute, and making so few concessions to human frailty,
that though she strove with heroic ardor to reach it,

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she never actually did so, and of course was burdened
with a constant and often harassing sense of deficiency. This
gave a severe and somewhat gloomy cast to her religious character.
But how in the world can Missophelia get along with
Augustine Saint Clair gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, skeptical, in short,

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walking with impudent and nonchalant freedom over every one of
her most cherished habits and opinions. To tell the truth,
then Miss Ophelia loved him. When a boy, it had
been hers to teach him his catechism, mend his clothes,
comb his hair, and bring him up generally in the
way he should go, and her heart having a warm

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side to it. Augustine had, as he usually did with
most people, monopolized a large share of it for himself,
And therefore it was that he succeeded very easily in
persuading her that the path of duty lay in the
direction of New Orleans, and that she must go with
him to take care of Eva and keep everything from
going to wreck and ruin. During the frequent illnesses of

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his wife. The idea of a house without anybody to
take care of it went to her heart. Then she
loved the lovely little girl as few could help doing.
And though she regarded Augustine as very much of a heathen.
Yet she loved him, laughed at his jokes, and forbore
with his failings to an extent which those who knew
him thought perfectly incredible. But what more or other is

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to be known of Missophelia, our reader must discover by
a personal acquaintance. There she is sitting now in her stateroom,
surrounded by a mixed multitude of little and big carpet bags, boxes, baskets,
each containing some separate responsibility, which she is tying, binding up, packing,
or fastening with a face of great earnestness. Now, Eva,

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have you kept count of your things? Of course you haven't.
Children never do. There's the spotted carpet bag and the
little blue band box with your best bonnet. That's two.
Then the India rubber satchel is three, and my tape
and needle box is four, and my bandbox five, and
my collar box and that little hair trunk seven. What

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have you done with your son's shade? Give it to
me and let me put a paper round it and
tie it to my umbrella with my shade there Now, why, Auntie,
we are only going up home. What is the use
to keep it? Nice? Child? People must take care of
their things if they ever mean to have anything. And now, Eva,
is your thimble put up? Really? Auntie? I don't know. Well,

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never mind, I'll look your box over. Thimble, wax, two spools, scissors, knife, tape, needle,
all right, put it in here. What did you ever do, child,
when you were coming on with only your papa? I
should have thought you'd a lost everything you had? Well, Auntie,
I did lose a great many. And then when we

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stopped anywhere, Papa would buy some more of whatever. It was.
Mercy on us, child, What a way? It was a
very easy way, Auntie said Eva. It's a dreadful shiftless one,
said Auntie. Why Auntie, what'll you do now? Said Eva?
That trunk is too full to be shut down. It

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must shut down, said Auntie with the air of a general,
as she squeezed the things in and sprung upon the lid.
Still a little gap remained about the mouth of the trunk.
Get up here, Eva, said miss Ophelia courageously. What has
been done can be done again. This trunk has got
to be shut and locked. There are no two ways
about it. And the trunk, intimidated doubtless by this resolute

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statement gave in the hasp snapped sharply in its hole,
and Miss Ophelia turned the key and pocketed it in triumph.
Now we're ready. Where's your papa? I think a time
this baggage was set out. Do look out, Eva, and
see if you see your papa. Oh, yes, he's down
the other end of the gentleman's cabin, eating an orange.
He can't know how near we are coming, said Auntie.

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Hadn't you better run and speak to him. Papa never
is in a hurry about anything, said Eva. And we
have come to the landing. Do step on the guards, Auntie,
Look there's our house up that street. The boat now
began with heavy groans, like some vast tired monster, to
prepare to push up among the multiplied steamers at the levee.

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Eva joyously pointed out the various spires, domes, and way
marks by which she recognized her native city. Yes, yes, dear,
very fine, said Miss Ophelia. But mercy on us, the
boat has stopped. Where is your father? And now ensued
the usual turmoil of landing waiters running twenty ways at once,

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men tugging trunks, carpet bags, boxes, women, anxiously calling to
their children and everybody crowding in a dense mass to
the plank towards the landing. Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely
on the lately vanquished trunk, and marshaling all her goods
and chattels in fine military order, seemed resolved to defend
them to the last. Shall take your trunk, ma'am. Shall

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I take your baggage? Turn to your baggage, missus? Shan't
I carry out these hair missus rained down upon her. Unheeded,
she sat with grim determination, upright as a darning needle,
stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of umbrella
and parasols, and replying with a determination that was enough
to strike dismay even into a hack man, wondering to

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Eva in each interval what upon earth her papa could
be thinking of. He couldn't have fallen over now, but
something must have happened. And just as she had begun
to work herself into a real distress, he came up
with his usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter
of the orange he was eating, said, well, cousin Vermont,

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I suppose you are all ready. I've been ready waiting
nearly an hour, said Miss Ophelia. I began to be
really concerned about you. That's a clever fellow, now, said he. Well,
the carriage is waiting, and the crowd are now off,
so that one can walk out in a decent and
Christian manner and not be pushed and shoved. Here, he

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added to a driver who stood behind him. Take these things.
I'll go and see to his putting them in, said
Miss Ophelia. Oh, pshaw, cousin, what's the use said Saint Clair. Well,
at any rate, I'll carry this, and this and this,
said Miss Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small
carpet bag. My dear Miss Vermont, positively, you mustn't come

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the green mountains over us that way. You must adopt
at least a piece of a Southern principle and not
walk out under all that load. They'll take you for
a waiting maid. Give them to this fellow. He'll put
them down as if they were eggs. Now. Miss Ophelia
looked despairingly as her cousin took all her treasures from her,

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and rejoiced to find herself once more in the carriage
with them in a state of preservation. Where's Tom, said Eva, Oh,
he's on the outside, pussy. I'm going to take Tom
up to mother for a peace offering to make up
for that drunken fellow that upset the carriage. Oh Tom
will make a splendid dry ever, I know, said Eva,

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You'll never get drunk. The carriage stopped in front of
an ancient mansion built in that odd mixture of Spanish
and French style of which there are specimens in some
parts of New Orleans. It was built in the Moorish fashion,
a square building and closing a courtyard into which the
carriage drove through an arched gateway. The court in the
inside had evidently been arranged to gratify a picturesque and

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voluptuous ideality. Wide galleries ran all around the four sides,
whose Moorish arches, slender pillars, and Arabesque ornaments carried the
mind back, as in a dream, to the rain of
Oriental Romance in Spain. In the middle of the court,
a fountain threw high as silvery water, falling in a

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never ceasing spray into a marble basin fringed with a
deep border of fragrant violets. The water in the fountain
pellucid as crystal, was alive with myriads of gold and
silver fishes twinkling and darting through it like so many
living jewels. Around the fountain ran a walk paved with
a mosaic of pebbles laid in various fanciful patterns, and

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this again was surrounded by turf smooth as green velvet,
while a carriage drive enclosed the whole. Two large orange trees,
now fragrant with blossoms through a delicious shade, and ranged
in a circle round upon the turf were marble vases
of Arabesque sculpture containing the choicest flowering plants of the tropics.

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Huge pomegranate trees with their glossy leaves and flame colored flowers,
Dark leaved Arabian jasamines with their silvery stars, geraniums, luxuriant
roses bending beneath their heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines,
lemon scented verbenum, all united their bloom and fragrance, While
here and there a mystic old aloe with its strange

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massive leaves, sat looking like some old enchanter sitting in
weird grandeere. Among the more perishable bloom and fragrance around it.
The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned with the
curtain of some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be
drawn down at pleasure to exclude the beams of the sun.
On the whole the appearance of the place was luxurious

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and romantic. As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like
a bird ready to burst from a cage with the
wild eagerness of her delight. Oh isn't it beautiful? Lovely
my own dear darling home, she said to Miss Ophelia.
Isn't it beautiful? Tis a pretty place, said Ophelia as
she alighted, though it looks rather old and heathenish to me.

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Tom got down from the carriage and looked about with
an air of calm, still enjoyment. The Negro, it must
be remembered, is an exotic of the most gorgeous and
superb countries of the world, and he has deep in
his heart a passion for all that is splendid, rich
and fanciful, a passion which, rudely indulged by an untrained taste,

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draws on them the ridicule of the colder and more
correct white race. Saint Clair, who was in heart a
poetical voluptuary, smiled as Miss Ophelia made her remark on
his premises, and turning to Tom, who was standing looking
around his beaming black face perfectly radiant with admiration, he said,
tom My boy, this seems to suit you. Yes, masse,

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it looks about the right thing, said Tom. All this
passed in a moment, while trunks were being hustled off,
Hackman paid, and while a crowd of all ages and sizes, men,
women and children came running through the galleries both above
and below to see Masser come in. Foremost among them
was a highly dressed young mulatto man, evidently a very

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distant gay personage, attired in the ultra extreme of the mode,
and gracefully waving a scented cambric handkerchief in his hand.
This personage had been exerting himself with great alacrity in
driving all the flock of domestics to the other end
of the veranda back. All of you, I am shamed
of you, he said, in a tone of authority. Would

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you intrude on Master's domestic relations? In the first hour
of his return, all looked abashed at this elegant speech,
delivered with quite an air, and stood huddled together at
a respectful distance, except two stout porters, who came up
and began conveying away the baggage, owing to mister Adolph's
systematic arrangements. When Saint Clair turned round from paying the hackman,

(31:29):
there was nobody in view but mister Adolph himself, conspicuous
in satin vest, gold guard chain and white pants, and
bowing with inexpressible grace and suavity. Ah, Adolf, it is you,
said his master, offering his hand to him. How are
you boy? While Adolf poured forth with great fluency in

(31:49):
extemporary speech, which he had been preparing with great care
for a fortnight before. Well, well, said Saint Clair, passing
on with his usual air of negligent drollery. That's very well,
got up, Adolph, See that the baggage is well bestowed.
I'll come to the people in a minute, and so saying,
he led Miss Ophelia to a large parlor that opened
on the veranda. While this had been passing, Eva had

(32:12):
flown like a bird through the porch and parlor to
a little boudoir opening likewise on the veranda. A tall,
dark eyed, sallow woman half rose from a couch on
which she was reclining. Mamma, said Eva, in a sort
of a rapture, throwing herself on her neck and embracing
her over and over again. That'll do. Take care, child,
Don't you make my head ache? Said the mother, after

(32:34):
she had languidly kissed her. Saint Clair came in, embraced
his wife in true orthodox husbandly fashion, and then presented
to her his cousin. Marie lifted her large eyes on
her cousin with an air of some curiosity, and received
her with languid politeness. A crowd of servants now pressed
to the entry door, and among them a middle aged

(32:55):
mulatto woman a very respectable appearance, stood foremost in a
tremor of expectation and joy. At the door. Oh there's mammy,
said Eva, as she flew across the room, and throwing
herself into her arms, she kissed her repeatedly. This woman
did not tell her that she made her head ache,
but on the contrary, she hugged her and laughed and

(33:16):
cried till her sanity was a thing to be doubted of,
And when released from her, Eva flew from one to another,
shaking hands and kissing in a way that Miss Ophelia
afterwards declared fairly turned her stomach. Well, said miss Aphenia,
You Southern children can do something that I couldn't. What now, pray,
said Saint Clair. Well, I want to be kind to everybody,

(33:38):
and I wouldn't have anything hurt. But as to kissing niggers,
said Saint Clair, that you're not up to hay, Yes,
that's it. How can she? Saint Clair laughed as he
went into the passage. Hello here, what's to pay out here? Here?
You all, Mammy, Jimmy, Polly, Suki. Glad to see mass uh,

(34:00):
he said, as he went shaking hands from one to another.
Look Out for the babies, he added, as he stumbled
over a sooty little urchin who was crawling upon all fours.
If I step upon anybody, let him mention it. There
was an abundance of laughing and blessing masser as Saint
Clair distributed small pieces of change among them. Come now
take yourselves off like good boys and girls, he said,

(34:22):
and the whole assemblage dark and light, disappeared through a
door into a large veranda, followed by Eva, who carried
a large satchel, which she had been filling with apples, nuts, candy, ribbons, laces,
and toys of every description during her whole homeward journey.
As Saint Clair turned to go back, his eye fell
upon Tom, who was standing uneasily shifting from one foot

(34:45):
to the other, while Adolph stood negligently leaning against the banisters,
examining Tom through an opera glass with an air that
would have done credit to any dandy living. Puh, you puppy,
said his master, striking down the opera glass. Is that
the way you treat your company? Seems to me, Dolf,
he added, laying his finger on the elegant figured satin

(35:07):
vest that Adolf was sporting, seems to me that's my vest,
Oh massa, this vest, all stained with wine. Of course,
a gentleman in master's standing never wears a vest like this,
I understood. I was to take it. It does for
a poor near fellow like me. And Adolf tossed his
head and passed his fingers through his scented hair with

(35:28):
a grace. So that's it, is it, said Saint Clair carelessly. Well, here,
I'm going to show this Tom to his mistress, and
then you take him to the kitchen, and mind you
don't put on any of your airs to him. He's
worth two such puppies as you. Master always will have
his joke, said Adolf, laughing. I'm delighted to see Master

(35:48):
in such pirates. Here, Tom, said Saint Clair, beckoning. Tom
entered the room. He looked wistfully on the velvet carpets
and the before unimagined splendors of mirrors, pictures, statues, and curtains,
And like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon, there was
no more spirit in him. He looked afraid even to
set his feet down. See here, Marie, said Saint Clair

(36:12):
to his wife. I've brought you a coachman at last
to order. I tell you he's a regular. Hearse for
blackness and sobriety, and will drive you like a funeral.
If you want, open your eyes now and look at him. Now.
Don't say I never think about you when I'm gone.
Marie opened her eyes and fixed them on Tom without rising.
I know he'll get drunk, she said, No, he's warranted

(36:35):
a pious and sober article. Well, I hope he may
turn out well, said the lady. It's more than I
expect tho'll Dolf, said Saint Clair. Show Tom downstairs and
mind yourself, he added, Remember what I told you. Adolf
tripped gracefully forward, and Tom, with lumbering tread, went after.
He's a perfect behemoth, said Marie. Come now, Marie said,

(36:59):
Saint Clair's seating himself on a stool beside her sofa.
Be gracious and say something pretty to a fellow. You've
been gone a fortnight beyond the time, said the lady, pouting. Well,
you know I wrote you the reason such a short,
cold letter, said the lady. Dear me, the mail was
just going and it had to be that or nothing.

(37:22):
That's just the way, always said the lady, Always something
to make your journeys long and letters short. See here now,
he added, drawing an elegant velvet case out of his
pocket and opening it. Here's a present I got for
you in New York. It was a Daguera type, clear
and soft as an engraving representing Eva and her father

(37:43):
sitting hand in hand. Marie looked at it with a
dissatisfied air. What made you sit in such an awkward position?
She said, Well, the position may be a matter of opinion,
but what do you think of the likeness If you
don't think any thing of my opinion in one case,
I suppose you wouldn't in another, said the lady, shutting

(38:04):
the dagueratype. Hang the woman, said Saint clairmintally, but aloud.
He added, Come now, Marie, what do you think of
the likeness? Don't be nonsensical now, it's very inconsiderate you,
Saint Clair, said the lady, to insist on my talking
and looking at things. You know, I've been lying all
day with a sick headache, and there's been such a
tumult made ever since you came. I'm half dead. You're

(38:28):
subject to the sick headache, man, said Miss Ophelia, suddenly
rising from the depths of the large arm chair where
she had sat quietly taking an inventory of the furniture
and calculating its expense. Yes, I'm a perfect martyr to it,
said the lady. Juniper berry tea is good for sick headache,
said Miss Ophelia. At least August Dean Abraham Perry's wife

(38:51):
used to say so, and she was a great nurse.
I'll have the first juniper berries that get ripe in
our garden by the lake brought in for that special purpose,
said Saint Clair, gravely, pulling the bell as he did so. Meanwhile, Cousin,
you must be wanting to retire to your apartment and
refresh yourself a little after your journey Dolph, he added,

(39:11):
tell Mammy to come here. The decent mulatto woman whom
Eva had caressed so rapturously, soon entered. She was dressed neatly,
with a high red and yellow turban on her head,
the recent gift of Eva, and which the child had
been arranging on her head. Mammy said Saint Clair, I
put this lady under your care. She is tired and

(39:33):
wants rest. Take her to her chamber and be sure
she is made comfortable. And Miss Ophelia disappeared in the
rear of Mammy. End of Chapter fifteen. Dream Audio Books
hopes you have enjoyed this program.