Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Original Edition | Liberty - Chapter 18

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books presents Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet beecher Stowe,
Chapter eighteen, Miss Ophelia's experiences and opinions. Our friend Tom,
in his own simple musings, often compared his more fortunate
lot in the bondage into which he was cast with
that of Joseph in Egypt, and in fact, as time

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went on and he developed more and more under the
eye of his master, the strength of the parallel increased.
Saint Clair was indolent and careless of money. Hitherto the
providing and marketing had been principally done by Adolph, who
was to the full as careless and extravagant as his master,
And between them both they had carried on the dispersing

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process with great alacrity. Accustomed for many years to regard
his master's property as his own, care Tom saw with
an uneasiness he could scarcely repress the wasteful expenditure of
the establishment, and, in the quiet, indirectay way which his
class often acquire, would sometimes make his own suggestions. Saint

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Clair at first employed him occasionally, but struck with his
soundness of mind and good business capacity, he confided in
him more and more till gradually all the marketing and
providing for the family were entrusted to him. No, no, Adolf,
he said one day, as Adolf was deprecating the passing
of power out of his hands. Let Tom alone. You

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only understand what you want. Tom understands cost and come
to and there may be some end to money by
and by if we don't let somebody do that. Trusted
to an unlimited extent by a careless master who handed
him a bill without looking at it and pocketed the
change without counting it, Tom had every facility and temptation

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to dishonesty, and nothing but an impregnable simplicity of nature
strengthened by Christian faith, could have kept him from it.
But to that nature, the very unbounded trust reposed in
him was bond and seal for the most scrupulous accuracy.
With Adolph, the case had been different. Thoughtless and self
indulgent and unrestrained by a master who found it easier

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to indulge than to regulate. He had fallen into an
absolute confusion as to meum tuum with regard to himself
and his master, which sometimes troubled even Saint Clair. His
own good sense taught him that such a training of
his servants was unjust and dangerous. A sort of chronic
remorse went with him everywhere, although not strong enough to

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make any decided change in his course, and this very
remorse reacted again into indulgence. He passed lightly over the
most serious faults because he told himself that if he
had done his part, his dependence had not fallen into them.
Tom regarded his gay, airy, handsome young master with an

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odd mixture of fealty, reverence, and fatherly solicitude. That he
never read the Bible, never went to church, that he
jested and made free with any and everything that came
in the way of his wits. That he spent his
Sunday evenings at the opera or theater. That he went
to wine parties and clubs and suppers oftener than was

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at all expedients. Were all things that Tom could see
as plainly as anybody, and on which he based a
conviction that Masser wasn't a Christian, a conviction, however, which
he would have been very slow to express to any
one else, but on which he founded many prayers in
his own simple fashion when he was by himself in

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his little dormitory. Not that Tom had not his own
way of speaking his mind occasionally with something of the
tact often observable in his class, as for example, the
very day after the Sabbath we have described, Saint Clair
was invited out to a convivial party of choice spirits,
and was helped home between one and two o'clock at night,

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in a condition when the physical had decidedly attained the
upper hand of the intellectual, Tom and Adolph assisted to
get him composed for the night, the latter in high spirits,
evidently regarding the matter as a good joke and laughing
heartily at the rusticity of Tom's horror, who really was
simple enough to lie awake most of the rest of
the night praying for his young master. Well, Tom, what

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are you waiting for? Said Saint Clair the next day,
as he sat in his library and dressing gown and slippers.
Saint Clair had just been in trusting Tom with some
money and various commissions. Isn't all right there, Tom, he added,
as Tom still stood waiting. Ah'm afraid not, massa, said
Tom with a grave voice. Saint Clair laid down his

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paper and set down his coffee cup and looked at Tom.
Why Tom, what's the case. You look as solemn as
a coffin. I feel very bad Massa. I allays have
thought that Massa would be good to everybody. Well, Tom,
haven't I been come? Now? What you want? There's something
you haven't got I suppose, and this is the preface.

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Massa all has been good to me. I haven't nothing
to complain of on that head. But there is one
that Massa isn't good to. Why Tom, what's got int
you speak out? What do you mean? Last night between
one and two? I thought so I studied upon the matter.
Then Massa isn't good to himself. Tom said this, with

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his back to his master and his hand on the
door knob. Saint Clair felt his face flush. Crimson, but
he laughed. Oh that's all, is it? He said? Gaily?
All said Tom, turning suddenly round and falling on his knees. Oh,
my dear young Massa. I'm afraid it will be loss
of all, all body and soul. The Good Book says

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it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,
My dear Massa. Tom's voice choked, and the tears ran
down his cheeks. You poor silly fool, said Saint Clair
with tears in his own eyes. Get up, Tom, I'm
not worth crying over. But Tom wouldn't rise and looked imploringly. Well,

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I won't go to any more of their cursed nonsense, Tom,
said Saint Clair, on my honor, I won't. I don't
know why I haven't stopped long ago. I've always despised
it and myself for it. So now, Tom, wipe up
your eyes and go about your errands. Come, Come, he added,
No blessings, I'm not so wonderfully good now, he said,

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as he gently pushed Tom to the door. There, I'll
pledge my honor to you. Tom. You don't see me
so again, he said, and Tom went off, wiping his
eyes with great satisfaction. I'll keep my faith with him, too,
said Saint Clair as he closed the door, and Saint
Clair did so, For gross sensualism in any form was
not the peculiar temptation of his nature. But all this time,

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who shall detail the tribulation's manner of our friend Misophelia,
who had begun the labors of a Southern housekeeper. There
is all the difference in the world and the servants
of southern establishments. According to the character and capacity of
the mistresses who have brought them up. South as well
as north, there are women who have an extraordinary talent

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for command and tact in educating. Such are enabled, with
apparent ease and without severity, to subject to their will
and bring into harmonious and systematic order the various members
of their small estate, to regulate their peculiarities, and to
balance and compensate the deficiencies of one by the excess

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of another, as to produce a harmonious and orderly system.
Such a housekeeper was Missus Shelby, whom we have already described,
and such our readers may remember to have met with.
If they are not common at the South, it is
because they are not common in the world. They are
to be found there as often as anywhere, and when

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existing find in that peculiar state of society, a brilliant
opportunity to exhibit their domestic talent. Such a housekeeper, Marie
Saint Clair, was not, nor her mother before her, indolent
and childish, unsystematic, and improvident. It was not to be
expected that servants trained under her care should not be

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so likewise, and she had very justly described to Miss
Ophelia the state of confusion she would find in the family,
though she had not ascribed it to the proper cause.
The first morning of her regency, Miss Ophelia was up
at four o'clock, and, having attended to all the adjustments
of her own chamber, as she had done ever since
she came there, to the great amazement of the chambermaid,

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she prepared for a vigorous onslaught on the cupboards and
closets of the establishment of which she had the keys,
the storeroom, the linen presses, the china closet, the kitchen,
and the cellar. That day all went under an awful review.
Hidden things of darkness were brought to light to an
extent that alarmed all the principalities and powers of kitchen

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and chamber, and caused many wonderings and murmurings about these
yere northern ladies. From the domestic cabinet, Old Dinah, the
head cook and principle of all rule and authority in
the kitchen department, was filled with wrath at what she
considered an invasion of privilege. No feudal baron in Magnet
Carter times could have more thoroughly resented some incursion of

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the Crown. Dinah was a character in her own way,
and it would be injustice to her memory not to
give the reader a little idea of her. She was
a native and essential cook as much as Aunt Chloe, cooking,
being an indigenous talent of the African race. But Chloe
was a trained and methodical one who moved in an orderly,

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domestic harness, while Dinah was a self taught genius, and
like geniuses in general, was positive, opinionated, and erratic to
the last degree. Like a certain class of modern philosophers,
Dinah perfectly scorned logic and reasoning in every shape, and
always took refuge in intuitive certainty. And here she was

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perfectly impregnable. No possible amount of talent, or authority or
explanation could ever make her believe that any other way
was better than her own, or that the course she
had pursued in the smallest matter could be in the
least modified. This had been a conceded point with her
old mistress, Marie's mother, and Miss Marie, as Dinah always

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called her young mistress, even after her marriage, found it
easier to submit than contend, and so Dinah had ruled supreme.
This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress
of that diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of
manner with the utmost inflexibility as to measure. Dinah was
mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse making

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in all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with
her that the cook can do no wrong, and a
cook in a southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and
shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty,
so as to maintain her own immaculateness entire. If any
part of the dinner was a failure, there were fifty
indisputably good reasons for it, and it was the fault

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undeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing zeal.
But it was very seldom that there was any failure
in Dinah's last results, though her mode of doing everything
was peculiarly meandering and circuitous, and without any sort of
calculation as to time and place. Though her kitchen generally
looked as if it had been arranged by a hurricane

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blowing through it, and she had about as many places
for each cooking utensil, as there were days in the year.
Yet if one would have patience to wait her own
good time, up would come her dinner in perfect order
and in a style of preparation with which an epicure
could find no fault. It was now the season of

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incipient preparation for dinner. Dinah, who required large intervals of
reflection and repose, and was studious of ease in all
her arrangements, was seated on the kitchen floor, smoking a short,
stumpy pipe to which she was much addicted, and which
she always kindled up as a sort of censer whenever
she felt the need of an inspiration in her arrangements.

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It was Dinah's mode of invoking the domestic newses. Seated
around her were various members of that rising race with
which a southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes,
picking pin feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements.
Dinah every once in a while, interrupting her meditations to

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give a poke or a rap on the head to
some of the young operators with a pudding stick that
lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the
wooly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron,
and seas to consider them born for no earthly purpose
but to save her steps. As she phrased it, it
was the spirit of the system under which she had

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grown up, and she carried it out to its full extent.
Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all
the other parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen.
Dinah had heard from various sources what was going on,
and resolved to stand on defensive and conservative ground, mentally
determined to oppose and ignore every new measure without any

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actual observable contest. The kitchen was a large brick floor
department with a great old fashioned fireplace stretching along one
side of it, an arrangement which Saint Clair had vainly
tried to persuade Dinah to exchange for the convenience of
a modern cook stove. Not she no Puseyite note Edward

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Wooverie Pusey eighteen hundred to eighteen eighty eight, champion of
the Orthodoxy of Revealed Religion, defender of the Ocaxford movement,
and requiet professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
Not she no Pusiite or conservative, any school was ever
more inflexibly attached to time honored inconveniences than Dinah. When

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Saint Clair had first returned from the North, impressed with
the system and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he
had largely provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers,
and various apparatus to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine
illusion that it would be of any possible assistance to
Dinah in her arrangements. He might as well have provided

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them for a squirrel or a magpie. The more drawers
and closets there were, the more hiding holes could Dinah
make for the accommodation of old rags, hair combs, old shoes, ribbons,
cast off artificial flowers, and other articles of vertue, wherein
her soul delighted. When Miss Ophelia entered the King, Dinah

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did not rise, but smoked on in sublime tranquility, regarding
her movements obliquely out of the corner of her eye,
but apparently intent only on the operations around her. Miss
Ophelia commenced opening a set her drawers. What is this
drawer for Dinah? She said, It's handy for most anything,

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Missus said, Dinah, so it appeared to be from the
variety it contained. Miss Ophelia pulled out first a fine
damask tablecloth stained with blood, having evidently been used to
envelop some raw meat. What's this, Dinah, You don't wrap
up meat in your mistress's best tablecloths? Oh lord, missus, No,

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the towels was all a missin', so I just did it.
I laid out to wash that a That's why I
put it there. Shiftless, said miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding
to tumble over the drawer, where she found a nutmeg
grater and two or three nutmegs, a Methodist hymn book,
a couple of soiled madras handkerchiefs, some yarn and knitting work,

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a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers,
one or two gilded china saucers with some pomade in them,
one or two thin old shoes, a piece of flannel
carefully pinned up, enclosing some small white onions, several damask
table napkins, some coarse crash towels, some twine and darning needles,
and several broken papers from which sundry sweet herbs were

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sifting into the drawer. Where do you keep your nutmegs? Dinah,
said Miss Ophelia, with the air of one who prayed
for patience most anywhere, Missus. There's some in that cracked
teacup up there, and there's some over in that are cupboard.
Here are some in the greater, said Miss Ophelia, holding
them up laws. Yes, I put em there this mornin'.

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I likes to keep my things handy, said Dinah, You jake,
what are you stop it for? You'll catch it? Be
still there? She added, with a dive of her stick
at the criminal. What's this, said Miss Ophelia, holding up
the saucer of pomade. Law, it's my grease. I put
it thar to have it handy. Do you use your
mistress's best saucers for that? Law? It was cause I

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was driven in such a hurry. I was going to
change it this very day. Here are two damask table napkins.
Them table napkins. I put thar to get em washed
out some day. Don't you have some place here on
purpose for things to be washed? Well? Massa Saint Clair
got that our chest, he said, for that. But I

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likes to mix up biscuits and have my things on
it some days, and then it ain't handy lifting up
the lid. Why don't you mix your biscuits on the
pastry table there? Law? Miss it gets salt so full
of dishes and one thing another, and there ain't no room,
no way. But you should wash your dishes and clear

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them away. Wash my dishes, said Tina in a high key,
as her wrath began to rise over her habitual respect
of manner. What does ladies know about work? I want
to know when master ever get his dinner? If I
was to spend all my time a washin an puttin
up dishes, Miss Marie never telled me so know how? Well?

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Here are these onions? Laws? Yes, said Dinah, there is
why I put him now. I couldn't remember them's particular onions.
I was a savin' for dizzier very stew. I'd forgot
they was in down our old flannel. Miss Ophelia lifted
out the sifting papers of sweet herbs. I wish missus
wouldn't touch them. Are I likes to keep my things

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where I knows where to go to em? Said Dinah
rather decidedly but you don't want these holes in the papers.
Them's handy for siftin' on out, said Dinah. But you
see it spills all over the drawer. Laws, Yes, if
missus will go or a tumblin' things all up, so
it will. Missus has spilt lots at our way, said Dinah,

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coming uneasily to the drawers. If missus only we'll go
upstairs till my clareen up time comes, I'll have everything right,
but I can't do nothin when ladies is round. Ahinderin' you, Sam,
don't you give the baby dad our sugar bowl. I'll
crack you over if you don't mind. I'm going through
the kitchen and going to put everything in order once, Dinah,

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and then I'll expect you to keep it. So Lord, now,
miss Phelia, dadarar, ain't no way for ladies to do.
I never did see ladies doin no sitch my old
Missus nor miss Marine ever did. And I don't see
no kinder need on it. And Dinah stalked indignantly about
while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of

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scattering bowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins, tablecloths
and towels for washing, washing, wiping, and arranging with her
own hands and with a speed and alacrity which perfectly
amazed Dinah lor Lord. Now if Dad are'd to wag
them northern ladies, do dain't ladies know how? She said

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to some of her satellites when at a safe hearing distance,
I has things as straight as anybody when my clarin
up times comes. But I don't want ladies round a
henderin and getting my things all where I can't find
'em to do Dinah justice. She had at irregular periods
paroxysms of reformation and arrangement, which she called clarin up times,

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when she would begin with great zeal and turn every
drawer and closet wrong side outward on to the floor
or tables, and make the ordinary confusion sevenfold more confounded.
Then she would light her pipe and leisurely go over
her arrangements, looking things over and discoursing upon them, making
all the young fries scour most vigorously on the tin things,

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and keeping up for several hours a most energetic state
of confusion, which she would explain to the satisfaction of
all inquirers by the remark that she was a clarin up.
She couldn't have things a gwine on so as they
had been, and she was glad to make these our
young ones keep better order. For Dinah herself somehow indulged

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the illusion that she herself was the soul of order,
and it was only the young uns and the everybody
else in the house that were the cause of anything
that fell short of perfection. In this respect, when all
the tins were scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white,
and everything that could offend tucked out of sight in
holes and corners, Dinah would dress herself up in a

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smart dress, clean apron and high brilliant Madras turban, and
tell all marauding young uns to keep out of the kitchen,
for she was glad to have things kept nice. Indeed,
these periodic seasons were often an inconvenience to the whole household,
for Dinah would contract such an immoderate attachment to her
scoured tin as to insist upon it that it shouldn't

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be used again for any possible purpose, at least till
the ardor of the clarin up period of miss Ophelia
in a few days thoroughly reformed every department of the
house to a systematic pattern. But her labors in all
departments that depended on the co operation of servants were
like those of Sisyphus or deniaities. In despair, she one

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day appealed to Saint Clair, there is no such thing
as getting anything like a system in this family. To
be sure, there isn't, said Saint Clair, such shiftless management,
such waste, such confusion I never saw, I dare say
you didn't. You would not take it so coolly if
you were housekeeper, my dear cousin, You may as well

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understand once for all that we masters are divided into
two classes, oppressors and oppressed. We who are good natured
and hate severity make up our minds to a good
deal of inconvenience. If we will keep a shambling, loose,
untaught set in the community for our convenience, why we
must take the consequence. Some rare cases I have seen

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of persons who, by a peculiar tact, can produce order
and system without severity. But I'm not one of them,
and so I made up my mind long ago to
let things go just as they do. I will not
have the poor devils thrashed and cut to pieces. And
they know it, and of course they know the staff
is in their own hands. But to have no time,

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no place, no order, all going on in this shiftless way,
My dear Vermont, you natives up by the north Pole,
set an extravagant value on time. What on earth is
the use of time to a fellow who has twice
as much of it as he knows what to do with,
As to order and system, where there is nothing to

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be done but to lounge on the sofa and read
an hour sooner or later in breakfast or dinner isn't
of much account. Now there's Dinah gets you a capital dinner, soup,
ragou roast, fowl, dessert, ice cream and all. And she
creates it all out of chaos and old Knight down
there in that kitchen. I think it really sublime the

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way she manages. But Heaven bless us if we are
to go down there and view all the smoking and
squatting about and hurry scuriation of the preparatory process, we
should never eat more. My good cousin, absolve yourself from that.
It's more than a Catholic penance. And does no more good.
You'll only lose your own temper and utterly confound Dinah.

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Let her go her own way. But Augustine, you don't
know how I found things? Don't I don't? I know
that the rolling pin is under her bed, and the
nutmeg greater in her pocket with her tobacco, that there
are sixty five different sugar bowls, one in every hole
in the house. That she washes dishes with a dinner

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napkin one day and with a fragment of an old
petticoat the next. But the upshot is she gets up
glorious dinners, makes superb coffee, and you must judge her
as warriors and statesmen are judged by her success. But
the waste, the expense, Oh well, lock everything you can

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and keep the keys, give out by dribblets, and never
inquire for odds and ends. It isn't best that troubles me, Augustine,
I can't help feeling as if these servants were not
strictly honest, Are you sure they can be relied on?
Augustine laughed immoderately at the grave and anxious face with
which Miss Ophelia propounded the question, Oh, cousin. That's too good, honest,

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as if that's a thing to be expected. Honest, why
of course they aren't. Why should they be? What upon
earth is to make them so? Why don't you instruct? Instruct? Oh, fiddlestick,
what instructing do you think I should do? I look
like it. As to Marie, she has spirit enough to

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be sure to kill off a whole plantation if I'd
let her manage, But she wouldn't get the cheatery out
of them? Are there no honest ones? Well? Now and
then one whom nature makes so impractically simple, truthful, and
faithful that the worst possible influence can't destroy it. But
you see from the mother's breast the colored child feels

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and sees that there are none but underhand ways open
to it. It can get along no other way with
its parents, its mistress, its young master, and missy playfellows, cunning,
and deception become necessary, inevitable habits. It isn't fair to
expect anything else of him. He ought not to be
punished for it. As to honesty, the slave is kept

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in that dependent, semi childish state that there is no
making him realize the rights of property or feel that
his master's goods are not his own if he can
get them. For my part, I don't see how they
can be honest. Such a fellow as Tom here is
is a moral miracle. And what becomes of their souls?

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Said Miss Ophelia. That isn't my affairs I know of,
said Saint Clair. I am only dealing in facts of
the present life. The fact is that the whole race
are pretty generally understood to be turned over to the
devil for our benefit in this world. However it may
turn out in another. This is perfectly horrible, said Miss Ophelia.

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You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I don't know,
as I am. We are in pretty good company for
all that, said Saint Clair. As people in the broad
Road generally are. Look at the high and the low
all the world over, and it's the same story. The
lower class used up body, soul and spirit for the
good of the upper. It is so in England, it

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is so everywhere, and yet all Christendom stands aghast with
virtuous indignation, because we do the thing in a little
different shape from what they do it. It isn't so
in Vermont, ah well, in New England and in the
Free States. You have the better of us, I grant,
but there's the bell, so cousin, let us for a while,

(28:11):
lay aside our sectional prejudices and come out to dinner.
As miss Ophelia was in the kitchen in the latter
part of the afternoon, some of the sabled children called
out mass sakes dies Prue a comin, grantin along like
she allers does. A tall, bony colored woman now entered
the kitchen, bearing on her head a basket of rusks

(28:33):
and hop rolls. Oh, Prue, you come, said Dinah. Prue
had a peculiar scowling expression of countenance and a sullen,
grumbling voice. She set down her basket, squatted herself down,
and resting her elbows on her knees, said, Oh Lord,
I wished as did. Why do you wish you were dead?
Said miss Ophelia. I'd be out o my misery, said

(28:55):
the woman gruffly, without taking her eyes from the floor.
What need you get drunk then and cutting up? Prue,
said a spruce quadroon chambermaid, dangling as she spoke a
pair of coral ear drops. The woman looked at her
with a sour, surly glance. Maybe you'll come to it
one of these yardays. I'd be glad to see you.

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I would. Then you'll be glad of a drop like
me to forget your misery. Come, Prue, said Dinah. Let's
look at your rusks. Here's missus will pay for em.
Miss Ophelia took out a couple of dozen. There's some
tickets in that are old crack jug on the top shelf,
said Dinah. You jake, climb up and get it down.

(29:36):
Tickets what are they for? Said miss Ophelia. We buy
tickets of her massa, and she gives us bread for em,
and they counts my money and tickets when I gets
home to see if I's got the change, and if
I hadn't, they half kills me and serves you, right,
said Jane, the pert chambermaid. If you will take their
money to get drunk on, that's what she does, missus,

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and that's what I will do. I can't live no
other ways. Drink and forget my misery. You are very
wicked and very foolish, said miss Ophelia. To steal your
master's money to make yourself a brute with it's mighty
lightly Missus. But I will do it, Yes I will, Oh, Lord,
I wish I's dead. I do, I wish I's dead,
and out of my misery. And slowly and stiffly, the

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old creature rose and got her basket on her head again,
And before she went out, she looked at the quadroon girl,
who still stood playing with her ear drops. Ye think
you're mighty fine with them. Are a frolickin and a
toss in your head and a lookin down on everybody? Well,
never mind, you may live to be a poor, old,
cut up critter like me. Hope to Lord you will

(30:46):
I do? Then see if you won't drink, drink, drink
yourself into torment and serve you're right too, eh. And
with a malignant howl, the woman left the room disgust.
The old beast, said Adolf, who was getting his master's
shaving water. If I was her master, i'd cut her
up worse than shears. He couldn't do that, are no way,

(31:10):
said Dinah. Her back's a fire sight. Now she can't
never get a dressed together over it. I think such
low creatures ought not to be allowed to go round
to genteel families, said miss Jane. What do you think,
Miss Saint Clair, she said, coquettishly, tossing her head at Adolph.
It must be observed that, among other appropriations from his

(31:31):
master's stock, Adolf was in the habit of adopting his
name and address, and that the style under which he
moved among the colored circles of New Orleans was that
of mister Saint Clair. I'm certainly of your opinion, miss Benoir,
said Adolf. Benoir was the name of Marie Saint Clair's family,
and Jane was one of her servants. Pray, Miss Benoir,

(31:54):
may I be allowed to ask if those drops are
for them all tomorrow night? They are certain bewitching. I wonder, now,
mister Saint Clair, what the impudence of you men will
come to, said Jane, tossing her pretty head till the
eardrops twinkled again. I shan't dance with you for a
whole evening if you go to asking me any more questions. Oh,

(32:17):
you couldn't be so cruel now. I was just dying
to know whether you would appear in your pink tarletan,
said Adolf. What is it? Said Rosa, a bright, piquant
little quadroon who came skipping downstairs at this moment. Why
mister Saint Clair's so impudent on my honor, said Adolf.
I'll leave it to Miss Rosa. Now I know he's

(32:40):
always a saucy creature, said Rosa, poising herself on one
of her little feet and looking maliciously at Adolf. He's
always getting me so angry with him. Oh ladies, ladies,
you will certainly break my heart between you, said Adolf.
I shall be found dead in my bed some morning,
and you'll have it to answer for. Do we hear

(33:02):
the horrid creature talk? Said both ladies, laughing immoderately. Come
and clear out you. I can't have you cluttering up
the kitchen, said Dinah. In my way, foolin round here.
Aunt Dinah's glum because she can't go to the ball,
said Rosa. Don't want none o your light colored balls,
said Dinah, cutting round makin leeve. Used white folks, after all,

(33:24):
use niggers much as I am. Aunt Dinah grease is
her will stiff every day to make it lie straight,
said Jane. It will be wool after all, said Rosa, maliciously,
shaking down her long, silky curls well in the lord's sight.
Aunt wool as good as bar any time, said Dinah.
I'd like to have missus say which is worth the

(33:45):
most A couple such as you or one like me?
Get out? Wi ye, you trumpery, I won't have you
round here. The conversation was interrupted. In a twofold manner,
Saint Clair's voice was heard at the head of the stairs,
asking Adolph if he meant to stay all night with
his shaving water, and Miss Ophelia, coming out of the
dining room, said Jane and Rosa, what are you wasting

(34:07):
your time for here? Go in and attend to your muslins.
Our friend Tom, who had been in the kitchen during
the conversation with the old rusk woman, had followed her
out into the street. He saw her go on, giving
every once in a while a suppressed groan. At last,
she set her basket down on a doorstep and began
arranging the old faded shawl which covered her shoulders. I'll

(34:29):
carry your basket, apiece, said Tom compassionately. Why should ye,
said the woman. I don't want no help. You seem
to be sick, or in trouble or something, said Tom.
I'm sick, said the woman shortly. I wish said Tom,
looking at her earnestly. I wish I could persuade you

(34:50):
to leave off drinkin. Don't you know it will be
the room of you body and soul? I knows I'm
going to torment, said the woman, sullenly. You don't need
to tell me that our eyes, ugly eyes, wicked eyes,
gwine straight to torment. Oh Lord, I wished eyes are.
Tom shuddered at these frightful words spoken with a sullen,

(35:12):
impassioned earnestness. Oh Lord, have mercy on you, poor critter.
Han't you never heard of Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ? Who's he?
Why he's the Lord? Said Tom. I think i've hearn
tell o the Lord and the judgment and torment. I
heard that, But didn't anybody ever tell you of the

(35:35):
Lord Jesus that loved us poor sinners and died for us.
Don't know nothin bout that, said the woman. Nobody hadn't
never loved me since my old man died. Where was
you raised? Said Tom? Up in Kentuck A man kept
me to breed chillin for market and sold em as
fast as they got big enough. Last of all, he

(35:57):
sold me to a speculator, and my master got me
o him, what sets you into this bad way of
drinking to shut out my misery. I had one child
after I come here, and I thought that i'd have
one to raise, cause Massa wasn't a speculator. It was
the beardest little thing. And Missus she seemed to think

(36:17):
a heapunt at first. It never cried, It was likely
in fat. But Missus tuck sick and I tended her,
and I took the fever, and my milk all left
me and the child at pine to skin and bone.
And Missus wouldn't buy milk for it. She wouldn't hear
to me. When I telled her I hadn't milk. She
said she knowed I could feed it on what other

(36:38):
folks eat. And the child kinder pine and cried and
cried and cried day and night, and got all gone
to skin and bones, and Missus got sot again it
and she said twasn't nothin but crossness. She wished it
was dead, she said, And she wouldn't let me have
it o nights, cause she said it kept me awake
and made me good for nothin'. She made me sleep

(37:00):
in her room, and I had to put it away
off in a little kind o garret, and Thu had
cried itself to death one night it did, and I
tucked a drink, and to keep its crying out of
my ears, I did, and I will drink. I will
if I do go to torment. Fort Massa says, I
shall go to torment, And I tell him I've got

(37:21):
thar now. Oh ye, poor critter, said Tom. Hadn't nobody
never telled ya how the Lord Jesus loved you and
died for you. Hadn't they telled you that he'll help you,
and ye can go to heaven and have rest at last?
I looks like gwine to heaven, said the woman. Ain't
thy where white folks is Gwine? S'pose they's have me there.

(37:45):
I'd rather go to torment and get away from massr
and Missus I had so, she said, as with her
usual groan. She got her basket on her head and
walked sullenly away. Tom turned and walked sorrowfully back to
the house. In the court, he met little Eva, a
crown of two broses on her head, and her eyes

(38:06):
radiant with delight. Oh Tom, here you are I'm glad
I found you. Papa says, you may get out the
ponies and take me in my little new carriage, She said,
catching his hand. But what's the matter, Tom, you look sober?
I feel bad, Miss Eva, said Tom sorrowfully. But I'll

(38:27):
get the horses for you. But do tell me, Tom,
what is the matter. I saw you talking to cross
old Prue. Tom, in simple, earnest phrase, told Eva the
woman's history. She did not exclaim, or wonder or weep
as other children do. Her cheeks grew pale, and a deep,
earnest shadow passed over her eyes. She laid both hands

(38:48):
on her bosom and sighed heavily. End of Chapter eighteen
and Volume one. Dream Audio Books hopes you have enjoyed
this program.