Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Original Edition | Liberty - Chapter 19

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books Presents Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet beecher Stowe,
Volume two, Chapter nineteen. Miss Ophelia's experiences and opinions continued, Tom,
you needn't get me the horses. I don't want to go,
she said, why not, Miss Eva? These things sink into

(00:21):
my heart. Tom said, Eva, they sink into my heart.
She repeated earnestly, I don't want to go, and she
turned from Tom and went into the house. A few
days after, another woman came in Old Prue's place to
bring the rusks. Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen. Lor said, Dinah,
what's got Prue? Pru isn't comin any more, said the

(00:44):
woman mysteriously. Why not, said Dinah. She ain't dared, is she?
We doesn't exactly know she's down cellar, said the woman,
glancing at Miss Ophelia. After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks,
Dinah followed the woman to the door. What has got
Prue anyhow? She said? The woman seemed desirous yet reluctant

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to speak, and answered, in a low, mysterious tone, Well,
you mustn't tell nobody. Prue she got drunk again and
they had her down cellar, and there they left her
all day, and I hearn em say that the flies
had got to her and she's dead. Dinah held up
her hands and turning saw close by her side the

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spirit like form of Evangeline, her large mystic eyes dilated
with horror, and every drop of blood driven from her
lips and cheeks. Lord bless us, miss eve Is, goin
faint away? What got us all to let her hair such? Talk?
Her pow be rail? Mad? I shan't faint, Dinah said
the child firmly. And why shouldn't I hear it? It

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ain't so much for me to hear it as for
poor Prue to suffer it? Lo our sakes, it isn't
for a sweet, delicate young ladies like you? These are stories?
Isn't it's enough to kill him? Eva sighed again and
walked upstairs with a slow and melancholy step. Miss Ophelia
anxiously inquired the woman's story. Dinah gave a very garrulous

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version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which
he had drawn from her that morning. An abominable business,
perfectly horrible, she exclaimed, as she entered the room where
Saint Clair lay reading his paper. Pray, what iniquity has
turned up? Now? Said he? What now? Why those folks
have whipped Prue to death? Said miss Ophelia, going on

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with great strength of detail into the story and enlarging
on its most shocking particulars. I thought it would come
to that some time, said Saint Clair, going on with
his paper thoughts. So aren't you going to do anything
about it? Said Miss Ophelia. Haven't you got any select
men or anybody to interfere and look after such matters.

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It's commonly supposed that the property interest is a sufficient
guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their
own possessions. I don't know what's to be done. It
seems the poor creature was a thief and a drunkard,
and so there won't be much hope to get up
sympathy for her. It is perfectly outrageous. It is horrid, Augustine.

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It will certainly bring down vengeance upon you, my dear cousin.
I didn't do it, and I can't help it. I
would if I could. If low minded, brutal people will
act like themselves, what am I to do? They have
absolute control. They are irresponsible despots. There would be no
use in interfering. There is no law that amounts to

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anything practically for such a case. The best we can
do is to shut our eyes and ears and let
it alone. It's the only resource left us. How can
you shut your eyes and ears? How can you let
such things alone? My dear child, what do you expect here?
Is a whole class, debased, uneducated, indolent, provoking put without

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any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands
of such people as the majority in our world are
people who have neither consideration nor self control, who haven't
even an enlightened regard to their own interest. For that's
the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course,
in a community so organized, what can a man of
honorable and humane feelings do but shut his eyes all

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he can and harden his heart. I can't buy every
wretch I see. I can't turn knight errant and undertake
to redress every individual case of wrong in such a
city as this, The most I can do is to
try and keep out of the way of it. Saint
Clair's fine countenance was for a moment overcast. He said, come, cousin,

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don't stand there looking like one of the fates. You've
only seen a peep through the curtain, a specimen of
what is going on the world over in some shape
or other. If we are to be prying and spying
into all the dismals of life, we should have no
heart to anything. Tis like looking too close into the
details of Dinah's kitchen. And Saint Clair lay back on

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the sofa and busied himself with his paper. Miss Ophelia
sat down and pulled out her knitting work and sat
there grim with indignation. She knit and knit, but while
she mused, the fire burned. At last, she broke out.
I tell you, Augustine, I can't get over things, so
if you can, it's a perfect abomination for you to

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defend such a system. That's my mind. What now, said
Saint Clair, looking up at it again. Hey, I say
it's perfectly abominable for you to defend such a system,
said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth. I defend it, my
dear lady. Whoever said I did defend it? Said Saint Clair.
Of course you defend it. You all do, all you Southerners.

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What do you have slaves for if you don't, are
you such a sweet, innocent as to suppose nobody in
this world ever does what they don't think is right.
Don't you or didn't you ever do anything that you
did not think quite right? If I do, I repent
of it, I hope, said Miss Ophelia, rattling her needles
with energy. So do I, said Saint Clair, peeling his orange.

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I'm repenting of it all the time. What do you
keep on doing it for? Didn't you ever keep on
doing wrong after you'd repented, my good cousin, Well, only
when I've been very much tempted, said Miss Ophelia. Well
I'm very much tempted, said Saint Clair. That's just my difficulty.

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But I always resolve I won't and I try to
break off. Well, I have been resolving I won't off
and on these ten years, said Saint Clair. But I
haven't somehow got clear? Have you got clear of all
your sins? Cousin, Cousin Augustine, said Miss Ophelia seriously, and
laying down her knitting work. I suppose I deserve that

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you should reprove my shortcomings. I know all you say
is true enough, nobody else feels them more than I do,
But it does seem to me after all, there is
some difference between me and you. It seems to me
I would cut off my right hand sooner than keep
on from day to day doing what I thought was wrong.
But then my conduct is so inconsistent with my profession.

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I don't wonder you reprove me. Oh, now, cousin, said Augustine,
sitting down on the floor and laying his head back
in her lap. Don't take on so awfully serious. You
know what a good for nothing saucy boy I always was.
I love to poke you up, that's all, just to
see you get earnest. I do think you are desperately

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distressingly good. It tires me to death to think of it.
But this is a serious subject, my boy, august said
Miss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead. Dismally, so
said he and I, well, I never want to talk
seriously in hot weather, what with mosquitoes and all. A
fellow can't get himself up to any very sublime moral flights.

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And I believe, said Saint Clair, suddenly rousing himself up.
There's a theory now, I understand now why northern nations
are always more virtuous than southern ones. I see into
that whole subject. Oh, Augustine, you are a sad rattle brain,
am I well, so I am, I suppose, but for

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once I will be serious now, But you must hand
me that basket of oranges. You see, you'll have to
stay me with flagons and comfort me with apples if
I'm going to make this effort now, said Augustine, drawing
the basket up. I'll begin. When in the course of
human events it becomes necessary for a fellow to hold
two or three dozen of his fellow worms in captivity,

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a decent regard to the opinions of society requires. I
don't see that you are growing more serious, said miss Ophelia. Wait,
I'm coming on. You'll hear. The short of the matter is, cousin,
said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into an earnest
and serious expression. On this abstract question of slavery, there can,

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as I think, be but one opinion. Planters who have
money to make by it. Clergymen who have planters to please,
politicians who want to rule by it, may warp and
bend language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish
the world. At their ingenuity. They can press nature and
the Bible, and nobody knows what else into the service.

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But after all, neither they nor the world believe in
it one particle, the more it comes from the devil.
That's the short of it. And to my mind it's
a pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in
his own line. Miss Ophelia stopped her knitting and looked surprised,
and Saint Clair apparently enjoying her astonishment. When you seem

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to wonder, But if you will get me fairly at it,
I'll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business,
a cursed of God and man. What is it? Strip
it of all its ornament, run it down to the
root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why?
Because my brother Quashe is ignorant and weak, and I

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am an intelligent and strong because I know how and
can do it. Therefore I may steal all he has,
keep it, and give him only such and so much
as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, too dirty,
too disagreeable for me, I may set Quashe to doing
because I don't like work. Quashie shall work because the

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sun burns me. Quashee shall stay in the sun. Quashi
shall earn the money, and I will spend it. Quashee
shall lie down in every puddle that I may walk over,
dry shod, quashe shall do my will and not his,
all the days of his mortal life, and have such
chance of getting to Heaven at last as I find convenient.

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This I take to be about what slavery is. I
defy anybody on earth to read our slave code as
it stands in our law books, and make anything else
of it, talk of the abuses of slavery, humbug. The
thing itself is the essence of all abuse, and the
only reason why the land don't sink under it like
Sodom and Gomorrah, is because it is used in a

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way infinitely better than it is, for pity's sake, for
shame's sake, because we are men born of women, and
not savage beasts. Many of us do not, and dare not.
We would scorn to use the full power which our
savage laws put into our hands. And he who goes
the furthest and does the worst, only uses, within limits,

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the power that the law gives him. Sinclair has started up,
and as his manner was when excited, was walking with
hurried steps up and down the floor. Is fine, face,
classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed actually to
burn with the fervor of his feelings. His large blue
eyes flashed, and he gestured with an unconscious earnestness. Miss

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Ophelia had never seen him in this mood before, and
she sat perfectly silent. I declare to you, said he suddenly,
stopping before his cousin. It's no sort of use to
talk or to feel on this subject, but I declare
to you. There have been times when I have thought,
if the whole country would sink and hide all this
injustice and misery from the light, I would willingly sink

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with it. When I have been traveling up and down
on our boats or about on my collecting tours, and
reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low lived fellow I
met was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot
of as many men, women and children as he could cheat, steal,
or gamble money enough to buy. When I have seen

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such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young
girls and women, I have been ready to curse my country,
to curse the human race, Augustine. Augustine said Miss Ophelia,
I'm sure you've said enough. I never in my life
heard anything like this, even at the North. At the North,

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said Saint Clair, with a sudden change of expression and
resuming something of his habitual careless tone. Pooh, your northern
folk are cold blooded. You are cool in everything. You
can't begin to curse up hill and down as we
can when we get fairly at it. Well, but the
question is said, Miss Ophelia, Oh, yes, to be sure,
the question is and adduce of a question, It is,

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how came you in this state of sin and misery? Well?
I shall answer in the good old words you used
to teach me Sundays. I came so by ordinary generation.
My servants were my father's, and what is more, my mother's,
and now they are mine. They and their increase, which
bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father,

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you know, came first from New England, and he was
just such another man as your father, a regular old Roman, upright, energetic, noble,
minded with an iron will. Your father settled down in
New England to rule over rocks and stones and to
force an existence out of nature, and mine settled in
Louisiana to rule over men and women, and force existence

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out of them. My mother, said Saint Clair, getting up
and walking to a picture at the end of the
room and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration.
She was divine. Don't look at me, so you know
what I mean. She probably was of mortal birth, but
as far as ever I could observe, there was no
trace of any human weakness or error about her. And

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everybody that lives to remember her, whether bond or free, servant,
acquaintance relation, all say the same, Why, cousin, That mother
has been all that has stood between me and utter
unbelief for years. She was a direct embodiment and personification
of the New Testament, a living fact to be accounted for,

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and to be accounted for in no other way than
by its truth. Oh mother, mother, said Saint Clair, clasping
his hands in a sort of transport, and then suddenly
checking himself. He came back and seating himself on an ottoman,
he went on. My brother and I were twins, and
they say, you know that twins ought to resemble each other,

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but we were in all points a contrast. He had black,
fiery eyes, coal black hair, a strong, fine Roman profile
and a rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair,
a Greek outline, and fair complexion. He was active and observing,
I dreamy and inactive. He was generous to his friends

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and equals, but proud, dominant, overbearing to inferiors, and utterly
unmerciful to whatever set itself up against him. Truthful, we
both were. He from pride and courage, I from a
sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about as
boys generally do, off and on and in general. He

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was my father's pet, and I my mother's. There was
a morbid sensitiveness and acuteness of feeling in me on
all possible subjects of which he and my father had
no kind of understanding, and with which they could have
no possible sympathy. But Mother did. And so when I
had quarreled with Alfred and Father looked sternly on me,

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I used to go off to Mother's room and sit
by her. I remember just how she used to look,
with her pale cheeks, her deep, soft serious eyes, her
white dress. She always wore white, and I used to
think of her whenever I read in revelations about the
saints that were arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.
She had a great deal of genius of one sort

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and another, particularly in music. And she used to sit
at her organ, playing fine, old majestic music of the
Catholic Church, and singing with a voice more like an
angel than a mortal woman. And I would lay my
head down on her lap and cry and dream and feel, oh, immeasurably,
things that I had no language to say. In those days,

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this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as it
has now. Nobody dreamed of any harm in it. My
father was a born aristocrat, I think in some pre
existent state. He must have been in the higher circles
of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along
with him, for it was ingrain bred in the bone.
Though he was originally of poor and not in any

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way of noble family. My brother was begotten in his image,
now an aristocrat. You know, the world over has no
human sympathies beyond a certain line in society. In England
the line is in one place, in Burma in another,
and in America in another. But the aristocrat of all

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these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship
and distress. An injustice in his own class is a
cool matter of course. In another one, my father's dividing
line was that of color. Among his equals, never was
a man more just and generous. But he considered the negro,
through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate link

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between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of
justice or generosity on this hypothesis, I suppose to be true.
If anybody had asked him, plump and fair, whether they
had human, immortal souls, he might have hemmed and hawed
and said yes. But my father was not a man
much troubled with spiritualism religious sentiment. He had none beyond

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a veneration for God. As decidedly the head of the
upper classes. Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes.
He was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man. Everything was
to move by system, to be sustained with unfailing accuracy
and precision. If you take into account that all this

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was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling,
shiftless laborers who had grown up all their lives in
the absence of every possible motive to learn how to
do anything but shirk, as you Vermonters say, and you'll
see that there might naturally be on his plantation a
great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a
sensitive child like me. Besides all, he had an overseer,

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great tall, slab sided, two fisted renegade son of Vermont,
begging your pardon, who had gone through a regular apprenticeship
in hardness and brutality, and taken his degree to be
admitted to practice. My mother never could endure him, nor I,
but he obtained an entire ascendancy over my father. And
this man was the absolute despot of the estate. I

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was a little fellow then, but I had the same
love that I have now for all kinds of human things,
a kind of passion for the study of humanity, come
in what shape it would. I was found in the
cabins and among the field hands a great deal, and
of course was a great favorite. And all sorts of
complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear, and I

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told them to mother, and we between us formed a
sort of committee for a redress of grievances. We hindered
and repressed a great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves
on doing a vast deal of good till as often happens,
my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained to my father that he
couldn't manage the hands and must resign his position. Father

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was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never
flinched from anything that he thought necessary. And so he
put down his foot like a rock between us and
the field hands. He told my mother, in language perfectly
respectful and deferential, but quite explicit, that over the house
servants she should be entire mistress, but that with the

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field hands he could allow no interference. He revered and
respected her above all living beings. But he would have
said it all the same to the Virgin Mary herself
if she had come in the way of his system.
I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases with him,
endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would listen to the

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most pathetic appeals with the most discouraging politeness and equanimity.
It all resolves itself into this, he would say, Must
I part with Stubbs or keep him? Stubbs is the
soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency, a thorough business hand,
and as humane as the general run, we can't have perfection,

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and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration
as a whole. Even if there are now and then
things that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness.
General rules will bear hard on particular cases. This last
maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most
alleged cases of cruelty. After he had said that, he

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commonly drew up his feet on the like a man
that had disposed of a business and betook himself to
a nap or the newspaper, as the case might be.
The fact is my father showed the exact sort of
talent for a statesman. He could have divided Poland as
easily as an orange, or trod on Ireland as quietly
and systematically as any man living. At last, my mother

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gave up in despair. It never will be known to
the last account what noble and sensitive natures like hers
have felt cast utterly helpless into what seems to them
an abyss of injustice and cruelty, and which seems so
to nobody about them. It has been an age of
long sorrow of such natures in such a hell begotten

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sort of world as ours, what remained for her but
to train her children in her own views and sentiments. Well,
after all you say about training children will grow up
substantially what they are by nature, and only that from
the cradle. Alfred was an aristocrat, And as he grew up,
instinctly all his sympathies and all his reasonings were in

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that line. And all mother's exhortations went to the winds.
As to me, they sunk deep into me. She never
contradicted in form anything my father said, or seemed directly
to differ from him. But she impressed, burnt into my
very soul with all the force of her deep, earnest nature,
an idea of the dignity and worth of the meanest

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human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn
awe when she would point up to the stars in
the evening and say to me, see there, August, the poorest,
meanest soul on our place will be living when all
these stars are gone, forever, will live, as long as
God lives. She had some fine old paintings, one in

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particular of Jesus healing a blind man. They were very fine,
and used to impress me strongly. See there, August. She
would say the blind man was a beggar, poor and loathsome.
Therefore he would not heal him. Afar off. He called
him to him and put his hands on him. Remember this,

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my boy, If I had lived to grow up under
her care, she might have stimulated me to I know
not what of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint
reformer martyr. But alas alas, I went from her when
I was only thirteen, and I never saw her again.
Saint Clair rested his head on his hands and did

(24:29):
not speak for some minutes. After a while he looked
up and went on, what poor mean trash? This whole
business of human virtue is a mere matter for the
most part of latitude and longitude and geographical position, acting
with natural temperament. The greater part is nothing but an accident.

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Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town
where all are in fact free and equal, becomes a
regular church member and deacon, and in due time time
joins an abolition society, and thinks us all little better
than Heathen's. Yet he is, for all the world, in
constitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can

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see it leaking out in fifty different ways, just the
same strong, overbearing, dominant spirit. You know very well how
impossible it is to persuade some of the folks in
your village that Squire Sinclair does not feel above them.
The fact is, though he has fallen on democratic times
and embraced a democratic theory, he is to the heart

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an aristocrat as much as my father, who ruled over
five or six hundred slaves. Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed
to Cavil at this picture, and was laying down her
knitting to begin, but Saint Clair stopped her. Now, I
know every word you are going to say. I do
not say they were alike. In fact, one fell into

(25:52):
a condition where everything acted against the natural tendency, and
the other where everything acted for it. And so one
turned out a pretty wilful, stout, overbearing old democrat and
the other a wilful, stout old despot. If both had
owned plantations in Louisiana, they would have been as alike
as two old bullets cast in the same mold. What

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an undutiful boy you are, said Miss Ophelia. I don't
mean them any disrespect, said Saint Clair. You know, reverence
is not my forte But to go back to my story,
when father died, he left the whole property to us
twin boys, to be divided as we should agree, there
does not breathe on God's earth. A nobler souled more

(26:37):
generous fellow than Alfred in all that concerns his equals,
And we got on admirably with this property question, without
a single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to work
the plantation together, and Alfred, whose outward life and capabilities
had doubled the strength of mine, became an enthusiastic planter
and a wonderfully successful one. But a two years trial

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satisfied me, and I could not be a partner in
that matter. To have a great gang of seven hundred
whom I could not know personally or feel any individual
interest in, bought and driven, housed, fed, worked like so
many horned cattle, strained up to military precision, the question
of how little of life's commonest enjoyments would keep them

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in working order being a constantly recurring problem, the necessity
of drivers and overseers, the ever necessary whip, first, last,
and only argument. The whole thing was insufferably disgusting and
loathsome to me, And when I thought of my mother's
estimate of one poor human soul, it became even frightful.

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It's all nonsense to talk to me about slaves enjoying
all this. To this day, I have no patience with
the unutterable trash that some of your patronizing northerners have
made up, as in their zeal to apologize for our
sins we all know. Tell me that any man living
wants to work all his days from day dawn till

(28:05):
dark under the constant eye of a master, without the
power of putting forth one irresponsible volition on the same dreary, monotonous,
unchanging toil, and all for two pairs of pantaloons and
a pair of shoes a year, with enough food and
shelter to keep him in working order. Any man who
thinks that human beings can, as a general thing, be

(28:27):
made about as comfortable that way as any other, I
wish he might try it. I'd buy the dog and
work him with a clear conscience. I always have supposed,
said Miss Ophelia, that you, all of you approved of
these things and thought them right according to scripture. Humbug.
We are not quite reduced to that yet. Alfred, who

(28:50):
is as determined to despot as ever walked, does not
pretend to this kind of defense. No, he stands high
and haughty on that good old respect the right of
the strongest. And he says, and I think quite sensibly,
that the American planter is only doing in another form
what the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the

(29:12):
lower classes. That is, I take it, appropriating them body
and bone, soul and spirit to their use and convenience.
He defends both, and I think at least consistently. He
says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement
of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says,

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be a lower class given up to physical toil and
confined to an animal nature, and a higher one, thereby
acquires leisure and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improvement,
and becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he reasons, because,
as I said, he is born an aristocrat. So I

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don't believe because I was born a democrat. How in
the world can the two things be compared, said Miss Ophelia.
The English laborer is not sold, traded, parted from his family, whipped.
He is as much at the will of his employer,
as if he were sold to him. The slave owner

(30:13):
can whip his refractory slave to death. The capitalists can
starve him to death. As to family security, it is
hard to say which is the worst, to have one's
children sold or see them starved to death at home.
But it's no kind of apology for slavery to prove
that it isn't worse than some other bad thing. I
didn't give it for one, nay, I'll say besides that

(30:35):
ours is the more bold and palpable infringement of human rights.
Actually buying a man up like a horse, looking at
his teeth, cracking his joints, and trying his paces, and
then paying down for him, having spectaculars breeders, traders, and
brokers in human bodies and souls, sets the thing before
the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form,

(30:57):
though the thing done be, after all in its nature,
the same that is, appropriating one set of human beings
to the use and improvement of another, without any regard
to their own. I never thought of the matter in
this light, said miss Ophelia. Well, I've traveled in England
some and I've looked over a good many documents as

(31:18):
to the state of their lower classes. And I really
think there is no denying Alfred when he says that
his slaves are better off than a large class of
the population of England. You see, you must not infer
from what I have told you that Alfred is what
is called a hard master, for he isn't. He is
despotic and unmerciful to insubordination. He would shoot a fellow

(31:40):
down with as little remorse as he would shoot a
buck if he opposed him. But in general he takes
a sort of pride in having his slaves comfortably fled
and accommodated. When I was with him, I insisted that
he should do something for their instruction, and to please me,
he did get a chaplain and used to have them catechised,
so though I believe in his heart that he thought

(32:02):
it would do about as much good to set a
chaplain over his dogs and horses. And the fact is
that a mind stupefied and animalized by every bad influence
from the hour of birth, spending the whole of every
week day in unreflecting toil, cannot be done much with
by a few hours on Sunday, the teachers of Sunday schools,
among the manufacturing population of England, and among plantation hands

(32:25):
in our country could perhaps testify to the same result
there and here. Yet some striking exceptions there are among us,
from the fact that the negro is naturally more impressible
to religious sentiment than the white. Well said, Miss Ophelia,
how came you to give up your plantation life? Well?

(32:46):
We jogged on together some time till Alfred saw plainly
that I was no planter. He thought it absurd, after
he had reformed and altered and improved everywhere to suit
my notions, that I still remained unsatisfied. The fact was,
it was, after all the thing that I hated, the
using these men and women, the perpetuation of all this ignorance, brutality,

(33:08):
and vice, just to make money for me. Besides, I
was always interfering in the details, Being myself one of
the laziest of mortals. I had altogether too much fellow
feeling for the lazy. And when poor shiftless dogs put
stones at the bottom of their cotton baskets to make
them way heavier, or filled their sacks with dirt with
cotton at the top, it seemed so exactly like what

(33:30):
I should do if I were they I couldn't and
wouldn't have them flogged for it. Well, of course, there
was an end of plantation discipline, and alf and I
came to about the same point that I and my
respected father did years before. So he told me that
I was a womanish sentimentalist and would never do for
business life, and advised me to take the bank stock

(33:52):
and the New Orleans family mansion and go to writing
poetry and let him manage the plantation. So we parted,
and I came here. But why didn't you free your slaves? Well,
I wasn't up to that to hold them as tools
for money making. I could not have them to help
spend money. You know, didn't look quite so ugly to me.

(34:15):
Some of them were old house servants to whom I
was much attached, and the younger ones were children to
the old. All were well satisfied to be as they were.
He paused and walked reflectively up and down the room.
There was, said Saint Clair, a time in my life
when I had plans and hopes of doing something in
this world more than to float and drift. I had vague,

(34:36):
indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator to free
my native land from this spot and stain. All young
men have had such fever fits, I suppose some time.
But then, why didn't you said, miss Phelia, you ought
not to put your hand to the plow and look back.
Oh well, things didn't go with me as I expected,

(34:59):
and I got the spare of living that Solomon did.
I suppose it was a necessary incident to wisdom in
us both. But somehow or other, instead of being actor
and regenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood
and have been floating and eddying about ever since. Alfred
scolds me every time we meet, and he has the

(35:20):
better of me. I grant, for he really does something.
His life is a logical result of his opinions, and
mine is a contemptible Nonsequitur, my dear cousin, can you
be satisfied with such a way of spending your probation? Satisfied?
Was I not just telling you I despised it? But then,

(35:41):
to come back to this point, we were on this
liberation business. I don't think my feelings about slavery are peculiar.
I find many men who in their hearts think of
it just as I do. The land groans under it,
And bad as it is for the slave, it is worse,
if anything, for the master. It takes no spectacle to
see that a great class of vicious, improvident, degraded people

(36:04):
among us are unevil to us as well as to themselves.
The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel that as
we do, because they do not mingle with the class
they degrade as we do. They are in our homes,
they are the associates of our children, and they form
their minds faster than we can, for they are a
race that children always will cling to and assimilate with.

(36:27):
If even now was not more angel than ordinary, she
would be ruined. We might as well allow the small
pox to run among them and think our children would
not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious,
and think our children will not be affected by that.
Yet our laws positively and utterly forbid any efficient general
educational system, and they do it wisely too, For just

(36:51):
begin and thoroughly educate one generation, and the whole thing
would be blown sky high. If we did not give
them liberty, they would take it. And what do you
think will be the end of this, said miss Ophelia.
I don't know one thing is certain, that there is
a mustering among the masses the world over, and there

(37:12):
is a daeis Eiree coming on sooner or later, the
same thing as working in Europe, in England and in
this country. My mother used to tell me of a
millennium that was coming, when Christ should reign and all
men should be free and happy. And she taught me
when I was a boy to pray thy kingdom come.
Sometimes I think all this sighing and groaning and stirring

(37:34):
among the dry bones foretells what she used to tell
me was coming. But who may abide the day of
his appearing Augustine, Sometimes I think you are not far
from the kingdom, said miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting
and looking anxiously at her cousin. Thank you for your
good opinion. But it's up and down with me, up

(37:55):
to Heaven's gate in theory, down in Earth's dust in practice.
But there's a tea bill, do let's go, and don't
say now. I haven't had one downright serious talk for
once in my life. At table, Marie alluded to the
incident of Prue. I suppose you'll think, cousin, she said

(38:16):
that we are all barbarians. I think that's a barbarous thing,
said Miss Ophelia. But I don't think you are all barbarians. Well, now,
said Marie. I know it's impossible to get along with
some of these creatures. They are so bad they ought
not to live. I don't feel a particle of sympathy
for such cases. If they'd only behave themselves, it would

(38:38):
not happen. But Mamma, said Eva, the poor creature was unhappy.
That's what made her drink oh fiddlestick, as if that
were any excuse. I'm unhappy very often, I presume, she
said pensively, that I've had greater trials than ever she had.
It's just because they are so bad. There's some of

(38:59):
them that you cannot break in by any kind of severity.
I remember father had a man that was so lazy
he would run away just to get rid of work
and lie round in the swamps, stealing and doing all
sorts of horrid things. That man was caught and whipped
time and again, and it never did him any good.
And the last time he crawled off, though he couldn't
but just go and died in the swamp. There was

(39:21):
no sort of reason for it, for Father's hands were
always treated kindly. I broke a fellow in once, said
Saint Clair, that all the overseers and masters had tried
their hands on in vain. You said, Marie, well, I'd
be glad to know when you ever did anything the sort. Well,
he was a powerful, gigantic fellow, a native born African,

(39:45):
and he appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom
in him to an uncommon degree. He was a regular
African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobody could do anything
with him, and he was sold round from overseer to
overseer till at last al Alford bought him because he
thought he could manage him well. One day he knocked
down the overseer and was fairly off into the swamps.

(40:08):
I was on a visit to Alf's plantation, for it
was after we had dissolved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated,
but I told him that it was his own fault,
and laid him any wager that I could break the man.
And finally it was agreed that if I caught him,
I should have him to experiment on. So they mustered
out a party of some six or seven with guns

(40:28):
and dogs for the hunt. People, you know, can get
up as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer,
if it is only customary. In fact, I got a
little excited myself, though I had only put in as
a sort of mediator in case he was caught. Well.
The dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scampered,
and finally we started him. He ran and bounded like

(40:49):
a buck and kept us well in the rear for
some time. But at last he got caught in an
impenetrable thicket of caine. Then he turned to bay, and
I tell you he fought the dog ugs right gallantly.
He dashed them to right and left, and actually killed
three of them with only his naked fist. When a
shot from a gun brought him down, and he fell,
wounded and bleeding, almost at my feet. The poor fellow

(41:13):
looked up at me with manhood and despair both in
his eye. I kept back the dogs and the party
as they came pressing up and claimed him as my prisoner.
It was all I could do to keep them from
shooting him. In the flush of success. But I persisted
in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well,
I took him in hand, and in one fortnight I

(41:35):
had him tamed down as submissive and tractable as heart
could desire. What in the world did you do to him,
said Marie? Well, it was quite a simple process. I
took him to my own room, had a good bed
made for him, dressed his wounds, and tended him myself
until he got fairly on his feet again. And in

(41:57):
process of time I had free papers made out for
him and told him he might go where he liked.
And did he go, said miss Ophelia. No, the foolish
fellow tore the paper in two and absolutely refused to
leave me. I never had a braver, better fellow, trusty
and true as steel. He embraced Christianity afterwards and became

(42:20):
as gentle as a child. He used to oversee my
place on the lake, and did it capitally too. I
lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid
down his life for me, for I was sick almost
to death, and when through the panic everybody else fled,
Scipio worked for me like a giant and actually brought
me back into life again. But poor fellow, he was

(42:43):
taken right after and there was no saving him. I
never felt anybody's loss more. Eva had come gradually nearer
and nearer to her father as he told the story,
her small lips apart, her eyes wide and earnest with
absorbing interest. As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms
around his neck, burst into tears, and sobbed convulsively. Eva,

(43:08):
dear child, what is the matter, said Saint Clair, as
the child's small frame trembled and shook with the violence
of her feelings. This child, he added, ought not to
hear any of this kind of thing. She's nervous. No, Papa,
I'm not nervous, said Eva, controlling herself suddenly with a
strength of resolution singular in such a child. I'm not nervous,

(43:30):
but these things sink into my heart. What do you mean, Eva,
I can't tell you, Papa. I think a great many thoughts.
Perhaps some day I shall tell you. Well, think away,
dear only don't cry and worry your papa, said Saint Clair.
Look here, see what a beautiful peach I have got
for you. Eva took it and smiled, though there was

(43:51):
still a nervous twitching about the corners of her mouth.
Come look at the goldfish, said Saint Clair, taking her
hand and stepping on to the verandah. A few moments
and merry laughs were heard through the silken curtains, as
Eva and Saint Clair were pelting each other with roses
and chasing each other among the alleys of the court.
There is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected

(44:14):
amid the adventures of the higher born. But if our
readers will accompany us up to a little loft over
the stable, they may perhaps learn a little of his affairs.
It was a decent room, containing a bed, a chair,
and a small rough stand, where lay Tom's Bible and
hymn book, and where he sits at present with his

(44:35):
slate before him, intent on something that seems to cost
him a great deal of anxious thought. The fact was
that Tom's home yearnings had become so strong that he
had begged a sheet of writing paper of Eva, and
mustering up all his small stock of literary attainment acquired
by Massa George's instructions, he conceived the bold idea of

(44:56):
writing a letter, and he was busy now on his slate.
Getting out his first draft, Tom was in a good
deal of trouble, for the forms of some of the
letters he had forgotten entirely, and of what he did
remember he did not know exactly what to use. And
while he was working and breathing very hard in his earnestness,
Eva alighted like a bird on the round of his

(45:17):
chair behind him, and peeped over his shoulder. Oh, uncle Tom,
what funny things you are making there. I'm trying to
write to my poor old woman, miss Eva, and my
little children, said Tom, drawing the back of his hand
over his eyes. But somehow I'm feared I shan't make
it out. I wish I could help you, Tom. I've

(45:40):
learned to write some last year. I could make all
the letters, but I'm afraid I've forgotten. So Eva put
her golden head close to his, and the two commenced
a grave and anxious discussion, each one equally earnest and
about equally ignorant, and with a deal of consulting and
advising over every word. The composition began, as they both

(46:01):
felt very sanguine to look quite like writing. Yes, Uncle Tom,
it really begins to look beautiful, said Eva, gazing delightedly
on it. How pleased your wife will be. And the
poor little children. Oh, it's a shame you ever had
to go away from them. I mean to ask Papa
to let you go back some time. Missus said that

(46:21):
she would send down money for me as soon as
they could get it together, said Tom. I'm specting she will,
Young mass George he said he'd come for me, and
he gave me this year dollar as a sign. And
Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar. Oh
he'll certainly come, then, said Eva. I'm so glad, and

(46:42):
I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let
him know where I was and tell poor Chloe that
I was well off, cause she felt so dreadful, poor soul,
I say, Tom, said Saint Clair's voice, coming in the door.
At this moment, Tom and Eva both started. What's here?
Said Saint Claire, coming up and looking at the slate. Oh,

(47:03):
it's Tom's letter. I'm helping him to write it, said Eva.
Isn't it nice? I wouldn't discourage either of you, said
Saint Clair, But I rather think Tom, you'd better get
me to write your letter for you. I'll do it
when I come home from my ride. It's very important
he should write, said Eva, because his mistress is going
to send down money to redeem him. You know, Papa,

(47:24):
he told me, They told him so. Saint Clair thought
in his heart that this was probably only one of
those things which good natured owners say to their servants
to alleviate their horror of being sold without any intention
of fulfilling. The expectation thus excited, but he did not
make any audible comment upon it, only ordered Tom to
get the horses out for a ride. Tom's letter was

(47:47):
written in due form for him that evening, and safely
lodged in the post office. Miss Ophelia still persevered in
her labors in the housekeeping line. It was universally agreed
among all the household from Dinah down to the youngest
Urchin that miss Ophelia was decidedly curious, a term by
which a southern servant implies that his or her betters

(48:09):
don't exactly suit them. The higher circle in the family,
to which Adolph, Jane and Rosa agreed that she was
no lady. Ladies never keep working about as she did,
that she had no heir at all, and they were
surprised that she should be any relation of the Saint Clair's.
Even Marie declared that it was absolutely fatiguing to see

(48:31):
cousin Ophelia. All was so busy, and in fact Miss
Ophelia's industry was so incessant as to lay some foundation
for the complaint. She sewed and stitched away from daylight
till dark, with the energy of one who was pressed
on by some immediate urgency. And then when the light
faded and the work was folded away with one turn
out came the ever ready knitting work, and there she

(48:54):
was again, going on as briskly as ever. It really
was a labor to see her. N of Chapter nineteen.
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