chooses to part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you—why I wish I’d never been born. It would have been better for us both—it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him yet!”
“Oh, but master is so kind!”
“Yes; but who knows?—he may die—and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too much for you to keep!”
The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart. The vision of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.
“No, no—he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she thought.” No, I won’t tell him; besides, it an’t true. Missis never deceives us.”
“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband mournfully, “bear up, now; and good-bye, for I’m going.”
“Going, George! Going where?”
“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and when I’m there, I’ll buy you. That’s all the hope that’s left us. You have a kind master, that won’t refuse to sell you. I’ll buy you and the boy—God helping me, I will!”
“Oh, dreadful! if you should be taken?”
“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll die first! I’ll be free, or I’ll die!”
“You won’t kill yourself?”
“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get me down the river alive!”
“Oh, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked; don’t lay hands on yourself, or anybody else. You are tempted too much—too much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”
“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas’r took it into his head to send me right by here with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It would please him if he thought it would aggravate ‘Shelby’s folks,’ as he calls ’em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was over. I’ve got some preparations made—and there are those that will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the missing, some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear you.”
“Oh, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in Him; then you won’t do anything wicked.”
“Well, now, good-bye,” said George, holding Eliza’s hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and bitter weeping—such parting as those may make whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web—and the husband and wife were parted.
CHAPTER 4 An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building close adjoining to “the house,” as the negro par excellence designates his master’s dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch, where, every summer, strawberries, raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables flourished under careful tending. The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen. Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an indulgent corner in which to unfold their splendours, and were the delight and pride of Aunt Chloe’s heart.
Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house is over, and Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to inferior officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and washing dishes, and come out into her own snug territories, to “get her ole man’s supper;” therefore, doubt not that it is she you see by the fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a bake-kettle, whence steam forth indubitable intimations of “something good.” A round, black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighbourhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be.
A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a chicken or turkey or duck in the barnyard but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing, and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders; and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and merriment, as she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of her compeers had made to attain to her elevation.
The arrival of company at the house, the arrangement of dinners and suppers “in style,” awoke all the energies of her soul; and no sight was more welcome to her than a pile of travelling-trunks launched on the verandah, for then she foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.
Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the bake-pan; in which congenial operation we shall leave her till we finish our picture of the cottage.
In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy spread; and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting, of some considerable size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in the upper walks of life; and it and the bed by which it lay, and the whole corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished consideration, and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner was the drawing-room of the establishment. In the other corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for use. The wall over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant scriptural prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and coloured in a manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he had happened to meet with its like.
On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed boys, with glistening black eyes and fat, shining cheeks, were busy in superintending the first walking operations of the baby, which, as is usually the case, consisted in getting up on its feet, balancing a moment, and then tumbling down—each successive failure being violently cheered, as something decidedly clever.
A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in front of the fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and saucers of a decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms of an approaching meal. At this table was seated Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby’s best hand, who, as he is to be the hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our readers. He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a full glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were characterised by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united with much kindliness and benevolence. There was something
