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_ Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in
the dusk of twilight. The gray mist of evening, rising slowly from
the river, enveloped her as she disappeared up the bank, and the
swollen current and floundering masses of ice presented a hopeless
barrier between her and her pursuer. Haley therefore slowly and
discontentedly returned to the little tavern, to ponder further
what was to be done. The woman opened to him the door of a little
parlor, covered with a rag carpet, where stood a table with a very
shining black oil-cloth, sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs, with
some plaster images in resplendent colors on the mantel-shelf,
above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood settle extended
its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat him down to
meditate on the instability of human hopes and happiness in general.
"What did I want with the little cuss, now," he said to
himself, "that I should have got myself treed like a coon, as I
am, this yer way?" and Haley relieved himself by repeating over a
not very select litany of imprecations on himself, which, though
there was the best possible reason to consider them as true, we
shall, as a matter of taste, omit.
He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man who was
apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to the window.
"By the land! if this yer an't the nearest, now, to what
I've heard folks call Providence," said Haley. "I do b'lieve
that ar's Tom Loker."
Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner of the
room, was a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in height, and
broad in proportion. He was dressed in a coat of buffalo-skin,
made with the hair outward, which gave him a shaggy and fierce
appearance, perfectly in keeping with the whole air of his physiognomy.
In the head and face every organ and lineament expressive of brutal
and unhesitating violence was in a state of the highest possible
development. Indeed, could our readers fancy a bull-dog come unto
man's estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have
no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique.
He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many respects an
exact contrast to himself. He was short and slender, lithe and
catlike in his motions, and had a peering, mousing expression about
his keen black eyes, with which every feature of his face seemed
sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran out as if it was
eager to bore into the nature of things in general; his sleek,
thin, black hair was stuck eagerly forward, and all his motions
and evolutions expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great man
poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped it
down without a word. The little man stood tiptoe, and putting his
head first to one side and then the other, and snuffing considerately
in the directions of the various bottles, ordered at last a mint
julep, in a thin and quivering voice, and with an air of great
circumspection. When poured out, he took it and looked at it with
a sharp, complacent air, like,a man who thinks he has done about
^^^
the right thing, and hit the nail on the head, and proceeded to
dispose of it in short and well-advised sips.
"Wal, now, who'd a thought this yer luck 'ad come to me?
Why, Loker, how are ye?" said Haley, coming forward, and
extending his hand to the big man.
"The devil!" was the civil reply. "What brought you here, Haley?"
The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly stopped
his sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked shrewdly
on the new acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks at a moving dry
leaf, or some other possible object of pursuit.
"I say, Tom, this yer's the luckiest thing in the world.
I'm in a devil of a hobble, and you must help me out."
"Ugh? aw! like enough!" grunted his complacent acquaintance.
"A body may be pretty sure of that, when _you're_ glad to see 'em;
something to be made off of 'em. What's the blow now?"
"You've got a friend here?" said Haley, looking doubtfully
at Marks; "partner, perhaps?"
"Yes, I have. Here, Marks! here's that ar feller that I
was in with in Natchez."
"Shall be pleased with his acquaintance," said Marks,
thrusting out a long, thin hand, like a raven's claw. "Mr. Haley,
I believe?"
"The same, sir," said Haley. "And now, gentlemen, seein'
as we've met so happily, I think I'll stand up to a small matter
of a treat in this here parlor. So, now, old coon," said he to
the man at the bar, "get us hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and
plenty of the _real stuff_ and we'll have a blow-out."
Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to the
burning point in the grate, and our three worthies seated round
a table, well spread with all the accessories to good fellowship
enumerated before.
Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles.
Loker shut up his mouth, and listened to him with gruff and
surly attention. Marks, who was anxiously and with much
fidgeting compounding a tumbler of punch to his own peculiar
taste, occasionally looked up from his employment, and, poking
his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley's face, gave the most
earnest heed to the whole narrative. The conclusion of it
appeared to amuse him extremely, for he shook his shoulders
and sides in silence, and perked up his thin lips with an air
of great internal enjoyment.
"So, then, ye'r fairly sewed up, an't ye?" he said; "he!
he! he! It's neatly done, too."
"This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the
trade," said Haley, dolefully.
"If we could get a breed of gals that didn't care, now,
for their young uns," said Marks; "tell ye, I think 't would be
'bout the greatest mod'rn improvement I knows on,"--and Marks
patronized his joke by a quiet introductory sniggle.
"Jes so," said Haley; "I never couldn't see into it; young
uns is heaps of trouble to 'em; one would think, now, they'd be
glad to get clar on 'em; but they arn't. And the more trouble a
young un is, and the more good for nothing, as a gen'l thing, the
tighter they sticks to 'em."
"Wal, Mr. Haley," said Marks, "'est pass the hot water.
Yes, sir, you say 'est what I feel and all'us have. Now, I bought
a gal once, when I was in the trade,--a tight, likely wench she
was, too, and quite considerable smart,--and she had a young un
that was mis'able sickly; it had a crooked back, or something or
other; and I jest gin 't away to a man that thought he'd take his
chance raising on 't, being it didn't cost nothin';--never thought,
yer know, of the gal's taking' on about it,--but, Lord, yer oughter
seen how she went on. Why, re'lly, she did seem to me to valley
the child more 'cause _'t was_ sickly and cross, and plagued her;
and she warn't making b'lieve, neither,--cried about it, she did,
and lopped round, as if she'd lost every friend she had. It re'lly
was droll to think on 't. Lord, there ain't no end to women's notions."
"Wal, jest so with me," said Haley. "Last summer, down on
Red river, I got a gal traded off on me, with a likely lookin'
child enough, and his eyes looked as bright as yourn; but, come to
look, I found him stone blind. Fact--he was stone blind. Wal, ye
see, I thought there warn't no harm in my jest passing him along,
and not sayin' nothin'; and I'd got him nicely swapped off for a
keg o' whiskey; but come to get him away from the gal, she was jest
like a tiger. So 't was before we started, and I hadn't got my
gang chained up; so what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale,
like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, I tell
ye, she made all fly for a minit, till she saw 't wan't no use;
and she jest turns round, and pitches head first, young un and all,
into the river,--went down plump, and never ris."
"Bah!" said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with
ill-repressed disgust,--"shif'less, both on ye! _my_ gals
don't cut up no such shines, I tell ye!"
"Indeed! how do you help it?" said Marks, briskly.
"Help it? why, I buys a gal, and if she's got a young un
to be sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says,
`Look here, now, if you give me one word out of your head, I'll
smash yer face in. I won't hear one word--not the beginning of
a word.' I says to 'em, `This yer young un's mine, and not yourn,
and you've no kind o' business with it. I'm going to sell it,
first chance; mind, you don't cut up none o' yer shines about it,
or I'll make ye wish ye'd never been born.' I tell ye, they sees
it an't no play, when I gets hold. I makes 'em as whist as fishes;
and if one on 'em begins and gives a yelp, why,--" and Mr. Loker
brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus.
"That ar's what ye may call _emphasis_," said Marks, poking
Haley in the side, and going into another small giggle. "An't Tom
peculiar? he! he! I say, Tom, I s'pect you make 'em _understand_,
for all niggers' heads is woolly. They don't never have no doubt
o' your meaning, Tom. If you an't the devil, Tom, you 's his
twin brother, I'll say that for ye!"
Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began
to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says,
"with his doggish nature."
Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of
the evening, began to feel a sensible elevation and enlargement of
his moral faculties,--a phenomenon not unusual with gentlemen of
a serious and reflective turn, under similar circumstances.
"Wal, now, Tom," he said, "ye re'lly is too bad, as I al'ays
have told ye; ye know, Tom, you and I used to talk over these yer
matters down in Natchez, and I used to prove to ye that we made
full as much, and was as well off for this yer world, by treatin'
on 'em well, besides keepin' a better chance for comin' in the
kingdom at last, when wust comes to wust, and thar an't nothing
else left to get, ye know."
"Boh!" said Tom, "_don't_ I know?--don't make me too sick
with any yer stuff,--my stomach is a leetle riled now;" and Tom
drank half a glass of raw brandy.
"I say," said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and
gesturing impressively, "I'll say this now, I al'ays meant to drive
my trade so as to make money on 't _fust and foremost_, as much as
any man; but, then, trade an't everything, and money an't everything,
'cause we 's all got souls. I don't care, now, who hears me say
it,--and I think a cussed sight on it,--so I may as well come out
with it. I b'lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I've
got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul and
them ar matters; and so what's the use of doin' any more wickedness
than 's re'lly necessary?--it don't seem to me it's 't all prudent."
"Tend to yer soul!" repeated Tom, contemptuously; "take a
bright lookout to find a soul in you,--save yourself any care on
that score. If the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won't
find one."
"Why, Tom, you're cross," said Haley; "why can't ye take
it pleasant, now, when a feller's talking for your good?"
"Stop that ar jaw o' yourn, there," said Tom, gruffly. "I can
stand most any talk o' yourn but your pious talk,--that kills me
right up. After all, what's the odds between me and you? 'Tan't that
you care one bit more, or have a bit more feelin'--it's clean,
sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own
skin; don't I see through it? And your `gettin' religion,' as you
call it, arter all, is too p'isin mean for any crittur;--run up a
bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time
comes! Bob!"
"Come, come, gentlemen, I say; this isn't business," said Marks.
"There's different ways, you know, of looking at all subjects.
Mr. Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and has his own
conscience; and, Tom, you have your ways, and very good ones, too,
Tom; but quarrelling, you know, won't answer no kind of purpose.
Let's go to business. Now, Mr. Haley, what is it?--you want us to
undertake to catch this yer gal?"
"The gal's no matter of mine,--she's Shelby's; it's only
the boy. I was a fool for buying the monkey!"
"You're generally a fool!" said Tom, gruffly.
"Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs," said Marks, licking
his lips; "you see, Mr. Haley 's a puttin' us in a way of a good
job, I reckon; just hold still--these yer arrangements is my forte.
This yer gal, Mr. Haley, how is she? what is she?"
"Wal! white and handsome--well brought up. I'd a gin Shelby
eight hundred or a thousand, and then made well on her."
"White and handsome--well brought up!" said Marks, his sharp
eyes, nose and mouth, all alive with enterprise. "Look here,
now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We'll do a business here on our
own account;--we does the catchin'; the boy, of course, goes to
Mr. Haley,--we takes the gal to Orleans to speculate on. An't it
beautiful?"
Tom, whose great heavy mouth had stood ajar during this
communication, now suddenly snapped it together, as a big dog closes
on a piece of meat, and seemed to be digesting the idea at his leisure.
"Ye see," said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he
did so, "ye see, we has justices convenient at all p'ints along
shore, that does up any little jobs in our line quite reasonable.
Tom, he does the knockin' down and that ar; and I come in all
dressed up--shining boots--everything first chop, when the swearin'
's to be done. You oughter see, now," said Marks, in a glow of
professional pride, "how I can tone it off. One day, I'm Mr.
Twickem, from New Orleans; 'nother day, I'm just come from my
plantation on Pearl river, where I works seven hundred niggers;
then, again, I come out a distant relation of Henry Clay, or some
old cock in Kentuck. Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom's
roarer when there's any thumping or fighting to be done; but at
lying he an't good, Tom an't,--ye see it don't come natural to him;
but, Lord, if thar's a feller in the country that can swear to
anything and everything, and put in all the circumstances and
flourishes with a long face, and carry 't through better 'n I can,
why, I'd like to see him, that's all! I b'lieve my heart, I could
get along and snake through, even if justices were more particular
than they is. Sometimes I rather wish they was more particular;
't would be a heap more relishin' if they was,--more fun, yer know."
Tom Loker, who, as we have made it appear, was a man of
slow thoughts and movements, here interrupted Marks by bringing
his heavy fist down on the table, so as to make all ring again,
_"It'll do!"_ he said.
"Lord bless ye, Tom, ye needn't break all the glasses!"
said Marks; "save your fist for time o' need."
"But, gentlemen, an't I to come in for a share of the
profits?" said Haley.
"An't it enough we catch the boy for ye?" said Loker.
"What do ye want?"
"Wal," said Haley, "if I gives you the job, it's worth
something,--say ten per cent. on the profits, expenses paid."
"Now," said Loker, with a tremendous oath, and striking the
table with his heavy fist, "don't I know _you_, Dan Haley?
Don't you think to come it over me! Suppose Marks and I have taken
up the catchin' trade, jest to 'commodate gentlemen like you, and
get nothin' for ourselves?--Not by a long chalk! we'll have the
gal out and out, and you keep quiet, or, ye see, we'll have
both,--what's to hinder? Han't you show'd us the game? It's as
free to us as you, I hope. If you or Shelby wants to chase us,
look where the partridges was last year; if you find them or us,
you're quite welcome."
"O, wal, certainly, jest let it go at that," said Haley,
alarmed; "you catch the boy for the job;--you allers did trade
_far_ with me, Tom, and was up to yer word."
"Ye know that," said Tom; "I don't pretend none of your
snivelling ways, but I won't lie in my 'counts with the
devil himself. What I ses I'll do, I will do,--you know
_that_, Dan Haley."
"Jes so, jes so,--I said so, Tom," said Haley; "and if you'd
only promise to have the boy for me in a week, at any point
you'll name, that's all I want."
"But it an't all I want, by a long jump," said Tom. "Ye don't
think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing,
Haley; I've learned to hold an eel, when I catch him. You've got
to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this child don't start
a peg. I know yer."
"Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a clean
profit of somewhere about a thousand or sixteen hundred, why, Tom,
you're onreasonable," said Haley.
"Yes, and hasn't we business booked for five weeks to
come,--all we can do? And suppose we leaves all, and goes to
bush-whacking round arter yer young uns, and finally doesn't
catch the gal,--and gals allers is the devil _to_ catch,--what's
then? would you pay us a cent--would you? I think I see you a
doin' it--ugh! No, no; flap down your fifty. If we get the job,
and it pays, I'll hand it back; if we don't, it's for our
trouble,--that's _far_, an't it, Marks?"
"Certainly, certainly," said Marks, with a conciliatory tone;
"it's only a retaining fee, you see,--he! he! he!--we lawyers,
you know. Wal, we must all keep good-natured,--keep easy, yer know.
Tom'll have the boy for yer, anywhere ye'll name; won't ye, Tom?"
"If I find the young un, I'll bring him on to Cincinnati,
and leave him at Granny Belcher's, on the landing," said Loker.
Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and taking
a long paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his keen black
eyes on it, began mumbling over its contents: "Barnes--Shelby
County--boy Jim, three hundred dollars for him, dead or alive.
"Edwards--Dick and Lucy--man and wife, six hundred dollars;
wench Polly and two children--six hundred for her or her head.
"I'm jest a runnin' over our business, to see if we can take up
this yer handily. Loker," he said, after a pause, "we must
set Adams and Springer on the track of these yer; they've been
booked some time."
"They'll charge too much," said Tom.
"I'll manage that ar; they 's young in the business, and must
spect to work cheap," said Marks, as he continued to read.
"Ther's three on 'em easy cases, 'cause all you've got to do is to
shoot 'em, or swear they is shot; they couldn't, of course, charge
much for that. Them other cases," he said, folding the paper,
"will bear puttin' off a spell. So now let's come to the particulars.
Now, Mr. Haley, you saw this yer gal when she landed?"
"To be sure,--plain as I see you."
"And a man helpin' on her up the bank?" said Loker.
"To be sure, I did."
"Most likely," said Marks, "she's took in somewhere; but
where, 's a question. Tom, what do you say?"
"We must cross the river tonight, no mistake," said Tom.
"But there's no boat about," said Marks. "The ice is
running awfully, Tom; an't it dangerous?"
"Don'no nothing 'bout that,--only it's got to be done,"
said Tom, decidedly.
"Dear me," said Marks, fidgeting, "it'll be--I say," he said,
walking to the window, "it's dark as a wolf's mouth, and, Tom--"
"The long and short is, you're scared, Marks; but I can't help
that,--you've got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a day or
two, till the gal 's been carried on the underground line up to
Sandusky or so, before you start."
"O, no; I an't a grain afraid," said Marks, "only--"
"Only what?" said Tom.
"Well, about the boat. Yer see there an't any boat."
"I heard the woman say there was one coming along this
evening, and that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck or
nothing, we must go with him," said Tom.
"I s'pose you've got good dogs," said Haley.
"First rate," said Marks. "But what's the use? you han't
got nothin' o' hers to smell on."
"Yes, I have," said Haley, triumphantly. "Here's her shawl
she left on the bed in her hurry; she left her bonnet, too."
"That ar's lucky," said Loker; "fork over."
"Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on her
unawars," said Haley.
"That ar's a consideration," said Marks. "Our dogs tore
a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, 'fore we could get
'em off."
"Well, ye see, for this sort that's to be sold for their
looks, that ar won't answer, ye see," said Haley.
"I do see," said Marks. "Besides, if she's got took in,
'tan't no go, neither. Dogs is no 'count in these yer up states
where these critters gets carried; of course, ye can't get on
their track. They only does down in plantations, where niggers,
when they runs, has to do their own running, and don't get no help."
"Well," said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar to make
some inquiries, "they say the man's come with the boat; so, Marks--"
That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters
he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few
words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed
over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated for
the night.
If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the
society into which this scene introduces them, let us beg them to
begin and conquer their prejudices in time. The catching business,
we beg to remind them, is rising to the dignity of a lawful and
patriotic profession. If all the broad land between the Mississippi
and the Pacific becomes one great market for bodies and souls, and
human property retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth
century, the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy.
While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy,
in a state of high felicitation, pursued their way home.
Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his
exultation by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by
divers odd motions and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes
he would sit backward, with his face to the horse's tail and sides,
and then, with a whoop and a somerset, come right side up in his
place again, and, drawing on a grave face, begin to lecture
Andy in high-sounding tones for laughing and playing the fool.
Anon, slapping his sides with his arms, he would burst forth in
peals of laughter, that made the old woods ring as they passed.
With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up to
the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels
resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs. Shelby
flew to the railings.
"Is that you, Sam? Where are they?"
"Mas'r Haley 's a-restin' at the tavern; he's drefful
fatigued, Missis."
"And Eliza, Sam?"
"Wal, she's clar 'cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the
land o' Canaan."
"Why, Sam, what _do_ you mean?" said Mrs. Shelby, breathless,
and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came
over her.
"Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy's done gone
over the river into 'Hio, as 'markably as if de Lord took her
over in a charrit of fire and two hosses."
Sam's vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his
mistress' presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures
and images.
"Come up here, Sam," said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the
verandah, "and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come,
Emily," said he, passing his arm round her, "you are cold
and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much."
"Feel too much! Am not I a woman,--a mother? Are we not
both responsible to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this
sin to our charge."
"What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done
what we were obliged to."
"There's an awful feeling of guilt about it, though," said
Mrs. Shelby. "I can't reason it away."
"Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!" called Sam, under the
verandah; "take these yer hosses to der barn; don't ye hear
Mas'r a callin'?" and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand,
at the parlor door.
"Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was," said
Mr. Shelby. "Where is Eliza, if you know?"
"Wal, Mas'r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin' on
the floatin' ice. She crossed most 'markably; it wasn't no less
nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the 'Hio side, and then
she was lost in the dusk."
"Sam, I think this rather apocryphal,--this miracle.
Crossing on floating ice isn't so easily done," said Mr. Shelby.
"Easy! couldn't nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now,"
said Sam, "'t was jist dis yer way. Mas'r Haley, and me,
and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides
a leetle ahead,--(I's so zealous to be a cotchin' Lizy, that I
couldn't hold in, no way),--and when I comes by the tavern winder,
sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin'
on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise
the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas'r
Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out
de side door; she went down de river bank;--Mas'r Haley he seed
her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter.
Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten
feet wide by the shore, and over t' other side ice a sawin' and a
jiggling up and down, kinder as 't were a great island. We come
right behind her, and I thought my soul he'd got her sure enough,--when
she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar
over t' other side of the current, on the ice, and then on she
went, a screeching and a jumpin',--the ice went crack! c'wallop!
cracking! chunk! and she a boundin' like a buck! Lord, the spring
that ar gal's got in her an't common, I'm o' 'pinion."
Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement,
while Sam told his story.
"God be praised, she isn't dead!" she said; "but where is
the poor child now?"
"De Lord will pervide," said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously.
"As I've been a sayin', dis yer 's a providence and no mistake,
as Missis has allers been a instructin' on us. Thar's allers
instruments ris up to do de Lord's will. Now, if 't hadn't
been for me today, she'd a been took a dozen times. Warn't it I
started off de hosses, dis yer morning' and kept 'em chasin' till
nigh dinner time? And didn't I car Mas'r Haley night five miles
out of de road, dis evening, or else he'd a come up with Lizy as
easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer 's all providences."
"They are a kind of providences that you'll have to be
pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with
gentlemen on my place," said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness
as he could command, under the circumstances.
Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with
a negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state
of the case, through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam
was in no wise disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an
air of doleful gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth
lowered in most penitential style.
"Mas'r quite right,--quite; it was ugly on me,--there's no
disputin' that ar; and of course Mas'r and Missis wouldn't encourage
no such works. I'm sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me
's 'mazin' tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up
such shines as dat ar Mas'r Haley; he an't no gen'l'man no way;
anybody's been raised as I've been can't help a seein' dat ar."
"Well, Sam," said Mrs. Shelby, "as you appear to have a
proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe
she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner today.
You and Andy must be hungry."
"Missis is a heap too good for us," said Sam, making his
bow with alacrity, and departing.
It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that
Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised
him to eminence in political life,--a talent of making capital out
of everything that turned up, to be invested for his own especial
praise and glory; and having done up his piety and humility, as he
trusted, to the satisfaction of the parlor, he clapped his palm-leaf
on his head, with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded
to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing
largely in the kitchen.
"I'll speechify these yer niggers," said Sam to himself,
"now I've got a chance. Lord, I'll reel it off to make 'em stare!"
It must be observed that one of Sam's especial delights
had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of
political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched
aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the orators, with the
greatest apparent gusto, and then, descending among the various
brethren of his own color, assembled on the same errand, he would
edify and delight them with the most ludicrous burlesques and
imitations, all delivered with the most imperturbable earnestness
and solemnity; and though the auditors immediately about him were
generally of his own color, it not unfrequently happened that they
^^^ - infrequently?
were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer complexion, who
listened, laughing and winking, to Sam's great self-congratulation.
In fact, Sam considered oratory as his vocation, and never let slip
an opportunity of magnifying his office.
Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient
times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness;
but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department,
as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he
determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory;
for he well knew that although "Missis' orders" would undoubtedly
be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal
by enlisting the spirit also. He therefore appeared before Aunt
Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, like one who
has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf of a persecuted
fellow-creature,--enlarged upon the fact that Missis had directed
him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be wanting to make up
the balance in his solids and fluids,--and thus unequivocally
acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking department,
and all thereto pertaining.
The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was
ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician
with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam's suavities;
and if he had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been
overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found
himself seated, happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing
a sort of _olla podrida_ of all that had appeared on the table for
two or three days past. Savory morsels of ham, golden blocks of
corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical
figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared in
picturesque confusion; and Sam, as monarch of all he surveyed, sat
with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, and patronizing
Andy at his right hand.
The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and
crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination
of the day's exploits. Now was Sam's hour of glory. The story of
the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing
which might be necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some
of our fashionable dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any
^^^^^^^^ - dilettante ?
of its gilding by passing through his hands. Roars of laughter
attended the narration, and were taken up and prolonged by all the
smaller fry, who were lying, in any quantity, about on the floor,
or perched in every corner. In the height of the uproar and
laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable gravity, only from
time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his auditors divers
inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the sententious
elevation of his oratory.
"Yer see, fellow-countrymen," said Sam, elevating a turkey's
leg, with energy, "yer see, now what dis yer chile 's up ter, for
fendin' yer all,--yes, all on yer. For him as tries to get one o'
our people is as good as tryin' to get all; yer see the principle
's de same,--dat ar's clar. And any one o' these yer drivers that
comes smelling round arter any our people, why, he's got _me_ in
his way; _I'm_ the feller he's got to set in with,--I'm the feller
for yer all to come to, bredren,--I'll stand up for yer rights,--I'll
fend 'em to the last breath!"
"Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin', that you'd
help this yer Mas'r to cotch Lizy; seems to me yer talk don't hang
together," said Andy.
"I tell you now, Andy," said Sam, with awful superiority,
"don't yer be a talkin' 'bout what yer don't know nothin' on; boys
like you, Andy, means well, but they can't be spected to collusitate
the great principles of action."
Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word collusitate,
which most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider
as a settler in the case, while Sam proceeded.
"Dat ar was _conscience_, Andy; when I thought of gwine
arter Lizy, I railly spected Mas'r was sot dat way. When I found
Missis was sot the contrar, dat ar was conscience _more yet_,--cause
fellers allers gets more by stickin' to Missis' side,--so yer see
I 's persistent either way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds
on to principles. Yes, _principles_," said Sam, giving an enthusiastic
toss to a chicken's neck,--"what's principles good for, if we isn't
persistent, I wanter know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone,--tan't
picked quite clean."
Sam's audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he
could not but proceed.
"Dis yer matter 'bout persistence, feller-niggers," said Sam,
with the air of one entering into an abstruse subject, "dis
yer 'sistency 's a thing what an't seed into very clar, by most
anybody. Now, yer see, when a feller stands up for a thing one
day and night, de contrar de next, folks ses (and nat'rally
enough dey ses), why he an't persistent,--hand me dat ar bit o'
corn-cake, Andy. But let's look inter it. I hope the gen'lmen
and der fair sex will scuse my usin' an or'nary sort o' 'parison.
Here! I'm a trying to get top o' der hay. Wal, I puts up my larder
dis yer side; 'tan't no go;--den, cause I don't try dere no more,
but puts my larder right de contrar side, an't I persistent?
I'm persistent in wantin' to get up which ary side my larder is;
don't you see, all on yer?"
"It's the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord knows!"
muttered Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather restive; the merriment
of the evening being to her somewhat after the Scripture
comparison,--like "vinegar upon nitre."
"Yes, indeed!" said Sam, rising, full of supper and glory,
for a closing effort. "Yes, my feller-citizens and ladies of de
other sex in general, I has principles,--I'm proud to 'oon 'em,--they
's perquisite to dese yer times, and ter _all_ times. I has
principles, and I sticks to 'em like forty,--jest anything that I
thinks is principle, I goes in to 't;--I wouldn't mind if dey burnt
me 'live,--I'd walk right up to de stake, I would, and say, here
I comes to shed my last blood fur my principles, fur my country,
fur de gen'l interests of society."
"Well," said Aunt Chloe, "one o' yer principles will have to be
to get to bed some time tonight, and not be a keepin' everybody
up till mornin'; now, every one of you young uns that don't want
to be cracked, had better be scase, mighty sudden."
"Niggers! all on yer," said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with
benignity, "I give yer my blessin'; go to bed now, and be good boys."
And, with this pathetic benediction, the assembly dispersed. _
Read next: VOLUME I: CHAPTER IX - In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man
Read previous: VOLUME I: CHAPTER VII - The Mother's Struggle
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