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_ "In Ramah there was a voice heard,--weeping, and lamentation,
and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not
be comforted."[1]
[1] Jer. 31:15.
Mr. Haley and Tom jogged onward in their wagon, each, for a time,
absorbed in his own reflections. Now, the reflections of two men
sitting side by side are a curious thing,--seated on the same seat,
having the same eyes, ears, hands and organs of all sorts, and
having pass before their eyes the same objects,--it is wonderful
what a variety we shall find in these same reflections!
As, for example, Mr. Haley: he thought first of Tom's length,
and breadth, and height, and what he would sell for, if he was
kept fat and in good case till he got him into market. He thought
of how he should make out his gang; he thought of the respective
market value of certain supposititious men and women and children
who were to compose it, and other kindred topics of the business;
then he thought of himself, and how humane he was, that whereas
other men chained their "niggers" hand and foot both, he only put
fetters on the feet, and left Tom the use of his hands, as long
as he behaved well; and he sighed to think how ungrateful human
nature was, so that there was even room to doubt whether Tom
appreciated his mercies. He had been taken in so by "niggers"
whom he had favored; but still he was astonished to consider
how good-natured he yet remained!
As to Tom, he was thinking over some words of an unfashionable
old book, which kept running through his head, again and again, as
follows: "We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come;
wherefore God himself is not ashamed to be called our God; for he
hath prepared for us a city." These words of an ancient volume,
got up principally by "ignorant and unlearned men," have, through
all time, kept up, somehow, a strange sort of power over the minds
of poor, simple fellows, like Tom. They stir up the soul from its
depths, and rouse, as with trumpet call, courage, energy, and
enthusiasm, where before was only the blackness of despair.
Mr. Haley pulled out of his pocket sundry newspapers, and
began looking over their advertisements, with absorbed interest.
He was not a remarkably fluent reader, and was in the habit of
reading in a sort of recitative half-aloud, by way of calling in
his ears to verify the deductions of his eyes. In this tone he
slowly recited the following paragraph:
"EXECUTOR'S SALE,--NEGROES!--Agreeably to order of court,
will be sold, on Tuesday, February 20, before the Court-house
door, in the town of Washington, Kentucky, the following negroes:
Hagar, aged 60; John, aged 30; Ben, aged 21; Saul, aged 25;
Albert, aged 14. Sold for the benefit of the creditors and heirs
of the estate of Jesse Blutchford,
SAMUEL MORRIS,
THOMAS FLINT,
_Executors_."
"This yer I must look at," said he to Tom, for want of
somebody else to talk to.
"Ye see, I'm going to get up a prime gang to take down with ye,
Tom; it'll make it sociable and pleasant like,--good company will,
ye know. We must drive right to Washington first and foremost,
and then I'll clap you into jail, while I does the business."
Tom received this agreeable intelligence quite meekly; simply
wondering, in his own heart, how many of these doomed men had
wives and children, and whether they would feel as he did about
leaving them. It is to be confessed, too, that the naive, off-hand
information that he was to be thrown into jail by no means produced
an agreeable impression on a poor fellow who had always prided
himself on a strictly honest and upright course of life. Yes, Tom,
we must confess it, was rather proud of his honesty, poor fellow,--not
having very much else to be proud of;--if he had belonged to some
of the higher walks of society, he, perhaps, would never have been
reduced to such straits. However, the day wore on, and the evening
saw Haley and Tom comfortably accommodated in Washington,--the one
in a tavern, and the other in a jail.
About eleven o'clock the next day, a mixed throng was gathered
around the court-house steps,--smoking, chewing, spitting,
swearing, and conversing, according to their respective tastes and
turns,--waiting for the auction to commence. The men and women to
be sold sat in a group apart, talking in a low tone to each other.
The woman who had been advertised by the name of Hagar was a regular
African in feature and figure. She might have been sixty, but was
older than that by hard work and disease, was partially blind, and
somewhat crippled with rheumatism. By her side stood her only
remaining son, Albert, a bright-looking little fellow of fourteen
years. The boy was the only survivor of a large family, who had
been successively sold away from her to a southern market. The
mother held on to him with both her shaking hands, and eyed with
intense trepidation every one who walked up to examine him.
"Don't be feard, Aunt Hagar," said the oldest of the men,
"I spoke to Mas'r Thomas 'bout it, and he thought he might manage
to sell you in a lot both together."
"Dey needn't call me worn out yet," said she, lifting her
shaking hands. "I can cook yet, and scrub, and scour,--I'm wuth
a buying, if I do come cheap;--tell em dat ar,--you _tell_ em,"
she added, earnestly.
Haley here forced his way into the group, walked up to the
old man, pulled his mouth open and looked in, felt of his teeth,
made him stand and straighten himself, bend his back, and perform
various evolutions to show his muscles; and then passed on to the
next, and put him through the same trial. Walking up last to the
boy, he felt of his arms, straightened his hands, and looked at
his fingers, and made him jump, to show his agility.
"He an't gwine to be sold widout me!" said the old woman, with
passionate eagerness; "he and I goes in a lot together; I 's rail
strong yet, Mas'r and can do heaps o' work,--heaps on it, Mas'r."
"On plantation?" said Haley, with a contemptuous glance.
"Likely story!" and, as if satisfied with his examination, he walked
out and looked, and stood with his hands in his pocket, his cigar
in his mouth, and his hat cocked on one side, ready for action.
"What think of 'em?" said a man who had been following
Haley's examination, as if to make up his own mind from it.
"Wal," said Haley, spitting, "I shall put in, I think, for
the youngerly ones and the boy."
"They want to sell the boy and the old woman together,"
said the man.
"Find it a tight pull;--why, she's an old rack o' bones,--not
worth her salt."
"You wouldn't then?" said the man.
"Anybody 'd be a fool 't would. She's half blind, crooked
with rheumatis, and foolish to boot."
"Some buys up these yer old critturs, and ses there's a
sight more wear in 'em than a body 'd think," said the man,
reflectively.
"No go, 't all," said Haley; "wouldn't take her for a
present,--fact,--I've _seen_, now."
"Wal, 't is kinder pity, now, not to buy her with her son,--her
heart seems so sot on him,--s'pose they fling her in cheap."
"Them that's got money to spend that ar way, it's all well enough.
I shall bid off on that ar boy for a plantation-hand;--wouldn't be
bothered with her, no way, notif they'd give her to me," said Haley.
"She'll take on desp't," said the man.
"Nat'lly, she will," said the trader, coolly.
The conversation was here interrupted by a busy hum in the
audience; and the auctioneer, a short, bustling, important fellow,
elbowed his way into the crowd. The old woman drew in her breath,
and caught instinctively at her son.
"Keep close to yer mammy, Albert,--close,--dey'll put us
up togedder," she said.
"O, mammy, I'm feard they won't," said the boy.
"Dey must, child; I can't live, no ways, if they don't"
said the old creature, vehemently.
The stentorian tones of the auctioneer, calling out to clear
the way, now announced that the sale was about to commence.
A place was cleared, and the bidding began. The different men on
the list were soon knocked off at prices which showed a pretty
brisk demand in the market; two of them fell to Haley.
"Come, now, young un," said the auctioneer, giving the boy
a touch with his hammer, "be up and show your springs, now."
"Put us two up togedder, togedder,--do please, Mas'r," said
the old woman, holding fast to her boy.
"Be off," said the man, gruffly, pushing her hands away;
"you come last. Now, darkey, spring;" and, with the word,
he pushed the boy toward the block, while a deep, heavy groan
rose behind him. The boy paused, and looked back; but there
was no time to stay, and, dashing the tears from his large, bright
eyes, he was up in a moment.
His fine figure, alert limbs, and bright face, raised an
instant competition, and half a dozen bids simultaneously met the
ear of the auctioneer. Anxious, half-frightened, he looked from
side to side, as he heard the clatter of contending bids,--now
here, now there,--till the hammer fell. Haley had got him. He was
pushed from the block toward his new master, but stopped one
moment, and looked back, when his poor old mother, trembling in
every limb, held out her shaking hands toward him.
"Buy me too, Mas'r, for de dear Lord's sake!--buy me,--I
shall die if you don't!"
"You'll die if I do, that's the kink of it," said Haley,--"no!"
And he turned on his heel.
The bidding for the poor old creature was summary. The man who
had addressed Haley, and who seemed not destitute of compassion,
bought her for a trifle, and the spectators began to disperse.
The poor victims of the sale, who had been brought up in
one place together for years, gathered round the despairing old
mother, whose agony was pitiful to see.
"Couldn't dey leave me one? Mas'r allers said I should have
one,--he did," she repeated over and over, in heart-broken tones.
"Trust in the Lord, Aunt Hagar," said the oldest of the
men, sorrowfully.
"What good will it do?" said she, sobbing passionately.
"Mother, mother,--don't! don't!" said the boy. "They say
you 's got a good master."
"I don't care,--I don't care. O, Albert! oh, my boy! you
's my last baby. Lord, how ken I?"
"Come, take her off, can't some of ye?" said Haley, dryly;
"don't do no good for her to go on that ar way."
The old men of the company, partly by persuasion and partly
by force, loosed the poor creature's last despairing hold, and, as
they led her off to her new master's wagon, strove to comfort her.
"Now!" said Haley, pushing his three purchases together, and
producing a bundle of handcuffs, which he proceeded to put on
their wrists; and fastening each handcuff to a long chain, he drove
them before him to the jail.
A few days saw Haley, with his possessions, safely deposited
on one of the Ohio boats. It was the commencement of his gang, to
be augmented, as the boat moved on, by various other merchandise
of the same kind, which he, or his agent, had stored for him in
various points along shore.
The La Belle Riviere, as brave and beautiful a boat as ever
walked the waters of her namesake river, was floating gayly down
^^^^
the stream, under a brilliant sky, the stripes and stars of free
America waving and fluttering over head; the guards crowded with
well-dressed ladies and gentlemen walking and enjoying the
delightful day. All was full of life, buoyant and rejoicing;--all
but Haley's gang, who were stored, with other freight, on the lower
deck, and who, somehow, did not seem to appreciate their various
privileges, as they sat in a knot, talking to each other in low tones.
"Boys," said Haley, coming up, briskly, "I hope you keep up good
heart, and are cheerful. Now, no sulks, ye see; keep stiff
upper lip, boys; do well by me, and I'll do well by you."
The boys addressed responded the invariable "Yes, Mas'r,"
for ages the watchword of poor Africa; but it's to be owned they
did not look particularly cheerful; they had their various little
prejudices in favor of wives, mothers, sisters, and children, seen
for the last time,--and though "they that wasted them required of
them mirth," it was not instantly forthcoming.
"I've got a wife," spoke out the article enumerated as "John,
aged thirty," and he laid his chained hand on Tom's knee,--"and
she don't know a word about this, poor girl!"
"Where does she live?" said Tom.
"In a tavern a piece down here," said John; "I wish, now,
I _could_ see her once more in this world," he added.
Poor John! It _was_ rather natural; and the tears that fell,
as he spoke, came as naturally as if he had been a white man.
Tom drew a long breath from a sore heart, and tried, in his poor
way, to comfort him.
And over head, in the cabin, sat fathers and mothers, husbands
and wives; and merry, dancing children moved round among them,
like so many little butterflies, and everything was going on
quite easy and comfortable.
"O, mamma," said a boy, who had just come up from below,
"there's a negro trader on board, and he's brought four or five
slaves down there."
"Poor creatures!" said the mother, in a tone between grief
and indignation.
"What's that?" said another lady.
"Some poor slaves below," said the mother.
"And they've got chains on," said the boy.
"What a shame to our country that such sights are to be
seen!" said another lady.
"O, there's a great deal to be said on both sides of the
subject," said a genteel woman, who sat at her state-room door
sewing, while her little girl and boy were playing round her.
"I've been south, and I must say I think the negroes are better
off than they would be to be free."
"In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant,"
said the lady to whose remark she had answered. "The most
dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the
feelings and affections,--the separating of families, for example."
"That _is_ a bad thing, certainly," said the other lady,
holding up a baby's dress she had just completed, and looking
intently on its trimmings; "but then, I fancy, it don't occur often."
"O, it does," said the first lady, eagerly; "I've lived many years
in Kentucky and Virginia both, and I've seen enough to make any
one's heart sick. Suppose, ma'am, your two children, there,
should be taken from you, and sold?"
"We can't reason from our feelings to those of this class of
persons," said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds on her lap.
"Indeed, ma'am, you can know nothing of them, if you say so,"
answered the first lady, warmly. "I was born and brought up
among them. I know they _do_ feel, just as keenly,--even more so,
perhaps,--as we do."
The lady said "Indeed!" yawned, and looked out the cabin
window, and finally repeated, for a finale, the remark with which
she had begun,--"After all, I think they are better off than they
would be to be free."
"It's undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the
African race should be servants,--kept in a low condition," said
a grave-looking gentleman in black, a clergyman, seated by the
cabin door. "`Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he
be,' the scripture says."[2]
[2] Gen. 9:25. This is what Noah says when he wakes out of
drunkenness and realizes that his youngest son, Ham, father of
Canaan, has seen him naked.
"I say, stranger, is that ar what that text means?" said
a tall man, standing by.
"Undoubtedly. It pleased Providence, for some inscrutable
reason, to doom the race to bondage, ages ago; and we must not set
up our opinion against that."
"Well, then, we'll all go ahead and buy up niggers," said the man,
"if that's the way of Providence,--won't we, Squire?" said he,
turning to Haley, who had been standing, with his hands in his
pockets, by the stove and intently listening to the conversation.
"Yes," continued the tall man, "we must all be resigned to the
decrees of Providence. Niggers must be sold, and trucked round,
and kept under; it's what they's made for. 'Pears like this yer
view 's quite refreshing, an't it, stranger?" said he to Haley.
"I never thought on 't," said Haley, "I couldn't have said
as much, myself; I ha'nt no larning. I took up the trade just to
make a living; if 'tan't right, I calculated to 'pent on 't in
time, ye know."
"And now you'll save yerself the trouble, won't ye?" said the
tall man. "See what 't is, now, to know scripture. If ye'd
only studied yer Bible, like this yer good man, ye might have know'd
it before, and saved ye a heap o' trouble. Ye could jist have
said, `Cussed be'--what's his name?--`and 't would all have come
right.'" And the stranger, who was no other than the honest drover
whom we introduced to our readers in the Kentucky tavern, sat down,
and began smoking, with a curious smile on his long, dry face.
A tall, slender young man, with a face expressive of great
feeling and intelligence, here broke in, and repeated the words,
"`All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do
ye even so unto them.' I suppose," he added, "_that_ is scripture,
as much as `Cursed be Canaan.'"
"Wal, it seems quite _as_ plain a text, stranger," said
John the drover, "to poor fellows like us, now;" and John smoked
on like a volcano.
The young man paused, looked as if he was going to say
more, when suddenly the boat stopped, and the company made the
usual steamboat rush, to see where they were landing.
"Both them ar chaps parsons?" said John to one of the men,
as they were going out.
The man nodded.
As the boat stopped, a black woman came running wildly up the
plank, darted into the crowd, flew up to where the slave gang
sat, and threw her arms round that unfortunate piece of merchandise
before enumerate--"John, aged thirty," and with sobs and tears
bemoaned him as her husband.
But what needs tell the story, told too oft,--every day told,--of
heart-strings rent and broken,--the weak broken and torn for
the profit and convenience of the strong! It needs not to be
told;--every day is telling it,--telling it, too, in the ear of
One who is not deaf, though he be long silent.
The young man who had spoken for the cause of humanity and God
before stood with folded arms, looking on this scene. He turned,
and Haley was standing at his side. "My friend," he said,
speaking with thick utterance, "how can you, how dare you, carry
on a trade like this? Look at those poor creatures! Here I am,
rejoicing in my heart that I am going home to my wife and child;
and the same bell which is a signal to carry me onward towards them
will part this poor man and his wife forever. Depend upon it, God
will bring you into judgment for this."
The trader turned away in silence.
"I say, now," said the drover, touching his elbow, "there's
differences in parsons, an't there? `Cussed be Canaan' don't seem
to go down with this 'un, does it?"
Haley gave an uneasy growl.
"And that ar an't the worst on 't," said John; "mabbee it
won't go down with the Lord, neither, when ye come to settle with
Him, one o' these days, as all on us must, I reckon."
Haley walked reflectively to the other end of the boat.
"If I make pretty handsomely on one or two next gangs," he thought,
"I reckon I'll stop off this yer; it's really getting dangerous."
And he took out his pocket-book, and began adding over his
accounts,--a process which many gentlemen besides Mr. Haley have
found a specific for an uneasy conscience.
The boat swept proudly away from the shore, and all went on
merrily, as before. Men talked, and loafed, and read, and smoked.
Women sewed, and children played, and the boat passed on her way.
One day, when she lay to for a while at a small town in Kentucky,
Haley went up into the place on a little matter of business.
Tom, whose fetters did not prevent his taking a moderate
circuit, had drawn near the side of the boat, and stood listlessly
gazing over the railing. After a time, he saw the trader returning,
with an alert step, in company with a colored woman, bearing in
her arms a young child. She was dressed quite respectably, and a
colored man followed her, bringing along a small trunk. The woman
came cheerfully onward, talking, as she came, with the man who bore
her trunk, and so passed up the plank into the boat. The bell
rung, the steamer whizzed, the engine groaned and coughed, and away
swept the boat down the river.
The woman walked forward among the boxes and bales of the
lower deck, and, sitting down, busied herself with chirruping to
her baby.
Haley made a turn or two about the boat, and then, coming up,
seated himself near her, and began saying something to her in
an indifferent undertone.
Tom soon noticed a heavy cloud passing over the woman's
brow; and that she answered rapidly, and with great vehemence.
"I don't believe it,--I won't believe it!" he heard her say.
"You're jist a foolin with me."
"If you won't believe it, look here!" said the man, drawing
out a paper; "this yer's the bill of sale, and there's your master's
name to it; and I paid down good solid cash for it, too, I can tell
you,--so, now!"
"I don't believe Mas'r would cheat me so; it can't be true!"
said the woman, with increasing agitation.
"You can ask any of these men here, that can read writing.
Here!" he said, to a man that was passing by, "jist read this yer,
won't you! This yer gal won't believe me, when I tell her what 't is."
"Why, it's a bill of sale, signed by John Fosdick," said
the man, "making over to you the girl Lucy and her child.
It's all straight enough, for aught I see."
The woman's passionate exclamations collected a crowd around
her, and the trader briefly explained to them the cause of the
agitation.
"He told me that I was going down to Louisville, to hire out
as cook to the same tavern where my husband works,--that's what
Mas'r told me, his own self; and I can't believe he'd lie to me,"
said the woman.
"But he has sold you, my poor woman, there's no doubt about it,"
said a good-natured looking man, who had been examining the
papers; "he has done it, and no mistake."
"Then it's no account talking," said the woman, suddenly
growing quite calm; and, clasping her child tighter in her arms,
she sat down on her box, turned her back round, and gazed listlessly
into the river.
"Going to take it easy, after all!" said the trader. "Gal's got
grit, I see."
The woman looked calm, as the boat went on; and a beautiful
soft summer breeze passed like a compassionate spirit over her
head,--the gentle breeze, that never inquires whether the brow is
dusky or fair that it fans. And she saw sunshine sparkling on the
water, in golden ripples, and heard gay voices, full of ease and
pleasure, talking around her everywhere; but her heart lay as if
a great stone had fallen on it. Her baby raised himself up against
her, and stroked her cheeks with his little hands; and, springing
up and down, crowing and chatting, seemed determined to arouse her.
She strained him suddenly and tightly in her arms, and slowly one
tear after another fell on his wondering, unconscious face; and
gradually she seemed, and little by little, to grow calmer,
and busied herself with tending and nursing him.
The child, a boy of ten months, was uncommonly large and
strong of his age, and very vigorous in his limbs. Never, for a
moment, still, he kept his mother constantly busy in holding him,
and guarding his springing activity.
"That's a fine chap!" said a man, suddenly stopping opposite
to him, with his hands in his pockets. "How old is he?"
"Ten months and a half," said the mother.
The man whistled to the boy, and offered him part of a stick
of candy, which he eagerly grabbed at, and very soon had it
in a baby's general depository, to wit, his mouth.
"Rum fellow!" said the man "Knows what's what!" and he whistled,
and walked on. When he had got to the other side of the boat,
he came across Haley, who was smoking on top of a pile of boxes.
The stranger produced a match, and lighted a cigar, saying,
as he did so,
"Decentish kind o' wench you've got round there, stranger."
"Why, I reckon she _is_ tol'able fair," said Haley, blowing
the smoke out of his mouth.
"Taking her down south?" said the man.
Haley nodded, and smoked on.
"Plantation hand?" said the man.
"Wal," said Haley, "I'm fillin' out an order for a plantation,
and I think I shall put her in. They telled me she was a good
cook; and they can use her for that, or set her at the cotton-picking.
She's got the right fingers for that; I looked at 'em. Sell well,
either way;" and Haley resumed his cigar.
"They won't want the young 'un on the plantation," said
the man.
"I shall sell him, first chance I find," said Haley, lighting
another cigar.
"S'pose you'd be selling him tol'able cheap," said the
stranger, mounting the pile of boxes, and sitting down comfortably.
"Don't know 'bout that," said Haley; "he's a pretty smart
young 'un, straight, fat, strong; flesh as hard as a brick!"
"Very true, but then there's the bother and expense of raisin'."
"Nonsense!" said Haley; "they is raised as easy as any kind
of critter there is going; they an't a bit more trouble than pups.
This yer chap will be running all around, in a month."
"I've got a good place for raisin', and I thought of takin'
in a little more stock," said the man. "One cook lost a young 'un
last week,--got drownded in a washtub, while she was a hangin' out
the clothes,--and I reckon it would be well enough to set her to
raisin' this yer."
Haley and the stranger smoked a while in silence, neither
seeming willing to broach the test question of the interview.
At last the man resumed:
"You wouldn't think of wantin' more than ten dollars for
that ar chap, seeing you _must_ get him off yer hand, any how?"
Haley shook his head, and spit impressively.
"That won't do, no ways," he said, and began his smoking again.
"Well, stranger, what will you take?"
"Well, now," said Haley, "I _could_ raise that ar chap myself,
or get him raised; he's oncommon likely and healthy, and
he'd fetch a hundred dollars, six months hence; and, in a year or
two, he'd bring two hundred, if I had him in the right spot; I
shan't take a cent less nor fifty for him now."
"O, stranger! that's rediculous, altogether," said the man.
"Fact!" said Haley, with a decisive nod of his head.
"I'll give thirty for him," said the stranger, "but not a
cent more."
"Now, I'll tell ye what I will do," said Haley, spitting
again, with renewed decision. "I'll split the difference, and
say forty-five; and that's the most I will do."
"Well, agreed!" said the man, after an interval.
"Done!" said Haley. "Where do you land?"
"At Louisville," said the man.
"Louisville," said Haley. "Very fair, we get there about dusk.
Chap will be asleep,--all fair,--get him off quietly, and no
screaming,--happens beautiful,--I like to do everything quietly,--I
hates all kind of agitation and fluster." And so, after a transfer
of certain bills had passed from the man's pocket-book to the
trader's, he resumed his cigar.
It was a bright, tranquil evening when the boat stopped at the
wharf at Louisville. The woman had been sitting with her baby
in her arms, now wrapped in a heavy sleep. When she heard the name
of the place called out, she hastily laid the child down in a little
cradle formed by the hollow among the boxes, first carefully
spreading under it her cloak; and then she sprung to the side of
the boat, in hopes that, among the various hotel-waiters who thronged
the wharf, she might see her husband. In this hope, she pressed
forward to the front rails, and, stretching far over them, strained
her eyes intently on the moving heads on the shore, and the crowd
pressed in between her and the child.
"Now's your time," said Haley, taking the sleeping child up,
and handing him to the stranger. "Don't wake him up, and set
him to crying, now; it would make a devil of a fuss with the gal."
The man took the bundle carefully, and was soon lost in the crowd
that went up the wharf.
When the boat, creaking, and groaning, and puffing, had
loosed from the wharf, and was beginning slowly to strain
herself along, the woman returned to her old seat.
The trader was sitting there,--the child was gone!
"Why, why,--where?" she began, in bewildered surprise.
"Lucy," said the trader, "your child's gone; you may as well
know it first as last. You see, I know'd you couldn't take
him down south; and I got a chance to sell him to a first-rate
family, that'll raise him better than you can."
The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and
political perfection which has been recommended by some preachers
and politicians of the north, lately, in which he had completely
overcome every humane weakness and prejudice. His heart was exactly
where yours, sir, and mine could be brought, with proper effort
and cultivation. The wild look of anguish and utter despair that
the woman cast on him might have disturbed one less practised; but
^^^^^^^^
he was used to it. He had seen that same look hundreds of times.
You can get used to such things, too, my friend; and it is the
great object of recent efforts to make our whole northern community
used to them, for the glory of the Union. So the trader only
regarded the mortal anguish which he saw working in those dark
features, those clenched hands, and suffocating breathings, as
necessary incidents of the trade, and merely calculated whether
she was going to scream, and get up a commotion on the boat; for,
like other supporters of our peculiar institution, he decidedly
disliked agitation.
But the woman did not scream. The shot had passed too
straight and direct through the heart, for cry or tear.
Dizzily she sat down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by
her side. Her eyes looked straight forward, but she saw nothing.
All the noise and hum of the boat, the groaning of the machinery,
mingled dreamily to her bewildered ear; and the poor, dumb-stricken
heart had neither cry not tear to show for its utter misery. She was
quite calm.
The trader, who, considering his advantages, was almost as
humane as some of our politicians, seemed to feel called on to
administer such consolation as the case admitted of.
"I know this yer comes kinder hard, at first, Lucy," said he;
"but such a smart, sensible gal as you are, won't give way to it.
You see it's _necessary_, and can't be helped!"
"O! don't, Mas'r, don't!" said the woman, with a voice like
one that is smothering.
"You're a smart wench, Lucy," he persisted; "I mean to do
well by ye, and get ye a nice place down river; and you'll soon
get another husband,--such a likely gal as you--"
"O! Mas'r, if you _only_ won't talk to me now," said the woman,
in a voice of such quick and living anguish that the trader
felt that there was something at present in the case beyond his
style of operation. He got up, and the woman turned away, and
buried her head in her cloak.
The trader walked up and down for a time, and occasionally
stopped and looked at her.
"Takes it hard, rather," he soliloquized, "but quiet,
tho';--let her sweat a while; she'll come right, by and by!"
Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last,
and had a perfect understanding of its results. To him, it looked
like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor,
ignorant black soul! he had not learned to generalize, and to take
enlarged views. If he had only been instructed by certain ministers
of Christianity, he might have thought better of it, and seen in
it an every-day incident of a lawful trade; a trade which is the
vital suport of an institution which an American divine[3] tells us
^^^^^^
has _"no evils but such as are inseparable from any other relations
in social and domestic life_." But Tom, as we see, being a poor,
ignorant fellow, whose reading had been confined entirely to the
New Testament, could not comfort and solace himself with views
like these. His very soul bled within him for what seemed to him
the _wrongs_ of the poor suffering thing that lay like a crushed
reed on the boxes; the feeling, living, bleeding, yet immortal
_thing_, which American state law coolly classes with the bundles,
and bales, and boxes, among which she is lying.
[3] Dr. Joel Parker of Philadelphia. [Mrs. Stowe's note.]
Presbyterian clergyman (1799-1873), a friend of the Beecher family.
Mrs. Stowe attempted unsuccessfully to have this identifying note
removed from the stereotype-plate of the first edition.
Tom drew near, and tried to say something; but she only groaned.
Honestly, and with tears running down his own cheeks, he spoke
of a heart of love in the skies, of a pitying Jesus, and an
eternal home; but the ear was deaf with anguish, and the palsied
heart could not feel.
Night came on,--night calm, unmoved, and glorious, shining down
with her innumerable and solemn angel eyes, twinkling, beautiful,
but silent. There was no speech nor language, no pitying voice or
helping hand, from that distant sky. One after another, the voices
of business or pleasure died away; all on the boat were sleeping,
and the ripples at the prow were plainly heard. Tom stretched
himself out on a box, and there, as he lay, he heard, ever and
anon, a smothered sob or cry from the prostrate creature,--"O! what
shall I do? O Lord! O good Lord, do help me!" and so, ever and
anon, until the murmur died away in silence.
At midnight, Tom waked, with a sudden start. Something black
passed quickly by him to the side of the boat, and he heard
a splash in the water. No one else saw or heard anything.
He raised his head,--the woman's place was vacant! He got up,
and sought about him in vain. The poor bleeding heart was still,
at last, and the river rippled and dimpled just as brightly as if
it had not closed above it.
Patience! patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs
like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the
oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory.
In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world.
Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labor in love; for sure as
he is God, "the year of his redeemed _shall_ come."
The trader waked up bright and early, and came out to see to his
live stock. It was now his turn to look about in perplexity.
"Where alive is that gal?" he said to Tom.
Tom, who had learned the wisdom of keeping counsel, did not
feel called upon to state his observations and suspicions, but
said he did not know.
"She surely couldn't have got off in the night at any of
the landings, for I was awake, and on the lookout, whenever the
boat stopped. I never trust these yer things to other folks."
This speech was addressed to Tom quite confidentially, as if
it was something that would be specially interesting to him.
Tom made no answer.
The trader searched the boat from stem to stern, among boxes,
bales and barrels, around the machinery, by the chimneys,
in vain.
"Now, I say, Tom, be fair about this yer," he said, when, after
a fruitless search, he came where Tom was standing. "You know
something about it, now. Don't tell me,--I know you do. I saw
the gal stretched out here about ten o'clock, and ag'in at
twelve, and ag'in between one and two; and then at four she was
gone, and you was a sleeping right there all the time. Now, you
know something,--you can't help it."
"Well, Mas'r," said Tom, "towards morning something brushed
by me, and I kinder half woke; and then I hearn a great splash,
and then I clare woke up, and the gal was gone. That's all I know
on 't."
The trader was not shocked nor amazed; because, as we said before,
he was used to a great many things that you are not used to.
Even the awful presence of Death struck no solemn chill upon him.
He had seen Death many times,--met him in the way of trade, and
got acquainted with him,--and he only thought of him as a hard
customer, that embarrassed his property operations very unfairly;
and so he only swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was
devilish unlucky, and that, if things went on in this way, he should
not make a cent on the trip. In short, he seemed to consider
himself an ill-used man, decidedly; but there was no help for it,
as the woman had escaped into a state which _never will_ give up
a fugitive,--not even at the demand of the whole glorious Union.
The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly down, with his little
account-book, and put down the missing body and soul under the head
of _losses!_
"He's a shocking creature, isn't he,--this trader? so unfeeling!
It's dreadful, really!"
"O, but nobody thinks anything of these traders! They are
universally despised,--never received into any decent society."
But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame?
The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the
system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor
trader himself? You make the public statement that calls for
his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no
shame in it; and in what are you better than he?
Are you educated and he ignorant, you high and he low, you
refined and he coarse, you talented and he simple?
In the day of a future judgment, these very considerations
may make it more tolerable for him than for you.
In concluding these little incidents of lawful trade, we
must beg the world not to think that American legislators
are entirely destitute of humanity, as might, perhaps, be
unfairly inferred from the great efforts made in our national
body to protect and perpetuate this species of traffic.
Who does not know how our great men are outdoing themselves,
in declaiming against the _foreign_ slave-trade. There are a
perfect host of Clarksons and Wilberforces[4] risen up among us on
that subject, most edifying to hear and behold. Trading negroes
from Africa, dear reader, is so horrid! It is not to be thought of!
But trading them from Kentucky,--that's quite another thing!
[4] Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) and William Wilberforce
(1759-1833), English philanthropists and anti-slavery agitators
who helped to secure passage of the Emancipation Bill by Parliament
in 1833. _
Read next: VOLUME I: CHAPTER XIII - The Quaker Settlement
Read previous: VOLUME I: CHAPTER XI - In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind
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