Tom, who had, to the full, the gentle, domestic heart, which, woe for them! has been a peculiar characteristic of his unhappy race, got up and walked silently to look at his children.
“It’s the last time,” he said.
Aunt Chloe did not answer, only rubbed away over and over on the coarse shirt, already as smooth as hands could make it; and finally setting her iron suddenly down with a despairing plunge, she sat down to the table, and “lifted up her voice and wept.”
“S’pose we must be resigned; but oh Lord! how ken I? If I know’d anything whar you ’s goin’, or how they ’d sarve you! Missis says she ’ll try and ’deem ye, in a year or two; but Lor! nobody never comes up that goes down thar! They kills ’em! I’ve hearn ’em tell how dey works ’em up on dem ar plantations.”
“There ’ll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here.”
“Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “s’pose dere will; but de Lord lets drefful things happen, sometimes. I don’t seem to get no comfort dat way.”
“I ’m in the Lord’s hands,” said Tom; “nothin’ can go no furder than he lets it; – and thar ’s one thing I can thank him for. It ’s me that ’s sold and going down, and not you nur the chil’en. Here you ’re safe; – what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he ’ll help me, – I know he will.”
Ah, brave, manly heart, – smothering thine own sorrow, to comfort thy beloved ones! Tom spoke with a thick utterance, and with a bitter choking in his throat, – but he spoke brave and strong.
“Let’s think on our marcies!” he added, tremulously, as if he was quite sure he needed to think on them very hard indeed.
“Marcies!” said Aunt Chloe; “don’t see no marcy in ’t! ’tan’t right! ’tan’t right it should be so! Mas’r never ought ter left it so that ye could be took for his debts. Ye ’ve arnt him all he gets for ye, twice over. He owed ye yer freedom, and ought ter gin ’t to yer years ago. Mebbe he can’t help himself now, but I feel it ’s wrong. Nothing can’t beat that ar out o’ me. Sich a faithful crittur as ye ’ve been, – and allers sot his business ’fore yer own every way, – and reckoned on him more than yer own wife and chil’en! Them as sells heart’s love and heart’s blood, to get out thar scrapes, de Lord ’ll be up to ’em!”
“Chloe! now, if ye love me, ye won’t talk so, when perhaps jest the last time we ’ll ever have together! And I’ll tell ye, Chloe, it goes agin me to hear one word agin Mas’r. Wan’t he put in my arms a baby? – it ’s natur I should think a heap of him. And he could n’t be spected to think so much of poor Tom. Mas’rs is used to havin’ all these yer things done for ’em, and nat’lly they don’t think so much on ’t. They can’t be spected to, no way. Set him ’longside of other Mas’rs – who ’s had the treatment and the livin’ I’ve had? And he never would have let this yer come on me, if he could have seed it aforehand. I know he would n’t.”
“Wal, any way, thar ’s wrong about it somewhar,” said Aunt Chloe, in whom a stubborn sense of justice was a predominant trait; “I can’t jest make out whar ’t is, but thar ’s wrong somewhar, I’m clar o’ that.”
“Yer ought ter look up to the Lord above – he ’s above all – thar don’t a sparrow fall without him.”
“It don’t seem to comfort me, but I spect it orter,” said Aunt Chloe. “But dar ’s no use talkin’; I’ll jes wet up de corn-cake, and get ye one good breakfast, ’cause nobody knows when you ’ll get another.”
In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes sold south, it must be remembered that all the instinctive affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their local attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. Add to this all the terrors with which ignorance invests the unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is set before the negro from childhood as the last severity of punishment. The threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind is the threat of being sent down river. We have ourselves heard this feeling expressed by them, and seen the unaffected horror with which they will sit in their gossipping hours, and tell frightful stories of that ‘down river,’ which to them is
“That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.”
A missionary among the fugitives in Canada told us that many of the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively kind masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape, in almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded being sold south, – a doom which was hanging either over themselves or their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African, naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness, and the more dread penalties of re-capture.
The simple morning meal now smoked on the table, for Mrs. Shelby had excused Aunt Chloe’s attendance at the great house that morning. The poor soul had expended all her little energies on this farewell feast, – had killed and dressed her choicest chicken, and prepared her corncake with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband’s taste, and brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantelpiece, some preserves that were never produced except on extreme occasions.
“Lor, Pete,” said Mose, triumphantly, “han’t we got a buster of a breakfast!” at the same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.
Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. “Thar now! crowing over the last breakfast yer poor daddy ’s gwine to have to home!”
“O, Chloe!” said Tom, gently.
“Wal, I can’t help it,” said Aunt Chloe, hiding her face in her apron; “I ’s so tossed about, it makes me act ugly.”
The boys stood quite still, looking first at their father and then at their mother, while the baby, climbing up her clothes, began an imperious, commanding cry.
“Thar!” said Aunt Chloe, wiping her eyes and taking up the baby; “now I’s done, I hope, – now do eat something. This yer ’s my nicest chicken. Thar, boys, ye shall have some, poor critturs! Yer mammy ’s been cross to yer.”
The boys needed no second invitation, and went in with great zeal for the eatables; and it was well they did so, as otherwise there would have been very little performed to any purpose by the party.
“Now,” said Aunt Chloe, bustling about after breakfast, “I must put up yer clothes. Jest like as not, he ’ll take ’em all away. I know thar ways – mean as dirt, they is! Wal, now, yer flannels for rhumatis is in this corner; so be carful, ’cause there won’t nobody make ye no more. Then here ’s yer old shirts, and these yer is new ones. I toed off these yer stockings last night, and put de ball in ’em to mend with. But Lor! who ’ll ever mend for ye?” and Aunt Chloe, again overcome, laid her head on the box side, and sobbed. “To think on ’t! no crittur to do for ye, sick or well! I don’t railly think I ought ter be good now!”
The boys, having eaten everything there was on the breakfast-table, began now to take some thought of the case; and, seeing their mother crying, and their father looking very sad, began to whimper and put their hands to their eyes. Uncle Tom had the baby on his knee, and was letting her enjoy herself to the utmost extent, scratching his face and pulling his hair, and occasionally breaking out into clamorous explosions of delight, evidently arising out of her own internal reflections.
“Ay, crow away, poor crittur!” said Aunt Chloe; “ye ’ll have to come to it, too! ye ’ll live to see yer husband sold, or mebbe be sold yerself; and these yer boys, they ’s to be sold, I s’pose, too, jest like as not, when dey gets good for somethin’; an’t no use in niggers havin’ nothin’!”
Here one of the boys called out, “Thar ’s Missis a-comin’ in!”
“She can’t do no good;