Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Just let me get my breath, missis, and I’ll start fair. I’ll be bery careful.”

“Well, Sam, you are to go with Mr. Haley, to show him the road, and help him. Be careful of the horses, Sam; you know Jerry was a little lame last week; don’t ride them too fast.”

Mrs. Shelby spoke the last words with a low voice, and strong emphasis.

“Let dis child alone for dat!” said Sam, rolling up his eyes with a volume of meaning. “Lord knows! Hi! Didn’t say dat!” said he, suddenly catching his breath, with a ludicrous flourish of apprehension, which made his mistress laugh, spite of herself. “Yes, missis, I’ll look out for de hosses!”

“Now, Andy,” said Sam, returning to his stand under the beech-tree, “you see I wouldn’t be ’tall surprised if dat ar gen’l’man’s crittur should gib a fling by and by, when he comes to be a gettin’ up. You know, Andy, critturs will do such things;” and therewith Sam poked Andy in the side, in a highly suggestive manner.

“Hi!” said Andy, with an air of instant appreciation.

“Yes, you see, Andy, missis wants to make time—dat ar’s clar to der most or’nary ’bserver. I jis make a little for her. Now, you see, get all dese yer hosses loose, caperin’ permiscus round dis yer lot and down to de wood dar, and I ‘spec mas’r won’t be off in a hurry.”

Andy grinned.

“Yer see,” said Sam, “yer see, Andy, if any such thing should happen as that Mas’r Haley’s horse should begin to act contrary, and cut up, you and I jist lets go of our’n to help him, and we’ll help him—oh, yes!” And Sam and Andy laid their heads back on their shoulders, and broke into a low, immoderate laugh, snapping their fingers and flourishing their heels with exquisite delight.

At this instant, Haley appeared on the verandah. Somewhat mollified by certain cups of very good coffee, he came out smiling and talking, in tolerably restored humour. Sam and Andy, clawing for certain fragmentary palm-leaves which they were in the habit of considering as hats, flew to the horse-posts, to be ready to “help mas’r.”

Sam’s palm-leaf had been ingeniously disentangled from all pretensions to braid, as respects its brim; and the slivers, starting apart, and standing upright, gave it a blazing air of freedom and defiance, quite equal to that of any Fiji chief; while the whole brim of Andy’s being departed bodily, he rapped the crown on his head with a dexterous thump, and looked about well pleased, as if to say, “Who says I haven’t got a hat?”

“Well, boys,” said Haley, “look alive now; we must lose no time.”

“Not a bit of him, mas’r!” said Sam, putting Haley’s rein in his hand, and holding his stirrup, while Andy was untying the other two horses.

The instant Haley touched the saddle the mettlesome creature bounded from the earth with a sudden spring that threw his master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry turf. Sam, with frantic ejaculations, made a dive at the reins, but only succeeded in brushing the blazing palm-leaf aforenamed into the horse’s eyes, which by no means tended to allay the confusion of his nerves. So, with great vehemence, he overturned Sam, and, giving two or three contemptuous snorts, flourished his heels vigorously in the air, and was soon prancing away toward the lower end of the lawn, followed by Bill and Jerry, whom Andy had not failed to let loose, according to contract, speeding them off with various direful ejaculations. And now ensued a miscellaneous scene of confusion. Sam and Andy ran and shouted—dogs barked here and there—and Mike, Mose, Mandy, Fanny, and all the smaller specimens on the place, both male and female, raced, clapped hands, whooped, and shouted, with outrageous officiousness and untiring zeal.

Haley’s horse, which was a white one, and very fleet and spirited, appeared to enter into the spirit of the scene with great gusto; and having for his coursing ground a lawn of nearly half a mile in extent, gently sloping down on every side into indefinite woodland, he appeared to take infinite delight in seeing how near he could allow his pursuers to approach him, and then, when within a hand’s breadth, whisk off with a start and a snort, like a mischievous beast as he was, and career far down into some alley of the wood-lot. Nothing was further from Sam’s mind than to have any one of the troop taken until such season as should seem to him most befitting—and the exertions that he made were certainly most heroic. Like the sword of Coeur de Lion, which always blazed in the front and thickest of the battle, Sam’s palm-leaf was to be seen everywhere when there was the least danger that a horse could be caught;—there he would bear down full tilt, shouting, “Now for it! cotch him! cotch him!” in a way that would set everything to indiscriminate rout in a moment.

Haley ran up and down, and cursed and swore and stamped miscellaneously. Mr. Shelby in vain tried to shout directions from the balcony, and Mrs. Shelby from her chamber window alternately laughed and wondered—not without some inkling of what lay at the bottom of all this confusion.

At last, about twelve o’clock, Sam appeared triumphant, mounted on Jerry, with Haley’s horse by his side, reeking with sweat, but with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, showing that the spirit of freedom had not yet entirely subsided.

“He’s cotched!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “If’t hadn’t been for me, they might ‘a’ bust theirselves, all on ’em; but I cotched him!”

“You!” growled Haley, in no amiable mood. “If it hadn’t been for you, this never would have happened.”

“Lord bless us, mas’r,” said Sam, in a tone of the deepest concern, “and me that has been racin’ and chasin’ till the sweat jest pours off me!”

“Well, well!” said Haley, “you’ve lost me near three hours, with your cursed nonsense. Now let’s be off, and have no more fooling.”

“Why, mas’r,” said Sam, in a deprecating tone, “I believe you mean to kill us all clar, horses and all. Here we are all jest ready to drop down, and the critturs all in a reek of sweat. Why, mas’r won’t thing of startin’ on now till after dinner. Mas’r’s hoss wants rubben’ down; see how he splashed himself: and Jerry limps too; don’t think missis would be willin’ to have us start dis yer way, nohow. Lord bless you, mas’r, we can ketch up, if we do stop. Lizy never was no great of a walker.”

Mrs. Shelby, who, greatly to her amusement, had overheard this conversation from the verandah, now resolved to do her part. She came forward, and, courteously expressing her concern for Haley’s accident, pressed him to stay to dinner, saying that the cook should bring it on the table immediately.

Thus, all things considered, Haley, with rather an equivocal glance, proceeded to the parlour, while Sam, rolling his eyes after him with unutterable meaning, proceeded gravely with the horses to the stable-yard.

“Did yer see him, Andy? Did yer see him?” said Sam, when he had got fairly beyond the shelter of the barn, and fastened the horse to a post. “Oh, Lor, if it warn’t as good as a meetin’, now, to see him a-dancin’ and kickin’ and swarin’ at us. Didn’t I hear him? Swar away, ole fellows (says I to myself); will yer have yer hoss now, or wait till you cotch him? (says I). Lor, Andy, I think I can see him now.” And Sam and Andy leaned up against the barn, and laughed to their hearts’ content.

“Yer oughter seen how mad he looked when I brought the hoss up. Lor, he’d ’a’ killed me, if he durs’ to; and there I was a-standin’ as innercent and as humble.”

“Lor, I seed you,” said Andy; “an’t you an old hoss, Sam!”

“Rather ’spects I am,” said Sam; “did yer see missis upsta’rs at the winder? I seed her laughin’.”

“I’m sure, I was racin’ so, I didn’t see nothing,” said Andy.

“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s pony, “I’se ’quired what ye may call a habit o’ bobservation, Andy. It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy, and I ‘commend yer to be cultivatin’ it, now yer young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer see, Andy, it’s bobservation makes all de difference in niggers. Didn’t I see which way the wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see what missis wanted, though she never let on? Dat ar’s bobservation, Andy. I ’spects it’s what you may call a faculty. Faculties is different in different peoples, but cultivation of ’em goes a great way.”

“I guess if I hadn’t helped your bobservation dis mornin’, yer wouldn’t have seen your way so smart” said Andy.

“Andy,” said Sam, “you’s a promisin’ child, der an’t no matter o’ doubt. I thinks lots of yer, Andy; and I don’t feel noways ashamed to take idees from you. We oughtenter overlook nobody, Andy, ’cause the smartest on us gets tripped up sometimes. And so, Andy, let’s go up to the house now. I’ll be boun’ missis ’ll give us an uncommon good bite, dis yer time.”

CHAPTER 7 The Mother’s Struggle (#ulink_bbd7188f-08df-5bc0-9477-3251456c2be3)

It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom’s cabin.

Her husband’s sufferings and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then there was the parting from every familiar object—the place where she had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband—everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither she could go from a home like that?

But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.

The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to a Friend above—“Lord, help! Lord, save me!”

If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, to-morrow morning—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape—how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom—the little sleepy head on your shoulder—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck? For the child slept. At first the novelty and alarm kept him waking; but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him, that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself sinking to sleep—

“Mother, I don’t need to keep awake, do I?”

“No, my darling; sleep, if you want to.”

“But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won’t let him get me?”

“No! so may God help me!” said his mother, with a paler cheek and a brighter light in her large, dark eyes.

“You’re sure, an’t you, mother?”

“Yes, sure!” said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her; and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, and gentle breathings that came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements. It seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams, from every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child. Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel so that the weak become so mighty.

The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening daylight found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar objects upon the open highway.

She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections in the little village of T—, not far from the Ohio River, and knew the road well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio River, were the first hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that she could only hope in God.

When horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.

After a while they came to a thick patch of woodland, through which murmured a clear brook. As the child complained of hunger and thirst, she climbed over the fence with him; and, sitting down behind a large rock which concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast out of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved that she could not eat; and when, putting his arms round her neck, he tried to wedge some of his cake into her mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her throat would choke her.

“No, no, Harry darling! mother can’t eat till you are safe! We must go on—on—till we come to the river!” And she hurried again into the road, and again constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly forward.

She was many miles past any neighbourhood where she was personally known. If she should chance to meet any who knew her, she reflected that the well-known kindness of the family would be of itself a blind to suspicion, as making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a fugitive. As she was also so white as not to be known as of coloured lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.