Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Why, there’s that old bombazine cloak that you keep on purpose to put over me when I take my afternoon’s nap; you might as well give her that—she needs clothes.”

At that instant, Dinah looked in to say that the woman was awake, and wanted to see missis.

Mr. and Mrs. Bird went into the kitchen, followed by the two eldest boys, the smaller fry having by this time been safely disposed of in bed.

The woman was now sitting up on the settle by the fire. She was looking steadily into the blaze with a calm, heartbroken expression, very different from her former agitated wildness.

“Did you want me?” said Mrs. Bird, in gentle tones. “I hope you feel better now, poor woman!”

A long-drawn, shivering sigh was the only answer; but she lifted her dark eyes and fixed them on her with such a forlorn and imploring expression that the tears came into the little woman’s eyes.

“You needn’t be afraid of anything; we are friends here, poor woman! Tell me where you came from, and what you want,” said she.

“I came from Kentucky,” said the woman.

“When?” said Mr. Bird, taking up the interrogatory.

“To-night.”

“How did you come?”

“I crossed on the ice.”

“Crossed on the ice!” said every one present.

“Yes,” said the woman slowly, “I did. God helping me, I crossed on the ice; for they were behind me—right behind—and there was no other way!”

“Law, missis,” said Cudjoe, “the ice is all in broken-up blocks, a swinging and a tettering up and down in the water.”

“I know it was—I know it!” said she wildly; “but I did it! I wouldn’t have thought I could—I didn’t think I should get over, but I didn’t care! I could but die, if I didn’t. The Lord helped me; nobody knows how much the Lord can help ’em till they try,” said the woman, with a flashing eye.

“Were you a slave?” asked Mr. Bird.

“Yes, sir; I belonged to a man in Kentucky.”

“Was he unkind to you?”

“No, sir; he was a good master.”

“And was your mistress unkind to you?”

“No, sir—no! my mistress was always good to me.”

“What could induce you to leave a good home, then, and run away, and go through such dangers?”

The woman looked up at Mrs. Bird with a keen, scrutinising glance, and it did not escape her that she was dressed in deep mourning.

“Ma’am,” she said suddenly, “have you ever lost a child?”

The question was unexpected, and it was a thrust on a new wound; for it was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in the grave.

Mr. Bird turned around and walked to the window, and Mrs. Bird burst into tears, but, recovering her voice, she said:

“Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one.”

“Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another—left ’em buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and pride, day and night; and, ma’am, they were going to take him away from me—to sell him—sell him down South, ma’am, to go all alone—a baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn’t stand it, ma’am. I knew I never should be good for anything, if they did; and when I knew the papers were signed, and he was sold, I took him and came off in the night; and they chased me—the man that bought him, and some of mas’r’s folks—and they were coming down right behind me, and I heard ’em. I jumped right on to the ice; and how I got across, I don’t know—but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the bank.”

The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears are dry; but every one around her was, in some way characteristic of themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.

The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their pockets in search of those pocket handkerchiefs which mothers know are never to be found there, had thrown themselves disconsolately into the skirts of their mother’s gown, where they were sobbing and wiping their eyes and noses, to their hearts’ content; Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden in her pocket handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down her black honest face, was ejaculating, “Lord have mercy on us!” with all the fervour of a camp-meeting; while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes very hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry faces, occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervour. Our senator was a statesman, and, of course, could not be expected to cry like other mortals; and so he turned his back to the company, and looked out of the window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his throat, and wiping his spectacle glasses, occasionally blowing his nose in a manner that was calculated to excite suspicion, had any one been in a state to observe critically.

“How came you to tell me that you had a kind master?” he suddenly exclaimed, gulping down very resolutely some kind of rising in his throat, and turning suddenly round upon the woman.

“Because he was a kind master; I’ll say that of him, anyway; and my mistress was kind; but they couldn’t help themselves. They were owing money; and there was some way, I can’t tell how, that a man had a hold on them, and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and heard him telling mistress that, and she begging and pleading for me—and he told her he couldn’t help himself, and that the papers were all drawn;—and then it was I took him and left my home, and came away. I knew ’twas no use of my trying to live, if they did it; for’t ’pears like this child is all I have.”

“Have you no husband?”

“Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is real hard to him, and won’t let him come to see me, hardly ever; and he’s grown harder and harder upon us, and he threatens to sell him down South; it’s like I’ll never see him again.”

The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that spoke of something far otherwise.

“And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?” said Mrs. Bird.

“To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off, is Canada?” said she, looking up, with a simple, confiding air, to Mrs. Bird’s face.

“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Bird involuntarily.

“Is’t a very great way off, think?” said the woman earnestly.

“Much farther than you think, poor child!” said Mrs. Bird; “but we will try to think what can be done for you.—Here, Dinah, make her up a bed in your own room, close by the kitchen, and I’ll think what to do for her in the morning. Meanwhile, never fear, poor woman; put your trust in God; He will protect you.”

Mrs. Bird and her husband re-entered the parlour. She sat down in her little rocking-chair before the fire, swaying thoughtfully to and fro. Mr. Bird strode up and down the room, grumbling to himself. “Pish! pshaw! confounded awkward business!” At length, striding up to his wife, he said:

“I say, wife, she’ll have to get away from here, this very night. That fellow will be down on the scent bright and early to-morrow morning; if ’twas only the woman, she could lie quiet till it was over; but that little chap can’t be kept still by a troop of horse and foot, I’ll warrant me; he’ll bring it all out, popping his head out of some window or door. A pretty kettle of fish it would be for me, too, to be caught with them both here, just now! No; they’ll have to be got off to-night.”

“To-night! How is it possible?—where to?”

“Well, I know pretty well where to,” said the senator, beginning to put on his boots, with a reflective air; and, stopping when his leg was half in, he embraced his knee with both hands, and seemed to go off in deep meditation.

“It’s a confounded awkward, ugly business,” said he, at last, beginning to tug at his boot-straps again, “and that’s a fact!” After one boot was fairly on, the senator sat with the other in his hand, profoundly studying the figure of the carpet. “It will have to be done, though, for ought I see—hang it all!” and he drew the other boot anxiously on, and looked out of the window.

Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman—a woman who never in her life said, “I told you so!” and, on the present occasion, though pretty well aware of the shape her husband’s meditations were taking, she very prudently forebore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord’s intentions, when he should think proper to utter them.

“You see,” he said, “there’s my old client, Van Trompe, has come over from Kentucky, and set all his slaves free; and he has bought a place seven miles up the creek, here, back in the woods, where nobody goes, unless they go on purpose; and it’s a place that isn’t found in a hurry. There she’d be safe enough; but the plague of the thing is, nobody could drive a carriage there to-night, but me.”

“Why not? Cudjoe is an excellent driver.”

“Ay, ay, but here it is. The creek has to be crossed twice; and the second crossing is quite dangerous, unless one knows it as I do. I have crossed it a hundred times on horseback, and know exactly the turns to take. And so, you see, there’s no help for it. Cudjoe must put in the horses, as quietly as may be, about twelve o’clock, and I’ll take her over; and then, to give colour to the matter, he must carry me on to the next tavern, to take the stage for Columbus, that comes by about three or four, and so it will look as if I had had the carriage only for that. I shall get into business bright and early in the morning. But I’m thinking I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that’s been said and done; but, hang it, I can’t help it!”