Chapter Chapter 12 · Select Incident of Lawful Trade

. Select Incident of Lawful Trade

“In Ramah there was a voice heard,—weeping, and lamentation, and great

mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted.”

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, Esq.

“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.

[Illustration: THE AUCTION SALE.]

“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, not if 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.”[1]

[1] Gen. 9:25. his 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 ridiculous, 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 support of an institution

which an American divine[2] 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.

[2] Dr. Joel Parker of Philadelphia. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.] Presbyterian

clergyman (1798-1873), 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[3] 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!

[3] 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.