Bab Bab 9 · In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man

. In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man

The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosey

parlor, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups and well-brightened

tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to

inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife

had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird,

looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the

arrangements of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory remarks to

a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were effervescing in all those

modes of untold gambol and mischief that have astonished mothers ever

since the flood.

“Tom, let the door-knob alone,—there’s a man! Mary! Mary! don’t pull

the cat’s tail,—poor pussy! Jim, you mustn’t climb on that table,—no,

no!—You don’t know, my dear, what a surprise it is to us all, to see

you here tonight!” said she, at last, when she found a space to say

something to her husband.

“Yes, yes, I thought I’d just make a run down, spend the night, and

have a little comfort at home. I’m tired to death, and my head aches!”

Mrs. Bird cast a glance at a camphor-bottle, which stood in the

half-open closet, and appeared to meditate an approach to it, but her

husband interposed.

“No, no, Mary, no doctoring! a cup of your good hot tea, and some of

our good home living, is what I want. It’s a tiresome business, this

legislating!”

And the senator smiled, as if he rather liked the idea of considering

himself a sacrifice to his country.

“Well,” said his wife, after the business of the tea-table was getting

rather slack, “and what have they been doing in the Senate?”

Now, it was a very unusual thing for gentle little Mrs. Bird ever to

trouble her head with what was going on in the house of the state, very

wisely considering that she had enough to do to mind her own. Mr. Bird,

therefore, opened his eyes in surprise, and said,

“Not very much of importance.”

“Well; but is it true that they have been passing a law forbidding

people to give meat and drink to those poor colored folks that come

along? I heard they were talking of some such law, but I didn’t think

any Christian legislature would pass it!”

“Why, Mary, you are getting to be a politician, all at once.”

“No, nonsense! I wouldn’t give a fig for all your politics, generally,

but I think this is something downright cruel and unchristian. I hope,

my dear, no such law has been passed.”

“There has been a law passed forbidding people to help off the slaves

that come over from Kentucky, my dear; so much of that thing has been

done by these reckless Abolitionists, that our brethren in Kentucky are

very strongly excited, and it seems necessary, and no more than

Christian and kind, that something should be done by our state to quiet

the excitement.”

“And what is the law? It don’t forbid us to shelter those poor

creatures a night, does it, and to give ’em something comfortable to

eat, and a few old clothes, and send them quietly about their

business?”

“Why, yes, my dear; that would be aiding and abetting, you know.”

Mrs. Bird was a timid, blushing little woman, of about four feet in

height, and with mild blue eyes, and a peach-blow complexion, and the

gentlest, sweetest voice in the world;—as for courage, a moderate-sized

cock-turkey had been known to put her to rout at the very first gobble,

and a stout house-dog, of moderate capacity, would bring her into

subjection merely by a show of his teeth. Her husband and children were

her entire world, and in these she ruled more by entreaty and

persuasion than by command or argument. There was only one thing that

was capable of arousing her, and that provocation came in on the side

of her unusually gentle and sympathetic nature;—anything in the shape

of cruelty would throw her into a passion, which was the more alarming

and inexplicable in proportion to the general softness of her nature.

Generally the most indulgent and easy to be entreated of all mothers,

still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement

chastisement she once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued

with several graceless boys of the neighborhood, stoning a defenceless

kitten.

“I’ll tell you what,” Master Bill used to say, “I was scared that time.

Mother came at me so that I thought she was crazy, and I was whipped

and tumbled off to bed, without any supper, before I could get over

wondering what had come about; and, after that, I heard mother crying

outside the door, which made me feel worse than all the rest. I’ll tell

you what,” he’d say, “we boys never stoned another kitten!”

On the present occasion, Mrs. Bird rose quickly, with very red cheeks,

which quite improved her general appearance, and walked up to her

husband, with quite a resolute air, and said, in a determined tone,

“Now, John, I want to know if you think such a law as that is right and

Christian?”

“You won’t shoot me, now, Mary, if I say I do!”

“I never could have thought it of you, John; you didn’t vote for it?”

“Even so, my fair politician.”

“You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures!

It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one,

the first time I get a chance; and I hope I _shall_ have a chance, I

do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm

supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are

slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor

things!”

“But, Mary, just listen to me. Your feelings are all quite right, dear,

and interesting, and I love you for them; but, then, dear, we mustn’t

suffer our feelings to run away with our judgment; you must consider

it’s a matter of private feeling,—there are great public interests

involved,—there is such a state of public agitation rising, that we

must put aside our private feelings.”

“Now, John, I don’t know anything about politics, but I can read my

Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked,

and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.”

“But in cases where your doing so would involve a great public evil—”

“Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t. It’s always

safest, all round, to _do as He_ bids us.

“Now, listen to me, Mary, and I can state to you a very clear argument,

to show—”

“O, nonsense, John! you can talk all night, but you wouldn’t do it. I

put it to you, John,—would _you_ now turn away a poor, shivering,

hungry creature from your door, because he was a runaway? _Would_ you,

now?”

Now, if the truth must be told, our senator had the misfortune to be a

man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature, and turning

away anybody that was in trouble never had been his forte; and what was

worse for him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that his

wife knew it, and, of course was making an assault on rather an

indefensible point. So he had recourse to the usual means of gaining

time for such cases made and provided; he said “ahem,” and coughed

several times, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began to wipe his

glasses. Mrs. Bird, seeing the defenceless condition of the enemy’s

territory, had no more conscience than to push her advantage.

“I should like to see you doing that, John—I really should! Turning a

woman out of doors in a snowstorm, for instance; or may be you’d take

her up and put her in jail, wouldn’t you? You would make a great hand

at that!”

“Of course, it would be a very painful duty,” began Mr. Bird, in a

moderate tone.

“Duty, John! don’t use that word! You know it isn’t a duty—it can’t be

a duty! If folks want to keep their slaves from running away, let ’em

treat ’em well,—that’s my doctrine. If I had slaves (as I hope I never

shall have), I’d risk their wanting to run away from me, or you either,

John. I tell you folks don’t run away when they are happy; and when

they do run, poor creatures! they suffer enough with cold and hunger

and fear, without everybody’s turning against them; and, law or no law,

I never will, so help me God!”

“Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you.”

“I hate reasoning, John,—especially reasoning on such subjects. There’s

a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right

thing; and you don’t believe in it yourselves, when it comes to

practice. I know _you_ well enough, John. You don’t believe it’s right

any more than I do; and you wouldn’t do it any sooner than I.”

At this critical juncture, old Cudjoe, the black man-of-all-work, put

his head in at the door, and wished “Missis would come into the

kitchen;” and our senator, tolerably relieved, looked after his little

wife with a whimsical mixture of amusement and vexation, and, seating

himself in the arm-chair, began to read the papers.

After a moment, his wife’s voice was heard at the door, in a quick,

earnest tone,—“John! John! I do wish you’d come here, a moment.”

He laid down his paper, and went into the kitchen, and started, quite

amazed at the sight that presented itself:—A young and slender woman,

with garments torn and frozen, with one shoe gone, and the stocking

torn away from the cut and bleeding foot, was laid back in a deadly

swoon upon two chairs. There was the impress of the despised race on

her face, yet none could help feeling its mournful and pathetic beauty,

while its stony sharpness, its cold, fixed, deathly aspect, struck a

solemn chill over him. He drew his breath short, and stood in silence.

His wife, and their only colored domestic, old Aunt Dinah, were busily

engaged in restorative measures; while old Cudjoe had got the boy on

his knee, and was busy pulling off his shoes and stockings, and chafing

his little cold feet.

“Sure, now, if she an’t a sight to behold!” said old Dinah,

compassionately; “‘pears like ’t was the heat that made her faint. She

was tol’able peart when she cum in, and asked if she couldn’t warm

herself here a spell; and I was just a-askin’ her where she cum from,

and she fainted right down. Never done much hard work, guess, by the

looks of her hands.”

“Poor creature!” said Mrs. Bird, compassionately, as the woman slowly

unclosed her large, dark eyes, and looked vacantly at her. Suddenly an

expression of agony crossed her face, and she sprang up, saying, “O, my

Harry! Have they got him?”

The boy, at this, jumped from Cudjoe’s knee, and running to her side

put up his arms. “O, he’s here! he’s here!” she exclaimed.

“O, ma’am!” said she, wildly, to Mrs. Bird, “do protect us! don’t let

them get him!”

“Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman,” said Mrs. Bird,

encouragingly. “You are safe; don’t be afraid.”

“God bless you!” said the woman, covering her face and sobbing; while

the little boy, seeing her crying, tried to get into her lap.

With many gentle and womanly offices, which none knew better how to

render than Mrs. Bird, the poor woman was, in time, rendered more calm.

A temporary bed was provided for her on the settle, near the fire; and,

after a short time, she fell into a heavy slumber, with the child, who

seemed no less weary, soundly sleeping on her arm; for the mother

resisted, with nervous anxiety, the kindest attempts to take him from

her; and, even in sleep, her arm encircled him with an unrelaxing

clasp, as if she could not even then be beguiled of her vigilant hold.

Mr. and Mrs. Bird had gone back to the parlor, where, strange as it may

appear, no reference was made, on either side, to the preceding

conversation; but Mrs. Bird busied herself with her knitting-work, and

Mr. Bird pretended to be reading the paper.

“I wonder who and what she is!” said Mr. Bird, at last, as he laid it

down.

“When she wakes up and feels a little rested, we will see,” said Mrs.

Bird.

“I say, wife!” said Mr. Bird after musing in silence over his

newspaper.

“Well, dear!”

“She couldn’t wear one of your gowns, could she, by any letting down,

or such matter? She seems to be rather larger than you are.”

A quite perceptible smile glimmered on Mrs. Bird’s face, as she

answered, “We’ll see.”

Another pause, and Mr. Bird again broke out,

“I say, wife!”

“Well! What now?”

“Why, there’s that old bombazin 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 this 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, heart-broken 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 interogatory.

“Tonight.”

“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 tetering 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?” said 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, scrutinizing 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 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 fervor 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 fervor. 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 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, any way;—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 ’t was 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 further 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 reentered the parlor. 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 tomorrow morning: if

’t was 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 tonight.”

“Tonight! 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 aught 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 forbore 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 tonight, 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 color 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!”

“Your heart is better than your head, in this case, John,” said the

wife, laying her little white hand on his. “Could I ever have loved

you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?” And the little

woman looked so handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that

the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a

pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him; and so, what

could he do but walk off soberly, to see about the carriage. At the

door, however, he stopped a moment, and then coming back, he said, with

some hesitation.

“Mary, I don’t know how you’d feel about it, but there’s that drawer

full of things—of—of—poor little Henry’s.” So saying, he turned quickly

on his heel, and shut the door after him.

His wife opened the little bed-room door adjoining her room and, taking

the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small

recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer,

and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy like, had followed

close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at

their mother. And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in

your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you

like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you

are, if it has not been so.

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a

form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and

even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping

from the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a

ball,—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break! She

sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands over it,

wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then

suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the

plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a

bundle.

“Mamma,” said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, “you going to

give away _those_ things?”

“My dear boys,” she said, softly and earnestly, “if our dear, loving

little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do

this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common

person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more

heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his

blessings with them!”

There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into

joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many

tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the

desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits

there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the

memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer.

After a while, Mrs. Bird opened a wardrobe, and, taking from thence a

plain, serviceable dress or two, she sat down busily to her work-table,

and, with needle, scissors, and thimble, at hand, quietly commenced the

“letting down” process which her husband had recommended, and continued

busily at it till the old clock in the corner struck twelve, and she

heard the low rattling of wheels at the door.

“Mary,” said her husband, coming in, with his overcoat in his hand,

“you must wake her up now; we must be off.”

Mrs. Bird hastily deposited the various articles she had collected in a

small plain trunk, and locking it, desired her husband to see it in the

carriage, and then proceeded to call the woman. Soon, arrayed in a

cloak, bonnet, and shawl, that had belonged to her benefactress, she

appeared at the door with her child in her arms. Mr. Bird hurried her

into the carriage, and Mrs. Bird pressed on after her to the carriage

steps. Eliza leaned out of the carriage, and put out her hand,—a hand

as soft and beautiful as was given in return. She fixed her large, dark

eyes, full of earnest meaning, on Mrs. Bird’s face, and seemed going to

speak. Her lips moved,—she tried once or twice, but there was no

sound,—and pointing upward, with a look never to be forgotten, she fell

back in the seat, and covered her face. The door was shut, and the

carriage drove on.

What a situation, now, for a patriotic senator, that had been all the

week before spurring up the legislature of his native state to pass

more stringent resolutions against escaping fugitives, their harborers

and abettors!

Our good senator in his native state had not been exceeded by any of

his brethren at Washington, in the sort of eloquence which has won for

them immortal renown! How sublimely he had sat with his hands in his

pockets, and scouted all sentimental weakness of those who would put

the welfare of a few miserable fugitives before great state interests!

He was as bold as a lion about it, and “mightily convinced” not only

himself, but everybody that heard him;—but then his idea of a fugitive

was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or at the most,

the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and

bundle with “Ran away from the subscriber” under it. The magic of the

real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail,

trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he

had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a

hapless mother, a defenceless child,—like that one which was now

wearing his lost boy’s little well-known cap; and so, as our poor

senator was not stone or steel,—as he was a man, and a downright

noble-hearted one, too,—he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case

for his patriotism. And you need not exult over him, good brother of

the Southern States; for we have some inklings that many of you, under

similar circumstances, would not do much better. We have reason to

know, in Kentucky, as in Mississippi, are noble and generous hearts, to

whom never was tale of suffering told in vain. Ah, good brother! is it

fair for you to expect of us services which your own brave, honorable

heart would not allow you to render, were you in our place?

Be that as it may, if our good senator was a political sinner, he was

in a fair way to expiate it by his night’s penance. There had been a

long continuous period of rainy weather, and the soft, rich earth of

Ohio, as every one knows, is admirably suited to the manufacture of

mud—and the road was an Ohio railroad of the good old times.

“And pray, what sort of a road may that be?” says some eastern

traveller, who has been accustomed to connect no ideas with a railroad,

but those of smoothness or speed.

Know, then, innocent eastern friend, that in benighted regions of the

west, where the mud is of unfathomable and sublime depth, roads are

made of round rough logs, arranged transversely side by side, and

coated over in their pristine freshness with earth, turf, and

whatsoever may come to hand, and then the rejoicing native calleth it a

road, and straightway essayeth to ride thereupon. In process of time,

the rains wash off all the turf and grass aforesaid, move the logs

hither and thither, in picturesque positions, up, down and crosswise,

with divers chasms and ruts of black mud intervening.

Over such a road as this our senator went stumbling along, making moral

reflections as continuously as under the circumstances could be

expected,—the carriage proceeding along much as follows,—bump! bump!

bump! slush! down in the mud!—the senator, woman and child, reversing

their positions so suddenly as to come, without any very accurate

adjustment, against the windows of the down-hill side. Carriage sticks

fast, while Cudjoe on the outside is heard making a great muster among

the horses. After various ineffectual pullings and twitchings, just as

the senator is losing all patience, the carriage suddenly rights itself

with a bounce,—two front wheels go down into another abyss, and

senator, woman, and child, all tumble promiscuously on to the front

seat,—senator’s hat is jammed over his eyes and nose quite

unceremoniously, and he considers himself fairly extinguished;—child

cries, and Cudjoe on the outside delivers animated addresses to the

horses, who are kicking, and floundering, and straining under repeated

cracks of the whip. Carriage springs up, with another bounce,—down go

the hind wheels,—senator, woman, and child, fly over on to the back

seat, his elbows encountering her bonnet, and both her feet being

jammed into his hat, which flies off in the concussion. After a few

moments the “slough” is passed, and the horses stop, panting;—the

senator finds his hat, the woman straightens her bonnet and hushes her

child, and they brace themselves for what is yet to come.

For a while only the continuous bump! bump! intermingled, just by way

of variety, with divers side plunges and compound shakes; and they

begin to flatter themselves that they are not so badly off, after all.

At last, with a square plunge, which puts all on to their feet and then

down into their seats with incredible quickness, the carriage

stops,—and, after much outside commotion, Cudjoe appears at the door.

“Please, sir, it’s powerful bad spot, this’ yer. I don’t know how we’s

to get clar out. I’m a thinkin’ we’ll have to be a gettin’ rails.”

The senator despairingly steps out, picking gingerly for some firm

foothold; down goes one foot an immeasurable depth,—he tries to pull it

up, loses his balance, and tumbles over into the mud, and is fished

out, in a very despairing condition, by Cudjoe.

But we forbear, out of sympathy to our readers’ bones. Western

travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting

process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud

holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our

unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent tear, and pass on.

It was full late in the night when the carriage emerged, dripping and

bespattered, out of the creek, and stood at the door of a large

farmhouse.

It took no inconsiderable perseverance to arouse the inmates; but at

last the respectable proprietor appeared, and undid the door. He was a

great, tall, bristling Orson of a fellow, full six feet and some inches

in his stockings, and arrayed in a red flannel hunting-shirt. A very

heavy mat of sandy hair, in a decidedly tousled condition, and a beard

of some days’ growth, gave the worthy man an appearance, to say the

least, not particularly prepossessing. He stood for a few minutes

holding the candle aloft, and blinking on our travellers with a dismal

and mystified expression that was truly ludicrous. It cost some effort

of our senator to induce him to comprehend the case fully; and while he

is doing his best at that, we shall give him a little introduction to

our readers.

Honest old John Van Trompe was once quite a considerable land-owner and

slave-owner in the State of Kentucky. Having “nothing of the bear about

him but the skin,” and being gifted by nature with a great, honest,

just heart, quite equal to his gigantic frame, he had been for some

years witnessing with repressed uneasiness the workings of a system

equally bad for oppressor and oppressed. At last, one day, John’s great

heart had swelled altogether too big to wear his bonds any longer; so

he just took his pocket-book out of his desk, and went over into Ohio,

and bought a quarter of a township of good, rich land, made out free

papers for all his people,—men, women, and children,—packed them up in

wagons, and sent them off to settle down; and then honest John turned

his face up the creek, and sat quietly down on a snug, retired farm, to

enjoy his conscience and his reflections.

“Are you the man that will shelter a poor woman and child from

slave-catchers?” said the senator, explicitly.

“I rather think I am,” said honest John, with some considerable

emphasis.

“I thought so,” said the senator.

“If there’s anybody comes,” said the good man, stretching his tall,

muscular form upward, “why here I’m ready for him: and I’ve got seven

sons, each six foot high, and they’ll be ready for ’em. Give our

respects to ’em,” said John; “tell ’em it’s no matter how soon they

call,—make no kinder difference to us,” said John, running his fingers

through the shock of hair that thatched his head, and bursting out into

a great laugh.

Weary, jaded, and spiritless, Eliza dragged herself up to the door,

with her child lying in a heavy sleep on her arm. The rough man held

the candle to her face, and uttering a kind of compassionate grunt,

opened the door of a small bed-room adjoining to the large kitchen

where they were standing, and motioned her to go in. He took down a

candle, and lighting it, set it upon the table, and then addressed

himself to Eliza.

“Now, I say, gal, you needn’t be a bit afeard, let who will come here.

I’m up to all that sort o’ thing,” said he, pointing to two or three

goodly rifles over the mantel-piece; “and most people that know me know

that ’t wouldn’t be healthy to try to get anybody out o’ my house when

I’m agin it. So _now_ you jist go to sleep now, as quiet as if yer

mother was a rockin’ ye,” said he, as he shut the door.

“Why, this is an uncommon handsome un,” he said to the senator. “Ah,

well; handsome uns has the greatest cause to run, sometimes, if they

has any kind o’ feelin, such as decent women should. I know all about

that.”

The senator, in a few words, briefly explained Eliza’s history.

“O! ou! aw! now, I want to know?” said the good man, pitifully; “sho!

now sho! That’s natur now, poor crittur! hunted down now like a

deer,—hunted down, jest for havin’ natural feelin’s, and doin’ what no

kind o’ mother could help a doin’! I tell ye what, these yer things

make me come the nighest to swearin’, now, o’ most anything,” said

honest John, as he wiped his eyes with the back of a great, freckled,

yellow hand. “I tell yer what, stranger, it was years and years before

I’d jine the church, ’cause the ministers round in our parts used to

preach that the Bible went in for these ere cuttings up,—and I couldn’t

be up to ’em with their Greek and Hebrew, and so I took up agin ’em,

Bible and all. I never jined the church till I found a minister that

was up to ’em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the

contrary; and then I took right hold, and jined the church,—I did now,

fact,” said John, who had been all this time uncorking some very frisky

bottled cider, which at this juncture he presented.

“Ye’d better jest put up here, now, till daylight,” said he, heartily,

“and I’ll call up the old woman, and have a bed got ready for you in no

time.”

“Thank you, my good friend,” said the senator, “I must be along, to

take the night stage for Columbus.”

“Ah! well, then, if you must, I’ll go a piece with you, and show you a

cross road that will take you there better than the road you came on.

That road’s mighty bad.”

John equipped himself, and, with a lantern in hand, was soon seen

guiding the senator’s carriage towards a road that ran down in a

hollow, back of his dwelling. When they parted, the senator put into

his hand a ten-dollar bill.

“It’s for her,” he said, briefly.

“Ay, ay,” said John, with equal conciseness.

They shook hands, and parted.