Chương Chương 4 · An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

. An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close adjoining to

“the house,” as the negro _par excellence_ designates his master’s

dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch, where, every summer,

strawberries, raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables,

flourished under careful tending. The whole front of it was covered by

a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which,

entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to

be seen. Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as

marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an indulgent corner in which

to unfold their splendors, and were the delight and pride of Aunt

Chloe’s heart.

Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house is over, and

Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to

inferior officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and

washing dishes, and come out into her own snug territories, to “get her

ole man’s supper”; therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the

fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a

stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a

bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable intimations of

“something good.” A round, black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to

suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with white of

eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams

with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched checked

turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a little of that

tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the

neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to

be.

A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not

a chicken or turkey or duck in the barn-yard but looked grave when they

saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their

latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on

trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to

inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its

varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous

to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders;

and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and merriment, as

she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of her

compeers had made to attain to her elevation.

The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of dinners and

suppers “in style,” awoke all the energies of her soul; and no sight

was more welcome to her than a pile of travelling trunks launched on

the verandah, for then she foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.

Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the bake-pan; in

which congenial operation we shall leave her till we finish our picture

of the cottage.

In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy spread;

and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting, of some considerable

size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being

decidedly in the upper walks of life; and it and the bed by which it

lay, and the whole corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished

consideration, and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding

inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner was the

_drawing-room_ of the establishment. In the other corner was a bed of

much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for _use_. The wall

over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant scriptural

prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and colored in a

manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he

had happened to meet with its like.

On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed boys, with

glistening black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were busy in

superintending the first walking operations of the baby, which, as is

usually the case, consisted in getting up on its feet, balancing a

moment, and then tumbling down,—each successive failure being violently

cheered, as something decidedly clever.

A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in front of the

fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and saucers of a

decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms of an approaching

meal. At this table was seated Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby’s best hand, who,

as he is to be the hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our

readers. He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a full

glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were

characterized by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united

with much kindliness and benevolence. There was something about his

whole air self-respecting and dignified, yet united with a confiding

and humble simplicity.

He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying before him,

on which he was carefully and slowly endeavoring to accomplish a copy

of some letters, in which operation he was overlooked by young Mas’r

George, a smart, bright boy of thirteen, who appeared fully to realize

the dignity of his position as instructor.

“Not that way, Uncle Tom,—not that way,” said he, briskly, as Uncle Tom

laboriously brought up the tail of his _g_ the wrong side out; “that

makes a _q_, you see.”

“La sakes, now, does it?” said Uncle Tom, looking with a respectful,

admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly scrawled _q_’s and

_g_’s innumerable for his edification; and then, taking the pencil in

his big, heavy fingers, he patiently recommenced.

“How easy white folks al’us does things!” said Aunt Chloe, pausing

while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap of bacon on her fork, and

regarding young Master George with pride. “The way he can write, now!

and read, too! and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons

to us,—it’s mighty interestin’!”

“But, Aunt Chloe, I’m getting mighty hungry,” said George. “Isn’t that

cake in the skillet almost done?”

“Mose done, Mas’r George,” said Aunt Chloe, lifting the lid and peeping

in,—“browning beautiful—a real lovely brown. Ah! let me alone for dat.

Missis let Sally try to make some cake, t’other day, jes to _larn_

her, she said. ‘O, go way, Missis,’ said I; ‘it really hurts my

feelin’s, now, to see good vittles spiled dat ar way! Cake ris all to

one side—no shape at all; no more than my shoe; go way!’”

And with this final expression of contempt for Sally’s greenness, Aunt

Chloe whipped the cover off the bake-kettle, and disclosed to view a

neatly-baked pound-cake, of which no city confectioner need to have

been ashamed. This being evidently the central point of the

entertainment, Aunt Chloe began now to bustle about earnestly in the

supper department.

“Here you, Mose and Pete! get out de way, you niggers! Get away, Polly,

honey,—mammy’ll give her baby somefin, by and by. Now, Mas’r George,

you jest take off dem books, and set down now with my old man, and I’ll

take up de sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your

plates in less dan no time.”

“They wanted me to come to supper in the house,” said George; “but I

knew what was what too well for that, Aunt Chloe.”

“So you did—so you did, honey,” said Aunt Chloe, heaping the smoking

batter-cakes on his plate; “you know’d your old aunty’d keep the best

for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!” And, with that, aunty gave

George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and

turned again to her griddle with great briskness.

“Now for the cake,” said Mas’r George, when the activity of the griddle

department had somewhat subsided; and, with that, the youngster

flourished a large knife over the article in question.

“La bless you, Mas’r George!” said Aunt Chloe, with earnestness,

catching his arm, “you wouldn’t be for cuttin’ it wid dat ar great

heavy knife! Smash all down—spile all de pretty rise of it. Here, I’ve

got a thin old knife, I keeps sharp a purpose. Dar now, see! comes

apart light as a feather! Now eat away—you won’t get anything to beat

dat ar.”

“Tom Lincon says,” said George, speaking with his mouth full, “that

their Jinny is a better cook than you.”

“Dem Lincons an’t much count, no way!” said Aunt Chloe, contemptuously;

“I mean, set along side _our_ folks. They ’s ’spectable folks enough in

a kinder plain way; but, as to gettin’ up anything in style, they don’t

begin to have a notion on ’t. Set Mas’r Lincon, now, alongside Mas’r

Shelby! Good Lor! and Missis Lincon,—can she kinder sweep it into a

room like my missis,—so kinder splendid, yer know! O, go way! don’t

tell me nothin’ of dem Lincons!”—and Aunt Chloe tossed her head as one

who hoped she did know something of the world.

“Well, though, I’ve heard you say,” said George, “that Jinny was a

pretty fair cook.”

“So I did,” said Aunt Chloe,—“I may say dat. Good, plain, common

cookin’, Jinny’ll do;—make a good pone o’ bread,—bile her taters

_far_,—her corn cakes isn’t extra, not extra now, Jinny’s corn cakes

isn’t, but then they’s far,—but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and

what _can_ she do? Why, she makes pies—sartin she does; but what kinder

crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your mouth, and

lies all up like a puff? Now, I went over thar when Miss Mary was gwine

to be married, and Jinny she jest showed me de weddin’ pies. Jinny and

I is good friends, ye know. I never said nothin’; but go ’long, Mas’r

George! Why, I shouldn’t sleep a wink for a week, if I had a batch of

pies like dem ar. Why, dey wan’t no ’count ’t all.”

“I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice,” said George.

“Thought so!—didn’t she? Thar she was, showing ’em, as innocent—ye see,

it’s jest here, Jinny _don’t know_. Lor, the family an’t nothing! She

can’t be spected to know! ’Ta’nt no fault o’ hern. Ah, Mas’r George, you

doesn’t know half your privileges in yer family and bringin’ up!” Here

Aunt Chloe sighed, and rolled up her eyes with emotion.

“I’m sure, Aunt Chloe, I understand all my pie and pudding privileges,”

said George. “Ask Tom Lincon if I don’t crow over him, every time I

meet him.”

Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a hearty guffaw of

laughter, at this witticism of young Mas’r’s, laughing till the tears

rolled down her black, shining cheeks, and varying the exercise with

playfully slapping and poking Mas’r Georgey, and telling him to go way,

and that he was a case—that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin

would kill her, one of these days; and, between each of these

sanguinary predictions, going off into a laugh, each longer and

stronger than the other, till George really began to think that he was

a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it became him to be careful

how he talked “as funny as he could.”

“And so ye telled Tom, did ye? O, Lor! what young uns will be up ter!

Ye crowed over Tom? O, Lor! Mas’r George, if ye wouldn’t make a hornbug

laugh!”

“Yes,” said George, “I says to him, ‘Tom, you ought to see some of Aunt

Chloe’s pies; they’re the right sort,’ says I.”

“Pity, now, Tom couldn’t,” said Aunt Chloe, on whose benevolent heart

the idea of Tom’s benighted condition seemed to make a strong

impression. “Ye oughter just ask him here to dinner, some o’ these

times, Mas’r George,” she added; “it would look quite pretty of ye. Ye

know, Mas’r George, ye oughtenter feel ’bove nobody, on ’count yer

privileges, ’cause all our privileges is gi’n to us; we ought al’ays to

’member that,” said Aunt Chloe, looking quite serious.

“Well, I mean to ask Tom here, some day next week,” said George; “and

you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and we’ll make him stare. Won’t we

make him eat so he won’t get over it for a fortnight?”

“Yes, yes—sartin,” said Aunt Chloe, delighted; “you’ll see. Lor! to

think of some of our dinners! Yer mind dat ar great chicken pie I made

when we guv de dinner to General Knox? I and Missis, we come pretty

near quarrelling about dat ar crust. What does get into ladies

sometimes, I don’t know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest

kind o’ ’sponsibility on ’em, as ye may say, and is all kinder

_‘seris’_ and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin’ round and

kinder interferin’! Now, Missis, she wanted me to do dis way, and she

wanted me to do dat way; and, finally, I got kinder sarcy, and, says I,

‘Now, Missis, do jist look at dem beautiful white hands o’ yourn with

long fingers, and all a sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when

de dew ’s on ’em; and look at my great black stumpin hands. Now, don’t

ye think dat de Lord must have meant _me_ to make de pie-crust, and you

to stay in de parlor?’ Dar! I was jist so sarcy, Mas’r George.”

“And what did mother say?” said George.

“Say?—why, she kinder larfed in her eyes—dem great handsome eyes o’

hern; and, says she, ‘Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are about in the

right on ’t,’ says she; and she went off in de parlor. She oughter

cracked me over de head for bein’ so sarcy; but dar’s whar ’t is—I

can’t do nothin’ with ladies in de kitchen!”

“Well, you made out well with that dinner,—I remember everybody said

so,” said George.

“Didn’t I? And wan’t I behind de dinin’-room door dat bery day? and

didn’t I see de General pass his plate three times for some more dat

bery pie?—and, says he, ‘You must have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.’

Lor! I was fit to split myself.

“And de Gineral, he knows what cookin’ is,” said Aunt Chloe, drawing

herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de Gineral! He comes of one of

de bery _fustest_ families in Old Virginny! He knows what’s what, now,

as well as I do—de Gineral. Ye see, there’s _pints_ in all pies, Mas’r

George; but tan’t everybody knows what they is, or orter be. But the

Gineral, he knows; I knew by his ’marks he made. Yes, he knows what de

pints is!”

By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to which even a

boy can come (under uncommon circumstances), when he really could not

eat another morsel, and, therefore, he was at leisure to notice the

pile of woolly heads and glistening eyes which were regarding their

operations hungrily from the opposite corner.

“Here, you Mose, Pete,” he said, breaking off liberal bits, and

throwing it at them; “you want some, don’t you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake

them some cakes.”

And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the chimney-corner,

while Aunt Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby

on her lap, and began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and

distributing to Mose and Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating

theirs as they rolled about on the floor under the table, tickling each

other, and occasionally pulling the baby’s toes.

“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in

a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too

obstreperous. “Can’t ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye?

Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I’ll take ye down

a button-hole lower, when Mas’r George is gone!”

What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to

say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce

very little impression on the young sinners addressed.

“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle all the while,

they can’t behave theirselves.”

Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with hands and faces

well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.

“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their woolly heads.

“Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion. Go

long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding her

exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which

seemed only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as

they tumbled precipitately over each other out of doors, where they

fairly screamed with merriment.

“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe, rather

complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies,

she poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began

rubbing off the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having

polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she

busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals

in pulling Tom’s nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands

in his woolly hair, which last operation seemed to afford her special

content.

“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take a

full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder,

and began capering and dancing with her, while Mas’r George snapped at

her with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned

again, roared after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they

“fairly took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her own

statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in

the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one

had roared and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of

composure.

“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in

pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose and you

Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the meetin’.”

“O mother, we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin’,—meetin’s is

so curis. We likes ’em.”

“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said Mas’r

George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.

Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to

push the thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’t will do

’em some good.”

The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to

consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.

“What we’s to do for cheers, now, _I_ declar I don’t know,” said Aunt

Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s weekly, for an

indefinite length of time, without any more “cheers,” there seemed some

encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.

“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,”

suggested Mose.

“You go long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some o’ your shines,” said

Aunt Chloe.

“Well, it’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!” said Mose.

“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, cause he al’ays hitches when he

gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’ other night,”

said Pete.

“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den he’d begin, ‘Come

saints and sinners, hear me tell,’ and den down he’d go,”—and Mose

imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the

floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.

“Come now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe; “an’t yer shamed?”

Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared

decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition seemed

rather to fail of effect.

“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote in them ar

bar’ls.”

“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s, Mas’r George was reading

’bout, in de good book,—dey never fails,” said Mose, aside to Pete.

“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete, “and let ’em all

down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was failin’, warnt it?”

During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks had been

rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on

each side, boards were laid across them, which arrangement, together

with the turning down of certain tubs and pails, and the disposing of

the rickety chairs, at last completed the preparation.

“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll stay to

read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “’pears like ’t will be so much more

interestin’.”

George very readily consented, for your boy is always ready for

anything that makes him of importance.

The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from the old

gray-headed patriarch of eighty, to the young girl and lad of fifteen.

A little harmless gossip ensued on various themes, such as where old

Aunt Sally got her new red headkerchief, and how “Missis was a going to

give Lizzy that spotted muslin gown, when she’d got her new berage made

up;” and how Mas’r Shelby was thinking of buying a new sorrel colt,

that was going to prove an addition to the glories of the place. A few

of the worshippers belonged to families hard by, who had got permission

to attend, and who brought in various choice scraps of information,

about the sayings and doings at the house and on the place, which

circulated as freely as the same sort of small change does in higher

circles.

After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all

present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could

prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild

and spirited. The words were sometimes the well-known and common hymns

sung in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite

character, picked up at camp-meetings.

The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung with great

energy and unction:

“Die on the field of battle,

Die on the field of battle,

Glory in my soul.”

Another special favorite had oft repeated the words—

“O, I’m going to glory,—won’t you come along with me?

Don’t you see the angels beck’ning, and a calling me away?

Don’t you see the golden city and the everlasting day?”

There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s banks,”

and “Canaan’s fields,” and the “New Jerusalem;” for the negro mind,

impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and

expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; and, as they sung, some

laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands

rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other

side of the river.

Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed, and

intermingled with the singing. One old gray-headed woman, long past

work, but much revered as a sort of chronicle of the past, rose, and

leaning on her staff, said—

“Well, chil’en! Well, I’m mighty glad to hear ye all and see ye all

once more, ’cause I don’t know when I’ll be gone to glory; but I’ve

done got ready, chil’en; ’pears like I’d got my little bundle all

tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a waitin’ for the stage to come along

and take me home; sometimes, in the night, I think I hear the wheels

a rattlin’, and I’m lookin’ out all the time; now, you jest be ready

too, for I tell ye all, chil’en,” she said, striking her staff hard on

the floor, “dat ar _glory_ is a mighty thing! It’s a mighty thing,

chil’en,—you don’no nothing about it,—it’s _wonderful_.” And the old

creature sat down, with streaming tears, as wholly overcome, while the

whole circle struck up—

“O Canaan, bright Canaan,

I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”

Mas’r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation, often

interrupted by such exclamations as “The _sakes_ now!” “Only hear

that!” “Jest think on ’t!” “Is all that a comin’ sure enough?”

George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by

his mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw in

expositions of his own, from time to time, with a commendable

seriousness and gravity, for which he was admired by the young and

blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on all hands, that “a minister

couldn’t lay it off better than he did;” that “’t was reely ’mazin’!”

Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the

neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the _morale_

was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and

cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked

up to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the

simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified

even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially

excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike

earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture,

which seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his being, as to

have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously;

in the language of a pious old negro, he “prayed right up.” And so much

did his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences,

that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in

the abundance of the responses which broke out everywhere around him.

While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite

otherwise passed in the halls of the master.

The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the dining room

afore-named, at a table covered with papers and writing utensils.

Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, which, as they

were counted, he pushed over to the trader, who counted them likewise.

“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these yer.”

Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and signed them,

like a man that hurries over some disagreeable business, and then

pushed them over with the money. Haley produced, from a well-worn

valise, a parchment, which, after looking over it a moment, he handed

to Mr. Shelby, who took it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness.

“Wal, now, the thing’s _done_!” said the trader, getting up.

“It’s _done!_” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and, fetching a long

breath, he repeated, _“It’s done!”_

“Yer don’t seem to feel much pleased with it, ’pears to me,” said the

trader.

“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you’ll remember that you promised, on

your honor, you wouldn’t sell Tom, without knowing what sort of hands

he’s going into.”

“Why, you’ve just done it, sir,” said the trader.

“Circumstances, you well know, _obliged_ me,” said Shelby, haughtily.

“Wal, you know, they may ’blige _me_, too,” said the trader.

“Howsomever, I’ll do the very best I can in gettin’ Tom a good berth;

as to my treatin’ on him bad, you needn’t be a grain afeard. If there’s

anything that I thank the Lord for, it is that I’m never noways cruel.”

After the expositions which the trader had previously given of his

humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly reassured by

these declarations; but, as they were the best comfort the case

admitted of, he allowed the trader to depart in silence, and betook

himself to a solitary cigar.