第 二 章 · The Mother

. The Mother

Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a petted

and indulged favorite.

The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air

of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many

cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These

natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most

dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance

prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have described her, is

not a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance, as we saw her, years

ago, in Kentucky. Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza

had reached maturity without those temptations which make beauty so

fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a bright and

talented young mulatto man, who was a slave on a neighboring estate,

and bore the name of George Harris.

This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging

factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered

the first hand in the place. He had invented a machine for the cleaning

of the hemp, which, considering the education and circumstances of the

inventor, displayed quite as much mechanical genius as Whitney’s

cotton-gin.[1]

[2] A machine of this description was really the invention of a young

colored man in Kentucky. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.]

He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a

general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in

the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior

qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded,

tyrannical master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of

George’s invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this

intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great

enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so

valuable a slave.

He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George,

who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked

so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy

consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be

marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head

among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop to it. He’d take him back, and

put him to hoeing and digging, and “see if he’d step about so smart.”

Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded

when he suddenly demanded George’s wages, and announced his intention

of taking him home.

“But, Mr. Harris,” remonstrated the manufacturer, “isn’t this rather

sudden?”

“What if it is?—isn’t the man _mine_?”

“We would be willing, sir, to increase the rate of compensation.”

“No object at all, sir. I don’t need to hire any of my hands out,

unless I’ve a mind to.”

“But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to this business.”

“Dare say he may be; never was much adapted to anything that I set him

about, I’ll be bound.”

“But only think of his inventing this machine,” interposed one of the

workmen, rather unluckily.

“O yes!—a machine for saving work, is it? He’d invent that, I’ll be

bound; let a nigger alone for that, any time. They are all labor-saving

machines themselves, every one of ’em. No, he shall tramp!”

George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly

pronounced by a power that he knew was irresistible. He folded his

arms, tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter

feelings burned in his bosom, and sent streams of fire through his

veins. He breathed short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live

coals; and he might have broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had

not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the arm, and said, in a low

tone,

“Give way, George; go with him for the present. We’ll try to help you,

yet.”

The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he

could not hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in

his determination to keep the power he possessed over his victim.

George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm. He

had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing

eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that

could not be repressed,—indubitable signs, which showed too plainly

that the man could not become a thing.

It was during the happy period of his employment in the factory that

George had seen and married his wife. During that period,—being much

trusted and favored by his employer,—he had free liberty to come and go

at discretion. The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who,

with a little womanly complacency in match-making, felt pleased to

unite her handsome favorite with one of her own class who seemed in

every way suited to her; and so they were married in her mistress’

great parlor, and her mistress herself adorned the bride’s beautiful

hair with orange-blossoms, and threw over it the bridal veil, which

certainly could scarce have rested on a fairer head; and there was no

lack of white gloves, and cake and wine,—of admiring guests to praise

the bride’s beauty, and her mistress’ indulgence and liberality. For a

year or two Eliza saw her husband frequently, and there was nothing to

interrupt their happiness, except the loss of two infant children, to

whom she was passionately attached, and whom she mourned with a grief

so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her mistress, who

sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her naturally passionate

feelings within the bounds of reason and religion.

After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually become

tranquillized and settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve,

once more entwined with that little life, seemed to become sound and

healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband

was rudely torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway

of his legal owner.

The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a week or two

after George had been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of the

occasion had passed away, and tried every possible inducement to lead

him to restore him to his former employment.

“You needn’t trouble yourself to talk any longer,” said he, doggedly;

“I know my own business, sir.”

“I did not presume to interfere with it, sir. I only thought that you

might think it for your interest to let your man to us on the terms

proposed.”

“O, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your winking and

whispering, the day I took him out of the factory; but you don’t come

it over me that way. It’s a free country, sir; the man’s _mine_, and I

do what I please with him,—that’s it!”

And so fell George’s last hope;—nothing before him but a life of toil

and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation

and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.

A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is

to hang him. No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is

WORSE!