第 二十 章 · Topsy

. Topsy

One morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her domestic cares,

St. Clare’s voice was heard, calling her at the foot of the stairs.

“Come down here, Cousin, I’ve something to show you.”

“What is it?” said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her sewing in her

hand.

“I’ve made a purchase for your department,—see here,” said St. Clare;

and, with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl, about eight or

nine years of age.

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round shining eyes,

glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over

everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with astonishment at the

wonders of the new Mas’r’s parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set

of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which

stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd

mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a

kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity.

She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging;

and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, there

was something odd and goblin-like about her appearance,—something, as

Miss Ophelia afterwards said, “so heathenish,” as to inspire that good

lady with utter dismay; and turning to St. Clare, she said,

“Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?”

“For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she should go. I

thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim Crow line. Here,

Topsy,” he added, giving a whistle, as a man would to call the

attention of a dog, “give us a song, now, and show us some of your

dancing.”

The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, and

the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd negro melody, to

which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning round, clapping

her hands, knocking her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of

time, and producing in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which

distinguish the native music of her race; and finally, turning a

summerset or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, as odd and

unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly down on the

carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious

expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the

cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes.

Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement. St.

Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared to enjoy her

astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said,

“Topsy, this is your new mistress. I’m going to give you up to her; see

now that you behave yourself.”

“Yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her wicked eyes

twinkling as she spoke.

“You’re going to be good, Topsy, you understand,” said St. Clare.

“O yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands still

devoutly folded.

“Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?” said Miss Ophelia. “Your

house is so full of these little plagues, now, that a body can’t set

down their foot without treading on ’em. I get up in the morning, and

find one asleep behind the door, and see one black head poking out from

under the table, one lying on the door-mat,—and they are mopping and

mowing and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over the

kitchen floor! What on earth did you want to bring this one for?”

“For you to educate—didn’t I tell you? You’re always preaching about

educating. I thought I would make you a present of a fresh-caught

specimen, and let you try your hand on her, and bring her up in the way

she should go.”

“_I_ don’t want her, I am sure;—I have more to do with ’em now than I

want to.”

“That’s you Christians, all over!—you’ll get up a society, and get some

poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let

me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and

take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to

that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care, and so

on.”

“Augustine, you know I didn’t think of it in that light,” said Miss

Ophelia, evidently softening. “Well, it might be a real missionary

work,” said she, looking rather more favorably on the child.

St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia’s

conscientiousness was ever on the alert. “But,” she added, “I really

didn’t see the need of buying this one;—there are enough now, in your

house, to take all my time and skill.”

“Well, then, Cousin,” said St. Clare, drawing her aside, “I ought to

beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing speeches. You are so good,

after all, that there’s no sense in them. Why, the fact is, this

concern belonged to a couple of drunken creatures that keep a low

restaurant that I have to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing

her screaming, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright

and funny, too, as if something might be made of her;—so I bought her,

and I’ll give her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New

England bringing up, and see what it’ll make of her. You know I haven’t

any gift that way; but I’d like you to try.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her

new subject very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black

spider, supposing them to have benevolent designs toward it.

“She’s dreadfully dirty, and half naked,” she said.

“Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them clean and clothe her

up.”

Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions.

“Don’t see what Mas’r St. Clare wants of ’nother nigger!” said Dinah,

surveying the new arrival with no friendly air. “Won’t have her around

under _my_ feet, _I_ know!”

“Pah!” said Rosa and Jane, with supreme disgust; “let her keep out of

our way! What in the world Mas’r wanted another of these low niggers

for, I can’t see!”

“You go long! No more nigger dan you be, Miss Rosa,” said Dinah, who

felt this last remark a reflection on herself. “You seem to tink

yourself white folks. You an’t nerry one, black _nor_ white, I’d like

to be one or turrer.”

Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp that would undertake

to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new arrival; and so she

was forced to do it herself, with some very ungracious and reluctant

assistance from Jane.

It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the first toilet

of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this world, multitudes must

live and die in a state that it would be too great a shock to the

nerves of their fellow-mortals even to hear described. Miss Ophelia had

a good, strong, practical deal of resolution; and she went through all

the disgusting details with heroic thoroughness, though, it must be

confessed, with no very gracious air,—for endurance was the utmost to

which her principles could bring her. When she saw, on the back and

shoulders of the child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable

marks of the system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart

became pitiful within her.

“See there!” said Jane, pointing to the marks, “don’t that show she’s a

limb? We’ll have fine works with her, I reckon. I hate these nigger

young uns! so disgusting! I wonder that Mas’r would buy her!”

The “young un” alluded to heard all these comments with the subdued and

doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only scanning, with a keen

and furtive glance of her flickering eyes, the ornaments which Jane

wore in her ears. When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole

clothing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some

satisfaction, said she looked more Christian-like than she did, and in

her own mind began to mature some plans for her instruction.

Sitting down before her, she began to question her.

“How old are you, Topsy?”

“Dun no, Missis,” said the image, with a grin that showed all her

teeth.

“Don’t know how old you are? Didn’t anybody ever tell you? Who was your

mother?”

“Never had none!” said the child, with another grin.

“Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?”

“Never was born!” persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so

goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous, she might

have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land of

Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and

business-like, and she said, with some sternness,

“You mustn’t answer me in that way, child; I’m not playing with you.

Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were.”

“Never was born,” reiterated the creature, more emphatically; “never

had no father nor mother, nor nothin’. I was raised by a speculator,

with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us.”

The child was evidently sincere, and Jane, breaking into a short laugh,

said,

“Laws, Missis, there’s heaps of ’em. Speculators buys ’em up cheap,

when they’s little, and gets ’em raised for market.”

“How long have you lived with your master and mistress?”

“Dun no, Missis.”

“Is it a year, or more, or less?”

“Dun no, Missis.”

“Laws, Missis, those low negroes,—they can’t tell; they don’t know

anything about time,” said Jane; “they don’t know what a year is; they

don’t know their own ages.

“Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?”

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual.

“Do you know who made you?”

“Nobody, as I knows on,” said the child, with a short laugh.

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and

she added,

“I spect I grow’d. Don’t think nobody never made me.”

“Do you know how to sew?” said Miss Ophelia, who thought she would turn

her inquiries to something more tangible.

“No, Missis.”

“What can you do?—what did you do for your master and mistress?”

“Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait on folks.”

“Were they good to you?”

“Spect they was,” said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia cunningly.

Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. Clare was leaning

over the back of her chair.

“You find virgin soil there, Cousin; put in your own ideas,—you won’t

find many to pull up.”

Miss Ophelia’s ideas of education, like all her other ideas, were very

set and definite; and of the kind that prevailed in New England a

century ago, and which are still preserved in some very retired and

unsophisticated parts, where there are no railroads. As nearly as could

be expressed, they could be comprised in very few words: to teach them

to mind when they were spoken to; to teach them the catechism, sewing,

and reading; and to whip them if they told lies. And though, of course,

in the flood of light that is now poured on education, these are left

far away in the rear, yet it is an undisputed fact that our

grandmothers raised some tolerably fair men and women under this

regime, as many of us can remember and testify. At all events, Miss

Ophelia knew of nothing else to do; and, therefore, applied her mind to

her heathen with the best diligence she could command.

The child was announced and considered in the family as Miss Ophelia’s

girl; and, as she was looked upon with no gracious eye in the kitchen,

Miss Ophelia resolved to confine her sphere of operation and

instruction chiefly to her own chamber. With a self-sacrifice which

some of our readers will appreciate, she resolved, instead of

comfortably making her own bed, sweeping and dusting her own

chamber,—which she had hitherto done, in utter scorn of all offers of

help from the chambermaid of the establishment,—to condemn herself to

the martyrdom of instructing Topsy to perform these operations,—ah, woe

the day! Did any of our readers ever do the same, they will appreciate

the amount of her self-sacrifice.

Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her chamber, the first

morning, and solemnly commencing a course of instruction in the art and

mystery of bed-making.

Behold, then, Topsy, washed and shorn of all the little braided tails

wherein her heart had delighted, arrayed in a clean gown, with

well-starched apron, standing reverently before Miss Ophelia, with an

expression of solemnity well befitting a funeral.

“Now, Topsy, I’m going to show you just how my bed is to be made. I am

very particular about my bed. You must learn exactly how to do it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face of woful

earnestness.

“Now, Topsy, look here;—this is the hem of the sheet,—this is the right

side of the sheet, and this is the wrong;—will you remember?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Topsy, with another sigh.

“Well, now, the under sheet you must bring over the bolster,—so—and

tuck it clear down under the mattress nice and smooth,—so,—do you see?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Topsy, with profound attention.

“But the upper sheet,” said Miss Ophelia, “must be brought down in this

way, and tucked under firm and smooth at the foot,—so,—the narrow hem

at the foot.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Topsy, as before;—but we will add, what Miss Ophelia

did not see, that, during the time when the good lady’s back was turned

in the zeal of her manipulations, the young disciple had contrived to

snatch a pair of gloves and a ribbon, which she had adroitly slipped

into her sleeves, and stood with her hands dutifully folded, as before.

“Now, Topsy, let’s see _you_ do this,” said Miss Ophelia, pulling off

the clothes, and seating herself.

Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through the exercise

completely to Miss Ophelia’s satisfaction; smoothing the sheets,

patting out every wrinkle, and exhibiting, through the whole process, a

gravity and seriousness with which her instructress was greatly

edified. By an unlucky slip, however, a fluttering fragment of the

ribbon hung out of one of her sleeves, just as she was finishing, and

caught Miss Ophelia’s attention. Instantly, she pounced upon it.

“What’s this? You naughty, wicked child,—you’ve been stealing this!”

The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy’s own sleeve, yet was she not in the

least disconcerted; she only looked at it with an air of the most

surprised and unconscious innocence.

“Laws! why, that ar’s Miss Feely’s ribbon, an’t it? How could it a got

caught in my sleeve?

“Topsy, you naughty girl, don’t you tell me a lie,—you stole that

ribbon!”

“Missis, I declar for ’t, I didn’t;—never seed it till dis yer blessed

minnit.”

“Topsy,” said Miss Ophelia, “don’t you know it’s wicked to tell lies?”

“I never tell no lies, Miss Feely,” said Topsy, with virtuous gravity;

“it’s jist the truth I’ve been a tellin now, and an’t nothin else.”

“Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so.”

“Laws, Missis, if you’s to whip all day, couldn’t say no other way,”

said Topsy, beginning to blubber. “I never seed dat ar,—it must a got

caught in my sleeve. Miss Feeley must have left it on the bed, and it

got caught in the clothes, and so got in my sleeve.”

Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that she caught the

child and shook her.

“Don’t you tell me that again!”

The shake brought the glove on to the floor, from the other sleeve.

“There, you!” said Miss Ophelia, “will you tell me now, you didn’t

steal the ribbon?”

Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in denying the

ribbon.

“Now, Topsy,” said Miss Ophelia, “if you’ll confess all about it, I

won’t whip you this time.” Thus adjured, Topsy confessed to the ribbon

and gloves, with woful protestations of penitence.

“Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other things since you

have been in the house, for I let you run about all day yesterday. Now,

tell me if you took anything, and I shan’t whip you.”

“Laws, Missis! I took Miss Eva’s red thing she wars on her neck.”

“You did, you naughty child!—Well, what else?”

“I took Rosa’s yer-rings,—them red ones.”

“Go bring them to me this minute, both of ’em.”

“Laws, Missis! I can’t,—they ’s burnt up!”

“Burnt up!—what a story! Go get ’em, or I’ll whip you.”

Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans, declared that

she _could_ not. “They ’s burnt up,—they was.”

“What did you burn ’em for?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Cause I ’s wicked,—I is. I ’s mighty wicked, any how. I can’t help

it.”

Just at this moment, Eva came innocently into the room, with the

identical coral necklace on her neck.

“Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Get it? Why, I’ve had it on all day,” said Eva.

“Did you have it on yesterday?”

“Yes; and what is funny, Aunty, I had it on all night. I forgot to take

it off when I went to bed.”

Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered; the more so, as Rosa, at that

instant, came into the room, with a basket of newly-ironed linen poised

on her head, and the coral ear-drops shaking in her ears!

“I’m sure I can’t tell anything what to do with such a child!” she

said, in despair. “What in the world did you tell me you took those

things for, Topsy?”

“Why, Missis said I must ’fess; and I couldn’t think of nothin’ else to

’fess,” said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.

“But, of course, I didn’t want you to confess things you didn’t do,”

said Miss Ophelia; “that’s telling a lie, just as much as the other.”

“Laws, now, is it?” said Topsy, with an air of innocent wonder.

“La, there an’t any such thing as truth in that limb,” said Rosa,

looking indignantly at Topsy. “If I was Mas’r St. Clare, I’d whip her

till the blood run. I would,—I’d let her catch it!”

“No, no Rosa,” said Eva, with an air of command, which the child could

assume at times; “you mustn’t talk so, Rosa. I can’t bear to hear it.”

“La sakes! Miss Eva, you ’s so good, you don’t know nothing how to get

along with niggers. There’s no way but to cut ’em well up, I tell ye.”

“Rosa!” said Eva, “hush! Don’t you say another word of that sort!” and

the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deepened its color.

Rosa was cowed in a moment.

“Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that’s plain. She can

speak, for all the world, just like her papa,” she said, as she passed

out of the room.

Eva stood looking at Topsy.

There stood the two children representatives of the two extremes of

society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep

eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements; and her

black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor. They stood the

representatives of their races. The Saxon, born of ages of cultivation,

command, education, physical and moral eminence; the Afric, born of

ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil and vice!

Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through Eva’s mind. But

a child’s thoughts are rather dim, undefined instincts; and in Eva’s

noble nature many such were yearning and working, for which she had no

power of utterance. When Miss Ophelia expatiated on Topsy’s naughty,

wicked conduct, the child looked perplexed and sorrowful, but said,

sweetly.

“Poor Topsy, why need you steal? You’re going to be taken good care of

now. I’m sure I’d rather give you anything of mine, than have you steal

it.”

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in her life;

and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the wild, rude heart,

and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in the keen, round,

glittering eye; but it was followed by the short laugh and habitual

grin. No! the ear that has never heard anything but abuse is strangely

incredulous of anything so heavenly as kindness; and Topsy only thought

Eva’s speech something funny and inexplicable,—she did not believe it.

But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the case a

puzzler; her rules for bringing up didn’t seem to apply. She thought

she would take time to think of it; and, by the way of gaining time,

and in hopes of some indefinite moral virtues supposed to be inherent

in dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one till she had

arranged her ideas further on the subject.

“I don’t see,” said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, “how I’m going to manage

that child, without whipping her.”

“Well, whip her, then, to your heart’s content; I’ll give you full

power to do what you like.”

“Children always have to be whipped,” said Miss Ophelia; “I never heard

of bringing them up without.”

“O, well, certainly,” said St. Clare; “do as you think best. Only I’ll

make one suggestion: I’ve seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked

down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came handiest, &c.; and,

seeing that she is used to that style of operation, I think your

whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression.”

“What is to be done with her, then?” said Miss Ophelia.

“You have started a serious question,” said St. Clare; “I wish you’d

answer it. What is to be done with a human being that can be governed

only by the lash,—_that_ fails,—it’s a very common state of things down

here!”

“I’m sure I don’t know; I never saw such a child as this.”

“Such children are very common among us, and such men and women, too.

How are they to be governed?” said St. Clare.

“I’m sure it’s more than I can say,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Or I either,” said St. Clare. “The horrid cruelties and outrages that

once and a while find their way into the papers,—such cases as Prue’s,

for example,—what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual

hardening process on both sides,—the owner growing more and more cruel,

as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like

laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline. I

saw this very early when I became an owner; and I resolved never to

begin, because I did not know when I should stop,—and I resolved, at

least, to protect my own moral nature. The consequence is, that my

servants act like spoiled children; but I think that better than for us

both to be brutalized together. You have talked a great deal about our

responsibilities in educating, Cousin. I really wanted you to _try_

with one child, who is a specimen of thousands among us.”

“It is your system makes such children,” said Miss Ophelia.

“I know it; but they are _made_,—they exist,—and what _is_ to be done

with them?”

“Well, I can’t say I thank you for the experiment. But, then, as it

appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and do the best I

can,” said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after this, did labor, with

a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on her new subject. She

instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to

teach her to read and sew.

In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned her letters

as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain reading; but the

sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature was as lithe as a cat,

and as active as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her

abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them slyly out of the

window, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied

her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away

altogether. Her motions were almost as quick as those of a practised

conjurer, and her command of her face quite as great; and though Miss

Ophelia could not help feeling that so many accidents could not

possibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without a

watchfulness which would leave her no time for anything else, detect

her.

Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. Her talent for

every species of drollery, grimace, and mimicry,—for dancing, tumbling,

climbing, singing, whistling, imitating every sound that hit her

fancy,—seemed inexhaustible. In her play-hours, she invariably had

every child in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with

admiration and wonder,—not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be

fascinated by her wild diablerie, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a

glittering serpent. Miss Ophelia was uneasy that Eva should fancy

Topsy’s society so much, and implored St. Clare to forbid it.

“Poh! let the child alone,” said St. Clare. “Topsy will do her good.”

“But so depraved a child,—are you not afraid she will teach her some

mischief?”

“She can’t teach her mischief; she might teach it to some children, but

evil rolls off Eva’s mind like dew off a cabbage-leaf,—not a drop sinks

in.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Miss Ophelia. “I know I’d never let a child

of mine play with Topsy.”

“Well, your children needn’t,” said St. Clare, “but mine may; if Eva

could have been spoiled, it would have been done years ago.”

Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper servants. They

soon found reason to alter their opinion. It was very soon discovered

that whoever cast an indignity on Topsy was sure to meet with some

inconvenient accident shortly after;—either a pair of ear-rings or some

cherished trinket would be missing, or an article of dress would be

suddenly found utterly ruined, or the person would stumble accidently

into a pail of hot water, or a libation of dirty slop would

unaccountably deluge them from above when in full gala dress;-and on

all these occasions, when investigation was made, there was nobody

found to stand sponsor for the indignity. Topsy was cited, and had up

before all the domestic judicatories, time and again; but always

sustained her examinations with most edifying innocence and gravity of

appearance. Nobody in the world ever doubted who did the things; but

not a scrap of any direct evidence could be found to establish the

suppositions, and Miss Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to

proceed to any length without it.

The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, as further to

shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for revenge on Rosa and Jane,

the two chamber maids, were always chosen in those seasons when (as not

unfrequently happened) they were in disgrace with their mistress, when

any complaint from them would of course meet with no sympathy. In

short, Topsy soon made the household understand the propriety of

letting her alone; and she was let alone, accordingly.

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning

everything that was taught her with surprising quickness. With a few

lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss Ophelia’s

chamber in a way with which even that particular lady could find no

fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more

accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when

she chose,—but she didn’t very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after

three or four days of careful patient supervision, was so sanguine as

to suppose that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without

over-looking, and so go off and busy herself about something else,

Topsy would hold a perfect carnival of confusion, for some one or two

hours. Instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling

off the pillowcases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it

would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in

various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head downward

from the tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment;

dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia’s night-clothes, and enact various

performances with that,—singing and whistling, and making grimaces at

herself in the looking-glass; in short, as Miss Ophelia phrased it,

“raising Cain” generally.

On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very best scarlet

India Canton crape shawl wound round her head for a turban, going on

with her rehearsals before the glass in great style,—Miss Ophelia

having, with carelessness most unheard-of in her, left the key for once

in her drawer.

“Topsy!” she would say, when at the end of all patience, “what does

make you act so?”

“Dunno, Missis,—I spects cause I ’s so wicked!”

“I don’t know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy.”

“Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers whipped me. I an’t

used to workin’ unless I gets whipped.”

“Why, Topsy, I don’t want to whip you. You can do well, if you’ve a

mind to; what is the reason you won’t?”

“Laws, Missis, I ’s used to whippin’; I spects it’s good for me.”

Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a terrible

commotion, screaming, groaning and imploring, though half an hour

afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the balcony, and

surrounded by a flock of admiring “young uns,” she would express the

utmost contempt of the whole affair.

“Law, Miss Feely whip!—wouldn’t kill a skeeter, her whippins. Oughter

see how old Mas’r made the flesh fly; old Mas’r know’d how!”

Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and enormities,

evidently considering them as something peculiarly distinguishing.

“Law, you niggers,” she would say to some of her auditors, “does you

know you ’s all sinners? Well, you is—everybody is. White folks is

sinners too,—Miss Feely says so; but I spects niggers is the biggest

ones; but lor! ye an’t any on ye up to me. I ’s so awful wicked there

can’t nobody do nothin’ with me. I used to keep old Missis a swarin’ at

me half de time. I spects I ’s the wickedest critter in the world;” and

Topsy would cut a summerset, and come up brisk and shining on to a

higher perch, and evidently plume herself on the distinction.

Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays, teaching Topsy

the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon verbal memory, and committed with

a fluency that greatly encouraged her instructress.

“What good do you expect it is going to do her?” said St. Clare.

“Why, it always has done children good. It’s what children always have

to learn, you know,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Understand it or not,” said St. Clare.

“O, children never understand it at the time; but, after they are grown

up, it’ll come to them.”

“Mine hasn’t come to me yet,” said St. Clare, “though I’ll bear

testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly when I was a boy.”’

“Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I used to have great

hopes of you,” said Miss Ophelia.

“Well, haven’t you now?” said St. Clare.

“I wish you were as good as you were when you were a boy, Augustine.”

“So do I, that’s a fact, Cousin,” said St. Clare. “Well, go ahead and

catechize Topsy; may be you’ll make out something yet.”

Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discussion, with

hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss Ophelia, went on:

“Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell

from the state wherein they were created.”

Topsy’s eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.

“What is it, Topsy?” said Miss Ophelia.

“Please, Missis, was dat ar state Kintuck?”

“What state, Topsy?”

“Dat state dey fell out of. I used to hear Mas’r tell how we came down

from Kintuck.”

St. Clare laughed.

“You’ll have to give her a meaning, or she’ll make one,” said he.

“There seems to be a theory of emigration suggested there.”

“O! Augustine, be still,” said Miss Ophelia; “how can I do anything, if

you will be laughing?”

“Well, I won’t disturb the exercises again, on my honor;” and St. Clare

took his paper into the parlor, and sat down, till Topsy had finished

her recitations. They were all very well, only that now and then she

would oddly transpose some important words, and persist in the mistake,

in spite of every effort to the contrary; and St. Clare, after all his

promises of goodness, took a wicked pleasure in these mistakes, calling

Topsy to him whenever he had a mind to amuse himself, and getting her

to repeat the offending passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia’s

remonstrances.

“How do you think I can do anything with the child, if you will go on

so, Augustine?” she would say.

“Well, it is too bad,—I won’t again; but I do like to hear the droll

little image stumble over those big words!”

“But you confirm her in the wrong way.”

“What’s the odds? One word is as good as another to her.”

“You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to remember she is

a reasonable creature, and be careful of your influence over her.”

“O, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, ‘I ’s so wicked!’”

In very much this way Topsy’s training proceeded, for a year or

two,—Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with her, as a

kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became, in time, as

accustomed, as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia or sick headache.

St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child that a man might

in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. Topsy, whenever her sins

brought her into disgrace in other quarters, always took refuge behind

his chair; and St. Clare, in one way or other, would make peace for

her. From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts

and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the

children in the family; for Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured

and liberal, and only spiteful in self-defence. She is fairly

introduced into our _corps de ballet_, and will figure, from time to

time, in her turn, with other performers.