 Chapter 14 of Dread, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dread, Chapter 14, Aunt Nesbitt's Loss. On entering the house, Nina was met at the door by Milly with a countenance of some anxiety. Miss Nina, your aunt has heard bad news this morning. Bad news? What? Well, honey, you see, Dad has been a lawyer here, said Milly following Nina as she was going upstairs. And she has been shut up with him all morning. And when he come out, I found her taken on quite dreadful. And she say she has lost all her property. Oh, is that all? I didn't know what dreadful thing might have happened. Well, Milly, this isn't so very bad. She hadn't much to lose. Oh, bless you, child. Nobody wants to lose all they got, much or little. Yes, but, you know, she can always live here with us and what little money she wants to fuss with to buy new caps and a pair of gorg for her cough. In all such little matters, we can give her easily enough. Ah, Miss Nina, your heart is free enough. You'd give away both ends of the rainbow if you had them to give. But the trouble is, child, you haven't got them. Why, child, does your great place in so many mouths open to eat and eat? Child, I tell you, it takes heaps to keep it a-going. And Harry, I tell you, finds it hard work to bring it even all the year round, though he never says nothing to you about his troubles. Wants you always to walk on flowers with both hands full and never think where they come from. I tell you what, child, we's bound to think for you a little. And I tell you what, I is just to go on a high route. Why, Milly, how ridiculous. It ain't ridiculous now. Why, just look on it, Miss Nina. Here's Miss Lou. That's one. Here's me. That's two. Here's Polly. Great grown girl. Three. There's Tom. Tip four. All on us eating your bread and not bringing innocent to you because all on us together ain't doing much more than wait on Miss Lou. Why, you's got servants enough of your own to do everything that wants doing in this year's house. I know, Miss Nina, young ladies don't like to hear about these things. But the fact is, vitals cost something and there must be some on us to bring in something. Now that third gentleman, what talked with your aunt? He said he could find me a right good place up there to the town and I was just to going. Sally, she's big enough now to do everything that I have been used to doing for Miss Lou and I am just to going. Besides to tell you the truth, I think Miss Lou has kind of set her heart upon it. You know she is a weekly kind of thing. Don't know how to do much sex sitting in her chair and grown. She's always been so used to having me make a way for her and when I told her about this year, she kind of brightened up. But Millie, what shall I do? I can't spare you at all. Oh bless you child. Don't you suppose I've got eyes? I tell you Miss Nina, I looked that gentleman over pretty well for you and my opinion is he'll do. Oh come, you hush. You see child, it wouldn't be everybody that our people would be willing to have to come on to the place here but there ain't one on them that wouldn't go in for this year, now I tell you. There's old hundred, as you call him, told me it was just as good as a meeting to hear him reading the prayers that are day at the funeral. Now you see, I've seen gentlemen handsome and rich and right present too that the people wouldn't want at all. Cause why? They has their frolics and drinks and the money flies one way for this thing and one way for that to buy and buy it's all gone. Then comes the sheriff and the people is all sold some one way and some another way. Now Mr. Clayton, he ain't none of them. But Millie, oh this may be very well, but if I couldn't love him. Laws, sakes Miss Nina, you look me in the face and tell me that our white child that's plain enough to see through you to sow. The people's all pretty sure by this time. Sakes alive, we is used to looking out for the weather and we knows pretty well what's coming. And now Miss Nina you go right along and give him a good word cause you see dear lamb, you need a good husband to take care of you. That's what you want child. Girls like you has a hard life being at the head of a place, especially your brother being just what he is. Now if you had a husband here, mass of time would be quiet cause he knows he couldn't do nothing. But just as long as you's alone he'll plague you. But now child, it's time for you to be getting ready for dinner. Oh, but do you know Millie, I have something to tell you which I had liked to have forgotten. I've been out to the Belleville Plantation and bought Harry's wife. You has, Miss Nina? Why, the Lord bless you. Why, Harry was dreadful work to this year morning about what mass of time said, appeared like he was most crazy. Well, I've done it. I've got the receipt here. Why, but child, we're alive. Did you get all the money to pay right sudden so? Mr. Clayton lent it to me. Mr. Clayton, now child, didn't I tell you so? Do you suppose now you to let him lend you that dare money if you hadn't liked him? But come child, hurry, there's mass of time and that other gentleman coming back and you must be down to dinner. The company assembled at the dinner table was not particularly enlivening. Tom Gordon, who in the course of his morning ride had discovered the march which his sister had stolen upon him was more sulky and irritable than usual. Though too proud to make any allusion to the subject, Nina was annoyed by the presence of Mr. Jekyll whom her brother insisted should remain to dinner. Aunt Nesbitt was uncommonly doleful, of course. Clayton, who in mixed society generally took the part of a listener rather than a talker, said very little, and had it not been for Carson there's no saying whether any of the company could have spoken. Every kind of creature has its uses, and there are times when a lively, unthinking chatterbox is a perfect godsend. Those unperceiving people who never noticed the embarrassment of others and who walk with the greatest facility into the gaps of conversation, simply because they have no perception of any difficulty there, they have their hour, and Nina felt positively grateful to Mr. Carson for the continuous and cheerful rattle which had so annoyed her the day before. Carson drove a brisk talk with the lawyer about the value of property, percentage, etc. He sympathized with Aunt Nesbitt on her last caught cold, rallied time on his preoccupation, complimented nine on her improved color from her ride, and seemed on such excellent terms both with himself and everybody else that the thing was really infectious. What do you call your best investments down here? Land, eh? Carson said to Mr. Jekyll. Mr. Jekyll shook his head. Land deteriorates too fast. Besides, there's all the trouble and risk of overseers and all that. I've looked this thing over pretty well, and I always invest in niggers. Ah, said Mr. Carson, you do? Yes, sir, I invest in niggers, that's what I do, and I hire them out, sir, hire them out. Why, sir, if a man has a knowledge of human nature, knows where to buy and when to buy and watches his opportunity, he gets a better percentage on his money that way than any other. Now, that was what I was telling Mrs. Nesbitt this morning. Say now that you give $1,000 for a man, and I always buy the best sort, that's economy. Well, and he gets, ah, put it at the lowest figure, $10 a month wages and his living. Well, you see there, that gives you a pretty handsome sum for your money. I have a good talent of buying. I generally prefer mechanics. I have got now working for me three brick layers. I own two first rate carpenters, and last month I bought a perfect jewel of a blacksmith. He is an uncommonly ingenious man, a fellow that will make easy his $15 a month, and he is the more valuable because he has been religiously brought up. Why, some of them now will cheat you if they can, but this fellow has been brought up in a district where they have a missionary. And the great deal of pains has been taken to form his religious principles. Now, this fellow would no more think of touching a cent of his earnings than he would of stealing right out of my pocket. I tell people about him sometimes when I find them opposed to religious instruction. I tell them, see there now, you see how godliness is profitable to the life that now is? You know the scriptures, Mrs. Naspet. Yes, I always believed in religious education. Confound it all, said Tom. I don't, I don't see the use of making a set of hypocritical sneaks of them. I'd make niggers bring me my money, but hang it all if he came snuffling to me, pretending towards his duty, I'd choke him. They never think so, they don't, and they can't. And it's all hypocrisy, this religious instruction, as you call it. No, it isn't, said the undiscouraged Mr. Jekyll. Not when you found it on right principles. Take them early enough and work them right. You'll get it ground into them. Now, when they begun religious instruction, there was a great prejudice against it in our part of the country. You see, they were afraid that the niggers would get upish. Ah, but you see, the missionaries are pretty careful. They put it in strong in the catechisms about the rights of the master. You see, the instruction is just grounded on this, that the master stands in God's place to them. Down the bosh, said Tom Gordon. Aunt Naspet looked across the table as if she were going to faint. But Mr. Jekyll's composure was not in the slightest degree interrupted. I can tell you, he said, that in a business practical view, for I am used to investments, that since the publishing of those catechisms and the missionaries work among the niggers, the value of that kind of property has risen 10%. They are better contented. They don't run away as they used to. Just that simple idea that their master stands in God's place to them. Why, you see, it cuts its way. I have a radical objection to all that kind of instruction, said Clayton. Aunt Naspet opened her eyes as if she could hardly believe her hearing. And pray, what is your objection? said Mr. Jekyll with an unmoved countenance. My objection is that it is all a lie, said Clayton, in such a positive tone that everybody looked at him with a start. Clayton was one of those silent men who were seldom roused to talk, who go with a rush when they are. Not seeming to notice the startled looks of the company, he went on. It's a worse lie because it's told to bewilder a simple ignorant confiding creature. I never could conceive how a decent man could ever look another man in the face and say such things. I remember reading in one of the missionary reports that when this doctrine was first propounded in an assembly of negroes somewhere, all the most intelligent of them got up and walked deliberately out of the house, and I honor them for that. Good for them, said Tom Gordon. I can keep my niggers down without any such stuff as that. I have no doubt, said Clayton, that these missionaries are well-intending good men and that they actually think the only way to get access to the negroes at all is to be very positive in what will please the masters. But I think they fall into the same era that the Jesuits did when they adulterated Christianity with idolatry in order to get admission in Japan. A lie never works well in religion nor in morals. That's what I believe, said Nana warmly. But then, if you can't teach them this, what can you teach them, said Mr. Jekyll. Confound it all, said Tom Gordon. Teach them that you've got the power. Teach them the weight of your fist. That's enough for them. I am bad enough, I know, but I can't bear hypocrisy. I show a fellow my pistol, I say to him. You see that, sir? I tell him, you do so and so, and you shall have a good time with me. But you do that, and I'll thrash you within an inch of your life. That's my short method with niggers and poor whites, too. When one of these canting fellows comes around to my plantation, let him see what he'll get. That's all. Jekyll appeared properly shocked at this declaration. Aunt Nesbitt took it as if it were just what she had expected, and went on eating her potato with a mournful air, as if nothing could surprise her. Nana looked excessively annoyed and turned a sort of appealing glance upon Clayton. For my part, said Clayton, I base my religious instruction to my people on the ground that every man and every woman must give an account of themselves to God alone and that God is to be obeyed first and before me. Why, said Mr. Jekyll, that would be destructive of all discipline. If you're going to allow every fellow to judge for himself among a parcel of ignorant selfish riches, what the will of God is, one will think it's one thing, another will think it's another, and there will be an end of all order. It would be absolutely impossible to govern a place in that way. They must not be left an ignorant set, said Clayton. They must be taught to read the scriptures for themselves and be able to see that my authority accords with it. If I command anything contrary to it, they ought to oppose it. I should like to see a plantation managed in that way, said Tom Gordon scornfully. Please, God, you shall see such in one. If you'll come to mine, said Clayton, where I should be very happy to see you, sir. The tone in which this was said was so frank and sincere that Tom was silenced and could not help a rather sullen acknowledgment. I think, said Mr. Jekyll, that you'll find such a course, however well it may work at first, will fail at last. You begin to let people think that they won't stop where you want them to. They'll go too far. It's human nature. The more you give, the more you may give. You once get a fellow to thinking and asking all sorts of questions and they get discontented at once. I've seen that thing tried in one or two instances and it didn't turn out well. Fellows got restless and discontented. The more it was given to them, the more dissatisfied they grew and so finally they put for the free states. Very well, said Clayton, if that's to be the result, they may all put as soon as they can get ready. If my title to them won't bear an intelligent investigation, I don't wish to keep them. But I never will consent to keep them by making false statements to them in the name of religion and presuming to put myself as an object of obedience before my maker. I think, said Mr. Carson, Mr. Clayton shows an excellent spirit. Excellent spirit. On my word, I think so. I wish some of our northern agitators who make such of us on this subject could hear him. I'm always disgusted with these abolitionists producing such an unpleasantness between North and South, interrupting trade and friendship and all that sort of thing. He shows an excellent spirit, said Mr. Jekyll, that he is mistaken. If he thinks that he can bring up people in that way under our institutions and not do them more harm than good, it's a notorious fact that the worst insurrections have arisen from the reading of the Bible by these ignorant fellows. That was the case with Nat Turner in Virginia. That was the case with Den Mark Vessie and his crew in South Carolina. I tell you, sir, it will never do this turning out a set of ignorant people to pasture in the Bible. That blessed book is a savior of life unto life, when it's used right, but it's a savior of death unto death when ignorant people take a hold of it. The proper way is this. Administer such portions only as these creatures are capable of understanding. This admirable system of religious instruction keeps the matter in our own hands by allowing us to select such portions of the word as are best fitted to keep them quiet, dutiful, and obedient. And I venture to predict that whoever undertakes to manage implantation on any other system will soon find it getting out of his hands. So you're afraid to trust the Lord's word without holding the bridle, said Tom Withersnear. That's pretty well for you. I am not, said Clayton. I am willing to resign any rights to anyone that I am not able to defend in God's word, any that I cannot make apparent to any man's cultivated reason. I scorn the idea that I must adore for man's mind and keep him ignorant and childish in order to make him believe any lie I choose to tell him about my rights over him. I intend to have an educated, intelligent people who shall submit to me clearly for their best interests to do so, because they shall feel that what I command is right in the sight of God. That is my opinion, said Tom, that both these ways of managing are humbugs. One way make hypocrites and the other makes rebels. The best way of educating is to show folks that they can't help themselves. All the fussing and arguing in the world isn't worth one dose of certainty on that point. Just let them know that there are no two ways about it and you'll have all still enough. From this point the conversation was pursued with considerable warmth till Nina and Aunt Nesbitt rose and retired to the drawing room. Perhaps it did not materially discourage Clayton in the position he had taken that Nina, with the frankness usual to her, expressed the most eager and undisguised admiration of all that he said. Didn't he talk beautifully? Wasn't he noble? She said to Aunt Nesbitt and she came in the drawing room and that hateful Jekyll. Isn't he mean? Child, said Aunt Nesbitt, I'm surprised to hear you speak so. Mr. Jekyll is a very respectable lawyer, an elder in the church and a very pious man. He's given me some most excellent advice about my affairs. He's going to take Millie with him and find her a good place. We've been making some investigations, Nina, and he's going to talk to you about them after dinner. He has discovered that there's an estate in Mississippi worth $100,000 that ought properly to come to you. I don't believe a word of it, said Nina. Don't like the man. Think he is hateful. Don't want to hear anything he has to say. Don't believe in him. Nina, how often have I warned you against such sudden prejudices against such a good man, too? You won't make me believe he's good not if he were elder in twenty churches. Well, but child, at any rate you must listen to what he has got to say. Your brother will be very angry if you don't, and it really is important. At any rate, you ought not to offend Tom when you can help it. That's true enough, said Nina, and I'll hear and try to behave as well as I can. I hope the man will go sometime or other. I don't know why, but his talk makes me feel worse than Tom swearing. That's certain. Aunt Nesbitt looked at Nina as if she considered her in a most hopeless condition. End of Chapter 14 Aunt Nesbitt's Loss Chapter 15 of Dread A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe This is a LibriVox recording. LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana Dread Chapter 15 Mr. Jekyll's Opinions After the return of the gentlemen to the drawing room, Nina at the request of Tom followed him and Mr. Jekyll into the library. Mr. Jekyll is going to make some statements to us Nina about our property in Mississippi, which if they turn out as he expects, will set us up in the world, said Tom. Nina threw herself carelessly into the leather armchair by the window and looked out of it. You see, said Mr. Jekyll also seating himself and pulling out the stiff points of his collar, having done law business for your father and known in that way a good deal about the family property. I have naturally always felt a good deal of interest in it and you remember your father's sister, Mrs. Stewart, inherited upon the death of her husband a fine estate in Mississippi. I remember, said Tom, well go on. Well, she died and left it all to her son. Well, he it seems, like some other young men, lived in a very reprehensible union with a handsome quadruined girl who was his mother's maid and she being an artful creature, I suppose as a great many of them are got such an ascendancy over him that he took her up to Ohio and married her and lived there with her some years and had two children by her. Well, you see, he had a deed of emancipation recorded for her in Mississippi and just taking her into Ohio set her free by the laws of that state. Well, you see, he thought he'd fixed it so that the thing couldn't be undone and she thought so too and I understood she's a pretty shrewd woman has a considerable share of character or else she wouldn't have done just what she has for you see, he died about six months ago and left the plantation and all the property to her and her children and she has been so secure that she has actually gone and taken possession. You see, she is so near white, you must know that there isn't one in twenty would think what she was and the people around her actually, some of them had forgotten all about it and didn't know but what she was a white woman from Ohio and so you see, the thing never came into at all if I hadn't happened to have been down there but you see she turned off an overseer that had managed the place because the people complained of him and I happened to fall in with the man and he began telling me his story and after a little inquiry I found who these people were well sir I just went to one of the first lawyers for I suspected there was false play and we looked at the emancipation laws together and we found out that as the law stood the deed of emancipation was no more than so much waste paper and so you see she and her children are just as much slaves as any on her plantation and the whole property which is worth a hundred thousand dollars belongs to your family I rode out with him and looked over the place and got introduced to her and her children and put them over considered as property I should call them a valuable lot she is past 40 but she don't look older than 27 or 28 I should say she is a very good looking woman and then I'm told a very capable woman well her price in the market might range between one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars Smalley said he had seen no better article sold for two thousand but then he said they had to give a false certificate as to the age and that I couldn't hear of for I never countenance anything like untruth then the woman's children she has got two fine looking children as I have ever seen almost white the boy is about ten years old the girl about four you may be sure I was pretty careful not to let on because I consider the woman and children are an important part of the property and of course nothing had better be said about it less she should be off before we are ready to come down on them now you see you are the proper owners of this whole property there isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that you ought to put in your claim immediately the act of emancipation was contrary to law and though the man meant well yet it amounted to the property of the heirs I declare it rather raised my indignation to see that creature so easy in the possession of property which of rights belongs to you now if I have only the consent of the heirs I can go on and commence operations immediately nine I had been sitting regarding Mr. Jekyll with a fixed and determined expression of countenance when he had finished she said to him Mr. Jekyll I understand you are an elder in the church is that true yes Ms. Gordon I have that privilege said Mr. Jekyll his sharp business tone subsiding into a sigh because said Nana I am a wild young girl and don't profess to know much about religion but I want you to tell me as a Christian if you think it would be right to take this woman and children and her property certainly my dear Ms. Gordon isn't it right that everyone should have his own property I view things simply with the eye of the law and in the eye of the law that woman and her children are as much your property as the shoe on your foot there is no manner of doubt of it I should think that you might see with the eye of the gospel sometimes do you think Mr. Jekyll that doing this is doing as I should wish to be done by were in the place of this woman my dear Ms. Gordon young ladies of fine feeling at your time of life are often confused on this subject by a wrong application of the scripture language suppose I were a robber and had possession of your property of course I shouldn't wish to be made to give it up but would it follow that the golden rule obliged the lawful possessor not to take it from me this woman is your property this estate is your property and she is holding it as unlawfully as a robber of course she won't want to give it up but right is right not withstanding like many other young persons Nina could feel her way out of sophistry much sooner than she could think it out and she answered to all this reasoning after all I can't think it would be right oh confound the humbug said Tom who cares whether it's right or not the fact is nine to speak plain sense to you you and I both are do start up for money and want all we can get and what's the use of being more religious than the very saints themselves at our time of day Mr. Jekyll is a pious man one of the tallest kind he thinks this is all right and why need we set ourselves all up he has talked with Uncle John and he goes in for it as for my part I am free to own I don't care whether it's right or not I'll do it if I can might makes right that's my doctrine why said Mr. Jekyll I have examined the subject and I haven't the slightest doubt that slavery is a divinely appointed institution and that the rights of the masters are sanctioned by God so however much I may naturally feel for this woman whose position is I must say an unfortunate one still it is my duty to see that the law is properly administered in this case all I have to say Mr. Jekyll is just this that I won't have anything to do with this matter for if I can't prove it's wrong I should always feel it is Nina how ridiculous said Tom I have said my say said Nina as she rose and left the room very natural fine feelings but uninstructed said Mr. Jekyll certainly we pious folks know a trick worth two of that don't we said Tom I say Jekyll this sister of mine is a pretty rapid little case I can tell you as you saw by the way she circumvented us this morning she is quite capable of upsetting the whole dish unless we go about it immediately you see her pet nigger this Harry is this woman's brother and if she gave him the word he'd write at once and put her on the alarm you and I had better start off tomorrow before this Harry comes back I believe he's to be gone a few days it's no matter whether she consents to the suit or not she don't need to know anything about it well said Jekyll I advise you to go right on and have the woman and children secured it's a perfectly fair legal proceeding there has been an evident evasion of the law of the state by means of which your family is prided of an immense sum at all events it will be tried in an open court of justice and she will be allowed to appear by her counsel it's a perfectly plain above board proceeding and as the young lady has shown such fine feelings there is the best reason to suppose that the fate of this woman would be as good in her hands as in her own Mr. Jekyll was not now talking to convince Tom Gordon but himself for a spite of himself none of his questions had wakened in his mind a sufficient degree of misgiving to make it necessary for him to pass in review the arguments by which he generally satisfied himself Mr. Jekyll was a theologian and a man of principle his metaphysical talent indeed made him a point of reference among his Christian brethren and he spent much of his leisure time in reading theological treatises his favorite subject of all was the nature of true virtue and this he had fixed in his mind consisted in a love of the greatest good according to his theology Wright consisted in creating the greatest amount of happiness and every creature had rights to be happy in proportion to his capacity of enjoyment or being he whose capacity was ten pounds had a right to place his own happiness before that of him who had five because in that way five pounds more of happiness would exist in the general whole he considered the right of the creator to consist in the fact that he had a greater amount of capacity than all creatures put together and therefore it was bound to promote his own happiness before all of them put together he believed that the creator made himself his first object in all that he did and descending from him all creatures were to follow the same rule and to their amount of being the greater capacity of happiness always taking precedence of the less thus Mr. Jekyll considered that the creator brought into the world yearly myriads of human beings with no other intention than to make them everlastingly miserable and that this was right because his capacity of enjoyment being greater than all theirs put together he had a right to gratify himself in this way Mr. Jekyll's belief in slavery was founded on his theology he assumed that the white race had the largest amount of being therefore it had a right to take precedence of the black on this point he held long and severe arguments with his partner Mr. Israel McFogg who belonging to a different school of theology referred the whole matter to no natural fitness but to a divine decree by which it pleased the creator in the time of Noah to pronounce a curse upon Canaan the fact that the African race did not descend from Canaan was it is true a slight difficulty in the chain of argument but theologians are daily in the habit of surmounting much greater ones either way whether by metaphysical fitness or divine decree the two partners attained the same practical result Mr. Jekyll though a coarse grained man had started from the hands of nature no more hard-hearted or unfeeling than many others but his mind having for years been immersed in the waters of law and theology had slowly petrified into such a steady consideration of the greatest general good that he was wholly inaccessible to any emotion of particular humanity the trembling eager tone of pity in which Naina had spoken of the woman and children who were about to be made victims of a legal process had excited but a moment's pause what considerations of temporal loss and misery can shake the constancy of the theologian who has accustomed himself to contemplate and discuss as a cool intellectual exercise the eternal misery of generations who worships a god that creates myriads only to glorify himself in their eternal torments end of chapter 15 Mr. Jekyll's Opinions Chapter 16 of Dread a tale of the great dismal swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe this LibriVox recording is in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana Chapter 16 Millie's Story Naina spent the evening in the drawing room and her brother in the animation of a new pursuit forgetful of the difference of the morning exerted himself to be agreeable and treated her with more consideration and kindness than he had done any time since his arrival he even made some offhand advances towards Clayton which the latter received with good humor and which went further than she supposed to raise the spirits of Naina and so on as a whole she passed a more than usually agreeable evening on retiring to her room she found Millie who had been for some time patiently waiting for her having dispatched her mistress to bed some time since well Naina I am going on my travels in the morning thought I must have a little time to see you lamb for I goes I can't bear to have you go Millie with that man you're going with I suspect he's a nice man said Millie of course he'll look me out a nice place because he's always took good care of Miss Lou's affairs so you never trouble yourself about me I tell you child I never gets where I can't find the Lord and when I finds him I gets along the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want but you have never been used to living except in our family said Naina and somehow I feel afraid if they don't treat you well come back Millie will you lost child I isn't much feared but what I'll get along well enough when people keep about their business doing the best they can folks doesn't often trouble them I never yet seen the folks I couldn't suit she added with a glow of honest pride no child it isn't for my self eyes appearing it's just you child child you don't know what it is to live in this year world and I want you to get the best friend to go with you why dear lamb you want somebody to go to and open your heart somebody that love you and always stand by you somebody that'll always lead you right you know you has more cares than such a young thing ought for it to have great many looking to you and pending on you now if your mom was alive it would be different but just now I see how it is there'll be a hundred things you'll be thinking and feeling and nobody to say them to and now child you must learn to go to the lord why child he loves you child he loves you just as you be if you only saw how much it would melt your heart right down I told you I was going sometime for to tell you my experiences when I first found Jesus oh lord lord but it's a long story Nina whose quick sympathies were touched by the earnestness of her old friend and still more aroused by the allusion to her mother answered oh yes come tell me about it and drawing a low ottoman she sat down and laid her head on the lap of her humble friend well well you see child said Millie her large eyes fixing themselves on vacancy and speaking in a low and dreamy voice I bought his life and this year world is the mightest strange thing you see child my mother well they brought her from Africa my father too heaps and heaps my mother told me about that darn that there was a mighty fine country where they had gold in the rivers in such great big tall trees with the strangest beautiful flowers on them you ever did see loss loss well they brought my mother and my father into Charleston and there Mr. Campbell that was your mom's father honey he bought them right out of the ship but they had five children and they was also and they never knowed where they went to father and mother couldn't speak a word of English when they come ashore and she told me how often to nobody to tell him how it hurt her loss when I was a child I remember how often when today's work was done she used to come out and sit and look up at the stars and groan groan and groan I was a little thing playing round and I used to come up to her dancing and saying maybe what makes you groan so what's the matter of you matter enough child she used to say I was thinking of my poor children's I like to look at the stars because they see the same stars that I do peers like we all was in one room but I don't know where they is they don't know where I be then she'd say to me now child you may be sold away from your mommy there's no knowing what may happen to you child but if you get into any trouble as I does you mind child you ask God to help you who is God mommy says I anyhow why child she says he made these here stars and then I wanted mommy to tell me more about it only she says he can do anything he likes and if he are in any kind of trouble he can help you well to be sure I didn't mind much about it all dancing around because pretty well don't need much help but she said that there to me so many times I couldn't help remember it child troubles will come and when they does come you ask God and he will help you well sure enough I wasn't sold from her but she was took from me because Mr Campbell's brother went off to live in Orleans and parted the hands my father and mother was took to Orleans I was took to Virginia well you see I grew up along with these young ladies your mom Miss Harriet Miss Lou and the rest on them and I had heaps of fun they all like Millie they couldn't nobody run or jump nor ride a horse nor row a boat like Millie and so it was Millie here and Millie there and whatever the young ladies wanted it was Millie made the way for it well there was a great difference among them young ladies there was Miss Lou she was the prettiest and she had a great many bow but then there was your mom everybody loved her and then there was Miss Harriet she had right smart of life in her and was always for doing something always right busy tending to something or other and she liked me because I'd always go in with her well well them there was pleasant times enough but when I got to be about 14 or 15 I began to feel kind of bad sort of strange and heavy I really didn't know why but appeared like when I got older I felt I was in bondage remember one day your mom came in and sees me looking out the window and she says to me Millie what makes you so dull lately oh says I I somehow I don't have good times why I say she why not don't everybody make much of you don't you have everything that you want oh well says I I was a poor slave girl for all that child your mom was a weedy thing like you I remember just how she looked that minute I felt sorry because I thought I'd hurt her feelings but says she Millie I don't wonder you feel so I know I should feel so myself if I was in your place afterwards she told Miss Lou and Miss Harrod but they laugh and said they guessed there wasn't many girls who were as well off as Millie well then Miss Harrod she was married the first she married Mr. Charles Blair and when she was married nothing was to do but she must have me to go with her I liked Miss Harrod but then honey I liked it much better if it had been your mom I'd always counted that I wanted to belong to your mom and I think your mom wanted me but then she was still in Miss Harrod she was one of the sort that never lost nothing by not asking for it she was one of the sort that always got things by hook or by crook she always had more clothes and more money and more everything than the rest of them because she was always wide awake and looking out for herself well Mr. Blair's place was a way off in another part of Virginia and I went there with her well she wasn't very happy no way she went because Mr. Blair he was a high fella Laws Miss Nanna when I tell you this year when you got here it's a goodin' and I advise you to take him it's cause I knows what comes of girls marrying high fellas don't care how good looking they is nor what their manners is it's just the ruin of girls that has them Laws when he was a court in Miss Harrod it was all nobody but her she was gonna be his angel and he was gonna give it up all sorts of bad ways and live such a good life ah she married him and it all went up to smoke before the month was well over he got to going in his old ways and then it was go go all the time carousing and drinking parties at home parties abroad money flying like the water well this made a great change in Miss Harrod she didn't laugh no more she got sharp and cross and she wasn't good to me like what she used to be she took to be jealous of me and her husband she might have saved herself to trouble I shouldn't have touched him with a pair of tongs but he was always running after everything that came in his way so no wonder but between them both I let a bad life of it now things drag kind of along in this way she had three children and at last he was killed one day falling off his horse when he was too drunk to hold the bridle good riddance too I thought hmm and then after he's dead Miss Harrod she seems to grow more quiet like and setting herself picking up what pieces and crumbs was left for her and the children and I remember she had one of her uncles there a good many days helping her and counting up the debts well they was talking one day in Mrs. Room and there was a little light closet on one side where I got set down to do some fine stitching but they was too busy and there counts to think anything about me it seemed that the place and the people was all to be sold off to pay the debts all set a few of us who were to go off with Mrs and begin again on a small place and I heard him telling her about it while your children are small he says you can live small and keep things close and raise enough on the place for you all and then you can be making the most of your property niggers is rising in the market since Missouri came in days worth double and so you can just sell the increase of them for a good sum now there's that black girl Millie Mrs. Yorn you may be sure right now I picked up my ears Mrs. Niner I don't often see a girl a finer breathing she is just as if I'd been a cow you know have you got her a husband no said Mrs. Harrett and then says she I believe Millie is something of a coquette among the young men she's never settled on anybody yet says she that must be attended to cause that girl's children will be in a state of themselves well I've known women to have 20 and her children wouldn't any of them be worth less than $800 there's a fortune at once if days like her they'll be as good as cash in the market any day you can send out and sell one if you happen to be in any straights just as soon as you can draw a note on the bank oh you're awesome Mrs. Niner I tell you this year fell on me like so much lead cause you see I've been keeping company with a very nice young man and I was going to ask Mrs. Harrett about it that very day but there I laid down my work that minute I thinks and says true as the Lord's in heaven I won't never be married in this world and I cried about it off and on all day and at night I told Paul about it he was the one you know but Paul he tried to make it all smooth he guessed it wouldn't happen he guessed Mrs. would think better on it at any rate we loved each other and why shouldn't we take as much comfort as we could well I went to Mrs. Harrett and told her just what I thought about it all her head spoke my mind to Mrs. Harrett about everything and I wasn't going to stop then and she laughed at me and told me not to cry for eyes hurt well things went on so two three weeks and finally Paul he persuaded me and so we was married when our first child was born Paul was so pleased he thought strange that I went Paul says I this year child ain't iron it maybe took from us and sold any day well well says he milly it may be God's child anyway even if it ain't iron cause you see Ms. Niner Paul he was a Christian oh well honey I can't tell you after that I had a great many children girls and boys growing up around me well I had 14 children dear and they's all been sold from me every single one of them Lord it's a heavy cross heavy heavy none knows but them that bears it what a shame said Niner how could Aunt Harriet be such a wicked woman an ant of mind do so child child said milly we doesn't none of us know what's in us when Miss Harriet and I was gals together hunting hens eggs and rowing the boat in the river I wouldn't have thought it would have been so and she wouldn't have thought so neither but then what little spad and girls when they's young and handsome and all the world smiling on them oh honey it gets dreadful strong when they gets grown women and the wrinkles comes in their faces always when she was a girl whether it was eggs or berries or chink of pins or what it was Miss Harriet's nature to get and to keep and when she got old got all turned to money oh said Niner but it does seem impossible that a woman a lady born too and my aunt could do such a thing ah ah honey ladies born have some bad stuff in them sometimes like the rest of us but then honey it was the most natural thing in the world come to look on it for now see here honey there was your aunt she was poor and she was pestered for money there was Master George's bills and Peter's bills to pay Miss Susie's and every one of them must have everything and they was all calling for money money and there has been times she didn't know which way to turn now you see when a woman is pestered to pay 200 here and 300 there and when she has got more niggers on her place then she can keep and then a man calls in and lays down $800 in gold and bills before her and she says I want that there Lucy or George of Yorn why don't you see these year's soul drivers is always around Timpton folk they know is poor and they always have their money as handy as the devil has his but then I oughtn't for to be hard upon them poor soul drivers neither because they ain't taught no better it's these here Christians that profess Christ that makes great talks about religion the devil's and turns their backs upon swearing soul drivers and thinks they ain't fit to speak on it's them honey that's the root of the whole business now there was that Uncle Hearn mighty great Christian he was with his prayer meetings and all that he was always putting her up to it oh there's been times there was times long first Miss when my first children was sold that I tell you I poured out my soul to Miss Herrod and I've seen that their woman cry so that I was sorry for her and she said to me merely I'll never do it again but Lord I didn't trust her if not a word on it because I know she would I know there was that in her heart that the devil wouldn't let go of I know he'd no kind of objection to her musing herself with meetings and prayers and all that but he'd no notion to let go of her grip on her heart but Lord she wasn't quite a bad woman poor Miss Herrod wasn't and she wouldn't have done so bad if it hadn't been for him but he'd come and have prayers and exhort and then come prowl around my place like a wolf looking at my children and merely he'd say how do you do now Lucy's getting to be a right smart girl merely how old is she there's a lady in Washington has advertised for a maid a nice woman a pious lady I suppose you wouldn't object merely your poor mistress is in great trouble for money I never said nothing to that man only once when he asked me what I thought my Lucy would be worth when she was 15 years old says I to him sir she is worth to me just what your daughter is worth to you then I went in and shut the door I didn't stay to see how he took it then he'd go up to the house and talk to Miss Herrod towards her duty he'd tell her to take proper care of her goods and that there meant selling my children I remember when Miss Susie came home from boarding school she was a pretty girl but I didn't look on her very kind I'll tell you because three of my children had been sold to keep her at school my Lucy ah honey she went for a lady's maid I know what that there meant well enough the lady had a son grown and he took Lucy with him to Orleans and there was an end to that there don't no letters go between us one's gone we can't write and it's as good as being dead I know child not so good Paul used to teach Lucy little hymns nights before she went to sleep and if she'd have died right off after one of them it would have been better for her oh honey long damn times I used to rave and toss like a bull in a net I did so well honey I wasn't what I was I got cross and ugly Miss Hadd she grew a great Christian and joined the church and used to have heaps of ministers and elders at her house and some on them used to try and talk to me I told them I'd seen enough of Darrell religion and I didn't want to hear no more but Paul he was a Christian and when he talked to me I was quiet like but I couldn't be like what he was well last my Mrs. promised me one she'd give me my youngest child sure and certain his name was Alfred well that boy I loved that child better than any of the rest of them he was all I'd got left to love for when he was a year old I took my way down to Louisiana and took him off and I never heard no more of him so it peered as if this year child was all I had left well he was a bright boy oh he was most uncommon he was so handy to anything and saved me so many steps oh honey he had such ways with him that boy would always make me laugh he took after learning mighty he learned himself to read and he read the Bible to me sometimes I just brought him up and teach him the best way I could all that made me afraid for him was that he was so spirited I was afraid to get him into trouble he ain't no more spirited and white folks would like their children for it to be when white children hold up their heads and answers back then the parents laugh and say he's got it in him that one but if one iron does so it's a dreadful thing I was always talking to Alfred about it and telling him to keep humble it peers like there was so much in him he couldn't keep it down love's a miss nine folks may say what they like about the black folks they'll never beat it out of my head there's some on them can be as smart as any white folks if they could have the same chance any white boys did you ever see would take the trouble for to teach their selves to read and that's what my Alfred did lords I had a mighty heap of comfort in him because I was thinking to get my Mrs to let me hire my time then I was going to work over hours and to get money and buy him because you see child I know he was too spirited for a slave you see he couldn't learn to stoop he wouldn't let nobody lose on him and he always had a word back again to give anybody as good as they sent yet for all that he was a dear good boy to me and when I used to talk to him and tell him these things was dangerous he'd always promised for to be careful well things went on pretty well while he was little and I kept him with me till he got to be about 12 or 13 years old I used to wipe the dishes and scour the knives and blacked the shoes and such like work but by and by they said it was time that he should go to the regular work and that there was the time I felt feared Mrs had an overseer and he was real aggravating and I felt feared there'd be trouble and sure enough there was too there was always something brewing between him and Alfred there was always running to Mrs with tails and I was talking to Alfred but appeared like he aggravated the boy so that he couldn't do right well one day when I had been up to town for an errand I came home at night and I wondered Alfred didn't come home to his supper I thought something was wrong and I went to the house and there sat Miss Harriet by a table covered with rolls of money and there was the accountant Miss Harriet says I I can't find Alfred ain't you seen him says I at first she didn't answer but went on counting 51, 52, 53 finally I spoke again I hoped there ain't nothing happened to Alfred Miss Harriet she looked up and she says to me Milly she says the fact is Alfred has got too much for me to manage and I had a great deal of money offered for him and I sold him I felt something strong coming up in my throat and I just went up and took hold of her shoulders and said I Miss Harriet you took the money for 13 of my children and you promised me sure enough I should have this year one you called that being a Christian says I Milly he ain't a great way off and you can see him about as much it's only over to Mr. Jones his plantation you can go and see him and he can come and see you and I know you didn't like the man who had care of him here and thought he was always getting him into trouble Miss Harriet says I you may cheat yourself saying them things but you don't cheat me nor the Lord neither you folks have to say all on your side with your ministers you're taking us down out of the Bible you won't teach us to read but I'm going straight to the Lord with this year case I tell you if the Lord is to be found I'll find him and I'll ask him to look on it the way you've been treating me selling my children all the way long to pay for your chilling and now breaking your word to me and taking this year boy the last drop of blood in my heart I'll pray the Lord to curse your scent of that their money to you and your chilling God there was the way I spoke to her child I was a poor ignorant creature and didn't know God and my heart was like a red hot coal I turned and walked right straight out from her I didn't speak no more to her and she didn't speak no more to me and when I went to bed at night Dar sure enough was Alfred's bed in the corner with his coat hanging up over it and his Sunday shoes I had bought him with my own money cause he was a handsome boy and I wanted him always to look nice well so come Sunday morning I took his coat and his shoes and made a bundle of them and I took my stick and says I I'll just go over to Jones's place and see what has come of Alfred all the time I hadn't said a word to Mrs. Nor she to me well I got about halfway over to the place and there I stopped under a big hickory tree to rest me a bit and I looked along and see someone are coming and pretty soon I noted was Hilda she was one that married Paul's cousin and she lived on Jones's place and so I got up and went to meet her and told her I was going over to see about Alfred Lord says she Millie haven't you heard that Alfred's dead well Miss Nina it seemed as if my heart and everything in it stuck still and said I Hilda has they killed him and she said yes and she told me it was this year away that styles he that was Jones's overseer had heard that Alfred was dreadful spirity this is so sometimes they aggravates him to get him around and then they whips him to break him in so styles when he was laying off Alfred's task was real aggravating to him and that boy well he answered back just as he always would be doing because he was smart and it appeared like he just couldn't keep it in and then they all laugh around there and then styles was mad he'd whip him and then Alfred he cut and run and then styles he swore awful at him and he told him to come here and he'd give him hell and pay him the cash damaged the very words he said to my boy and Alfred said he wouldn't come back he wasn't going to be whipped and just then young master bill come along wanted to know what was the matter so styles told him and he took out his pistol and said here young dog if you don't come back before I count five I'll fire fire ahead says Alfred because you see that boy never know what fear was and so he fired and Holder said he just jumped up and give one scream and fell flat and they run up to him and he was dead because you see the bullet went right through his heart well they took off his jacket and looked but it wasn't of no use his face settled down still and Holder said that they just dug a hole and put him in nothing on him nothing around him no coffin like he'd been a dog Holder showed me the jacket there was the hole cut right round in it like it was stamped and his blood running out on it I didn't say a word I took up the jacket and wrapped it up with his Sunday clothes and I walked straight straight home I walked up into Mrs. Room and she was dressed for church sure enough and sat there reading her Bible I laid it right down under her face that jacket you see that hole said I you see that blood Alfred's killed you killed him his blood be on you and you're chilling God in heaven hear me and render unto her double Nina drew in her breath hard with an instinctive shutter Millie had drawn herself up in the vehemence of her narration and sat leaning forward her black eyes dilated her strong arms clenched before her and her powerful frame expanding and working with the violence of her emotion she might have looked to one with mythological associations like the figure of a black marble nemesis in a trance of wrath she sat so for a few minutes and then her muscles relaxed her eyes gradually softened she looked tenderly but solemnly down on Nina damn was awful words child but I was in Egypt then I was wandering in the wilderness of Sinai I had heard the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words and while I hadn't seen the Lord well I went out and I didn't speak no more to Miss Herrick there was a great gulf fixed between us and there didn't no words pass over it I did my work I scored not to do it but I didn't speak to her then it was child that I thought of what my mother told me years ago and it came to me all fresh child when trouble comes I wanted the Lord to help you and I saw that I hadn't asked the Lord to help me and now says I to myself the Lord can't help me because he couldn't bring back Alfred no way he could fix it and yet I wanted to find the Lord because I was so tossed up and down I wanted just to go and say Lord you see what this woman has done I wanted to put it on him if he'd stand up for such a thing as that Lord how the world and everything looked to me in them times everything going on and the way it did and these here Christians that said the day was going into the kingdom doing as they did I tell you I sought the Lord early and late many nights I had been out in the woods and laid on the ground till morning calling and crying and peered like nobody heard me oh how strange it used to look when I looked up at the stars winking at me so kind of still and solemn but never saying a word sometimes I got that wild it seemed as if I could tear a hole through the sky because I must find God I had an errand to him and I must find him then I heard him read out the Bible about how the Lord met a man on a threshing floor and I thought maybe if I had a threshing floor he would come to me so I threshed down a place just as hard as I could under the trees and then I prayed there but he didn't come then there was coming a great camp meeting and I thought I'd go and see if I could find the Lord there because you see Mrs she let her people go Sunday to the camp meeting well I went into the tents and heard them sing and I went afford to alter and I heard preaching but it peered like it was no good it didn't touch me nowhere and I couldn't see nothing to it and I heard him read out of the Bible oh that I knew where I might find him I would come even to his seat I would order my calls before him I would fill my mouth with arguments and I thought sure enough that there's just what I want well came on dark night and they had all the campfires lighted up and they were singing to hymns round and round and I went forward to hear the preaching and there was a man pale lean man he was with black eyes and black hair well that dark man he preached a sermon to be sure I shall never forget his text was he that spared not his own son but freely delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things well you see the first sound of this took me because I'd lost my son and the man he told us who the son of God was Jesus oh how sweet and beautiful he was he went round doing for folks oh Lord what a story that there was and then how they took him and put the crown of thorns on his head and hung him up bleeding bleeding God so loved us that he let his own dear son suffer all that for us child I got up and I went to the altar and I kneeled down with the mourners and I fell flat on my face and they said I was in a trance maybe I was where I was I don't know but I saw the Lord child it seemed as if my very heart was still I saw him suffering bearing with us year in and year out bearing bearing bearing so patient peered like it wasn't just on the cross but bearing always everywhere oh child I saw how he loved us us all all everyone on us we had hated each other so peered like he was using his heart up for us all the time bleeding for us like he did on Calvary and willing to bleed oh child I saw what it was for me to be hating like I hated oh Lord says I I give up oh Lord never see you before I didn't know Lord I support center I won't hate no more oh and oh child and there comes such a rush of love in my soul says I Lord I can love even the white folks and then came another rush and says yes Lord I love poor Miss Harrod that sold all my children and been the death of my poor Alfred I loves her child I overcome I did so I overcome by the blood of the lamb the lamb yes the lamb child because if he'd been a lion I could have kept in the lamb that overcome when I come to I felt like a child I went home to Miss Harrod and I hadn't spoken peaceable to her since Alfred died I went into her she'd been sick and she was in her room looking kind of pale and yellow poor thing because her son honey he got drunk and abused her awful I went in and says I oh Miss Harrod I seen the Lord Miss Harrod I ain't got no more hard feelings I forgive you and loves you with all my heart just as the Lord does honey you ought to see how that woman cried says she Millie I is a great sinner says I Miss Harriet we sinners both on us but the Lord gives himself for us both and if he loves us poor sinners we mustn't be hard on each other ye was tempted honey says for you see I felt like making excuses for her but the Lord Jesus has got a pardon for both on us after that I didn't have no more trouble with Miss Harriet child we was sisters in Jesus I bore her burdens and she bore mine and dear the burdens was heavy for her son he was brought home a corpse he shot himself right through the heart trying to load a gun when he was drunk oh child I thought then how I'd prayed the Lord to render under her double but I had a better mind then if I could have brought poor Massa George to life I'd have done it and I held the poor woman's head on my arm all that there night and she was screaming every hour well that there took her down to the grave she didn't live much longer but she was ready to die she sent and bought my daughter Lucy's son this year Tom and get him to me poor thing she did all she could I watched with her tonight she died oh Miss Nina if ever you're tempted to hate anybody think how it'll be with them when they come to die she died hard poor thing and she was cast down about her sins oh Millie says she the Lord and you may forgive me but I can't forgive myself and says I to her oh Miss don't think of it no more the Lord's headed in his own heart oh but she struggled long honey she was all night dying and twist Millie Millie all the time oh Millie stay with me and child I felt I loved her like my own soul and when the day broke the Lord set her free and I laid her down like she'd been one of my babies I took up her poor hand it was warm but the strength was all going out on it and I thought you poor thing how could I ever have hated you so I child we mustn't hate nobody we's all poor creatures and the dear Lord he loves us all End of Chapter 16 Millie's Story Chapter 17 of Dread A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Greg Giardano Dread Chapter 17 Uncle John About four miles east of Canema lay the plantation of Nina's uncle with her Harry had been sent on the morning which we have mentioned The young man went upon his errand in no very enviable mood of mind Uncle Jack as Nina always called him was the nominal guardian of the estate in a more friendly and indulgent one Harry could not have desired he was one of those joyous souls whose leading desire seemed to be that everybody in the world should make himself as happy as possible without fatiguing him with consultations as to particulars His confidence in Harry was unbounded and he esteemed it a good fortune that it was so as it was wont to say laughingly that his own place was more than he could manage like all gentlemen who make the study of their own ease of reconsideration Uncle Jack found the whole course of nature dead set against him for as all creation is evidently organized with a view to making people work it follows that no one has so much care as the man who resolves not to take any Uncle Jack was systematically and as a matter of course cheated and fleeced by his overseers by his negroes vicinity and worst of all continually hectored and lectured by his wife therefore nature or destiny or whoever the lady may be that deals the matrimonial cards with her usual thoughtfulness and balancing opposites had arranged that jovial easy care-hating Uncle John should have been united to a most undaunted and ever active spirit of enterprise and resolution who never left anything quiet in his vicinity she it was who continually disturbed his repose by constantly ferreting out and bringing before his view all the plots treasons and conspiracies with which plantation life is ever rebounding bringing down on his devoted head the necessity of discriminations decisions and settlements most abhorrent to an easy man the fact was, the responsibility aggravated by her husband's negligence had transformed the worthy woman into a sort of domestic dragon of the hasperities and her good-help meet declared that he believed she never slept nor meant anybody else should it was all very well he would observe he wouldn't quarrel with her for walking the whole night long for sleeping with her head out of the window in the house for stealing out after one o'clock to convict Pompey if she only wouldn't bother him with it suppose the half of the hams were carried off between two and three and sold to Abagiah's skinflint for rum he must have his sleep and if he had to pay for it in ham why he'd pay for it in ham but sleep he must and would and really believed, in his own soul the Cuffy who came in the morning with a long face to announce the theft and to propose measures of discovery was in fact the main conspirator what then he couldn't prove it on him Cuff had gone astray from the womb speaking lies ever since he was born and what would be the use of his fretting and sweating himself to death to get truth out of Cuff Mrs. G as he commonly called his help-meat might do that sort of thing but she mustn't bother him about it not that Uncle Jack was invariable in his temper human nature has its limits and a personage who finds mischief still for idle hands to do often seems to take a malicious pleasure in upsetting the temper of idle gentlemen so Uncle Jack, though confessedly the best fellow in the world was occasionally subject to a tropical whirlwind of passion in which he would stamp, tear, and swear with astounding energy and in those ignited moments all the pent-up sorrows of his soul would fly about him like red-hot shot in every direction and then he would curse the Negroes curse the overseers curse the plantation curse Cuff and Pomp and Dina curse the poor white folks round curse Mr. Abagia Skinflint and declare that he would send them and the niggers all severally to a department which politeness forbids us to mention he would pour out awful threats of cutting up, skinning alive and selling to Georgia to all which commotion and bluster the Negroes would listen rolling the whites of their eyes and sticking their tongues in their cheeks with an air of great satisfaction and amusement because experience had sufficiently proved to them nobody had ever been cut up, skinned alive or sent to Georgia as the result of any of these outpourings so when Uncle Jack had one of these fits they treated it as hands due and approaching thunderstorm run undercover and waited for it to blow over as to Madam Gordon her wrath was another affair and her threats they had learned to know generally meant something though it very often happened that the dispensation of most needed justice Uncle Jack if an extra good humor would rush between the culprit and his mistress and bear him off in triumph at the risk of most serious consequences to himself afterwards her readers are not to infer from this that Madam Gordon was really and naturally an ill-natured woman she was only one of that denomination of vehement housekeepers who were to be found the world over women to whom is appointed the hard mission of combating single-handed for the principles of order and exactness against the whole world in arms had she had the good fortune to have been born in Vermont or Massachusetts she would have been known to the whole village as a woman who couldn't be cheated half ascent on a pound of meat and had instinctive knowledge whether a cord of wood was too short or a pound of butter too light but such a woman at the head of the disorderly rabble of a plantation with a cheating overseer surrounded by a thieving poor whites to whom the very organization of society leaves no resource but thieving with a never-mined husband with land that is seen its best days and is fast running to barrenness you must not too severely question her temper if it should not be at all times in perfect subjection in fact Madam Gordon's cap habitually bristled in horror and she was rarely known to sit down occasionally it is true she lighted upon a chair but was in a moment up again to pursue some of her household train or shout at the top of her lungs some caution toward the kitchen when Harry rained up his horse before the plantation the gate was thrown open for him by old pomp a superannuated negro as his peculiar sinecure Lord Brest you, Harry, that you Brest you you ought to see us, Mazzer such a gill up to the house what's the matter, pomp? why, Mazzer, he done got one and he fits tearing round Dar fit to split stomping up and down and Randy swearing like mad Lord, if he ain't he done got jake tied up, Dar swears he's going to cut him into pieces he has so got jake tied up, Dar real curious and he's blown himself out there mighty hard, I tell you so if you want to get word with him you can't do it till he done got through with disaure the old man ducked his pepper and salt colored head and chuckled with a lively satisfaction as Harry rode slowly up the avenue to the house he caught sight of the portly figure of its master stamping up and down the veranda vociferating and gesticulating in the most violent manner he was a corpulent man of middle age with a round high forehead set off with grizzled hair his blue eyes, fair, rosy fat face his mouth adorned with brilliant teeth gave him, when in good humor the air of a handsome and agreeable man at present his countenance was flushed almost purple as he stood storming from his rostrum at a saucy rag and negro who, tied to the horse-post stood the picture of unconcern while a crowd of negro men women and children were licking on I'll teach you he vociferated shaking his fist I won't, won't bear it of you you dog you you won't take my orders won't you I'll kill you, then I will open the pieces now you won't and you know you won't interpose of Mrs. Gordon who sat at the window behind him you won't and you know you won't and they know you won't too it will all end in smoke as it always does I only wish you wouldn't talk and threaten because it makes you ridiculous hold your tongue too I'll be a master in my own house I say infernal dog I say come up why don't you go at him give it to him what are you waiting for if master pleases said cuff rolling up his eyes and making a deprecating gesture if I please well I'll blast you I do please go at him thrash him stay I'll come myself and seizing a cow hide which lay near him he turned up his cuffs and ran down the steps but missing his footing came head first against the very post where the criminal was tied there I hope now you are satisfied you have killed me you have broke my head you have I shall be laid up a month all for you you ungrateful dog Cuffee and Sambo came to the rescue raised him up carefully and began brushing the dust off his clothes smothering the laughter with which they seemed ready to explode while the culprit at the post considered this an excellent opportunity to put in his submission please master do forgive me I told them to go out and they said they wouldn't I didn't mean no harm when I said master had better go himself because I think so now master had better go then folks as curas and they won't go for none of us they just act ridiculous they does I didn't mean for to be sourcing or nothing I say if master will take his horse and go over dark master drive those folks out and nobody else can't do it we don't can't do it they just sars us now for my heavenly master all this here is the truth I've been telling the lord the master knows it is and if master will take his horse and ride down there he'd see so so dare this I've been telling master I didn't mean no harm at all the quarrel it must be told related to the ejecting of a poor white family which had squatted as the phrase is in a deserted cabin on a distant part of the gordon plantation mrs gordon's untiring assiduity having discovered this fact she left her husband no peace till something was undertaken in the way of ejectment he accordingly commissioned jake a stout negro on the warning of the present day to go over and turn them off now jake who inherited to the full the lofty contempt with which the plantation negro regards the poor white folks started upon his errand whistled his way in high feather with two large dogs at his heels but when he found a miserable poor sick woman surrounded by four starving children jake's mother's milk came back to him and instead of turning them out there was a dish of cold potatoes in among them which he picked up in a neighboring cabin with about the same air of contemptuous pity with which one throws scraps to a dog and then meandering his way back to the house informed his master that he couldn't turn the white trash out and if he wanted them turned out he would have to go himself now we all know that a fit of temper has very often a thing to do it appears to give rise to it when a cloud is full charged with electricity it makes no difference which bit of wire is put in the flash and the thunder come one way as well as another Mr. Gordon had received troublesome letters on business a troublesome lecture from his wife his corn cake had been overdone at breakfast and his coffee burned bitter besides which he had a cold in his head coming on and there was a settlement brewing for Sear in consequence of all which things though Jake's mode of delivering himself wasn't a bit more saucy than ordinary the storm broke upon him then and there enraged as we have described the heaviest part of it however being now spent Mr. Gordon consented to pardon the culprit on condition that he would bring him up his horse immediately when he would ride over and see if he couldn't turn out the offending parties he pressed Harry who was rather a favorite of his and to the service and in the course of a quarter of an hour they were riding off in the direction of the squire's cabin it's perfectly insufferable what we proprietors have to bear from this tribe of creatures he said there ought to be hunting parties gotta chase them down exterminate them just as we do rats it would be a kindness to them the only thing you can do for them is to kill them as for charity or that kind of thing you might as well throw vitals into the hollow logs as you try to feed them the government ought to pass laws we will have laws somehow or other and get them out of the state and so discoursing the good man at length arrived before the door of the miserable decaying log cabin out of whose glassless windows dark emptiness looked as out of the eye holes of a skull too scared cowering children disappeared around the corner as he approached he kicked open the door and entered crouched on a pile of dirty straw saw the miserable haggard woman with large wild eyes sunken cheeks disheveled matted hair and long lean hands like birds claws had her skinny breast and emaciated infant was hanging pushing with its little skeleton hands as if to force the nourishment it no longer gave and too scared looking children the features wasted and pinched blue with famine for clinging to her gown the whole group huddled together drawing as far as possible away from the newcomer looked up with large frightened eyes like hunted wild animals what you hear for was the first question to Mr. Gordon put in no very decided tone for if the truth must be told his combativeness combativeness was oozing out the woman did not answer and after a pause the youngest child piped up in a shrill voice ain't that nowhere else to be yes, said the woman we camped on Mr. Durant's place and Bob field him as the overseer pulled down the cabin right over our head appears like we couldn't get nowhere where is your husband gone looking for work appears like he couldn't get none anywhere appears like nobody wants us we've got to be somewhere though said the woman in a melancholy apologetic tone we can't die as I see wish we could Mr. Gordon's eye fell upon two or three cold potatoes and a piece of broken crock over which the woman appeared keeping jealous guard what you doing with those potatoes saving them for the children's dinner and is that all you've got to eat I want to know so Mr. Gordon in a high sharp tone as if he were getting angry very fast yes said the woman what did you have to eat yesterday nothing said the woman what did you eat the day before found some old bones around the nacre houses and someone gave us some corn cake why the devil didn't you send up to my house and get some bacon picking up bones slop and swill around the nacre huts why didn't you send up for some ham and some meal Lord bless you you don't think Madam Gordon is a dog to bite you do you wait here till I send you down something fit to eat just end in my having to take care of you I see and if you're going to stay here there'll be something to be done to keep the rain out there now I'll send Harry as he was mounting his horse just see what's to be made with hooks in one's back like me everybody hangs on to me of course now there's Durant turns off these folks there's Peter turns them off what's the consequence they come and litter down on me just because I am an easy soft hearted old fool it's too devilish bad they breed like rabbits what God Almighty makes such people for I don't know suppose he does but there's these poor, miserable trash of children like sixty and there's folks living in splendid houses dying for children and can't have any if they manage one or two the scarlet fever or hooping cough makes off with them Lord bless me things go on in a terrible mixed up way in this world and then what upon earth am I to say to Mrs. G I know what she'll say to me she'll tell me she told me so that's what she always says I wish she'd go and see them herself I do so Mrs. G is the nicest kind of a woman no mistake about that but she is an awful deal of energy that woman it's dreadful fatiguing to a quiet man like me dreadful but I'm sure I don't know what I should do without her should be downed upon me about this woman but the woman must have some ham that's flat cold potatoes and old bones pretty story such people have no business to live at all but if they will live they ought to eat Christian things there goes Jake I couldn't he turn them off before I saw him would have saved me all this plague dog knew what he was about when he got me down here Jake oh Jake Jake come here Jake came shambling along up to his master with an external appearance of the deepest humility under which was too plainly seen to lurk a facetious air of waggish satisfaction here you Jake you get a basket yes maza said Jake with an air of provoking intelligence be still saying yes maza and hear what I've got to say mind yourself Jake gave a sigh glance of inexpressible drollery at Harry and then stood like an ebony statue of submission you go to your missus and ask her for the key of the smoke house and bring it to me yes sir and you tell your missus to send me a peck of meal stay a loaf of bread or some biscuit or corn cake or anything else which may happen to be baked up tell her I want them sent out right away Jake bowed and disappeared now he may as well ride down this path while he is gone for the things Mrs. G will blow off on him first so that rather less of it will come upon me I wish I could get her to see them herself Lord bless her she is a kind-hearted woman enough but she thinks there's no use doing and there ain't she is right enough about it but then, as the woman says there must be some place for them to be in the world the world is wide enough I'm sure plague take it why can't we pass a law to take them all in with our niggers and then they'd have someone to take care of them then we'd do something for them and there'd be some hope of keeping him comfortable Harry fell to know why is inclined to reply to any of this conversation because he knew that, though nominally addressed to him the good gentleman was talking merely for the sake of easing his mind and that he would have opened his heart just as freely to the next hickory bush if he had not happened to be present so he let him expend himself waiting for an opportunity to introduce subjects which lie nearer his heart in a convenient pause he found opportunity to say Miss Nina sent me over here this morning ah, Nin, my pretty little Nin bless the child she did why couldn't she come over herself and comfort an old fellow's heart Nin is the prettiest girl in the county I tell you that, Harry Miss Nina isn't a good deal of trouble Master Tom came home last night drunk and today he is so cross and contrary she can't do anything with him drunk? oh, what a sad dog Tom gets drunk too often carries that too far altogether told him that last time I talked to him says I Tom, it does very well for a young fellow to have a spree once in one or two months I did it myself when I was young but, says I Tom, to spree all the time won't do Tom, says I nobody minds a fellow being drunk occasionally but you ought to be moderate about it and know where to stop, says I because when it all comes to that that he is drunk every day or every other day why, it's my opinion that he may consider the devil's got him I talked to Tom just so right out square, because you see I'm in a father's place to him but, Lord, it don't seem to have done him a bit of good good Lord that told me he is drunk one half his time and acts like a crazy creature goes too far, Tom does, altogether I said she ain't got any patience with him she blasts at him every time he comes here and he blasts at her so it ain't very comfortable having him here good woman at heart, Mrs. Gordon a little strong in her wage, you know and Tom is strong too so it's fire fight fire when they get together it's no ways comfortable to a man wanting to have everybody happy around him Lord bless me I wish Nin were my daughter I can't she come over here and live with me she isn't got any more spirit in her than just what I like just enough fizz in her to keep one from flatting out what about this beau of hers is she gonna be married? hey there's two gentlemen there attending upon Miss Nina one is Mr. Carson of New York hang it all hey, my brother would turn over in his grave I don't think it would be necessary to put himself to that trouble, said Harry for I think it's Mr. Clayton who is to be the favored one Clayton, good blood, like that seems to be a gentlemanly good fellow doesn't he yes sir, he owns a plantation I'm told in South Carolina ah, that's well but I hate to spare Nin never half like sending her off to New York don't believe in boarding schools I've seen as fine girls grown on plantations as any man need want what do we want to send our girls there to get fit, penny, bid ideas? I thank the lord I never was in New York and I never mean to be Carolina born and raised I am and my wife is Virginia pure breed no boarding school about her and when I stood up to be married to her there wasn't a girl in Virginia could stand up with her her cheeks were like Damascus roses a tall, straight, lively girl she was knew her own mind and had a good notion of speaking it too and there isn't a woman now that can get through the business she can and have her eyes always on everything if it does make me uncomfortable every now and then I ought to take it and thank the lord for it for it wasn't for her but with the overseer and the niggers and the poor white trash we should all go to the devil in a heap Miss Nina sent me over here to be out of the master town's way said Harry after a pause he has bent upon hectoring me as usual you know sir that he always had a spite against me it seems to grow more and more bitter he quarrels with her about the management of everything on the place and you know sir that I try to do my very best and you Miss Gordon have always been pleased to say that I did well so we did Harry my boy so we did stay here as long as you like just suit yourself about that maybe you like to go out shooting with me well I'm worried said Harry to be obliged to be away just at the time of putting in the seed everything depends upon my overseeing why don't you go back then Tom's ugliness is nothing but because he is drunk there's where it is I see through it you see when a fellow has had a drunken spree why the day after it he's all loose ends and cross nerves all ravelled out like an old stocking then the fellows are sulky and certainly like I've heard of their having temperance societies up in those northern states and I think something of that sort will be good for our young men they get drunk too often full a third of them even Tremens before they are 50 if we could have a society like them that sort of thing and agree to be moderate nobody expects young men to be old before their time but if they'd agreed not to blow out more than once a month or something in that way I'm afraid said Harry master Tom's too far gone for that oh yes pity pity suppose it is so why when a fellow gets so far there's all a patch coat you can't tell where the real cloth is now Tom I suppose he never is himself always up on a wave or down in the trough I hope I'm sorry it's very hard on Miss Nina said Harry he interferes and I have no power to stand for her and yesterday he began talking to my wife in a way I can't bear nor won't he must let her alone show show so Mr. Gordon see what a boy that is now that ain't in the least worthwhile that ain't I shall tell Tom so and Harry mind your temper remember young men will be young and if a fellow will treat himself to a pretty wife you must expect trials but Tom ought not to do so I shall tell him hi there comes Jake with the basket and the smokehouse key now there's something to send down to those poor hobgoblins if people are going to starve it mustn't come on to my place to do it I don't mind what I don't see I wouldn't mind if the whole litter-room was drowned tomorrow but hang it I can't stand it if I know it so here Jake take this ham and bread and look him up an old skillet and see if you can tinker up the house a bit I'd set the fellow to work when he comes back only we have two hands to every turn now and the niggers always plague him Harry you go home and tell Nin Mrs. G and I will be over to dinner and of Chapter 17 Uncle John Recording by Greg Giordano Newport Ritchie, Florida