And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution, and glancing every moment towards the bed, and’ almost tipping himself over in his anxiety to walk softly, advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and string, opened it carefully, and looked out. Looking out with him, we perceive that the little hut stands alone, in the heart of a dense pine forest, which shuts it in on every side.
Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard but the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through the long pine leaves, —— a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound.
“Ah! dese yer pine-trees! dey always a-talkin’!” said Tiff to himself, in a sort of soliloquy. “Whisper, whisper, whisper! De Lord knows what it’s all about! dey never tells folks what dey wants to know. Hark! dar is Foxy, as sure as I’m a livin’ sinner! Ah! dar she is!” as a quick, loud bark reverberated. “Ah, ha! Foxy! you’ll bring her along!” caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, who came bounding through the trees.
“Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer missus behind ye? Hark! what’s dat!” The clear voice came caroling gayly from out the pine-trees, —
“If you get there before I do —
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”
Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded, —
“Look out for me — I’m coming too —
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”
The response was followed by a gay laugh, as a childish voice shouted, from the woods, —
“Ha! Tiff, you there?”
And immediately a bold, bright, blue-eyed girl, of about eight years old, came rushing forward.
“Lors, Miss Fanny, so grad you’s come! Yer ma’s powerful weak dis yer arternoon!” And then, sinking his voice to a whisper, “Why, now, yer’d better b’lieve her sperits isn’t the best! Why, she’s that bad, Miss Fanny, she actually been a-cryin’ when I put the baby in her arms. Railly, I’m consarned, and I wish yer pa ‘ud come home. Did yer bring de medicine?”
“Ah, yes; here ’tis.”
“Ah! so good! I was a-makin’ of her some tea, to set her up, like, and I’ll put a little drop of dis yer in ‘t. You gwin, now, and speak to yer ma, and I’ll pick up a little light wood round here, and make up de fire. Massa Teddy’ll be powerful glad to see yer. Hope you’s got him something, too!”
The girl glided softly into the room, and stood over the bed where her mother was lying.
“Mother, I’ve come home,” said she gently.
The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those helpless hours of life’s voyage when all its waves and billows are breaking over the soul; and while the little newcomer was blindly rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn counterpane over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbings.
“Mother! mother! mother!” said the child, softly touching her.
“Go away! go away, child! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I wish you had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby! It’s all nothing but trouble and sorrow! Fanny, don’t yon ever marry! Mind what I tell you!”
The child stood frightened by the bedside, while Tiff had softly deposited a handful of pine wood near the fireplace, had taken off the porringer, and was busily stirring and concocting something in an old cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short sniffs and grunts, indicative of extreme disgust, and muttered to himself, —
“Dis yer comes of quality marrying these yer poor white folks! Never had no ‘pinion on it, noway! Ah! do hear the poor lamb now! ‘nough to break one’s heart!”
By this time, the stirring and flavoring being finished to his taste, he came to the side of the bed, and began, in a coaxing tone, —
“Come, now, Miss Sue, come! You’s all worn out! No wonder! dat ar great fellow tugging at you! Bless his dear little soul, he’s gaining half a pound a week!’Nough to pull down his ma entirely! Come, now; take a little sup of this — just a little sup! Warm you up, and put a bit of life in you; and den I spects to fry you a morsel of der chicken, ‘cause a boy like dis yer can’t be nursed on slops, dat I knows! Dere, dere, honey!” said he, gently removing the babe, and passing his arm under the pillow. “I’s drefful strong in the back. My arm is long and strong, and I’ll raise you up just as easy! Take a good sup on it, now, and wash dese troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down on us all, and bring us all round right, some time.”
The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always been accustomed, and drank eagerly, as if with feverish thirst; and when she had done, she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange attendant.
“Oh, Tiff, Tiff! poor old black, faithful Tiff! What should I have done without you? So sick as I’ve been, and so weak, and so lonesome! But, Tiff, it’s coming to an end pretty soon. I’ve seen, to-night, that I ain’t going to live long, and I’ve been crying to think the children have got to live. If I could only take them all into my arms, and all lie down in the grave together, I should be so glad! I never knew what God made me for! I’ve never been fit for anything, nor done anything!”
Tiff seemed so utterly overcome by this appeal, his great spectacles were fairly washed down in a flood of tears, and his broad, awkward frame shook with sobs.
“Law bless you, Miss Sue, don’t be talking dat ar way! Why, if de Lord should call you, Miss Sue, I can take care of the children. I can bring them up powerful, I tell ye! But you won’t be a-going; you’ll get better! It’s just the sperits is low; and laws, why shouldn’t dey be?” Just at this moment a loud barking was heard outside the house, together with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses’ feet.
“Dar’s massa, sure as I’m alive!” said he, hastily laying down the invalid, and arranging her pillows.
A rough voice called, “Hallo, Tiff! here with a light!” Tiff caught the pine knot, and ran to open the door. A strange-looking vehicle, of a most unexampled composite order, was standing before the door, drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse.
“Here, Tiff, help me out. I’ve got a lot of goods here. How’s Sue?”
“Missis is powerful bad; been wanting to see you dis long time.”
“Well, away, Tiff! take this out,” indicating a long, rusty piece of stove-pipe.
“Lay this in the house; and here!” handing a cast-iron stove-door, with the latch broken.
“Law, massa, what on arth is the use of dis yer?”
“Don’t ask questions, Tiff; work away. Help me out with these boxes.”
“What on arth now?” said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after another was disgorged from the vehicle, and landed in the small cabin. This being done, and orders being given to Tiff to look after the horse and equipage, the man walked into the house, with a jolly, slashing air.
“Hallo, bub!” said he, lifting the two-year-old above his head. “Hallo, Fan!” imprinting a kiss on the cheek of his girl. “Hallo, Sis!” coming up to the bed where the invalid lay, and stooping down over her. Her weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck, and she said, with sudden animation, —
“Oh, you’ve come at last! I thought I should die without seeing you!”
“Oh, you ain’t a-going to die, Sis! Why, what talk!” said he, chucking her under the chin. “Why, your cheeks are as red as roses!”
“Pa, see the baby!” said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the bed, opened the flannel bundle.
“Ah! Sis, I call that ar a tolerable fair stroke of business! Well, I tell you what, I’ve done up a trade now that will set us up and no mistake. Besides which, I’ve got something now in my coat-pocket that would raise a dead cat to life, if she was lying at the bottom of a pond, with a stone round her neck! See here! ‘Dr. Puffer’s Elixir of the Water of Life!’ warranted to cure janders, toothache, earache, scrofula, ‘spe
psia, ‘sumption, and everything else that ever I hearn of! A teaspoonful of that ar, morn and night, and in a week you’ll be round agin, as pert as a cricket!”
It was astonishing to see the change which the entrance of this man had wrought on the invalid. All her apprehensions seemed to have vanished. She sat up on the bed, following his every movement with her eyes, and apparently placing full confidence in the new medicine, as if it were the first time that ever a universal remedy had been proposed to her. It must be noticed, however, that Tiff, who had returned, and was building the fire, indulged himself, now and then, when the back of the speaker was turned, by snuffing at him in a particularly contemptuous manner. The man was a thick-set and not ill-looking personage, who might have been forty or forty-five years of age. His eyes, of a clear, lively brown, his close-curling hair, his high forehead, and a certain devil-may-care frankness of expression were traits not disagreeable, and which went some way to account for the partial eagerness with which the eye of the wife followed him.
The history of the pair is briefly told. He was the son of a small farmer of North Carolina. His father, having been so unfortunate as to obtain possession of a few negroes, the whole family became ever after inspired with an intense disgust for all kinds of labor; and John, the oldest son, adopted for himself the ancient and honorable profession of a loafer. To lie idle in the sun in front of some small grog-shop, to attend horse-races, cock-fights, and gander-pullings, to flout out occasionally in a new waistcoat, bought with money which came nobody knew how, were pleasures to him all satisfactory. He was as guiltless of all knowledge of common-school learning as Governor Berkley could desire, and far more clear of religious training than a Mahometan or a Hindoo.
In one of his rambling excursions through the country, he stopped a night at a worn-out and broken-down old plantation, where everything had run down, through many years of mismanagement and waste. There he stayed certain days, playing cards with the equally hopeful son of the place, and ended his performances by running away one night with the soft-hearted daughter, only fifteen years of age, and who was full as idle, careless, and untaught as he.
The family, whom poverty could not teach to forget their pride, were greatly scandalized at the marriage; and had there been anything left in the worn-out estate wherewith to portion her, the bride, nevertheless, would have been portionless. The sole piece of property that went out with her from the paternal mansion was one who, having a mind and will of his own, could not be kept from following her. The girl’s mother had come from a distant branch of one of the most celebrated families in Virginia, and Tiff had been her servant; and with a heart forever swelling with the remembrances of the ancestral greatness of the Peytons, he followed his young mistress in her mésalliance with long-suffering devotion. He even bowed his neck so far as to acknowledge for his master a man whom he considered by position infinitely his inferior; for Tiff, though crooked and black, never seemed to cherish the slightest doubt that the whole force of the Peyton blood coursed through his veins, and that the Peyton honor was intrusted to his keeping. His mistress was a Peyton, her children were Peyton children, and even the little bundle of flannel in the gum-tree cradle was a Peyton; and as for him, he was Tiff Peyton, and this thought warmed and consoled him as he followed his poor mistress during all the steps of her downward course in the world. On her husband he looked with patronizing, civil contempt. He wished him well; he thought it proper to put the best face on all his actions; but in a confidential hour, Tiff would sometimes raise his spectacles emphatically, and give it out, as his own private opinion, “dat dere could not be much ‘spected from dat ar ‘scription of people!”
In fact, the roving and unsettled nature of John Cripps’s avocations and locations might have justified the old fellow’s contempt. His industrial career might be defined as comprising a little of everything, and a great deal of nothing. He had begun, successively, to learn two or three trades; had half made a horse-shoe, and spoiled one or two carpenter’s planes; had tried his hand at stage-driving; had raised fighting-cocks, and kept dogs for hunting negroes. But he invariably retreated from every one of his avocations, in his own opinion a much-abused man. The last device that had entered his head was suggested by the success of a shrewd Yankee peddler, who, having a lot of damaged and unsalable material to dispose of, talked him into the belief that he possessed yet an undeveloped talent for trade; and poor John Cripps, guiltless of multiplication or addition table, and who kept his cock-fighting accounts on his fingers and by making chalk-marks behind the doors, actually was made to believe that he had at last received his true vocation.
In fact, there was something in the constant restlessness of this mode of life that suited his roving turn; and though he was constantly buying what he could not sell, and losing on all that he did sell, yet somehow he kept up an illusion that he was doing something, because stray coins now and then passed through his pockets, and because the circle of small taverns in which he could drink and loaf was considerably larger. There was one resource which never failed him when all other streams went dry; and that was the unceasing ingenuity and fidelity of the bondman Tiff.
Tiff, in fact, appeared to be one of those comfortable old creatures who retain such a good understanding with all created nature that food never is denied them. Fish would always bite on Tiff’s hook when they wouldn’t on anybody’s else; so that he was wont confidently to call the nearest stream “Tiff’s pork-barrel.” Hens always laid eggs for Tiff, and cackled to him confidentially where they were deposited. Turkeys gobbled and strutted for him, and led forth for him broods of downy little ones. All sorts of wild game, squirrels, rabbits, coons, and possums, appeared to come with pleasure and put themselves into his traps and springes; so that, where another man might starve, Tiff would look round him with unctuous satisfaction, contemplating all nature as his larder, where his provisions were wearing fur coats, and walking about on four legs, only for safe keeping till he got ready to eat them. So that Cripps never came home without anticipation of something savory, even although he had drank up his last quarter of a dollar at the tavern. This suited Cripps. He thought Tiff was doing his duty, and occasionally brought him home some unsalable bit of rubbish, by way of testimonial of the sense he entertained of his worth. The spectacles in which Tiff gloried came to him in this manner; and although it might have been made to appear that the glasses were only plain window-glass, Tiff was happily ignorant that they were not the best of convex lenses, and still happier in the fact that his strong, unimpaired eyesight made any glasses at all entirely unnecessary. It was only an aristocratic weakness in Tiff. Spectacles he somehow considered the mark of a gentleman, and an appropriate symbol for one who had “been fetched up in the very fustest families of Old Virginny.”
He deemed them more particularly appropriate, as, in addition to his manifold outward duties, he likewise assumed, as the reader has seen, some feminine accomplishments. Tiff could darn a stocking with anybody in the country; he could cut out children’s dresses and aprons; he could patch, and he could seam; all which he did with infinite self-satisfaction.
Notwithstanding the many crooks and crosses in his lot, Tiff was, on the whole, a cheery fellow. He had an oily, rollicking fullness of nature, an exuberance of physical satisfaction in existence, that the greatest weight of adversity could only tone down to becoming sobriety. He was on the happiest terms of fellowship with himself; he liked himself, he believed in himself; and when nobody else would do it, he would pat himself on his own shoulder, and say, “Tiff, you’re a jolly dog, a fine fellow, and I like you!” He was seldom without a running strain of soliloquy with himself, intermingled with joyous bursts of song and quiet intervals of laughter. On pleasant days Tiff laughed a great deal. He laughed when his beans came up, he laughed when the sun came out after a storm, he laughed for fifty things that you never think of laughing at; and it agreed with him — he throve upon it. In times of trouble and perplexity, Tiff talked to himself, and foun
d a counselor who always kept secrets. On the present occasion it was not without some inward discontent that he took a survey of the remains of one of his best-fatted chickens, which he had been intending to serve up, piecemeal, for his mistress. So he relieved his mind by a little confidential colloquy with himself.
“Dis yer,” he said to himself, with a contemptuous inclination toward the newly arrived, “will be for eating like a judgment, I ‘pose. Wish, now, I had killed de old gobbler! Good enough for him — raal tough, he is. Dis yer, now, was my primest chicken, and dar she’ll jist sit and see him eat it! Laws, dese yer women! Why, dey does get so sot on husbands! Pity they couldn’t have something like to be sot on! It jist riles me to see him gobbling down everything, and she a-looking on! Well, here goes,” said he, depositing the frying-pan over the coals, in which the chicken was soon fizzling. Drawing out the table, Tiff prepared it for supper. Soon coffee was steaming over the fire, and corn-dodgers baking in the ashes. Meanwhile, John Cripps was busy explaining to his wife the celebrated wares that had so much raised his spirits.
“Well, now, yon see, Sue, this yer time I’ve been up to Raleigh; and I met a fellow there, coming from New York, or New Orleans, or some of them northern states.”
“New Orleans isn’t a northern state,” humbly interposed his wife, “is it?”
“Well, New something! Who the devil cares? Don’t you be interrupting me, you Suse!”
Could Cripps have seen the vengeful look which Tiff gave him over the spectacles at this moment, he might have trembled for his supper. But innocent of this, he proceeded with his story.
“You see, this yer fellow had a case of bonnets just the height of the fashion. They come from Paris, the capital of Europe; and he sold them to me for a mere song. Ah, you ought to see ‘em! I’m going to get ’em out. Tiff, hold the candle, here.” And Tiff held the burning torch with an air of grim skepticism and disgust, while Cripps hammered and wrenched the top boards off, and displayed to view a portentous array of bonnets, apparently of every obsolete style and fashion of the last fifty years.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 72
