Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “BURR.”

  CHAPTER XVII. Polemics in the Kitchen

  THE next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass, Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience, when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold, and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings. As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene acting. Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things which appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a red flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled and protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug of flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in from his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing that he had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she was sure he was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen to a man than to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had a salutary conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his comfortable corner and his flip with edifying serenity. Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his master’s estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his professional position, and his religious creed. Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of these were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything to say to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue with him. Digo not only swallowed all his master’s opinions whole, but seemed to have the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He believed everything, no matter what, the moment he understood that the Doctor held it. He believed that Hebrew was the language of heaven, — that the ten tribes of the Jews had reappeared in the North American Indians, — that there was no such thing as disinterested benevolence, and that the doings of the unregenerate had some value, — that slavery was a divine ordinance, and that Dr. Hopkins was a radical, who did more harm than good, — and, finally, that there never was so great a man as Dr. Stiles; and as Dr. Stiles belonged to him in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the greatest man in America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar opinions in regard to Dr. Hopkins, the two never could meet without a discharge of the opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come ostensibly on a mere worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn, who had promised to send her some turkeys’ eggs, but he had inly resolved with himself that he would give Candace his opinion, — that is, what Dr. Stiles had said at dinner the day before about Dr. Hopkins’s Sunday’s discourse. Dr. Stiles had not heard it, but Digo had. He had felt it due to the responsibilities of his position to be present on so very important an occasion. Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by remarking, in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor’s preaching on Sunday, and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace immediately began mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees a hawk in the distance, and responded with decision:—”Den you heard sometin’, for once in your life!” “I must say,” said Digo, with suavity, “dat I can’t give my ‘proval to such sentiments.” “More shame for you,” said Candace, grimly. “You a man, and not stan’ by your color, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was half a man, your heart would ‘a’ bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ar’ sermon.” “Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church,” said Digo,—”and de Doctor was of my ‘pinion, dat Providence didn’t intend”—”Oh, you go ‘long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us alone, Providence wouldn’t trouble us.” “Well,” said Digo, “Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer’s a-fulfillin’ de prophecies and bringin’ in de fulness of the Gentiles.” “Fulness of de fiddlesticks!” said Candace, irreverently. “Now what a way dat ar’ is of talkin’! Go look at one o’ dem ships we con.e over in, — sweatin’ and groanin’, — in the dark and dirt, — cryin’ and dyin’, — howlin’ for breath till de sweat run off us, — livin’ and dead chained together, — prayin’ like de rich man in hell for a drop o’ water to cool our tongues! Call dat ar’ a-bringin’ de fulness of de Gentiles, do ye? Ugh!” And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on her spear of battle. Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up; so he shifted his attack. “Well, for my part, I must say I never was ‘clined to your Doctor’s ‘pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin’ couldn’t be more absurd dan what he says ‘bout disinterested benevolence. My Doctor says, dere a’n’t no such ting!” “I should tink it’s likely!” said Candace, drawing herself up with superb disdain. “Our Doctor knows dere is, — and why? ‘cause he’s got it IN HERE,” said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded like the boom from a barrel. “Candace,” said Cato, gently, “you’s gittin’ too hot.” “Cato, you shut up!” said Candace, turning sharp round. “What did I make you dat ar’ flip for, ‘cept you was so hoarse you oughtn’ for to say a word? Pooty business, you go to agitatin’ yourself wid dese yer! Ef you wear out your poor old throat talkin’, you may get de ‘sumption; and den what’d become o’ me?” Cato, thus lovingly pitched hors de combat, sipped the sweetened cup in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge. “Now, I tell ye what,” she said to Digo,—”jest cause you wear your master’s old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer old, mean white ‘pinions. A’n’t ye ‘shamed — you, a black man — to have no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, ‘ta’n’t what my Doctor gives me, — he never giv’ me the snip of a finger-nail, — but it’s what he does for mine; and when de poor critturs lands dar tumbled out like bales on de wharves, ha’n’t dey seen his great cocked hat, like a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin’ sort o’ pitiful at ’em as ef he felt o’ one blood wid ‘em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth everyting; and who ever thought o’ doing anyting for deir souls, or cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?” “Well, at any rate,” said Digo, brightening up, “I don’t believe his doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate, — it’s quite clear he’s wrong dar.” “Who cares?” said Candace,—”generate or unregenerate, it’s all one to me. I believe a man dat acts as he does. Him as stands up for the poor, — him as pleads for de weak, — he’s my man. I’ll believe straight through anything he’s a mind to put at me.” At this juncture, Mary’s fair face appearing at the door put a stop to the discussion. “Bress you, Miss Mary! comin’ here like a fresh June rose! it makes a body’s eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de lot, ‘cause he’s rader poorly dis mornin’; his cough makes me a sight o’ concern; he’s allers a-pullin’ off his jacket de wrong time, or doin’ sometin’ I tell him not to, — and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin’, all de time.” During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this world, and that, if it were not for his wife’s distinguishing grace, he would long since have been in the shades of oblivion. “Missis is spinnin’ up in de north chamber,” said Candace; “but I’ll run up and fetch her down.” Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary, suppressing a smile, said, “Oh, no, Candace! don’t for the world disturb her. I know just where she is.” And before Candace could stop her, Mary’s light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from the kitchen. The north room was a large chamber, o
verlooking a splendid reach of sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing at the large wheel, spinning wool, — a reel and basket of spools on her side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered; but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness in the facuties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times, that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of inferior animals. — One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language. Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since they last met: — the party, — her acquaintance with Burr, — his visit to the cottage, — his inquiries into her education and reading, — and, finally, the proposal, that they should study French together. “My dear,” said Mrs. Marvyn, “let us begin at once; — such an opportunity is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at home.” “With James?” said Mary, with an air of timid surprise. “Yes, — the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student. He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying; — the second mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and read. He is studying Spanish, too.” Ever since the last conversation with her mother on the subject of James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke of him; — instead of answering frankly, as she once did, when anything brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence. Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult to begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself into the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar developments of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than the sentiment of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman for a strong, manly, generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the out-speaking and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to say or do; here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into which she has poured her’s, and that shall give to her tremulous and hidden aspirations a strong and victorious expression. “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” she says to herself; and each outburst of his manliness, his vigor, his self-confidence, his superb vitality, fills her with a strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret tenderness and pride even in his wilfulness and waywardness. “What a creature he is!” she says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches all received opinions hither and thither in the wild capriciousness of youthful paradox. She looks grave and reproving; but he reads the concealed triumph in her eyes, — he knows that in her heart she is full of admiration all the time. First love of womanhood is something wonderful and mysterious,-but in this second love it rises again, idealized and refined; she loves the father and herself united and made one in this young heir of life and hope. Such was Mrs. Marvyn’s still intense, passionate love for her son. Not a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one of the deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a ring of his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and dwelt on in the inner shrine of her thoughts; he was the romance of her life. His strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those narrow, daily bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just as his voyages had given to the trite prose of her menage a poetry of strange, foreign perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking of many a far-off shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel of outreach through which her soul held converse with the active and stirring world. Mrs. Marvyn had known all the story of her son’s love, and to no other woman would she have been willing to resign him; but her love to Mary was so deep, that she thought of his union with her more as gaining a daughter than as losing a son. She would not speak of the subject; she knew the feelings of Mary’s mother; and the name of James fell so often from her lips, simply because it was so ever-present in her heart that it could not be helped. Before Mary left, it was arranged that they should study together, and that the lessons should be given alternately at each other’s houses; and with this understanding they parted.