Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Left thus to her own resources, the child yet showed the unquenchable love of beauty, and the power of creating and gilding an imaginary little world, which is the birthright of childhood. She had her small store of what she had been wont to call pretty things, – a broken teapot handle, a fragment of colored glass, part of a goblet that had once belonged to Miss Asphyxia’s treasures, one or two smooth pebbles, and some red berries from a wild rose-bush. These were the darlings, the dear delights of her heart, – hoarded in secret places, gazed on by stealth, taken out and arranged and re-arranged, during the brief half-hours, or hours when Miss Asphyxia allowed her to play. To these treasures the kindly Sol added another; for one day, when Miss Asphyxia was not looking, he drew from his vest-pocket a couple of milkweed pods, and said, “Them ‘s putty, – mebbe ye ‘d like ‘em; hide ’em up, though, or she ‘ll sweep ’em into the fire.”

  No gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls ever made bright eyes open wider than did the exploring the contents of these pods. It was silk and silver, fairy-spun glass, – something so bright and soft that it really seemed dear to her; and she took the shining silk fringes out and caressed them against her cheek, and wrapped them in a little bit of paper, and put them in her bosom. They felt so soft and downy, – they were so shining and bright, – and they were her own, – Sol had given them to her. She meditated upon them as possessions of mysterious beauty and unknown value. Unfortunately, one day Miss Asphyxia discovered her gazing upon this treasure by stealth during her working hours.

  “What have you got there?” she said. “Bring it to me.”

  The child reluctantly placed her treasure in the great bony claw.

  “Why, that ‘s milkweed silk,” said Miss Asphyxia. “‘T ain’t good for nothin’ .What you doing with that?”

  “I like it because it ‘s pretty.”

  “Fiddlestick!” said Miss Asphyxia, giving it a contemptuous toss. “I can’t have you making litter with such stuff round the house. Throw it in the fire.”

  To do Miss Asphyxia justice, she would never have issued this order if she had had the remotest conception how dear this apparent trash was to the hopeless little heart.

  The child hesitated, and held her treasure firmly. Her breast heaved, and there was a desperate glare in her soft hazel eyes.

  “Throw it in the fire,” said Miss Asphyxia, stamping her foot, as she thought she saw risings of insubordination.

  The child threw it in, and saw her dear, beautiful treasure slowly consumed, with a swelling and indignant heart. She was now sure that Miss Asphyxia hated her, and only sought occasion to torment her.

  Miss Asphyxia did not hate the child, nor did she love her. She regarded her exactly as she did her broom and her rolling-pin and her spinning-wheel, – as an implement or instrument which she was to fashion to her uses. She had a general idea, too, of certain duties to her as a human being, which she expressed by the phrase, “doing right by her,” – that is, to feed and clothe and teach her. In fact, Miss Asphyxia believed fully in the golden rule of doing as she would be done by; but if a lioness should do to a young lamb exactly as she would be done by, it might be all the worse for the lamb.

  The little mind and heart were awakened to a perfect burning conflict of fear, shame, anger, and a desire for revenge, which now overflowed with strange, bitter waters that hitherto ignorantly happy valley of child-life. She had never had any sense of moral or religious obligation, any more than a butterfly or a canary-bird. She had, it is true, said her little prayers every night; but, as she said to herself; she had always said them to mother or Harry, and now there was nobody to say them to. Every night she thought of this when she lay down in her joyless, lonesome bed; but the kindly fatigue which hard work brings soon weighed down her eyes, and she slept soundly all night, and found herself hungry at breakfast-time the next morning.

  On Sunday Miss Asphyxia rested from her labors, – a strange rest for a soul that had nothing to do in the spiritual world. Miss Asphyxia was past middle life, and, as she said, had never experienced religion, – a point which she regarded with some bitterness, since, as she was wont to say, she had always been as honest in her dealings and kept Sunday as strict as most church-members. Still, she would do her best at giving religious instruction to the child; and accordingly the first Sunday she was dressed in her best frock, and set up in a chair to be kept stiff while the wagon was getting ready to “go to meetin’,” and Miss Asphyxia tried to put into her head the catechism made by that dear, friendly old lover of children, Dr. Watts.

  But somehow the first question, benignly as it is worded, had a grim and threatening sound as it came from the jaws of Miss Asphyxia, somewhat thus: “Stop playing with your frock, and look right at me, now. ‘Can you tell me, dear child, who made you?’”

  Now the little one had often heard this point explained, but she felt small disposition to give up her knowledge at this demand; so she only looked at Miss Asphyxia in sulky silence.

  “Say, now, after me,” said Miss Asphyxia, “‘The great God that made heaven and earth.’”

  The child repeated the words, in that mumbling, sulky manner which children use when they are saying what does not please them.

  “Tina Percival,” said Miss Asphyxia, in warlike tones, “do you speak out plain, or I ‘ll box yer ears.”

  Thus warned, the child uttered her confession of faith audibly enough.

  Miss Asphyxia was peculiarly harsh and emphatic on the answer which described the omnipresence of the Supreme Being, and her harsh voice, croaking, “If I tell a lie, He sees me, – if I speak an idle or wicked word, He hears me,” seemed to the child to have a ghastly triumph in it to confirm the idea that Miss Asphyxia’s awful tyranny was thoroughly backed up by that of a Being far more mighty, and from whom there was no possible escape. Miss Asphyxia enforced this truth with a coarse and homely eloquence, that there was no getting away from God, – that He could see in the night just as plain as in the daytime, – see her in the yard, see her in the barn, see her under the bed, see her down cellar; and that whenever she did anything wrong He would write it down in dreadful book, and on the Day of Judgment she would have it all brought out upon her, – all which the child heard with a stony, sullen despair. Miss Asphyxia illustrated what became of naughty children by such legends as the story of the two she-bears which came out of a wood and tare forty-and-two children who mocked at old Elisha, till the rebellious auditor quaked in her little shoes, and pondered if the bears would get Harry, and if Harry, after all, would not find some way to get round the bears and come to her help.

  At meeting she at last saw Harry, seated, however, in a distant part of the house; but her heart was ready to jump out of her breast to go to him; and when the services were over she contrived to elude Miss Asphyxia, and, passing through the throng, seized his hand just as he was going out, and whispered, “O Harry, Harry, I do want to see you so much! Why don’t you come to see me?”

  “They would n’t let me, Tina,” said Harry, drawing his sister into a little recess made between the church and the horse-block, – an old-fashioned structure that used to exist for the accommodation of those who came to church on horseback. “They won’t let me come. I wanted to come, – I wanted to see you so much!”

  “O Harry, I don’t like her, – she is cross to me. Do take me away, – do, Harry! Let ‘s run away together.”

  “Where could we go, Tina?”

  “O, somewhere, – no matter where. I hate her I won’t stay with her. Say, Harry, I sleep in a little room by the kitchen; come to my window some night and take me away.”

  “Well, perhaps I will.”

  “Here you are, you little minx,” said Miss Asphyxia. “What you up to now? Come, the waggin ‘s waiting,” – and, with a look of severe suspicion directed to Harry, she seized the child and conveyed her to the wagon, and was soon driving off with all speed homeward.

  That evening the boy pondered long and soberly. He had worked well and st
eadily during the week, and felt no disposition to complain of his lot on that account, being, as we have said, of a faithful and patient nature, and accepting what the friendly hired men told him, – that work was good for little boys, that it would make him grow strong, and that by and by he would be grown up and able to choose his own work and master. But this separation from his little sister, and her evident unhappiness, distressed him; he felt that she belonged to him, and that he must care for her, and so, when he came home, he again followed Goody Smith to the retirement of her milk-room.

  The poor woman had found a perfect summer of delight in her old age in having around her the gentle-mannered, sweet-spoken, good boy, who had thus marvellously fallen to her lot; and boundless was the loving-kindness with which she treated him. Sweet-cakes were slipped into his hands at all odd intervals, choice morsels set away for his consumption in secret places of the buttery, and many an adroit lie told to Old Crab to secure for him extra indulgences, or prevent the imposition of extra tasks; and many a little lie did she recommend to him, at which the boy’s honest nature and Christian education inclined him greatly to wonder.

  That a grown-up, good old woman should tell lies, and advise little boys to tell them, was one of those facts of human experience which he turned over in his mind with wonder, – thinking it over with that quiet questioning which children practise who have nobody of whom they dare make many inquiries. But to-day he was determined to have something done about Tina, and so he began, “Please, won’t you ask him to let me go and see Tina to-night? It ‘s Sunday, and there is n’t any work to do.”

  “Lordy massy, child, he ‘s crabbeder Sundays than any other day, he has so much time to graowl round. He drinks more cider; and Sunday night it ‘s always as much as a body’s life ‘s worth to go near him. I don’t want you to get him sot agin ye. He got sot agin Obed; and no critter knows why, except mebbe ‘cause he was some comfort to me. And ye oughter seen how he used that ‘ere boy. Why, I ‘ve stood here in the milk-room and heerd that ‘ere boy’s screeches clear from the stun pastur’ .Finally the men, they said they could n’t stan’ it, nor they would n’t.”

  “Who was Obed?” said Harry, fearfully.

  “Lordy massy! wal, I forgot ye did n’t know Obed. He was the baby, ye see. He was born the eighteenth of April, just about nine o’clock in the evening, and Aunt Jerusha Periwinkle and Granny Watkins, they said they had n’t seen no sich child in all their nussing. Held up his head jest as lively, and sucked his thumb, he did, – jest the patientest, best baby ye ever did see, and growed beautiful. And he was gettin’ to be a real beautiful young man when he went off.”

  “Went off?” said Harry.

  “Yes, he went off to sea, jest for nothin’ but ‘cause his father aggravated him so.”

  “What was the matter? what did he do it for?”

  “Wal, Obed, he was allers round helpin’ me, – he ‘d turn the cheeses for me, and draw the water, and was always on hand when I wanted a turn. And he took up agin him, and said we was both lazy, and that I kept him round waitin’ on me; and he was allers a throwin’ it up at me that I thought more of Obed than I did of him; and one day flesh and blood could n’t stan’ it no longer. I got clear beat out, and says I, ‘Well, father, why should n’t I? Obed ‘s allers a tryin’ to help me and make my work easy to me, and thinkin’ what he can do for me; and he ‘s the greatest comfort of my life, and it ain’t no sin if I do think more on him than I do of other folks.’ Wal, that very day he went and picked a quarrel with him, and told him he was going to give him a stand-up thrashing. And Obed, says he, ‘No, father, that you sha’ n’t. I ‘m sixteen year old, and I ‘ve made up my mind you sha’ n’t thrash me no more.’ And with that he says to him, ‘Get along out of my house, you lazy dog,’ says he; ‘you ‘ve been eatin’ of my bread too long,’ says he. ‘Well, father, I will,’ says Obed. And he walks up to me and kisses me, and says he, ‘Never mind, mother, I ‘m going to come home one of these days and bring money enough to take care of you in your old age; and you shall have a house of your own, and sha’ n’t have to work; and you shall sit in your satin gown and drink your tea with white sugar every day, and you sha’ n’t be no man’s slave. You see if I don’t.’ With that he turned and was off; and I hain’t never seen him since.”

  “How long ‘s he been gone?”

  “Wal, it ‘s four years come next April. I ‘ve hed one or two letters from him, and he ‘s ris’ to be mate. And he sent me his wages, – biggest part on ‘em, – but he hed to git ’em to me round by sendin on ’em to Ebal Parker; else he ‘d a took ‘em, ye see. I could n’t have nothin’ decent to wear to meetin’, nor my little caddy o’ green tea, if it had n’t been for Obed. He won’t read Obed’s letters, nor hear a word about him, and keeps a castin’ it up at me that I think so much of Obed that I don’t love him none.”

  “I should n’t think you would,” said the boy, innocently.

  “Wal, folks seems to think that you must love ’em through thick and thin, and I try ter. I ‘ve allers kep’ his clothes mended, and his stockings darned up, and two or three good pair ahead, and done for him jest the best I know how; but as to lovin’ folks when they ‘s so kind o’ as he is, I don’t reelly know how ter. Expect, ef he was to be killed, I should feel putty bad, too, – kind o’ used to havin’ on him round.”

  This conversation was interrupted by the voice of Crab, in the following pleasing style of remark: “What the devil be you a doin’ with that boy, – keepin’ him from his work there? It ‘s time to be to the barn seein’ to the critters. Here, you young scamp, go out and cut some feed for the old mare. Suppose I keep you round jest to eat up the victuals and be round under folks’ feet?”

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE CRISIS.

  MATTERS between Miss Asphyxia and her little subject began to show evident signs of approaching some crisis, for which that valiant virgin was preparing herself with mind resolved. It was one of her educational tactics that children, at greater or less intervals, would require what she was wont to speak of as good whippings, as a sort of constitutional stimulus to start them in the ways of well-doing. As a school-teacher, she was often fond of rehearsing her experiences, – how she had her eye on Jim or Bob through weeks of growing carelessness or obstinacy or rebellion, suffering the measure of iniquity gradually to become full, until, in an awful hour, she pounced down on the culprit in the very blossom of his sin, and gave him such a lesson as he would remember, as she would assure him, the longest day he had to live.

  The burning of rebellious thoughts in the little breast, of internal hatred and opposition, could not long go on without slight whiffs of external smoke, such as mark the course of subterranean fire. As the child grew more accustomed to Miss Asphyxia, while her hatred of her increased, somewhat of that native hardihood which had characterized her happier days returned; and she began to use all the subtlety and secretiveness which belonged to her feminine nature in contriving how not to do the will of her tyrant, and yet not to seem designedly to oppose. It really gave the child a new impulse in living to devise little plans for annoying Miss Asphyxia without being herself detected. In all her daily toils she made nice calculations how slow she could possibly be, how blundering and awkward, without really bringing on herself a punishment; and when an acute and capable child turns all its faculties in such a direction, the results may be very considerable.

  Miss Asphyxia found many things going wrong in her establishment in most unaccountable ways. One morning her sensibilities were almost paralyzed, on opening her milk-room door, to find there, with creamy whiskers, the venerable Tom, her own model cat, – a beast who had grown up in the very sanctities of household decorum, and whom she was sure she had herself shut out of the house, with her usual punctuality, at nine o’clock the evening before. She could not dream that he had been enticed through Tina’s window, caressed on her bed, and finally sped stealthily on his mission of revenge, while the child returned to her pillow t
o gloat over her success.

  Miss Asphyxia also, in more than one instance, in her rapid gyrations, knocked down and destroyed a valuable bit of pottery or earthen-ware, that somehow had contrived to be stationed exactly in the wind of her elbow or her hand. It was the more vexatious because she broke them herself. And the child assumed stupid innocence: “How could she know Miss Sphyxy was coming that way?” or, “She did n’t see her.” True, she caught many a hasty cuff and sharp rebuke; but, with true Indian spirit, she did not mind singeing her own fingers if she only tortured her enemy.

  It would be an endless task to describe the many vexations that can be made to arise in the course of household experience when there is a shrewd little elf watching with sharpened faculties for every opportunity to inflict an annoyance or do a mischief. In childhood the passions move with a simplicity of action unknown to any other period of life, and a child’s hatred and a child’s revenge have an intensity of bitterness entirely unalloyed by moral considerations; and when a child is without an object of affection, and feels itself unloved, its whole vigor of being goes into the channels of hate.

  Religious instruction, as imparted by Miss Asphyxia, had small influence in restraining the immediate force of passion. That “the law worketh wrath” is a maxim as old as the times of the Apostles. The image of a dreadful Judge – a great God, with ever-watchful eyes, that Miss Asphyxia told her about – roused that combative element in the child’s heart which says in the heart of the fool, “There is no God.” “After all,” thought the little sceptic, “how does she know? She never saw him.” Perhaps, after all, then, it might be only a fabrication of her tyrant to frighten her into submission. There was a dear Father that mamma used to tell her about; and perhaps he was the one after all. As for the bear story she had a private conversation with Sol, and was relieved by his confident assurance that there “had n’t been no bears seen round in them parts these ten year”; so that she was safe in that regard, even if she should call Miss Asphyxia a bald-head, which she perfectly longed to do, just to see what would come of it.