June 12, 1851 Transcription

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Chapter III.—The Husband and Father.

Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.

“George! is it you? How you frightened me! Well, I’m so glad you’s come; missis is gone to spend the afternoon, so come into my little room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”

Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.

“How glad I am! why don’t you smile? and look at Harry—how he grows.” The boy stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s dress. “Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.

“I wish he’d never been born,” said George, bitterly. “I wish I’d never been born myself!”

Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.

“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl,” said he, fondly, “it’s too bad. Oh, how I wish you never had seen me—you might have been happy!”

“George! George! how can you talk so—what dreadful thing has happened, or is going to happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy till lately.”

“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through his long curls.

“Just like you, Eliza, and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see; but oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor you me!”

“Oh, George! how can you!”

“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery! misery! misery! My life is bitter as wormwood—the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all. What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

“Oh, now, dear George, that is really wicked. I know how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master, but pray be patient, and perhaps something”——

“Patient!” said he, interrupting her, “haven’t I been patient? Did I say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody was kind to me? I’d paid him truly every cent of my earnings—and they all say I worked well.”

“Well, it is dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is your master, you know!”

“My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is—I’m a better man than he is—I know more about business than he does—I’m a better manager than he is—I can read better than he can—I can write a better hand, and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him—I’ve learned it in spite of him—and now what right has he to make a dray-horse of me—to take me from things I can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it—he says he’ll bring me down and humble me—and he puts me to just the hardest, meanest, and dirtiest work, on purpose!”

“Oh, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never heard you talk so—I’m afraid you’ll do something dreadful. I don’t wonder at your feelings at all; but oh, do be careful—do, do—for my sake, for Harry’s!”

“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it’s growing worse and worse; flesh and blood can’t bear it any longer—every chance he can get to insult and torment me he takes. I thought I could do my work well and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He says that though I don’t say anything, he sees I’ve got the Devil in me, and he means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come out in a way that he won’t like, or I’m mistaken.”

“Oh, dear, what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully!

“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy loading stones into a cart, that young mass’r[1] Tom stood there, slashing his whip so near the horse that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop, as pleasant as I could—he just kept right on. I begged him again, and then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then he screamed and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that I was fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he’d teach me who was my master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master, and told him that he might whip me till he was tired—and he did do it. If I don’t make him remember it some time!” and the brow of the young man grew dark, and his eyes burnt with an expression that made his young wife tremble. “Who made this man my master—that’s what I want to know?” he said.

“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”

“There is some sense in it in your case—they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education—that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won’t bear it. No, I won’t,” he said, clenching his hand with a firece[2] frown.

Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before, and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.

“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added George; “the creature has been about all the comfort that I’ve had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kinde’ looked at me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and mass’r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he couldn’t afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond.”

“Oh, George, you didn’t do it?”

“Do it? not I; but he did. Mass’r and Tom pelted the poor drowning creature with stones—poor thing, he looked at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I didn’t save him. I had to take a flogging because I wouldn’t do it myself. I don’t care. Mass’r will find out that I’me one that whipping wont tame. My day will come yet, if he don’t look out.”

“What are you going to do? Oh, George, don’t do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, he’ll deliver you.”

“I a’nt a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart’s full of bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?”

“Oh, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best.”

“That’s easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and riding in their carriages; but let ’em be where I am, I guess t’would come some harder. I wish I could be good, but my heart burns, and can’t be reconciled, anyhow—you couldn’t in my place—you can’t now, if I tell you all I’ve got to say. You don’t know the whole yet.”

“What can be coming now!”

“Well, lately mass’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud notions from you; and he says he wont let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things, but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river.”

“Why—but you were married to me, by the minister, as much as if you’d been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.

“Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in this country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if mass’r chooses to part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you—why I wish I’d never been born—it would have been better for us both—it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him yet!”

“Oh, but master is so kind!”

“Yes, but who knows—he may die—and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant thing your child is or has—it will make him worth too much for you to keep!”

The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart, the vision of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s walking stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.

No, no; he has enough to bear, poor fellow, she thought. No, I wont tell him; besides, it ain’t time; missis[3] never deceives us.

“So Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear up now; and good bye, for I am going.”

“Going, George? Going where?”

“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and when I’m there I’ll buy you; that’s all the hope that’s left us. You have a kind master, that won’t refuse to sell you. I’ll buy you and the boy—God helping me, I will!”

“Oh, dreadful! if you should be taken.”

“I won’t be taken—Eliza, I’ll die first. I’ll be free or I’ll die!”

“You won’t kill yourself!”

“No need of that! they will kill me fast enough; they never will get me down the river alive!”

“Oh, George, for my sake, do be careful! don’t do anything wicked—don’t lay hands on yourself or anybody else! you are tempted too much—too much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”

“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mass’r took it into his head to send me right by here with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have—it would please him if he thought it would aggravate ‘Shelby’s folks,’ as he calls ’em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was over. I’ve got some preparations made—and there are those that will help me, and in the course of a week or so I shall be among the missing some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear you.”

“Oh, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in Him—then[4] you won’t do anything wicked.”

“Well now, good bye,” said George, holding Eliza’s hands, and gazing into her eyes without moving. They stood silent—then there were last words and sobs and bitter weeping—such parting as those may make whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web—and the husband and wife were parted.

[to be continued.]

Notes

This Stowe Center edition reproduces the National Era serial text of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The wording of the newspaper in many cases differs from publisher John P. Jewett’s first edition. At the conclusion of each installment, notes are provided on a small selection of textual variants, those which have the greatest interpretive significance. The model for these notes is editor John Bryant’s concept of fluid-text editing, which foregrounds the interpretation of textual variants as an act of critical reading. Readers who hold alternate interpretations are encouraged to submit comments to the blog. For general comments on the text and works cited, see the Note on the Text.

Note 1

that young mass’r Tom stood | Era pg. 93
that young Mas’r Tom stood | Jewett (1852) vol. 1, pg. 34

The Era’s lower-case “mass’r” is the preferred form in Stowe’s manuscript. The lack of capitalization is somewhat subversive, as it may critique the honorific title’s legitimacy. Whether Stowe is offering the critique to her serial readers—and it is not knowable to characters—or is highlighting that black characters critique the honorific title, is not clear-cut. In this initial instance it is in keeping with George’s attitude, and Stowe thereby may offer authorial affirmation that the claims of George’s master are not legitimate. In the Jewett edition, the title is capitalized, which confers authorial acquiescence in the title’s legitimacy—at least within the present state of law. These two examples are consistent with the overwhelming pattern of spelling and capitalization in serial and book. The word appears in its respective forms over 200 times in each text, and these spellings are consistently different.

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Note 2

with a firece frown.¶ Eliza | Era pg. 93
with a fierce frown.¶ Eliza | Jewett (1852) vol. 1, pg. 34

In the Era, the spelling “firece” is an error. The word is corrected in the Jewett edition.

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Note 3

besides, it ain’t time; missis never deceives | Era pg. 93
besides, it an’t true; Missis never deceives | Jewett (1852) vol. 1, pg. 37

In the Era, Eliza postpones her decision to entrust George with her fear that Shelby intends to sell their son Harry. Stowe may foreshadow a later episode, where Eliza will secret herself and eavesdrop on the Shelby’s conversation. At this moment, Eliza calculates the effect of sharing her fear with her desperate husband and decides to postpone discussing the matter with him. In the Jewett edition, Eliza seems more willing to rely on her mistress’s reassurance: she rationalizes her effort to suppress fear by placing trust in Mrs. Shelby. While neither reading is obviously better than the other, Eliza has slightly more independent motivation in the newspaper version.

The spellings “ain’t” and “an’t” and the alternate capitalization of “missis” and “Missis” reflect the usual practice in each respective text.

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Note 4

trusting in Him—then you won’t | Era pg. 93
trusting in him; then you won’t | Jewett (1852) vol. 1, pg. 38

The Era’s capitalized “Him” is the honorific pronoun for the deity, and Stowe’s Christian characters consistently use the capital form of the word in serial and book edition. The Jewett edition’s lower-case “him” is an error.

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Copyright 2011. For introduction and annotation, all rights reserved. The text is distributed under a Creative Commons License. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: National Era by Harriet Beecher Stowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Copyright Commons License.

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