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Chapter XX.—Kentuck.
Our readers may not be unwilling to glance back for a brief interval at Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the Kentucky farm, and see what has been transpiring among those whom he had left behind.
It was late in the summer afternoon, and the doors and windows of the large parlor all stood open to invite any stray brave[1] that might feel in a good humor to enter. Mr. Shelby sat in a large hall opening into the room, and running through the whole length of the house to a balcony on either end. Leisurely tipped back in one chair, with his heels in another, he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar. Mrs. Shelby sat in the door, busy about some fine sewing; she seemed like one who had something on her mind, which she was seeking an opportunity to introduce.
“Do you know,” she said, “that Chloe has had a letter from Tom?”
“Ah! has she? Tom’s got some friend there, it seems. How is the old boy?”
“He has been bought by a very fine family, I should think,” said Mrs. Shelby—“is kindly treated, and has not much to do.”
“Ah! well, I’m glad of it—very glad,” said Mr. Shelby, heartily. “Tom, I suppose, will get reconciled to a Southern residence—hardly want to come up here again.”
“On the contrary, he inquires very anxiously,” said Mrs. Shelby, “when the money for his redemption is to be raised.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mr. Shelby. Once[2] get business running wrong, there does seem to be no end to it—it’s like jumping from one bog to another all through a swamp—borrow of one to pay another, and then borrow of another to pay one—and these confounded notes falling due before a man has time to smoke a cigar, and turn round—dunning letters and dunning messages—all scamper and hurry-scurry.”
“It does seem to me, my dear, that something might be done to straighten matters. Suppose we sell off all the horses, and sell one of your farms, and pay up square?”
“Oh, ridiculous, Emily! You are the finest woman in Kentucky, but still you haven’t sense to know that you don’t understand business—women never do, and never can.”
“But, at least,” said Mrs. Shelby, “could not you give me some little insight into yours—a list of all your debts at least, and of all that is owed to you—and let me try and see if I can’t help you to economize.”
“Oh, bother! don’t plague me, Emily—I can’t tell exactly. I know somewhere about what things are likely to be, but there’s no trimming and squaring my affairs, as Chloe trims crust off her pies. You don’t know anything about business, I tell you.”
And Mr. Shelby, not knowing any other way of enforcing his ideas, raised his voice—a mode of arguing very convenient and convincing, when a gentleman is discussing matters of business with his wife.
Mrs. Shelby ceased talking, with something of a sigh. The fact was, that though her husband had stated she was a woman, she had a clear, energetic, practical mind, and a force of character every way superior to that of her husband’s; so that it would not have been so very absurd a supposition to have allowed her capable of managing as Mr. Shelby supposed. Her heart was set on performing her promise to Tom and Aunt Chloe, and she sighed as discouragements thickened around her.
“Don’t you think we might in some way contrive to raise that money? Poor Aunt Chloe, her heart is so set on it.”
“I’m sorry if it is. I think I was premature in promising. I’m not sure now but it’s the best way to tell Chloe, and let her make up her mind to it. Tom’ll have another wife in a year or two, and she had better take up with somebody else.”
“Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages are as sacred as ours. I never could think of giving Chloe such advice.”
“It’s a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a morality above their condition and prospects. I always thought so.”
“It’s only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby.”
“Well, well, Emily, I don’t pretend to interfere with your religious notions, only they seem extremely unfitted for people in that condition.”
“They are indeed,” said Mrs. Shelby, and that is why from my soul I hate the whole thing. I tell you, my dear, I cannot absolve myself from the promises I make to these helpless creatures. If I can get the money no other way, I will take music scholars—I could get enough, I know—and earn the money myself.”
“You wouldn’t degrade yourself that way, Emily? I never could consent to it.”
“Degrade! would it degrade me as much as to break my faith with the helpless? No, indeed.”
“Well, you are always heroic and transcendental,” said Mr. Shelby, “but I think you had better think before you undertake such a piece of Quixotism.”
Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Aunt Chloe at the end of the verandah.
“If you please, missis,”[3] said she.
“Well, Chloe, what is it?” said her mistress, rising, and going to the end of the balcony.
“If missis would come and look at dis yer lot o’ poetry.”
Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry—an application of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding frequent corrections and advisings from the younger[4] members of the family.
“La sakes,” she would say, “I can’t see—one jis good as turry—poetry, suthin good anyhow;” and so poetry Chloe continued to call it.
Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens and ducks, over which Chloe stood with a very grave face of consideration.
“I’m a-thinkin whether missis would be a-havin a chicken pie o’ dese yer.”
“Really, Aunt Chloe, I don’t much care—serve them any way you like.”
Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite evident that the chickens were not what she was thinking of. At last, with the short laugh with which her tribe often introduce a doubtful proposal, she said—
“Laws me, missis, what should mass’r and missis be a troublin theirselves bout de money, and not a usin what’s right in der hands;” and Chloe laughed again.
“I don’t understand you, Chloe,” said Mrs. Shelby, nothing doubting, from her knowledge of Chloe’s manner, that she had heard every word of the conversation that had passed between her and her husband.
“Why, laws me, missis,” said Chloe, laughing again, “other folks hires out der niggers and makes money on ’em—don’t keep sich a tribe eatin ’em out of house and home.”
“Well, Chloe, who do you propose that we should hire out?”
“Laws! I aint[5] a proposin nothin; only Sam he said der was one of dese yer perfectioners, dey calls ’em in Louisville, said he wanted a good hand at cake and pastry, and said he’d give four dollars a week to one, he did.”
“Well, Chloe.”
“Well, laws, I’s a thinkin, missis, it’s time Sally was put along to be doin something. Sally’s been under my care, now, dis some time, and she does most as well as me, considerin; and if missis would only let me go, I would help fetch up the money. I aint afraid to put my cake, nor pies nother, ’long side no perfectioner’s.”
“Confectioner’s, Chloe.”
“Law sakes, missis, taint no odds—words is so curis, can’t never get ’em right!”
“But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children?”
“Laws, missis, de boys is big enough to do days works—dey does well enough—and Sally, she’ll take de baby—she’s such a peart young un, she won’t take no lookin arter.”
“Louisville is a good way off.”
“Law sakes, who’s afeard—its down river somer near my old man, perhaps?” said Chloe, speaking the last in the tone of a question, and looking at Mrs. Shelby.
“No, Chloe, its many a thousand[6] miles off,” said Mrs. Shelby.
Chloe’s countenance fell.
“Never mind, your going there shall bring you nearer, Chloe. Yes, you may go, and your wages shall every cent of them be laid aside for your husband’s redemption.”
As when a bright sunbeam turns a dark cloud to silver, so Chloe’s dark face brightened immediately—it really shone.
“Laws, if missis isn’t too good. I was thinking of dat ar very thing; cause I shouldn’t need no clothes, nor shoes, nor nothin—I could save every cent. How many weeks is der in a year, missis?”
“Fifty-two,” said Mrs. Shelby.
“Laws, now, dere is? and four dollars for each on ’em. Why, how much’d dat ar be?”
“Two hundred and eight dollars,” said Mrs. Shelby.
“Whye!” said Chloe, with an accent of surprise and delight; “and how long would it take me to work it out, missis?”
“Some four or five years, Chloe; but, then, you needn’t do it all; I shall add something to it.”
“I wouldn’t hear to missis’ givin lessons nor nothin—massr’s quite right in dat ar—’twouldn’t do, no ways. I hope none our family ever be brought to dat ar while I’s got hands.”
“Don’t fear, Chloe, I’ll take care of the honor of the family,” said Mrs. Shelby, smiling. “But when do you expect to go?”
“Well, I want spectin nothin; only Sam, he’s agwine to de river with some colts, and he said I could go long with him; so I jes put my things together. If missis was willin, I’d go with Sam to-morrow mornin, if missis would write my pass, and write me a commendation.”
“Well, Chloe, I’ll attend to it, if Mr. Shelby has no objections. I must speak to him.”
Mrs. Shelby went up stairs, and Aunt Chloe, delighted, went out to her cabin to make her preparation.
“Law sakes, mass’r George, ye didn’t know I’s a gwine to Louisville to-morrow,” she said to George, as entering her cabin he found her busy in sorting over her baby’s clothes. “I thought I’d jis look over sis’s things and get ’em straitened up. But I’m gwine, mass’r George, gwine to have four dollars a week, and missis is gwine to lay it all up to buy back my old man agin!”
“Whew!” said George, “here’s a stroke of business, to be sure. How are you going?”
“To-morrow, wid Sam. And now, mass’r George, I knows you’ll jis sit down and write to my old man, and tell him all about it, won’t ye?”
“To be sure,” said George; “Uncle Tom’ll be right glad to hear from us. I’ll go right in the house for paper and ink; and then, you know, Aunt Chloe, I can tell about the new colts and all.”
“Sartin, sartin, mass’r George; you go ’long, and I’ll get ye up a bit o’ chicken, or some sich; ye won’t have many more suppers wid yer poor old aunty.”
——
Chapter XXI.
“The grass withereth—the flower fadeth.”
Life passes with us all a day at a time; so it passed with our friend Tom till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay behind,[7] still was he never positively and consciously miserable; for so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not either wholly miserable.
Tom read, in his only literary cabinet, of one who had “learned in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content.” It seemed to him good and reasonable doctrine, and accorded well with the settled and thoughtful habit which he had acquired from the reading of that same book.
His letter homeward, as we related in the last chapter, was in due time answered by master George, in a good, round, school-boy hand, that Tom said might be read “most acrost the room.” It contained various refreshing items of home intelligence with which our reader is fully acquainted—stated how Aunt Chloe had been hired out to a confectioner in Louisville, where her skill in the pastry line was gaining wonderful sums of money, all of which Tom was informed, was to be laid up to go to make up the sum of his redemption money—Mose and Pete were thriving, and the baby was trotting all about the house, under the care of Sally and the family generally.
Tom’s cabin was shut up for the present, but George expatiated brilliantly on ornaments and additions to be made to it when Tom came back.
The rest of this letter gave a list of George’s school studies, each one headed by a flourishing capital; and also told the names of four new colts that appeared on the premises since Tom left; and stated in the same connection that father and mother were well. The style of the letter was decidedly concise and terse, but Tom thought it the most wonderful specimen of composition that had appeared in modern times. He was never tired of looking at it, and even held a council with Eva on the expediency of getting it framed, to hang up in his room. Nothing but the difficulty of arranging it so that both sides of the page would show at once stood in the way of this undertaking.
The friendship between Tom and Eva had grown with the child’s growth. It would be hard to say what place she held in the soft, impressible heart of her faithful attendant. He loved her as something frail and earthly, yet almost worshipped her as something heavenly and divine. He gazed on her as the Italian sailor gazes on his image of the child Jesus—with a mixture of reverence and tenderness; and to humor her graceful fancies, and meet those thousand simple wants which invest childhood like a many-colored rainbow, was Tom’s chief delight. In the market at morning his eyes were always on the flower stalls for rare bouquets for her, and the choicest peach or orange was slipped into his pocket to give to her when he came back; and the sight that pleased him most was her sunny head looking out the gate for his distant approach, and her childish question—“Well, Uncle Tom, what have you got for me to-day?”
Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices in return. Though a child, she was a beautiful reader—a fine musical ear, a quick poetic fancy, and an instinctive sympathy with what is grand and noble, made her such a reader of the Bible as Tom had never before heard. At first she read to please her humble friend, but soon her own earnest nature threw out its tendrils, and wound itself around the mystic[8] book—and Eva loved it because it woke in her strange yearnings, and strong, dim emotions, such as impassioned imaginative children love to feel.
The parts that pleased her most, were the Revelations and the Prophecies—parts, whose dim and wondrous imagery and fervent language impressed her the more, that she questioned vainly of their meaning—and she and her simple friend, the old child and the young one, felt just alike about it. All that they knew was, that they spoke of a glory to be revealed—a wondrous something yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why—and though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities—the eternal past—the eternal future. The light shines only on a small space around her—therefore she needs must yearn towards the unknown, and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers in her own expecting nature—its mystic imagery are so many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics—she folds them in her bosom, and expects to read them when she passes beyond the veil.
At this time in our story, the whole St. Clare establishment is, for the time being, removed to their villa on Lake Pontchartrain. The heats of summer had driven all who were able to leave the sultry and unhealthy city, to seek the shores of the lake and its cool sea breezes.
St. Clare’s villa was an East Indian cottage, surrounded by light verandahs of bamboo work, and opening on all sides into gardens and pleasure grounds. The common sitting room opened on to a large garden, fragrant with every picturesque plant and flower of the tropics, where winding paths ran down to the very shores of the lake, whose silvery sheet of water lay there, rising and falling in the sunbeams—a picture never for an honr the same, yet every hour more beautiful.
It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles the whole horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water another sky. The lake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where white-winged vessels glided hither and thither like so many spirits, and little golden stars twinkled through the glow, and looked down at themselves as they trembled in the water.
Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat in an arbor at the foot of the garden. It was Sunday evening, and Eva’s Bible lay open on her knee. She read—“And I saw a sea of glass, mingled with fire.”
“Tom,” said Eva, suddenly stopping and pointing to the lake, “there ’tis.”
“What, Miss Eva?”
“Don’t you see—there?” said the child, pointing to the glassy water, which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden glows of the sky. “There’s ‘a sea of glass, mingled with fire.’ ”
“True enough, Miss Eva,” said Tom; and Tom sung—
“Oh, had I the wings of the morning,
I’d fly away to Canaan’s shore;
Bright angels should convey me home,
To the new Jerusalem.”
“Where do you suppose new Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom?” said Eva.
“Oh, up in the clouds, Miss Eva.”
“Then I think I see it,” said Eva. “Look in those clouds—they look like great gates of pearl; and you can see beyond them—far, far off—it’s all gold. Tom, sing about ‘spirits bright.’ ”
Tom sung the words of a well-known Methodist hymn—
“I see a band of spirits bright,
That taste the glories there;
They all are robed in spotless white,
And conquering palms they bear.”
“Uncle Tom, I’ve seen them,” said Eva.
Tom had no doubt of it at all; it did not surprise him in the least. If Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he would have thought it entirely probable.
“They come to me sometimes in my sleep—those spirits;” and Eva’s eyes grew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low voice—
“They are all robed in spotless white,
And conquering palms they bear.”
“Uncle Tom,” said Eva, “I’m going there.”
“Where, Miss Eva?”
The child rose and pointed her little hand to the sky; the glow of evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a kind of unearthly radiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on the skies.
“I’m going there,” she said, “to the spirits bright, Tom; I’m going before long.”
The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how often he had noticed within six months that Eva’s little hands had grown thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and how, when she ran or played in the garden, as she once could for hours, she became soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss Ophelia speak often of a cough, that all her medicaments could not cure; and even now that fervent cheek and little hand were burning with hectic fever; and yet the thought that Eva’s words suggested had never come to him till now.
Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been, but their names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye, when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children, hope not to retain that child, for the seal of Heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes.
Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou art passing away, but they that love thee dearest know it not.
——
The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty call from Miss Ophelia.
“Eva—Eva—why, child, the dew is falling; you musn’t be out there.”
Eva and Tom hastened in.
Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing. She was from New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps of that soft, insidious disease which sweeps away so many of the fairest and loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken, seals them irrevocably for death.
She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brightening cheek—nor could the lustre of the eye, and the airy buoyancy born of fever, deceive her.
She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare, but he threw back her suggestions with a restless petulance unlike his usual careless good humor.
“Don’t be croaking, Cousin, I hate it,” he would say; “don’t you see that the child is only growing. Children always lose strength when they grow fast.”
“But she has that cough!”
“Oh! nonsense of that cough! it is not anything. She has taken a little cold, perhaps.”
“Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and Ellen and Maria Sanders.”
“Oh! stop these hobgoblin nurse legends. You old hands get so wise, that a child cannot cough, or sneeze, but you see desperation and ruin at hand. Only take care of the child, keep her from the night air, and don’t let her play too hard, and she’ll do well enough.”
So St. Clare said; but he grew nervous and restless. He watched Eva feverishly day by day, as might be told by the frequency with which he repeated over that “the child was quite well”—that there wasn’t anything in that cough—it was only some little stomach affection, such as children often had.” But he kept by her more than before, took her oftener to ride with him, brought home every few days some receipt or strengthening mixture, “not,” he said, “that the child needed it, but then, it would not do her any harm.”
If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his heart than anything else, was the daily increasing maturity of the child’s mind and feelings. While still retaining all a child’s fanciful graces, yet she often dropped, unconsciously, words of such a reach of thought, and strange unworldly wisdom, that they seemed to be an inspiration. At such times St. Clare would feel a sudden thrill, and clasp her in his arms, as if that fond clasp could save her; and his heart rose up with wild determination to keep her, never to let her go.
The child’s whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in works of love and kindness. Impulsively generous she had always been, but there was a touching and womanly thoughtfulness about her now, that every one noticed. She still loved to play with Topsy and the various colored children, but she now seemed rather a spectator than an actor of their plays, and she would sit for half an hour at a time, laughing at the odd tricks of Topsy—and then a shadow would seem to pass across her face, her eyes grew misty, and her thoughts were afar.
“Mamma,” she said suddenly to her mother, one day, “why don’t we teach our servants to read?”
“What a question, child! people never do.”
“Why don’t they?” said Eva.
“Because it is of no use for them to read. It don’t help them to work any better, and they are not made for anything else.”
“But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn God’s will.”
“Oh, they can get that read to them all they need.”
“It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to read themselves. They need it a great many times when there is nobody to read it.”
“Eva, you are an odd child,” said her mother.
“Miss Ophelia has taught Topsy to read,” continued Eva.
“Yes, and you see how much good it does. Topsy is the worst creature I ever saw.”
“Here’s poor Mammy!” said Eva. “She does love the Bible so much, and wishes so she could read. And what will she do when I can’t read to her?”
Marie was busy, turning over the contents of a drawer, as she answered—
“Well, of course, by and by, Eva, you will have other things to think of, besides reading the Bible round to servants. Not but that is very proper; I’ve done it myself when I had health. But when you come to be dressing and going into company, you won’t have time. See here!” she added, “these jewels I’m going to give you when you come out. I wore them to my first ball. I can tell you, Eva, I made a sensation!”
Eva took the jewel case, and lifted from it a diamond necklace. Her large, thoughtful eyes rested on them, but it was plain her thoughts were elsewhere.
“How sober you look, child!” said Marie.
“Are these worth a great deal of money, mamma?”
“To be sure they are. Father sent to France for them. They are worth a small fortune.”
“I wish I had them,” said Eva, “to do what I please with.”
“What would you do with them?”
“I’d sell them, and buy a place in the free States, and take all our people there, and hire teachers, to teach them to read and write.”
Eva was cut short by her mother’s laughing.
“Set up a boarding-school! Wouldn’t you teach them to play on the piano, and paint on velvet?”
“I’d teach them to read their own Bible, and write their own letters, and read letters that are written to them,” said Eva, steadily. “I know, mamma, it does come very hard on them, that they can’t do these things. Tom feels it—Mammy does—a great many of them do. I think it’s wrong.”
“Come! come! Eva, you are only a child! You don’t know anything about these things,” said Marie; “besides, your talking makes my head ache.”
Marie always had a head-ache on hand for any conversation that did not exactly suit her.
Eva stole away; but after that, she assiduously gave Mammy reading lessons.
[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 the bibliography, see the Note on the Text.
any stray brave that might | Era pg. 181
any stray breeze, that might | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 53
The Era form “brave” is replaced in the Jewett edition with the word “breeze,” a form that offers a more sensible reading. As the “stray breeze” is said to enter by door or window, the Jewett edition is a more sensible reading than the Era form “brave,” which might be surmised to refer to an American Indian warrior. In this context, that reading is obviously faulty. The phrase “stray breeze” is a common locution, and some readers may be able to intuit the correction from the serial context alone. The serial form probably originates in an abbreviated manuscript form or a typesetter’s error. [Back]
Mr. Shelby. Once get business | Era pg. 181
Mr. Shelby. “Once get business | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 54
In the line as typeset in the Era, Mr. Shelby resumes speaking at the start of a new line. Readers are unlikely to notice that the opening quotation mark is omitted because it is obvious that Mr. Shelby resumes speaking. Stowe in manuscript relied on paragraphing, em dashes, and rhetorical sense to convey the switch between narrative and dialog, and she achieves the desired effect almost effortlessly. The degree of formal marking for quotations—the replacement of em dashes with quotation marks or the addition of single quotes for reported speech—is raised for each subsequent resetting of type. Readers who believe that formal marking of quotations is an improvement are invited to consider whether they would notice the next example of this error, which occurs within the next five paragraphs. That error is not corrected and not marked. [Back]
you please, missis,” said she. | Era pg. 181
you please, Missis,” said she. | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 56
In the Era, Aunt Chloe addresses Emily Shelby with the lower-case form “missis” and addresses Arthur Shelby (and his son George) with the lower-case form “masser.” In the Jewett edition, Chloe addresses her with the upper-case form “Missis” and the males with the upper-case form “Mas’r.” These types of alterations are applied consistently, and the respective forms are altered eighteen times in this installment. The serial echoes the manuscript forms, but the Jewett edition form is more likely to reflect printer George C. Rand’s house styling.
These two examples are consistent with the overwhelming pattern of spelling and capitalization in serial and book. The words “masser” (Era) and “ Mas’r” (Jewett) and “missis” (Era) and “Missis” (Jewett) appear in their respective forms almost 200 times in each text, and these spellings are consistently applied. Would readers of the serial detect a subtle critique in the lower-case serial forms—one detectable as a message from author to reader but not knowable to characters? Or could the reader surmise that Black characters offer a subtle critique by their lower-case form of the honorific title? Though either must be a matter of interpretation, Stowe probably preferred the lower-case form. In the Jewett illustrated edition, which was also printed by Rand, the lower-case forms returned. If Stowe requested the return to lower-case forms “mas’r” and “missis,” she may have done so to appeal to the more select and sympathetic audience of the serial and the illustrated edition. For the mass audiences of the first Jewett edition and the paperback reprint, the upper-case forms are present. [Back]
from the younger members of | Era pg. 181
from the young members of | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 56
In the Era serial, all members of the family who are younger than Chloe critique her use of the term “poetry” for “poultry.” In the Jewett edition, those who critique Chloe are the “young.” [Back]
“Laws! I aint a proposin | Era pg. 181
“Laws! I an’t a proposin | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 57
In the Era serial, Chloe’s language is less formal than in the Jewett edition. The higher degree of formality is achieved by many means: the most informal dialect is altered to slightly more formal dialect, “aint” and “taint” becomes “an’t” and “t an’t” respectively (4 times); the omitted letter in dialect is replaced with standard spelling, “mornin” becomes “morning” (1 time); an apostrophe is added to signal a missing letter, “doin” becomes “doin’ ” (1 time); possession is marked with an apostrophe, “days works” becomes “day’s works” (1 time); and dialect pronunciation is reconsidered, “Whye!” becomes “Why-e!” (1 time). In one case, the Jewett edition replaces standard speech with dialect: Chloe in the serial will “fetch up the money” but in the Jewett edition will “fetch up de money.”
The overall effect is slight, but the pattern suggests that the Jewett’s printer George C. Rand routinely, and perhaps even subconsciously, sought to raise the level of formality in dialect speech. [Back]
many a thousand miles off,” | Era pg. 181
many a hundred miles off,” | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 58
In the Era serial, Emily Shelby overestimates the distance by water. The actual distance on the Mississippi River between Louisville, KY and New Orleans, LA is just over one thousand miles. Stowe may have been alerted by a reader or consulted a travel map, but it is also possible that the distance is meant metaphorically to suggest an almost impossible distance between the upper and the deep south. The possibility of metaphorically suggestive distance appears again later when George Harris and family cross Lake Erie—the amount of time that they spend on the water varies significantly in the two texts. I suspect that Stowe sought to correct an obvious factual error in this case because many thousands is far in excess of the actual distance. [Back]
what lay behind, still was | Era pg. 181
what lay beyond, still was | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 60
In the Era serial, Tom yearns for lay “behind” him, in his past, his family and his Kentucky home. In the Jewett edition, Tom yearns for life beyond the present one, possibly a future return home but more likely the promise of spiritual comfort in the Christian afterlife. In the serial, the word “behind” forecasts the importance of the letter from George Shelby, which was begun immediately before in the previous chapter of the same installment. In the Jewett edition, the chapter break places greater distance between the two chapters, so the word “beyond” reinforces that distance between Kentucky home and New Orleans and appears to look forward toward the spiritual vision that Eva and Uncle Tom will share on the mossy seat, the literal reflection of the Scriptural passages in the natural world.
around the mystic book—and Eva loved | Era pg. 181
around the majestic book; and Eva loved | Jewett (1852) vol. 2, pg. 62
In the Era serial, the Bible is a “mystic” book. In the Jewett edition, the Bible is a “majestic” book. The word “mystic” may place greater emphasis on the sublimated eroticism between Tom and Eva, which is tamped down a bit by “majestic” in the Jewett edition. To read to Tom is for Eva a type of awakening, which though asserted to be spiritual has erotic overtones in phrases like “wound its tendrils” and “strange yearnings.”
Recall that Tom has been compared twice to a physical instantiation of Scripture. In chapter 4, Stowe wrote that Scripture “seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his being as to have become a part of himself.” And in chapter 14, Augustine St. Clare teases the slave trader Haley by suggesting that he is trying to sell Tom as “All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black morocco, complete!” [Back]
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.
Uncle Tom's Cabin in the National Era 
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