LITMIR.BIZ

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and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.

      “Come up here, Sam,” said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the verandah, “and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,” said he, passing his arm round her, “you are cold and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much.”

      “Feel too much! Am not I a woman, – a mother? Are we not both responsible to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this sin to our charge.”

      “What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we were obliged to.”

      “There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,” said Mrs. Shelby. “I can’t reason it away.”

      “Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!” called Sam, under the verandah; “take these yer hosses to der barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?” and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.

      “Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was,” said Mr. Shelby. “Where is Eliza, if you know?”

      “Wal, Mas’r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin’ on the floatin’ ice. She crossed most ’markably; it was n’t no less nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the ’Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk.”

      “Sam, I think this rather apocryphal, – this miracle. Crossing on floating ice is n’t so easily done,” said Mr. Shelby.

      “Easy! could n’t nobody a done it, widout de Lord. Why, now,” said Sam, “’t was jist dis yer way. Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead, – (I’s so zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizy, that I could n’t hold in, no way), – and when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out de side door; she went down de river bank; – Mas’r Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter. Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and over t’ other side ice a sawin’ and a jiggling up and down, kinder as ’t were a great island. We come right behind her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough, – when she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’ other side the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a jumpin’, – the ice went crack! c’wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a boundin’ like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal ’s got in her an’t common, I’m o’ ’pinion.”

      Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told his story.

      “God be praised, she is n’t dead!” she said; “but where is the poor child now?”

      “De Lord will pervide,” said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. “As I’ve been a sayin’, dis yer’s providence and no mistake, as Missis has allers been a instructin’ on us. Thar’s allers instruments ris up to do de Lord’s will. Now, if ’t had n’t been for me to-day, she’d a been took a dozen times. Warn’t it I started off de hosses, dis yer mornin’, and kept ’em chasin’ till nigh dinner time? And did n’t I car Mas’r Haley nigh five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he’d a come up with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer’s all providences.”

      “They are a kind of providences that you’ll have to be pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,” said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command, under the circumstances.

      Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most penitential style.

      “Mas’r ’s quite right, – quite; it was ugly on me, – there’s no disputin’ that ar; and of course Mas’r and Missis would n’t encourage no such works. I’m sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me ’s ’mazin’ tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar Mas’r Haley; he an’t no gen’l’man no way; anybody ’s been raised as I’ve been can’t help a seein’ dat ar.”

      “Well, Sam,” said Mrs. Shelby, “as you appear to have a proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner to-day. You and Andy must be hungry.”

      “Missis is a heap too good for us,” said Sam, making his bow with alacrity, and departing.

      It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised him to eminence in political life, – a talent of making capital out of everything that turned up, to be invested for his own especial praise and glory; and having done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the satisfaction of the parlor, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing largely in the kitchen.

      “I’ll speechify these yer niggers,” said Sam to himself, “now I’ve got a chance. Lord, I’ll reel it off to make ’em stare!”

      It must be observed that one of Sam’s especial delights had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and then, descending among the various brethren of his own color, assembled on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with the most ludicrous burlesques and imitations, all delivered with the most imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; and though the auditors immediately about him were generally of his own color, it not unfrequently happened that they were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer complexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam’s great self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his office.

      Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department, as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although ‘Missis’ orders’ would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal by enlisting the spirit also. He therefore appeared before Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf of a persecuted fellow-creature, – enlarged upon the fact that Missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be wanting to make up the balance in his solids and fluids, – and thus unequivocally acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking department, and all thereto pertaining.

      The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam’s suavities; and if he had been the prodigal son[36] himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated, happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of olla podrida[37] of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days past. Savory morsels of ham, golden blocks of corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared in picturesque confusion; and Sam, as monarch of all he surveyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, and patronizing Andy at his right hand.

      The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination of the day’s exploits. Now was Sam’s hour of glory. The story of the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing which might be necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some of our fashionable dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any

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