Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (176 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 1002
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 still 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,

 

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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 a 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 wondered 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?"

 

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"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 steadily 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 rec-

 

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ommend 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

 

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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

 

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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?"

 

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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

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