Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (36 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 214
little girl threw her arms around her,"Mammy, you shall take my vinaigrette."
"What! your beautiful gold thing, thar, with them diamonds! Lor, Miss, 't would n't be proper, no ways."
"Why not? You need it, and I don't. Mamma always uses it for headache, and it 'll make you feel better. No, you shall take it, to please me, now."
"Do hear the darlin talk!" said Mammy, as Eva thrust it into her bosom, and, kissing her, ran down stairs to her mother.
"What were you stopping for?"
"I was just stopping to give Mammy my vinaigrette, to take to church with her."
"Eva!" said Marie, stamping impatiently,"your gold vinaigrette to
Mammy!
When will you learn what's
proper?
Go right and take it back, this moment!"
Eva looked downcast and aggrieved, and turned slowly.
"I say, Marie, let the child alone; she shall do as she pleases," said St. Clare.
"St. Clare, how will she ever get along in the world?" said Marie.
"The Lord knows," said St. Clare; "but she 'll get along in heaven better than you or I."
"O, papa, don't," said Eva, softly touching his elbow; "it troubles mother."
"Well, cousin, are you ready to go to meeting?" said Miss Ophelia, turning square about on St. Clare.
"I 'm not going, thank you."
"I do wish St. Clare ever would go to church," said Marie; "but he has n't a particle of religion about him. It really is n't respectable."
"I know it," said St. Clare. "You ladies go to church to learn how to get along in the world, I suppose, and your piety sheds respectability on us. If I did go at all, I would go where Mammy goes; there's something to keep a fellow awake there, at least."
"What! those shouting Methodists? Horrible!" said Marie.
"Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, Marie. Positively, it's too much to ask of a man. Eva, do you like to go? Come, stay at home and play with me."

 

Page 215
"Thank you, papa; but I 'd rather go to church."
"Is n't it dreadful tiresome?" said St. Clare.
"I think it is tiresome, some," said Eva; "and I am sleepy, too, but I try to keep awake."
"What do you go for, then?"
"Why, you know, papa," she said, in a whisper, "cousin told me that God wants to have us; and he gives us everything, you know; and it is n't much to do it, if he wants us to. It is n't so very tiresome, after all."
"You sweet, little obliging soul!" said St. Clare, kissing her; "go along, that's a good girl, and pray for me."
"Certainly, I always do," said the child, as she sprang after her mother into the carriage.
St. Clare stood on the steps and kissed his hand to her, as the carriage drove away; large tears were in his eyes.
"O, Evangeline! rightly named," he said; "hath not God made thee an evangel to me?"
So he felt a moment; and then he smoked a cigar, and read the Picayune, and forgot his little gospel. Was he much unlike other folks?
"You see, Evangeline," said her mother, "it's always right and proper to be kind to servants, but it is n't proper to treat them
just
as we would our relations, or people in our own class of life. Now, if Mammy was sick, you would n't want to put her in your own bed."
"I should feel just like it, mamma," said Eva, "because then it would be handier to take care of her, and because, you know, my bed is better than hers."
Marie was in utter despair at the entire want of moral perception evinced in this reply.
"What can I do to make this child understand me?" she said.
"Nothing," said Miss Ophelia, significantly.
Eva looked sorry and disconcerted for a moment; but children, luckily, do not keep to one impression long, and in a few moments she was merrily laughing at various things which she saw from the coach-windows, as it rattled along.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
"Well, ladies," said St. Clare, as they were comfortably

 

Page 216
seated at the dinner-table, "and what was the bill of fare at church to-day?"
"O, Dr. Gpreached a splendid sermon," said Marie. "It was just such a sermon as you ought to hear; it expressed all my views exactly."
"It must have been very improving," said St. Clare. "The subject must have been an extensive one."
"Well, I mean all my views about society, and such things," said Marie. "The text was, 'He hath made everything beautiful in its season;' and he showed how all the orders and distinctions in society came from God; and that it was so appropriate, you know, and beautiful, that some should be high and some low, and that some were born to rule and some to serve, and all that, you know; and he applied it so well to all this ridiculous fuss that is made about slavery, and he proved distinctly that the Bible was on our side, and supported all our institutions so convincingly. I only wish you 'd heard him."
"O, I did n't need it," said St. Clare. "I can learn what does me as much good as that from the Picayune, any time, and smoke a cigar besides; which I can't do, you know, in a church."
"Why," said Miss Ophelia, "don't you believe in these views?"
"Who,I? You know I 'm such a graceless dog that these religious aspects of such subjects don't edify me much. If I was to say anything on this slavery matter, I would say out, fair and square, 'We 're in for it; we 've got 'em, and mean to keep 'em,it's for our convenience and our interest;' for that's the long and short of it,that's just the whole of what all this sanctified stuff amounts to, after all; and I think that will be intelligible to everybody, everywhere."
"I do think, Augustine, you are so irreverent!" said Marie. "I think it's shocking to hear you talk."
"Shocking! it 's the truth. This religious talk on such matters,why don't they carry it a little further, and show the beauty, in its season, of a fellow's taking a glass too much, and sitting a little too late over his cards, and various providential arrangements of that sort, which are pretty frequent among us young men;we 'd like to hear that those are right and godly, too."

 

Page 217
"Well," said Miss Ophelia, "do you think slavery right or wrong?"
"I'm not going to have any of your horrid New England directness, cousin," said St. Clare, gayly. "If I answer that question, I know you 'll be at me with half a dozen others, each one harder than the last; and I'm not a going to define my position. I am one of the sort that lives by throwing stones at other people's glass houses, but I never mean to put up one for them to stone."
"That's just the way he's always talking," said Marie; "you can't get any satisfaction out of him. I believe it 's just because he don't like religion, that he's always running out in this way he's been doing."
"Religion!" said St. Clare, in a tone that made both ladies look at him. "Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath."
"Then you don't believe that the Bible justifies slavery," said Miss Ophelia.
"The Bible was my
mother's
book," said St. Clare. "By it she lived and died, and I would be very sorry to think it did. I 'd as soon desire to have it proved that my mother could drink brandy, chew tobacco, and swear, by way of satisfying me that I did right in doing the same. It would n't make me at all more satisfied with these things in myself, and it would take from me the comfort of respecting her; and it really is comfort, in this world, to have anything one can respect. In short, you see," said he, suddenly resuming his gay tone, "all I want is that different things be kept in different boxes. The whole frame-work of society, both in Europe and America, is made up of various things which will not stand the scrutiny of any very ideal standard of morality. It 's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if

 

Page 218
we give it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it,this is strong, clear, well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and, if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he is n't much better than he should be.''
"You are very uncharitable," said Marie.
"Well," said St. Clare, "suppose that something should bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine? What a flood of light would pour into the church, all at once, and how immediately it would be discovered that everything in the Bible and reason went the other way!"
"Well, at any rate," said Marie, as she reclined herself on a lounge, "I'm thankful I 'm born where slavery exists; and I believe it's right,indeed, I feel it must be; and, at any rate, I 'm sure I could n't get along without it."
"I say, what do you think, Pussy?" said her father to Eva, who came in at this moment, with a flower in her hand.
"What about, papa?"
"Why, which do you like the best,to live as they do at your uncle's, up in Vermont, or to have a house-full of servants, as we do?"
"O, of course, our way is the pleasantest," said Eva.
"Why so?" said St. Clare, stroking her head.
"Why, it makes so many more round you to love, you know," said Eva, looking up earnestly.
"Now, that's just like Eva," said Marie; "just one of her odd speeches."
"Is it an odd speech, papa?" said Eva, whisperingly, as she got upon his knee.
"Rather, as this world goes, Pussy," said St. Clare. "But where has my little Eva been, all dinner-time?"
"O, I 've been up in Tom's room, hearing him sing, and Aunt Dinah gave me my dinner."
"Hearing Tom sing, hey?"
"O, yes! he sings such beautiful things about the New Jerusalem, and bright angels, and the land of Canaan."
"I dare say; it's better than the opera, is n't it?"

 

Page 219
"Yes, and he's going to teach them to me."
"Singing lessons, hey?you
are
coming on."
"Yes, he sings for me, and I read to him in my Bible; and he explains what it means, you know."
"On my word," said Marie, laughing, "that is the latest joke of the season."
"Tom is n't a bad hand, now, at explaining Scripture, I 'll dare swear," said St. Clare. "Tom has a natural genius for religion. I wanted the horses out early, this morning, and I stole up to Tom's cubiculum there, over the stables, and there I heard him holding a meeting by himself; and, in fact, I have n't heard anything quite so savory as Tom's prayer, this some time. He put in for me, with a zeal that was quite apostolic."
"Perhaps he guessed you were listening. I 've heard of that trick before."
"If he did, he was n't very politic; for he gave the Lord his opinion of me, pretty freely. Tom seemed to think there was decidedly room for improvement in me, and seemed very earnest that I should be converted."
"I hope you 'll lay it to heart," said Miss Ophelia.
"I suppose you are much of the same opinion," said St. Clare, "Well, we shall see,shan't we, Eva?"

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