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CHAPTER II The Mother
Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a petted and indulged
favorite.
The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air of refinement,
that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be a particular gift
to the quadroon and mulatto women.
These natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most
dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing
and agreeable.
Eliza, such as we have described her, is not a fancy sketch, but taken from
remembrance, as we saw her, years ago, in Kentucky.
Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached maturity
without those temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a slave.
She had been married to a bright and talented young mulatto man, who was a slave
on a neighboring estate, and bore the name of George Harris.
This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging factory, where
his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered the first hand in the place.
He had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which, considering the
education and circumstances of the inventor, displayed quite as much
mechanical genius as Whitney's cotton-gin.
(NOTE: A machine of this description was really the invention of a young colored man
in Kentucky. [Mrs. Stowe's note.])
He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general
favorite in the factory.
Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all
these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded,
tyrannical master.
This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George's invention, took a ride
over to the factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about.
He was received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on
possessing so valuable a slave.
He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George, who, in high
spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly,
that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority.
What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines, and
holding up his head among gentlemen?
He'd soon put a stop to it. He'd take him back, and put him to hoeing
and digging, and "see if he'd step about so smart."
Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly
demanded George's wages, and announced his intention of taking him home.
"But, Mr. Harris," remonstrated the manufacturer, "isn't this rather sudden?"
"What if it is?--isn't the man mine?" "We would be willing, sir, to increase the
rate of compensation."
"No object at all, sir. I don't need to hire any of my hands out,
unless I've a mind to." "But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to
this business."
"Dare say he may be; never was much adapted to anything that I set him about, I'll be
bound."
"But only think of his inventing this machine," interposed one of the workmen,
rather unluckily. "O yes! a machine for saving work, is it?
He'd invent that, I'll be bound; let a *** alone for that, any time.
They are all labor-saving machines themselves, every one of 'em.
No, he shall ***!"
George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly pronounced
by a power that he knew was irresistible.
He folded his arms, tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter
feelings burned in his ***, and sent streams of fire through his veins.
He breathed short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live coals; and he might have
broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had not the kindly manufacturer touched him
on the arm, and said, in a low tone,
"Give way, George; go with him for the present.
We'll try to help you, yet."
The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he could not
hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in his determination
to keep the power he possessed over his victim.
George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm.
He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye,
the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be
repressed,--indubitable signs, which showed
too plainly that the man could not become a thing.
It was during the happy period of his employment in the factory that George had
seen and married his wife.
During that period,--being much trusted and favored by his employer,--he had free
liberty to come and go at discretion.
The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who, with a little womanly
complacency in match-making, felt pleased to unite her handsome favorite with one of
her own class who seemed in every way
suited to her; and so they were married in her mistress' great parlor, and her
mistress herself adorned the bride's beautiful hair with orange-blossoms, and
threw over it the bridal veil, which
certainly could scarce have rested on a fairer head; and there was no lack of white
gloves, and cake and wine,--of admiring guests to praise the bride's beauty, and
her mistress' indulgence and liberality.
For a year or two Eliza saw her husband frequently, and there was nothing to
interrupt their happiness, except the loss of two infant children, to whom she was
passionately attached, and whom she mourned
with a grief so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her mistress, who
sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her naturally passionate feelings within
the bounds of reason and religion.
After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually become tranquillized and
settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve, once more entwined with
that little life, seemed to become sound
and healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband was rudely
torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway of his legal owner.
The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a week or two after George had
been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of the occasion had passed away, and
tried every possible inducement to lead him to restore him to his former employment.
"You needn't trouble yourself to talk any longer," said he, doggedly; "I know my own
business, sir."
"I did not presume to interfere with it, sir.
I only thought that you might think it for your interest to let your man to us on the
terms proposed."
"O, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your winking and whispering, the day
I took him out of the factory; but you don't come it over me that way.
It's a free country, sir; the man's mine, and I do what I please with him,--that's
it!"
And so fell George's last hope;--nothing before him but a life of toil and drudgery,
rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation and indignity which
tyrannical ingenuity could devise.
A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him.
No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is WORSE!