Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly

attention. Instantly, she pounced upon it. 'What's this? You naughty, wicked child,-you've been stealing this!'

The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy's own sleeve, yet was she not in the least disconcerted; she only looked at it with an air of the most surprised and unconscious innocence.

'Laws! why, that ar's Miss Feely's ribbon, an't it? How could it a got caught in my sleeve?

'Topsy, you naughty girl, don't you tell me a lie,-you stole that ribbon!'

'Missis, I declar for 't, I didn't;-never seed it till dis yer blessed minnit.'

'Topsy,' said Miss Ophelia, 'don't you now it's wicked to tell lies?'

'I never tell no lies, Miss Feely,' said Topsy, with virtuous gravity; 'it's jist the truth I've been a tellin now, and an't nothin else.'

'Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so.'

'Laws, Missis, if you's to whip all day, couldn't say no other way,' said Topsy, beginning to blubber. 'I never seed dat ar,-it must a got caught in my sleeve. Miss Feeley must have left it on the bed, and it got caught in the clothes, and so got in my sleeve.'

Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that she caught the child and shook her.

'Don't you tell me that again!'

The shake brought the glove on to the floor, from the other sleeve.

'There, you!' said Miss Ophelia, 'will you tell me now, you didn't steal the ribbon?'

Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in denying the ribbon.

'Now, Topsy,' said Miss Ophelia, 'if you'll confess all about it, I won't whip you this time.' Thus adjured, Topsy confessed to the ribbon and gloves, with woful protestations of penitence.

'Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other things since you have been in the house, for I let you run about all day yesterday. Now, tell me if you took anything, and I shan't whip you.'

'Laws, Missis! I took Miss Eva's red thing she wars on her neck.'

'You did, you naughty child!-Well, what else?'

'I took Rosa's yer-rings,-them red ones.'

'Go bring them to me this minute, both of 'em.'

'Laws, Missis! I can't,-they 's burnt up!'

'Burnt up!-what a story! Go get 'em, or I'll whip you.'

Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans, declared that she could not. 'They 's burnt up,-they was.'

'What did you burn 'em for?' said Miss Ophelia.

'Cause I 's wicked,-I is. I 's mighty wicked, any how. I can't help it.'

Just at this moment, Eva came innocently into the room, with the identical coral necklace on her neck.

'Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?' said Miss Ophelia.

'Get it? Why, I've had it on all day,' said Eva.

'Did you have it on yesterday?'

'Yes; and what is funny, Aunty, I had it on all night. I forgot to take it off when I went to bed.'

Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered; the more so, as Rosa, at that instant, came into the room, with a basket of newly-ironed linen poised on her head, and the coral ear-drops shaking in her ears!

'I'm sure I can't tell anything what to do with such a child!' she said, in despair. 'What in the world did you tell me you took those things for, Topsy?'

'Why, Missis said I must 'fess; and I couldn't think of nothin' else to 'fess,' said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.

'But, of course, I didn't want you to confess things you didn't do,' said Miss Ophelia; 'that's telling a lie, just as much as the other.'

'Laws, now, is it?' said Topsy, with an air of innocent wonder.

'La, there an't any such thing as truth in that limb,' said Rosa, looking indignantly at Topsy. 'If I was Mas'r St. Clare, I'd whip her till the blood run. I would,-I'd let her catch it!'

'No, no Rosa,' said Eva, with an air of command, which the child could assume at times; 'you mustn't talk so, Rosa. I can't bear to hear it.'

'La sakes! Miss Eva, you 's so good, you don't know nothing how to get along with niggers. There's no way but to cut 'em well up, I tell ye.'

'Rosa!' said Eva, 'hush! Don't you say another word of that sort!' and the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deepened its color.

Rosa was cowed in a moment.

'Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that's plain. She can speak, for all the world, just like her papa,' she said, as she passed out of the room.

Eva stood looking at Topsy.

There stood the two children representatives of the two extremes of society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements; and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor. They stood the representatives of their races. The Saxon, born of ages of cultivation, command, education, physical and moral eminence; the Afric, born of ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil and vice!

Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through Eva's mind. But a child's thoughts are rather dim, undefined instincts; and in Eva's noble nature many such were yearning and working, for which she had no power of utterance. When Miss Ophelia expatiated on Topsy's naughty, wicked conduct, the child looked perplexed and sorrowful, but said, sweetly.

'Poor Topsy, why need you steal? You're going to be taken good care of now. I'm sure I'd rather give you anything of mine, than have you steal it.'

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in her life; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in the keen, round, glittering eye; but it was followed by the short laugh and habitual grin. No! the ear that has never heard anything but abuse is strangely incredulous of anything so heavenly as kindness; and Topsy only thought Eva's speech something funny and inexplicable,-she did not believe it.

But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the case a puzzler; her rules for bringing up didn't seem to apply. She thought she would take time to think of it; and, by the way of gaining time, and in hopes of some indefinite moral virtues supposed to be inherent in dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one till she had arranged her ideas further on the subject.

'I don't see,' said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, 'how I'm going to manage that child, without whipping her.'

'Well, whip her, then, to your heart's content; I'll give you full power to do what you like.'

'Children always have to be whipped,' said Miss Ophelia; 'I never heard of bringing them up without.'

'O, well, certainly,' said St. Clare; 'do as you think best. Only I'll make one suggestion: I've seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came handiest, &c.; and, seeing that she is used to that style of operation, I think your whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression.'

'What is to be done with her, then?' said Miss Ophelia.

'You have started a serious question,' said St. Clare; 'I wish you'd answer it. What is to be done with a human being that can be governed only by the lash,-that fails,- it's a very common state of things down here!'