Roxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded uncomfortably, but as well as he could. And she tried to comfort him, but that was not possible. These intimacies quickly became horrible to him, and within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to tell her so, and require that they be discontinued or very considerably modified. But he was afraid of her; and besides, there came a lull, now, for she had begun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. Finally she started up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost suffocated by the joy of this sudden good news. Roxana said:
“Here is de plan, en she’ll win, sure. I’s a nigger, en nobody ain’t gwyne to doubt it dat hears me talk. I’s wuth six hund’d dollahs. Take en sell me, en pay off dese gamblers.”
Tom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a moment; then he said:
“Do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me?”
“Ain’t you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won’t do for her chile? Day ain’t nothin’ a white mother won’t do for her chile. Who made ’em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made ’em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good Lord he made ’em so. I’s gwyne to be sole into slavery, en in a year you’s gwyne to buy yo’ ole mammy free ag’in. I’ll show you how. Dat’s de plan.”
Tom’s hopes began to rise, and his spirits along with them. He said—
“It’s lovely of you, mammy—it’s just—”
“Say it ag’in! En keep on sayin’ it! It’s all de pay a body kin want in dis worl’, en it’s mo’ den enough. Laws bless you, honey, when I’s slavin’ aroun’, en dey ’buses me, if I knows you’s a-sayin’ dat, ’way off yonder somers, it’ll heal up all de sore places, en I kin stan’ ’em.”
“I do say it again, mammy, and I’ll keep on saying it, too. But how am I going to sell you? You’re free, you know.”
“Much diff’rence dat make! White folks ain’t partic’lar. De law kin sell me now if dey tell me to leave de State in six months en I don’t go. You draw up a paper—bill o’ sale—en put it ’way off yonder, down in de middle o’ Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you’ll sell me cheap ’ca’se you’s hard up; you’ll find you ain’t gwyne to have no trouble. You take me up de country a piece, en sell me on a farm; dem people ain’t gwyne to ask no questions if I’s a bargain.”
Tom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an Arkansas cotton-planter for a trifle over six hundred dollars. He did not want to commit this treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and this saved him the necessity of going up country to hunt up a purchaser, with the added risk of having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter was so pleased with Roxy that he asked next to none at all. Besides, the planter insisted that Roxy wouldn’t know where she was, at first, and that by the time she found out she would already have become contented. And Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantage for Roxy to have a master who was so pleased with her, as this planter manifestly was. In almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even half believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in selling her “down the river.” And then he kept diligently saying to himself all the time: “It’s for only a year. In a year I buy her free again; she’ll keep that in mind, and it’ll reconcile her.” Yes; the little deception could do no harm, and everything would come out right and pleasant in the end, anyway. By agreement, the conversation in Roxy’s presence was all about the man’s “upcountry” farm, and how pleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor Roxy was entirely deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that her own son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, in voluntarily going into slavery—slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any duration, brief or long—was making a sacrifice for him compared with which death would have been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished tears and loving caresses upon him privately, and then went away with her owner—went away brokenhearted, and yet proud of what she was doing, and glad it was in her power to do it.
Tom squared his accounts, and resolved to keep to the very letter of his reform, and never to put that will in jeopardy again. He had three hundred dollars left. According to his mother’s plan, he was to put that safely away, and add her half of his pension to it monthly. In one year this fund would buy her free again.
For a whole week he was not able to sleep well, so much the villainy which he had played upon his trusting mother preyed upon his rag of a conscience; but after that he began to get comfortable again, and was presently able to sleep like any other miscreant.
The boat bore Roxy away from St. Louis at four
