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UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; OR
me, — I know you do. I saw the gal stretched out here about ten o'clock, and ag'in at twelve, and ag'in between one and two ; and then at four she was gone, and you was a-sleeping right there all the time. Now, you know something, — you can't help it."
" Well, Mas'r," said Tom, " towards morning something brushed by me, and I kinder half woke ; and then I hearn a great splash, and then I clare woke up, and the gal was gone. That's all I know on 't."
The trader was not shocked nor amazed; because, as we said before, he was used to a great many things that you are not used to. Even the awful presence of Death struck no solemn chill upon him. He had seen Death many times, — met him in the way of trade, and got acquainted with him, — and he only thought of him as a hard customer, that embarrassed his property operations very unfairly ; and so he only swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was devilish unlucky, and that, if things went on in this way, he should not make a cent on the trip. In short, he seemed to consider himself an ill-used man, decidedly ; but there was no help for it, as the woman had escaped into a State which never will give up a fugitive, — not even at the demand of the whole glorious Union. The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly down, with his little account-book, and put down the missing body and soul under the head of losses !
" He 's a shocking creature, is n't he, — this trader ? so unfeeling! It's dreadful, really ! "
" Oh, but nobody thinks anything of these traders! They are universally despised, — never received into any decent society."
But who, sir, makes the trader ? Who is most to blame ? The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself ? You make the public sentiment that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you better than he ? |
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