Uncle tom's cabin - online children's book

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LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY            421
" Yes, but my lord will find that he can't be extravagant with me. Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few times and thoroughly dressed down ! I '11 tell you if you don't bring him to a sense of his ways ! Oh, I'll reform him, up hill and down, — you '11 see. I buy him, that's flat!'
Tom had been standing, wistfully examining the multi­tude of faces thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master. And if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting, out of two hundred men, one who was to become your absolute owner and disposer, you would, perhaps, realize, just as Tom did, how few there were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom saw abundance of men, — great, burly, gruff men ; little, chirping, dried men; long-favored, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbed-looking, commonplace men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal uncon­cern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St. Clare.
A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, mus­cular man, in a checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one who is going actively into a business ; and, coming up to the group, be­gan to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sunburned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were im­mensely large, hairy, sunburned, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a very free personal examination