THE PRACTICAL TEST.
THE hens cackled drowsily in the barn-yard of the white Marvyn-house;
in the blue June-afternoon sky sported great sailing islands of cloud,
whose white, glistening heads looked in and out through the green
apertures of maple and blossoming apple-boughs; the shadows of the
trees had already turned eastward, when the one-horse waggon of Mrs.
Katy Scudder appeared at the door, where Mrs. Marvyn stood, with a
pleased, quiet welcome in her soft brown eyes. Mrs. Scudder herself
drove, sitting on a seat in front,—while the Doctor, apparelled in the
most faultless style, with white wrist-ruffles, plaited shirt-bosom,
immaculate wig, and well-brushed coat, sat by Mary’s side, serenely
unconscious how many feminine cares had gone to his getting-up. He
did not know of the privy consultations, the sewings, stitchings, and
starchings, the ironings, the brushings, the foldings and unfoldings
and timely arrangements, that gave such dignity and respectability to
his outer man, any more than the serene moon rising tranquilly behind a
purple mountain-top troubles her calm head with treatises on astronomy;
it is enough for her to shine,—she thinks not how or why.
There is a vast amount of latent gratitude to women lying undeveloped
in the hearts of men, which would come out plentifully, if they only
knew what they did for them. The Doctor was so used to being well
dressed, that he never asked why. That his wig always sat straight, and
even around his ample forehead, not facetiously poked to one side, nor
assuming rakish airs, unsuited to clerical dignity, was entirely owing
to Mrs. Katy Scudder. That his best broadcloth coat was not illustrated
with shreds and patches, fluff and dust, and hanging in ungainly
folds, was owing to the same. That his long silk stockings never had
a treacherous stitch allowed to break out into a long running ladder
was due to her watchfulness; and that he wore spotless ruffles on his
wrists or at his bosom was her doing also. The Doctor little thought,
while he, in common with good ministers generally, gently traduced the
Scriptural Martha and insisted on the duty of heavenly abstractedness,
how much of his own leisure for spiritual contemplation was due to the
Martha-like talents of his hostess. But then, the good soul had it in
him to be grateful, and would have been unboundedly so, if he had known
his indebtedness,—as, we trust, most of our magnanimous masters would
be.
Mr. Zebedee Marvyn was quietly sitting in the front summer parlour,
listening to the story of two of his brother church-members, between
whom some difficulty had arisen in the settling of accounts: Jim
Bigelow, a small, dry, dapper little individual, known as general
jobber and factotum, and Abram Griswold, a stolid, wealthy,
well-to-do farmer. And the fragments of conversation we catch are not
uninteresting, as showing Mr. Zebedee’s habits of thought and mode of
treating those who came to him for advice.
‘I could ’ave got along better, if he’d ’a’ paid me regular every
night,’ said the squeaky voice of little Jim;—‘but he was allers
puttin’ me off till it come even change, he said.’
‘Well, ’t’aint always handy,’ replied the other; ‘one doesn’t like to
break into a five-pound note for nothing; and I like to let it run till
it comes even change.’
‘But, brother,’ said Mr. Zebedee, turning over the great Bible that
lay on the mahogany stand in the corner, ‘we must go to the law and to
the testimony,’—and, turning over the leaves, he read from Deuteronomy
xxiv.:—
‘Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy,
whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land
within thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither
shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart
upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto
thee.’
‘You see what the Bible has to say on the matter,’ he said.
‘Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you’ve got me in a tight place,’
said Mr. Griswold, rising; and turning confusedly round, he saw the
placid figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room unobserved in
the midst of the conversation, and was staring with that look of calm,
dreamy abstraction which often led people to suppose that he heard and
saw nothing of what was going forward.
All rose reverently; and while Mr. Zebedee was shaking hands with
the Doctor, and welcoming him to his house, the other two silently
withdrew, making respectful obeisance.
Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary’s hand gently under her arm and taken her
to her own sleeping-room, as it was her general habit to do, that she
might show her the last book she had been reading, and pour into her
ear the thoughts that had been kindled up by it.
Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck of dust from the
Doctor’s coat and seeing him seated in an arm-chair by the open window,
took out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she was knitting for
his winter-wear, and, pinning her knitting-sheath on her side, was soon
trotting her needles contentedly in front of him.
The ill-success of the Doctor’s morning attempt at enforcing his
theology in practice rather depressed his spirits. There was a noble
innocence of nature in him which looked at hypocrisy with a puzzled and
incredulous astonishment. How a man _could_ do so and be so was to him
a problem at which his thoughts vainly laboured. Not that he was in the
least discouraged or hesitating in regard to his own course. When he
had made up his mind to perform a duty, the question of success no more
entered his thoughts than those of the granite boulder to which we have
before compared him. When the time came for him to roll, he did roll
with the whole force of his being;—where he was to land was not his
concern.
Mildly and placidly he sat with his hands resting on his knees, while
Mr. Zebedee and Mrs. Scudder compared notes respecting the relative
prospects of corn, flax, and buckwheat, and thence passed to the
doings of Congress and the last proclamation of General Washington,
pausing once in a while, if, peradventure, the Doctor might take up the
conversation. Still he sat dreamily eyeing the flies as they fizzed
down the panes of the half-open window.
‘I think,’ said Mr. Zebedee, ‘the prospects of the Federal party were
never brighter.’
The Doctor was a stanch Federalist, and generally warmed to this
allurement; but it did not serve this time.
Suddenly drawing himself up, a light came into his blue eyes, and he
said to Mr. Marvyn,—
‘I’m thinking, Deacon, if it is wrong to keep back the wages of a
servant till after the going down of the sun, what those are to do who
keep them back all their lives.’
There was a way the Doctor had of hearing and seeing when he looked
as if his soul were afar off, and bringing suddenly into present
conversation some fragment of the past on which he had been leisurely
hammering in the quiet chambers of his brain, which was sometimes quite
startling.
This allusion to a passage of Scripture which Mr. Marvyn was reading
when he came in, and which nobody supposed he had attended to, startled
Mrs. Scudder, who thought, mentally, ‘Now for it!’ and laid down her
knitting-work, and eyed her cousin anxiously. Mrs. Marvyn and Mary,
who had glided in and joined the circle, looking interested; and a
slight flush rose and overspread the thin cheeks of Mr. Marvyn, and his
blue eyes deepened in a moment with a thoughtful shadow, as he looked
inquiringly at the Doctor, who proceeded:—
‘My mind labours with this subject of the enslaving of the Africans,
Mr. Marvyn. We have just been declaring to the world that all men are
born with an inalienable right to liberty. We have fought for it, and
the Lord of Hosts has been with us; and can we stand before Him, with
our foot upon our brother’s neck?’
A generous, upright nature is always more sensitive to blame than
another,—sensitive in proportion to the amount of its reverence
for good,—and Mr. Marvyn’s face flushed, his eye kindled, and his
compressed respiration showed how deeply the subject moved him. Mrs.
Marvyn’s eyes turned on him an anxious look of inquiry. He answered,
however, calmly:—
‘Doctor, I have thought of the subject myself. Mrs. Marvyn has lately
been reading a pamphlet of Mr. Thomas Clarkson’s on the slave-trade,
and she was saying to me only last night, that she did not see but the
argument extended equally to holding slaves. One thing, I confess,
stumbles me:—Was there not an express permission given to Israel to buy
and hold slaves of old?’
‘Doubtless,’ said the Doctor; ‘but many permissions were given to them
which were local and temporary; for if we hold them to apply to the
human race, the Turks might quote the Bible for making slaves of us, if
they could,—and the Algerines have the Scripture all on their side,—and
our own blacks, at some future time, if they can get the power, might
justify themselves in making slaves of us.’
‘I assure you, sir,’ said Mr. Marvyn, ‘if I speak, it is not to excuse
myself. But I am quite sure my servants do not desire liberty, and
would not take it, if it were offered.’
‘Call them in and try it,’ said the Doctor. ‘If they refuse, it is
their own matter.’
There was a gentle movement in the group at the directness of this
personal application; but Mr. Marvyn replied, calmly,—
‘Cato is up at the eight-acre lot, but you may call in Candace. My
dear, call Candace, and let the Doctor put the question to her.’
Candace was at this moment sitting before the ample fireplace in the
kitchen, with two iron kettles before her, nestled each in its bed of
hickory coals, which gleamed out from their white ashes like sleepy,
red eyes, opening and shutting. In one was coffee, which she was
burning, stirring vigorously with a pudding-stick,—and in the other,
puffy dough-nuts, in shapes of rings, hearts, and marvellous twists,
which Candace had such a special proclivity for making, that Mrs.
Marvyn’s table and closets never knew an intermission of their presence.
‘Candace, the Doctor wishes to see you,’ said Mrs. Marvyn.
‘Bress his heart!’ said Candace, looking up, perplexed. ‘Wants to
see me, does he? Can’t nobody hab me till dis yer coffee’s done; a
minnit’s a minnit in coffee;—but I’ll be in dereckly,’ she added, in
a patronising tone. ‘Missis, you jes’ go ‘long in, an’ I’ll be dar
dereckly.’
A few moments after Candace joined the group in the sitting-room,
having hastily tied a clean white apron over her blue linsey
working-dress, and donned the brilliant Madras which James had lately
given her, and which she had a barbaric fashion of arranging so as to
give to her head the air of a gigantic butterfly. She sunk a dutiful
curtsy, and stood twirling her thumbs, while the Doctor surveyed her
gravely.
‘Candace,’ said he, ‘do you think it right that the black race should
be slaves to the white?’
The face and air of Candace presented a curious picture at this moment;
a sort of rude sense of delicacy embarrassed her, and she turned a
deprecating look, first on Mrs. Marvyn and then on her master.
‘Don’t mind us, Candace,’ said Mrs. Marvyn; ‘tell the Doctor the exact
truth.’
Candace stood still a moment, and the spectators saw a deeper shadow
roll over her sable face, like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and
her immense person heaved with her laboured breathing.
[Illustration: _Candace receives her Freedom._
_Page 107._
Sampson Low, Son & Co. April 25th, 1859]
‘Ef I must speak I must,’ she said. ‘No,—I neber did tink ’twas right.
When General Washington was here, I hearn ’em read de Declaration ob
Independence and Bill o’ Rights; an’ I tole Cato den, says I, “Ef dat
ar’ true, you an’ I are as free as anybody.” It stands to reason.
Why, look at me,—I a’n’t a critter. I’s neider huffs nor horns. I’s
a reasonable bein’,—a woman,—as much a woman as anybody,’ she said,
holding up her head with an air as majestic as a palm-tree;—‘an’
Cato,—he’s a man born free an’ equal, ef dar’s any truth in what you
read,—dat’s all.’
‘But, Candace, you’ve always been contented and happy with us, have you
not?’ said Mr. Marvyn.
‘Yes, Mass’r,—I ha’n’t got nuffin to complain of in dat matter. I
couldn’t hab no better friends ’n you an’ Missis.’
‘Would you like your liberty, if you could get it, though?’ said Mr.
Marvyn. ‘Answer me honestly.’
‘Why, to be sure I should! Who wouldn’t? Mind ye,’ she said, earnestly
raising her black, heavy hand, ‘’ta’n’t dat I want to go off, or want
to shirk work; but I want to _feel free_. Dem dat isn’t free has nuffin
to give to nobody;—dey can’t show what dey would do.’
‘Well, Candace, from this day you are free,’ said Mr. Marvyn, solemnly.
Candace covered her face with both her fat hands, and shook and
trembled, and, finally, throwing her apron over her head, made a
desperate rush for the door, and threw herself down in the kitchen in a
perfect tropical torrent of tears and sobs.
‘You see,’ said the Doctor, ‘what freedom is to every human creature.
The blessing of the Lord will be on this deed, Mr. Marvyn. “The steps
of a just man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.”’
At this moment, Candace reappeared at the door, her butterfly turban
somewhat deranged with the violence of her prostration, giving a
whimsical air to her portly person.
‘I want ye all to know,’ she said, with a clearing-up snuff, ‘dat it’s
my will ’an pleasure to go right on doin’ my work jes’ de same; an’,
Missis, please, I’ll allers put three eggs in de crullers, now; an’
I won’t turn de wash-basin down in de sink, but hang it jam-up on de
nail; an’ I won’t pick up chips in a milkpan, ef I’m in ever so big a
hurry;—I’ll do eberyting jes’ as ye tells me. Now you try me and see ef
I won’t!’
Candace here alluded to some of the little private wilfulnesses which
she had always obstinately cherished as reserved rights, in pursuing
domestic matters with her mistress.
‘I intend,’ said Mr. Marvyn, ‘to make the same offer to your husband,
when he returns from work to night.’
‘Laus, Mass’r,—why, Cato he’ll do jes’ as I do,—dere a’n’t no kind o’
need o’ askin’ him. ’Course he will.’
A smile passed round the circle, because between Candace and her
husband there existed one of those whimsical contrasts which one
sometimes sees in married life. Cato was a small-built, thin,
softly-spoken negro, addicted to a gentle chronic cough; and, though a
faithful and skilful servant, seemed, in relation to his better half,
much like a hill of potatoes under a spreading apple-tree. Candace held
to him with a vehement and patronizing fondness, so devoid of conjugal
reverence as to excite the comments of her friends.
‘You must remember, Candace,’ said a good deacon to her one day, when
she was ordering him about at a catechizing, ‘you ought to give honour
to your husband; the wife is the weaker vessel.’
‘_I_ de weaker vessel?’ said Candace, looking down from the tower of
her ample corpulence on the small, quiet man whom she had been fledging
with the ample folds of a worsted comforter, out of which his little
head and shining bead-eyes looked much like a blackbird in a nest,—‘_I_
de weaker vessel? Umph!’
A whole-woman’s-rights’ convention could not have expressed more in a
day than was given in that single look and word. Candace considered
a husband as a thing to be taken care of,—a rather inconsequent and
somewhat troublesome species of pet, to be humoured, nursed, fed,
clothed, and guided in the way that he was to go,—an animal that
was always losing of buttons, catching colds, wearing his best coat
every day, and getting on his Sunday hat in a surreptitious manner
for week-day occasions; but she often condescended to express it as
her opinion that he was a blessing, and that she didn’t know what she
should do if it wasn’t for Cato. In fact, he seemed to supply her that
which we are told is the great want in woman’s situation,—an object in
life. She sometimes was heard expressing herself very energetically in
disapprobation of the conduct of one of her sable friends, named Jinny
Stiles, who, after being presented with her own freedom, worked several
years to buy that of her husband, but became afterwards so disgusted
with her acquisition that she declared she would, ‘neber buy anoder
nigger.’
‘Now Jinny don’t know what she’s talkin’ about,’ she would say. ‘S’pose
he does cough and keep her awake nights, and take a little too much
sometimes, a’n’t he better’n no husband at all? A body wouldn’t seem to
hab nuffin to lib for, ef dey hadn’t an ole man to look arter. Men is
nate’lly foolish about some tings,—but dey’s good deal better’n nuffin.’
And Candace, after this condescending remark, would lift off with one
hand a brass kettle in which poor Cato might have been drowned, and fly
across the kitchen with it as if it were a feather.