KIZZIE.
"Lucy," said Mrs. Lisle, to a dwarfed child of thirteen years, who was
one of those creatures expected to "run two ways at once," "run, Lucy,
and tell Kizzie to come straight here to me."
The winged child came speedily back, accompanied by the weaver, a stolid
looking old negress named Kizzie.
"Kizzie," exclaimed her mistress, "I know you have stolen the cover to
that barrel that has been standing for so long outside the store-room."
"What for should I want wid de cover, Missis?" inquired the servant.
"That is for you to tell, and right soon too--do you hear me?"
"I have never touched the cover, Missis."
"I do not believe you. Who has then?"
"Sure, an' I doesn't know. You allus lays eberyting on to me, Missis,
when I'se jes as in'cent--"
"I wish to hear none of your palaver. You have stolen from me
repeatedly; you know you have been just as hateful as you could be ever
since--ever since Joe went away."
Mrs. Lisle had not designed this reference to Joe. Any mention of his
name only made Kizzie more intractable.
Kizzie had been standing upon the threshold of her mistress' chamber,
upon which she now sank down as if she had been shot. She had rolled
herself into a ball, her grey head buried in her lap, from which issued
the most protracted unearthly howl. This was succeeded by passionate
ejaculations, in which "my poor Joe--my poor dear Joe, my baby--my last
and only one"--were alone distinguishable.
"Kizzie, stop that acting, and get up from there," commanded Mrs. Lisle.
The ball swayed to and fro, but evinced no disposition for unbending.
"Bring me the whip, Lucy--we shall see."
The blows fell heavy and fast, but as for outward demonstration, cry or
moan, that human form might as well have been a cotton bale.
The wearied hand of the mistress dropped by her side. She leaned against
the casement panting for breath. Then Kizzie uprose tearless and stern.
"Miss Rusha, after this cruel floggin', I've a right to speak; but if
you had a human heart I would not have this much to say. One after
another ye sold my four big boys to the slave-buyer. You promised you
would leave me my baby--my Joe. When he was fourteen years old you sold
him too. You rob me of my five boys, and you 'cuse _me_ of stealin' a
barrel-cover! Miss Rusha, de judgments of de Lord will come upon you.
Dis is my prayer, ebery day, ebery hour. Ye may whip, ye may kill--my
prayer is mine own prayer to pray."
"Lucy," exclaimed Mrs. Lisle, now able again to speak, "run down to
Thornton Hall and tell Mr. Hill to come here at once."
Mr. Hill was Mrs. Lisle's overseer.
"You will do no such thing, Lucy; and, madam, you have done enough,"
said the indignant voice of Mr. Lisle, who had entered upon the scene.
"Go to your cabin, Kizzie; call for Amy and take her along with you."
Kizzie disappeared, and Mr. Lisle, meeting boldly the angered face of
his wife, inquired into the origin of this disgraceful scene.
"Kizzie is mine, not yours. I have a right to do with my slaves as
pleases me," said the wife.
"If you have a slave who deserves kindness at your hands, it is Kizzie.
You have cruelly wronged her. To have killed her outright would have
been a kindness compared to the injury you have inflicted upon her."
"How you talk, Duncan Lisle! One would think you a northern abolitionist.
I understand whence you imbibed such principles"--sneeringly--"just as
though one has not a perfect right to sell a slave if he wishes to!
Don't talk to me in any such way. I have done nothing that I need be
sorry for. But Kizzie is indeed the most hateful slave on the
plantation. I believe she steals just for the sake of stealing. What
earthly use could she have for that cover, which she denies having
taken, but which has mysteriously disappeared just when I happened to
want it?"
"To what cover do you refer?" questioned her husband.
He was informed.
"I saw some little black fellows rolling something of the kind back of
the stables this morning. Lucy, go hunt them up, and have the cover
found. Is such a trifle sufficient to drive you into a passion, in which
you accuse and punish an innocent person wrongfully?"
"I repeat to you, Mr. Lisle, that I shall do as I please with my own
servants, and yours too, as you will find, and _have_ found, I should
think. Moreover, I am not going to be lectured by you as if I were a
child"--Mrs. Lisle flung herself out of the room, to vent her bad humor
upon whatever ill-starred persons should cross her path.
To do justice to Mrs. Lisle, she had intended to have sold both Kizzie
and her son to the same buyer. As she herself said, she was always
having trouble with Kizzie. There were times when she was positively
afraid of her. Just before the proposed sale she had had a serious
difficulty with her. Mistress and servant regarded each other as two
enraged tigers might do, whenever they met. Mrs. Lisle made up her mind
she would have Kizzie taken to the Court House and sold. Court was to be
holden in a week or so; at such a time more or less slaves were put up
at auction.
Kizzie was not sorry when informed of the proposed plan; though she
shared, with others of her class, a horror of being "sold South," she
had come to think she could not possibly fall into more cruel hands.
Besides, in that region so terrible to the imagination of the slaves,
she might come across one or all of her lost sons! At any rate, she
would be beneath the same sky, and the dear hope of meeting them would
be a continual comfort.
A whole day was consumed by Tippy--her real name was Xantippe--in
plucking out Aunt Kizzie's grey hairs, and in fixing her up to appear to
the best advantage for youth and sprightliness. She was only sixty, but
hard labor and severe usage had told upon her heavily.
Aunt Kizzie, in her new linsey-woolsey and shining bandana as a turban,
started off in great glee for the Court House. That she might appear
there fresh, brisk, and pert, she was not suffered to walk, but
Washington, the coachman, was ordered to drive her in the ark of the
plantation wagon. Joe, smart, smiling, and newly-equipped in clothes,
sat by her side, scarcely knowing whether he had best share in his
mother's uncommon gaiety, or yield to his own anxious misgiving.
Another thing contributed to Aunt Kizzie's happiness. All the way to the
Court House she was at perfect liberty to caress her nosegay of pinks
and camomile. Kizzie had two grand passions; one was for her children,
the other for her fragrant pinks. If she was allowed a garden patch the
size of a hat-crown, it was devoted to her favorite flowers. She was
wont to have her loom festooned with them; she drank in their perfume as
did her web its woof; by night she had them scattered over her pillow,
that, even in sleep, she might not lose their presence.
"I should think pinks would grow out of her nose," the servants were in
the habit of remarking. It really often looked like they did, for,
morning and evening, at her milking, her nose, instead of her hand,
served as bouquet-holder.
Over the rough roads then, from Thornton Hall to the Court House, her
attention was devoted to Joe and her pinks. She was to be sold--that was
true--but then she had left a hated mistress. She had with her all she
loved, her immense nosegay, her baby Joe, and, in her small bundle, her
one pair of ruffled pillow-slips. She was starting out in the world
again, and the world looked to her unaccountably new and beautiful.
It was morning now that shone upon Aunt Kizzie and her child. But night
came, utterly dark and cheerless night, to both mother and boy. The two
were put upon the block together. The boy showed for himself. But the
sexagenarian human chattel was mercilessly scrutinized. She was made to
sing, dance, and run. Her red turban was torn off, and in spite of the
hirsutian manipulations to which she had been subjected, her wool
appeared, like Shakspeare's spirits, mixed, black, white, and grey.
She was seized by the nose and chin, as if she had been a horse, and
made to distend her jaws even painfully. She experienced a qualm or two
when she thought of what a story her few remaining broken teeth would
tell. Still, like the world and all the "rest of mankind," she had
never fully realized that she had passed her prime and her usefulness.
This purchaser did not want her, nor did that, nor alas! the other! Each
and every one were eager for the boy. The auctioneer's instructions had
been to sell the two together, if possible, if not, at all events to
sell the boy, as he would command a good price, and _money must be_
raised.
Kizzie went wild when she saw her boy knocked off to a man who refused
to take her, even as a gift!
O angels in heaven, what pitiful sights do ye not behold upon this earth
of ours! Had ye no drop of balm from your vials of tender mercy to pour
into the desolate heart of the stricken slave-mother, as she returned
homeward in the dark, clutching frantically at her withered pinks, as
did the talons of the vulture of grief at her wounded heart!
This blow to poor Kizzie occurred about the time of her mistress'
marriage. The price of her agony, the money obtained for Joe, was sent
to New York, and returned to Mrs. Rush in glittering jewels. Had this
haughty woman been capable of realizing her sin, the showy baubles would
have melted in the fiery furnace of her shame and contrition.
Kizzie became a changed woman; crazed, as some thought. Joe had been her
baby, and her baby still at fourteen. How could her baby get along
without his mother? This was the burden of her complaint, her unceasing
utterance of sorrow. And still she lived on, sitting from morning until
night at her loom, her tear of sorrow or sigh of despair inwoven with
every thread, and from her bleeding heart going up the incessant prayer
for Heaven's vengeance upon her persecutor.
One day, not far off, shall it not be more tolerable for Kizzie than for
the beautiful mistress of Thornton Hall?