THE UNSEEN HAND.
As the Whitmans were seated at the supper-table of an autumn evening,
Peter, the eldest boy, who had just returned from the store, reported
that Wilson, the soul-driver, had come to the village and put up at
Hanscom’s tavern, with some redemptioners, and that Mr. Wood, one of
their neighbors, who had engaged one the last spring, was going over to
get his man, and they said there was a boy he hadn’t engaged, and wanted
some one to take him off his hands.
“From my heart I pity these poor forlorn creatures,” said the mother;
“brought over here to a strange land with nothing but the clothes on
their backs, and how they will be treated and whose hands they will fall
into, they don’t know.”
After the meal they all drew together around the fire, that the season
of the year made agreeable.
The children, hoping to obtain some old-time story from their
grandfather, drew his large chair with its stuffed back and cushion,
worked in worsted by the cunning hand of their mother, into his
accustomed corner. Bradford Whitman sat in a meditative mood, with hands
clasped over his knees, watching the sparks go up the great chimney.
“Bradford,” said the old gentleman, “I have sometimes wondered that you
don’t take one of these redemptioners; you are obliged to hire a good
deal, and it is often difficult to get help when it is most needed.”
“I know that there are a good many of these people hired by farmers;
sometimes it turns out well, but often they are villains. Sometimes have
concealed ailments and prove worthless; at other times stay through the
winter, and after they have learned the method of work here, run off and
hire out for wages in some other part of the country.”
“Husband, Mr. Wilson has been many years in this business, and I never
knew _him_ to bring any people of bad character.”
“He is too shrewd a Scotchman to do it knowingly, but he is liable to be
deceived. I have thought and said that nothing would ever tempt me to
have anything to do with a redemptioner, but when Peter came to tell
about that boy it seemed to strike me differently. I said to myself,
this is a new thing. Here’s a boy flung on the world in a strange land,
with nobody to guide him, and about certain to suffer, because there are
not many who would want a boy (for it would cost as much for his passage
as that of a man), and he will be about sure to fall into bad hands and
take to bad ways; whereas he is young, and if there was any one who
would take the pains to guide him he might become a useful man.”
“That, husband, is just the light in which it appears to me.”
“So it seemed to me there was a duty for somebody concerning that boy,
that there wouldn’t be allowing he was a man. When I cast about me I
couldn’t honestly feel that there was any person in this neighborhood
could do such a thing with less put-out to themselves than myself. Still
I can’t feel that it’s my duty; he might turn out bad and prove a great
trial, and I am not inclined to stretch out my arm farther than I can
draw it back.”
“My father,” said the old gentleman, “was a poor boy, born of poor
parents on the Isle of Wight. His father got bread for a large family by
fishing, and by reaping in harvest; and his mother sold the fish, and
gleaned after the reapers in wheat and barley harvest. The children as
they grew large enough went out to service.”
“What was his name?” said Peter.
“Henry.”
“What relation was he to me?” said Bert.
“Your great-grandfather. When he was sixteen years old, with the consent
of his parents, he came to Philadelphia in a vessel as passenger, and
worked his passage by waiting on the cook and the cabin passengers. The
captain spoke so well of him that a baker took him into his shop to
carry bread. A farmer who hauled fagots to heat the baker’s oven offered
to hire him by the year to work on his farm, and he worked with him till
he was twenty-one. After that he worked for others, and then took what
little money he had, and your grandmother who was as poor as himself,
for her parents died when she was young and she was put out to a farmer,
and they went into the wilderness. They cleared a farm and paid for it,
raised eight children, six boys and two girls. I was the youngest boy;
my brothers and sisters all did well, they and their husbands acquired
property and owned farms. Your mother and I came on to this land when it
was a forest. I with my narrow axe, she with her spinning-wheel; and a
noble helpmate she was as ever a man was blessed with.”
The old gentleman’s voice trembled, he dashed a tear from his eye and
went on. “We raised eleven children, they all grew to man’s and woman’s
estate, the girls have married well, the four boys are all well-to-do
farmers and prospering. There are nineteen farmers and farmers’ wives
without counting their children, and not a miserable idle “shack” among
them; all of whom sprang by the father’s side from that poor boy who was
the poorest of the poor, and worked his passage to this country, but
found in a strange land friends to guide him. So you see what good may
come from a friendless boy, if he is well-minded and helped.”
“You know, husband, the children have a long distance to go in the
winter to school, and a boy like that would be a great help about the
barn and to cut firewood, or go into the woods with you. The clothing of
him would not be much, for I could make both the cloth and the clothes,
and as for his living, what is one more spoon in the platter? And in
regard to the money for his passage you know we haven’t built any new
house, and so you won’t need to borrow the money.”
“Wife, if you want to take that boy, I’ll start off to-morrow morning
and get him.”
“I want you to do just as you think best in regard to taking anybody,
either boy or man. We are only talking the matter over in all its
bearings, and as you brought up the disadvantages and risks, your father
and myself were bringing up something to balance them; it is not a very
easy matter to decide, at any rate.”
“But father,” cried Peter, “Bertie and Maria and I want you to take
him.”
“Why do you want me to take him?”
“‘Cause we want him to come here and grow up to be a great, smart, good
man, just like our great-grandfather—and as grandfather says he will.”
“And we want to help about it and befriend him,” put in Bertie.
“And me, too,” cried Maria; “I want to befriend him.”
“No, Peter, I didn’t say he _would_ become a good man, because no one
knows that but a higher Power. I said that to my certain knowledge one
boy did, and that ought to be an encouragement to people to put other
boys in the way of making something.”
“Well, that’s what grandpa means,” said Peter, resolved to carry his
point.
“Father,” said Maria, “I want you to take him, ‘cause if Peter or Bertie
was carried ‘way off where they didn’t know anybody, and where their
father and mother wasn’t, they would want somebody who was good, to ask
‘em to come to their house and give them something to eat.”
“Wife, where did Peter get all this news that seems to have set him and
the rest half crazy?”
“At Hooper’s, the shoemaker. He went to get his shoes, and Mr. Hooper
told him that his father-in-law, John Wood, was going to-morrow to
Hanscom’s tavern to get a redemptioner Mr. Wilson had brought over for
him, and that neighbor Wood wanted him to get word to you that Wilson
had a man and a boy left. Mr. Wood wants you to go over with him
to-morrow and take the boy; he says you couldn’t do better.”
“I am going over there day after to-morrow to haul some wheat that I
have promised; if the boy is there I shall most likely see him.”
“Oh, father, before that time somebody else may get him.”
“Well, Peter, let them have him; if he gets a place, that’s all that is
needed.”
“But perhaps ‘twon’t be a good man like you who’ll get him.”
“He may be a great deal better man.”
More enthusiastic and persistent than her brothers, and unable to sleep,
the little girl lay wakeful in her trundle-bed till her mother and
father had retired, and then crawling in between them, put her arms
around her father’s neck and whispered,—
“Father, you will take the boy, won’t you?”
“My dear child, you don’t know what you are talking about. I have not
set eyes on him yet, and perhaps when I come to see him he will appear
to me to be a bad, or stupid, or lazy boy, and then you yourself would
not want me to take him.”
“No, father; but if you like the looks of him, and Peter likes the looks
of him, ‘cause if Peter likes him Bertie and I shall, will you take him
then?”
“I’ll think about it, my little girl, and now get into your bed and
cuddle down and go to sleep.”
Instead of that, however, she crept to the other side of the bed, hid
her face in her mother’s bosom and sobbed herself to sleep.
Notwithstanding the entreaties of the children, their father remained
firm in his purpose, but, at the time he had set, started, taking Peter
with him, as the lad was to have a pair of new shoes. He was also to buy
the cloth to make Bertie a go-to-meeting suit, as the cloth for the best
clothes was bought, and made up by their mother who wove all the cloth
for every-day wear. He was also to buy a new shawl for Maria, and get a
bonnet for her that her mother had selected some days before. In the
mean time Peter had received the most solemn charges from both Bertie
and Maria, “to tease and tease and tease their father to take the boy.”
Just as they were starting Maria clambered up to the seat of the wagon
and whispered in his ear,—
“If father won’t take him, you cry; cry like everything.”
Peter promised faithfully that he would.
When the sound of wagon wheels had died away in the distance, Bertie and
Maria endeavored to extract some consolation by interrogating their
mother, and Bertie asked if she expected their father would bring home
the boy.
“Your father, children, will do what he thinks to be his duty, and for
the best, but there is an unseen hand that guides matters of this kind.
I shall not be very much surprised if the boy should come with them.”
No sooner was the wheat unloaded than Peter entreated his father to go
and see the redemptioner.
“Not yet, my son, I must go and pay a bill at Mr. Harmon’s, he is going
to Lancaster to-day to buy goods and wants the money. And then I must
get your new shoes and the cloth for Bertie’s suit, and a bonnet and
shawl for Maria, and _then_ we will go.”
“Couldn’t you pay the bill please, and get our things after you see the
redemptioner?”
“I don’t know, I’ll see.”
The truth of the fact was, Mr. Whitman was sorry that he had expressed
before his family the transient thought that crossed his mind in regard
to the boy, because he felt that his wife and father were anxious that
he should take him, although they disclaimed any desire to influence his
actions; and being an indulgent parent, the clamorous eagerness of the
children aided to complicate the matter. He likewise felt that he had so
far committed himself, he must at least go and look at this lad, though
inclined to do it in that leisurely way in which a man sets about an
unpleasant duty. But, to the great delight of Peter, before the horses
had finished their provender, Mr. Wilson himself appeared on the ground.
“Good morning, Mr. Whitman. I understand from Mr. Wood, to whom I have
brought a man, that you want a boy. I have a boy and a man at the public
house and would like to have you step over and look at them.”
“I have never said to neighbor Wood nor to any one that I wanted a
redemptioner; he must either have got it from Peter here, through some
one else, or have imagined it. All I ever had to do in the matter was to
say, when we were talking in the family about your having a boy among
your men, that I did not know but it might be my duty to take the boy.
It was however merely a passing thought. I have about made up my mind
that I will have nothing to do with it, and I do not think it is worth
while (as I have met you) for me to go and see either of them.”
“You had better go look at them, your horses have not yet finished
eating.”
“I am an outspoken man, Mr. Wilson, and make free to tell you I don’t
like this buying and selling of flesh and blood. It seems to me too much
like slavery, which I never could endure. I think a capable man like you
had better take up with some other calling, and I don’t care to
encourage you in this. If you’ll buy oxen or horses or wheat I’ll trade
with you, but I don’t care to trade in human bodies or souls.”
“I know, Mr. Whitman, that we are called _soul-drivers_, and a great
many hard things are said of us, but just look at the matter for a
moment free from prejudice. Here is a young able-bodied man on the other
side, willing to work, but there is no work to be had, and he must do
one of three things—starve, steal, or beg; there is a farmer in
Pennsylvania who wants help but can’t get it. I introduce these men to
each other and benefit both. The farmer gets help to handle his wheat,
the poor starving man bread to eat, he learns the ways of the country,
and when his time is out can find work anywhere and become an owner of
land. You know yourself, Mr. Whitman, that within ten, twelve, and
twenty miles of here, yes, within five, are living to-day persons,
owners of good farms and one of them a _selectman_, another of them
married to his employer’s daughter, who were all brought over by me, and
came in rags, and who would not care to have their own children know
that they were redemptioners.”
“I’ve no doubt but that like everything else almost in this world, the
business has its benefits. And by picking out the best and leaving out
the worst parts of it, you may make a plausible showing so far as you
are concerned, but you know yourself that it is liable to be abused, and
is abused every day, and I don’t care to have anything to do with it.”
“But father,” cried Peter, with the tears in his eyes, “you _promised_
me you would go and see him when the horses had done eating.”
“I forgot that, then I will go; I never break a promise.”
“I will bring the boy here,” said Wilson, “it is but a few steps.”
“Perhaps that is the best way, as, now I think of it, I want to trade
with the miller for some flour.”
Wilson soon returned with our old acquaintance Foolish Jim, very little
improved in appearance, as his clothes, though whole, did not by any
means fit him. His trowsers were too short for his long limbs, and his
legs stuck through them a foot, and they were so tight across the hips
as to seriously interfere with locomotion. As to the jacket, it was so
small over the shoulders and around the waist it could not be buttoned;
a large breadth of shirt not over clean was visible between the
waistcoat and trowsers, as instead of breeches he wore loose pants or
sailor trowsers and no suspenders. The sleeves, too short, exposed
several inches of large square-boned black wrists, and on his head was a
Highland cap, from under which escaped long tangled locks of very fine
hair; and his skin, where not exposed to the weather, was fair. Jim was
so lame that he walked with great difficulty by the help of a large
fence stake, his right leg being bandaged below the knee, and he was
barefoot. He wore the same stolid, hopeless look as of old, and which
instantly excited the pity and moved the sympathies of Peter to the
utmost.
His father, on the other hand, could not repress a smile as he gazed on
the uncouth figure before him.
“Do you call him a boy, Wilson? If he was anything but skin and bones he
would be as heavy as I am, near about.”
“Yes I call him a boy, because he’s only nineteen, though there’s
considerable of him.”
“There’s warp enough, as my wife would say, but there’s a great lack of
filling.”
“He’s a wonderfully strong creature, see what bones and muscles he’s
got.”
The miller rolled out three barrels of flour for Whitman, and he and
Wilson went into the mill leaving James seated on one of the barrels.
“What do you think of him?” said Wilson when they were inside?
“I think I don’t want anything to do with him. What do you think I want
of a cripple?”
“That’s nothing; he cut himself with an axe after we landed, and I had
to carry him in a wagon, but it’s only a flesh wound. He’s got a good
pair of shoes, but has been so used to going barefoot that they make his
feet swell.”
“The boy looks well enough, Mr. Wilson, if he was put into clothes that
fitted him; is handsomely built, has good features, good eyes and a
noble set of teeth, and that’s always a sign of a good constitution. But
there don’t seem to be anything _young_ about him, and if he had the use
of both legs seems to have hardly life enough to get about. He is like
an old man in a young man’s skin. Then he has such a forlorn look out of
his eyes, as though he hadn’t a friend in the world, and never expected
to have.”
“Well, he hasn’t, except you and I prove his friends. It is the misery,
the downright anguish and poverty that has taken the juice of youth out
of that boy. He never knew what it was to have a home, and no one ever
cared whether he died or lived, but there is youth and strength; and
kind treatment and good living, such as I know he would get with you,
will bring him up.”
“Where did you get him that he should have neither parents, relatives,
nor friends?”
“From a parish workhouse.”
“I judged as much.”
“They gave him up, and he is bound to me.”
“It was not much of a gift; I wonder so shrewd a man as I know you to be
should have taken him with the expectation that anybody would ever take
him off your hands.”
“I know, Mr. Whitman, you think we are all a set of brutes, and buy and
sell these men just as a drover does cattle, but there’s a _little_
humanity about some of us, after all.”
He then related the circumstances with which our readers are already
familiar, saying, as he concluded the narration,—
“When I saw those miserable wretches with whom he was brought up,
dressed up in stolen clothes, and he in rags that were dropping off him;
heard them call him a fool because he would neither beg, lie, swear nor
steal; and when, being determined to know the truth of it, I inquired
and heard the story of the old nurse at the workhouse confirmed by the
parish authorities,—a change came over me, and I determined to take this
boy, but from very different motives from those that influenced me at
first.”
“How so?”
“You see I had engaged, and had to pay for, berths to accommodate
thirteen men, had been disappointed and had but twelve. The vessel was
about ready for sea, I had to pick up some one in a hurry and thought I
would take this boy. I knew I could get rid of him somehow so as to make
myself whole in the matter of trade. But when I heard about the poor
dying mother, and the good minister, I determined to take that boy,
bring him over here, put him in some good family and give him a chance;
and that family was yours, Mr. Whitman, and I have never offered this
boy to any one else, never shall. If you do not take him I shall carry
him to my house.”
“Body of me, why then did you come within two miles of your own house
and bring him here? And what reason could you have for thinking that I
of all persons in the State would take him?”
“I will tell you. You and I have known each other for more than
twenty-five years. I have during that time felt the greatest respect for
you, though you perhaps have cherished very little for me. I know how
you treat your hired help and children, and believed that there was
something in this boy after all,—stupid as misery has made him
appear,—and that you could bring it out both for your benefit and his,
whereas I cannot stay at home. I must be away the greater part of the
time about my business, and at my place he would be left with my wife or
hired men and small children. If I was to be at home, I would not part
with him even to yourself.”
Peter could restrain himself no longer, but climbing upon the curbing of
the millstone near which his father stood, flung his arms around his
parent’s neck, exclaiming,—
“Oh, father, do take him! I’ll go without my new shoes; Maria says she
will go without her new bonnet and shawl, and Bertie will go without his
new suit, if you will only take him. Grandpa wants you to take him, and
so does mother, though they didn’t like to say so. I can tell by
mother’s looks when she wants anything.”
Peter burst into a flood of real heartfelt tears, that would have
satisfied both his brother and sister had they witnessed it.
“Be quiet, my son; I’ll see about it.”
Wilson then handed him a certificate from the parish authorities, in
which they declared: “That the boy James Renfew had been under their
charge since he was three years of age, and that he was in every respect
of the best moral character.”
After reading this document Whitman said: “This is a strange story, yet
I see no reason to doubt it; neither do I doubt it, nor wonder that you
took the boy.”
“If you had been in my place, and seen and heard what I did, you would
have taken him in a moment. Those workhouse brats all have their
friends, and enjoy themselves in their way together. But because this
boy would not do as they did, they hated him and called him a fool, till
I believe he thought he was a fool; and I don’t know where they would
have stopped, short of murder, had it not been for one thing.”
“What was that?”
“The authorities told me that it was possible by long tormenting to get
his temper up, and then he was like a tiger, and so strong that they
were all afraid of him, and glad to let him alone. He seemed to me (so
innocent among those villains) like a pond lily that I have often
wondered to see growing in stagnant water, its roots in the mud and its
flower white as snow spread out on that black surface. He was, poor
fellow, shut out from all decent society because he was a workhouse boy;
and from all bad because he was a good boy. No wonder he looks forlorn.”
“Can he do any kind of work?”
“I will call him and ask him.”
“No matter now. What do you want for your interest in this boy?”
“The passage-money, eight pounds.”
“But you have a percentage for your labor, and you were at expense
keeping him at a public house, and after he was lame had to carry him in
a wagon.”
“My usual fees and the expenses would be about ten dollars. I will make
him over to you (as he is a boy and has about everything to learn before
he can be of much use) for four years for eight pounds. And if at the
end of a year you are dissatisfied, you may pay me the ten dollars, and
I will take him off your hands and agree in writing to pay you back the
eight pounds, in order that you may see that I do not want to put the
boy on you, just to be rid of him.
“I will take him, and if he runs away, let him run; I shall not follow
him.”
“Run?” said the miller; “when you have had him a fortnight, you could
not set dogs enough on him to drive him off.”
“I shall not take him but with his free consent, and not till the matter
is fully explained to him, Mr. Wilson.”
“Explained, you _can’t_ explain it to him; why he’s as ignorant as one
of your oxen.”
“So much the more necessary that the attempt should be made. I never
will buy a fellow-creature as I would buy a “shote” out of a drove.”
“You are not buying, you are hiring him.”
“Nor hire him of somebody else without his free consent.”
The boy was now called and Wilson said to him,—
“Jim, will you go to live with that man,” pointing to Mr. Whitman, “for
four years?”
“He my master?” said the boy, pointing in his turn to Mr. Whitman.
“Yes. He’ll give you enough to eat every-day, and good clothes to keep
you warm.”
“I’ll go, have plenty to eat, warm place to sleep, clothes keep me
warm.”
“You are to work for this man, do everything he tells you.”
“I love to work,” replied the boy with a faint smile.
“Tell him about the length of time,” said Whitman.
“You are to stay with him four years.”
“Don’t know.”
“He don’t know how long a year is,” said the miller.
“You are to stay four summers.”
“I know, till wheat ripe, get reaped, put in the stack four times?”
counting on his fingers.
“That is it.”
“Yes I go, I stay.”
“What can you do James?” said Mr. Whitman.
“I can break stones for the road, and pick oakum, and sort hairs for
brushmakers, and make skewers for butchers.”
“What else can you do?”
“I can drive horses to plough.”
“That indeed! what else my lad?”
“I can milk cows, and reap grain, and thrash wheat, and break flax.”
“What else?”
“I can hoe turnips, mow grass, and stook up grain.”
“That is a great deal more than I expected,” said Whitman.
The money was paid, and the writings drawn, at the miller’s desk who was
a justice. James made his mark at the bottom of the articles of
agreement, and Mr. Whitman gave an agreement to him, after reading and
explaining it to him.
When they left the mill three barrels of flour were lying at the tail of
Mr. Whitman’s wagon.
“Jim,” said Wilson, “put those barrels into that cart.”
He took hold of the barrels and pitched them one after another into the
cart, without bringing a flush to his pale cheek, though it burst open
the tight fitting jacket across the shoulders,—while Peter clapped his
hands in mingled pleasure and wonder.
“You won’t find many boys, Mr. Whitman, who can do that, and there are
twenty _men_ who can’t do it, where there is one who can. He’ll break
pitchfork handles for you, when he gets his hand in, and his belly full
of Pennsylvania bread and beef.”
Mr. Whitman did not take advantage of the self-denying offer of his
children, who had volunteered to give up their new clothes as an
inducement to their father to take the boy, but procured them all as he
had at first intended.
After calling at the public house to get James’ bundle, they turned the
heads of the horses homeward; refreshed by provender and a long rest,
and relieved of their load, they whirled the heavy wagon along at a
spanking trot. Peter in great spirits kept chattering incessantly, but
James sat silent and stoical as an Indian at the stake, apparently no
more affected by the change of masters than a stone.
Wilson compromised with his conscience by putting the boy into a good
family, and consulted his interest by putting the eight pounds in his
own pocket,—since the workhouse authorities had paid the passage-money
to the captain of the brig Betsy,—which he probably felt justified in
doing, as he had agreed and was holden to take the boy back if Whitman
at the end of a year required. He really meant to do it and keep the boy
himself, and do well by him, for like most men he acted from mixed
motives. It is easy to see, however, that he was not so thoroughly
upright as Bradford Whitman.
Thus was the _unseen hand_, spoken of by Alice Whitman, guiding both the
soul-driver and the Pennsylvania farmer, though they knew it not, and in
accordance with the prayers of that Christian mother whose last thought
was for her child.