Tom Practises Sycophancy.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is
because we are not the person involved.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a
man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal,
complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.--Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar.
Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands,
and rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and
moaned.
"I've knelt to a nigger wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the
deepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to
this.... Well, there is one consolation, such as it is--I've struck
bottom this time; there's nothing lower."
But that was a hasty conclusion.
At ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak
and wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms,
waiting, for she had heard him.
This was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few
years before of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness.
Nobody would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most
people even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no
competition, it was called the haunted house. It was getting crazy and
ruinous, now, from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond
Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the
last house in the town at that end.
Tom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the
corner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the
wall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of
light, and there were various soap-and-candle boxes scattered about,
which served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said--
"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money
later on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell
you?"
"Well, you--you--oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out
and tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on account of
dissipation and foolishness."
"Disposition en foolishness! No sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't
nothin' at all, 'longside o' what I knows."
Tom stared at her, and said--
"Why, Roxy, what do you mean?"
She rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate.
"I means dis--en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole
Marse Driscoll den I is!--dat's what I means!" and her eyes flamed with
triumph.
"What!"
"Yassir, en dat ain't all! You's a nigger!--bawn a nigger en a
slave!--en you's a nigger en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf
ole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is two days older
den what you is now!"
"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!"
"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's jes de truth, en nothin' but de truth, so
he'p me. Yassir--you's my son--"
"You devil!"
"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' to-day is Percy
Driscoll's son en yo' marster--"
"You beast!"
"En his name's Tom Driscoll, en yo' name's Valet de Chambers, en you
ain't got no fambly name, beca'se niggers don't have em!"
Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised raised it; but his
mother only laughed at him, and said--
"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you,
nor de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you
got a chance, for dat's jist yo' style--I knows you, throo en throo--but
I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin' en it's
in safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look for de
right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo' mother
up for as big a fool as you is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin tell you!
Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up ag'in till
I tell you!"
Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations
and emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction--
"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm
done with you."
Roxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started toward the door.
Tom was in a cold panic in a moment.
"Come back, come back!" he wailed. "I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it
all back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!"
The woman stood a moment, then she said gravely:
"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me
Roxy, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies
like dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call
me--leastways when dey ain't nobody aroun'. Say it!"
It cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out.
"Dat's all right. Don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's
good for you. Now den, you has said you wouldn't ever call it lies en
moonshine ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say
it ag'in, it's de las' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as
straight to de Judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en prove it.
Does you b'lieve me when I says dat?"
"Oh," groaned Tom, "I more than believe it; I know it."
Roxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to
anybody, and her threat about the writings was a lie; but she knew the
person she was dealing with, and had made both statements without any
doubt as to the effect they would produce.
She went and sat down on her candle-box, and the pride and pomp of her
victorious attitude made it a throne. She said--
"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to
be no mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month;
you's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!"
But Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and
promised to start fair on next month's pension.
"Chambers, how much is you in debt?"
Tom shuddered, and said--
"Nearly three hundred dollars."
"How is you gwine to pay it?"
Tom groaned out--"Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions."
But she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he
had been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from
private houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his
fellow-villagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St.
Louis; but he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the
required amount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the present
excited state of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and
offered to help, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say
that if she would retire from the town he should feel better and safer,
and could hold his head higher--and was going on to make an argument,
but she interrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was
ready; it didn't make any difference to her where she stayed, so that
she got her share of the pension regularly. She said she would not go
far, and would call at the haunted house once a month for her money.
Then she said--
"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year--and
anybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a
good name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes
on--en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays
sayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me
forgit I's a nigger--en--en------"
She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said--"But you know I didn't
know you were my mother; and besides--"
"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it." Then
she added fiercely, "En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll
be sorry, I tell you."
When they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could
command--
"Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?"
He had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken.
Roxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said--
"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to
be shame' o' yo' father, I kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in
dis whole town--ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as good
stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed." She put
on a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: "Does you
'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex, dat died de same year yo' young
Marse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en
Churches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed?
Dat's de man."
Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of
her earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a
dignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her surroundings
had been a little more in keeping with it.
"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as high-bawn as you is. Now
den, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to--you
has de right, en dat I kin swah."