Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Cuffy and Sambo came to the rescue, raised him up carefully, and began brushing the dust off his clothes, smothering the laughter with which they seemed ready to explode, while the culprit at the post seemed to consider this an excellent opportunity to put in his submission.

"Please, mas'r, do forgive me! I tole 'em to go out, and dey said dey wouldn't. I didn't mean no harm when I said 'Mas'r had better go hisself;' 'cause I thinks so now. Mas'r had better go! Dem folks is curus, and dey won't go for none of us. Dey just acts ridiculous, dey does! And I didn't mean fur to be sarcy, nor nothin.' I say 'gin, if mas'r'll take his horse and go over dar, mas'r drive dose folks out; and nobody else can't do it! We done can't do it—dey jest sarce us. Now, for my Heavenly Master, all dis yere is de truth I've been telling. De Lord, de Master, knows it is; and, if mas'r'll take his horse, and ride down dere, he'd see so; so dere, just as I've been telling mas'r. I didn't mean no harm at all, I didn't!"

The quarrel, it must be told, related to the ejecting of a poor white family which had squatted, as the phrase is, in a deserted cabin, on a distant part of the Gordon plantation. Mrs. Gordon's untiring assiduity having discovered this fact, she had left her husband no peace till something was undertaken in the way of ejectment. He accordingly commissioned Jake, a stout negro, on the morning of the present day, to go over and turn them off. Now, Jake, who inherited to the full the lofty contempt with which the plantation negro regards the poor white folks, started upon his errand, nothing loth, and whistled his way in high feather, with two large dogs at his heels. But, when he found a miserable, poor, sick woman, surrounded by four starving children, Jake's mother's milk came back to him; and, instead of turning them out, he actually pitched a dish of cold potatoes in among them, which he picked up in a neighboring cabin, with about the same air of contemptuous pity with which one throws scraps to a dog. And then, meandering his way back to the house, informed his master that "He couldn't turn de white trash out; and, if he wanted them turned out, he would have to go hisself."

Now, we all know that a fit of temper has very often nothing to do with the thing which appears to give rise to it. When a cloud is full charged with electricity, it makes no difference which bit of wire is put in. The flash and the thunder come one way as well as another. Mr. Gordon had received troublesome letters on business, a troublesome lecture from his wife, his corn-cake had been over-done at breakfast, and his coffee burned bitter; besides which, he had a cold in his head coming on, and there was a settlement brewing with the overseer. In consequence of all which things, though Jake's mode of delivering himself wasn't a whit more saucy than ordinary, the storm broke upon him then and there, and raged as we have described. The heaviest part of it, however, being now spent, Mr. Gordon consented to pardon the culprit on condition that he would bring him up his horse immediately, when he would ride over and see if he couldn't turn out the offending party. He pressed Harry, who was rather a favorite of his, into the service; and, in the course of a quarter of an hour, they were riding off in the direction of the squatter's cabin.

"It's perfectly insufferable, what we proprietors have to bear from this tribe of creatures!" he said. "There ought to be hunting-parties got up to chase them down, and exterminate 'em, just as we do rats. It would be a kindness to them; the only thing you can do for them is to kill them. As for charity, or that kind of thing, you might as well throw victuals into the hollow logs as to try to feed 'em. The government ought to pass laws,—we will have laws, somehow or other,—and get them out of the state."

And, so discoursing, the good man at length arrived before the door of a miserable, decaying log-cabin, out of whose glassless windows dark emptiness looked, as out of the eye-holes of a skull. Two scared, cowering children disappeared round the corner as he approached. He kicked open the door, and entered. Crouched on a pile of dirty straw, sat a miserable, haggard woman, with large, wild eyes, sunken cheeks, dishevelled, matted hair, and long, lean hands, like bird's-claws. At her skinny breast an emaciated infant was hanging, pushing, with its little skeleton hands, as if to force the nourishment which nature no longer gave; and two scared-looking children, with features wasted and pinched blue with famine, were clinging to her gown. The whole group huddled together, drawing as far as possible away from the new-comer, looked up with large, frightened eyes, like hunted wild animals.

"What you here for?" was the first question of Mr. Gordon, put in no very decided tone; for, if the truth must be told, his combativeness was oozing out.

The woman did not answer, and, after a pause, the youngest child piped up, in a shrill voice,—

"An't got nowhere else to be!"

"Yes," said the woman, "we camped on Mr. Durant's place, and Bobfield—him is the overseer—pulled down the cabin right over our head. 'Pears like we couldn't get nowhere."