Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Children's Fiction
Publisher: Free Currency Publishers
Published: 2015-05-04T12:00:00+00:00

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in her life; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in the keen, round, glittering eye; but it was followed by the short laugh and habitual grin.

But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the case a puzzler, and so shut Topsy up in a dark closet till she had arranged her ideas further on the subject.

“I don’t see,” said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, “how I’m going to manage that child without whipping her.”

“O, well, certainly,” said St. Clare; “do as you think best. Only I’ll make one suggestion: I’ve seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, or whichever came handiest, and, seeing that she is used to that style of operation, I think your whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression.”

“I can only persevere and try, and do the best I can,” said Miss Ophelia; after this, she did labor with zeal and energy, on her new subject. She instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to teach her to read and to sew.

In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned her letters as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain reading; but the sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature was as lithe as a cat, and as active as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them slyly out of windows, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away altogether.

Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. In her play hours, she invariably had every child in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with admiration and wonder,—not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be fascinated by her, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a serpent. Miss Ophelia was uneasy that Eva should fancy Topsy’s society so much, and implored St. Clare to forbid it.

“Poh! let the child alone,” said St. Clare. “Topsy will do her good.”

“But so depraved a child,—are you not afraid she will teach her some mischief?”

“She can’t teach her mischief; she might teach it to some children, but evil rolls off Eva’s mind like dew off a cabbage-leaf,—not a drop sinks in.”

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning everything that was taught her with surprising quickness. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose—but she didn’t very often choose. When left to herself, instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the pillow-cases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in various

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