UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

" the
anything
" head-aches
LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY.
53
Who does not know how our greatmen are
outdoingthemselves, declaimingagains the
foreign slave-trade? There are a perfect host of
Clarksons and Wilberforces risen up among us
on that subject, most edifying to hear and behold.
Tradingnegroes from Africa, dear reader, is so
"
horrid ! It is not to be thought of ! But tradingHalliday declared it was as good as any
them from Kentucky,
that's quite another music to him, and the children all avowed that
thing ! CHAPTER XEI.
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT.
temporal solved there,"
A quiet scene now rises before us. A large, all by one good,lovingwoman, God bless her !
roomy, neatly-painted kitchen,its yellow floor
"
And so thee still thinks of going to Canada,
glossy and smooth, and without a particle of iEliza?" she said, as she was quietlylookingover
dust ; a neat, well-blacked cooking-stove ; rows her peaches.
"
of shiningtin,suggestive of unmentionable good Yes, ma'am," said Eliza,firmly. " I must go
things to the appetite ; glossygreen wood chairs, onward. I dare not stop."
"
old and firm ; a small flag-bottomed rockingchair,
with a patch-work cushion in it,neatlyThee must think about that, my daughter."
And what '11 thee do, when thee gets there ?
contrived out of small piecesof different; colored
"
My daughter" came naturally from the lips
woollen goods, and a largersized one, motherlyof Rachel Halliday ; for hers was justthe face and
"
and old, whose wide arms breathed hospitable form that made mother" seem the most natural
invitation, seconded by the solicitation of its word in the world.
feather a real comfortable, cushions," persuasive
Eliza'shands trembled, and some tears fell on
old chair, and worth, in the way of honest, her fine work ; but she answered,firmly,
homely enjoyment, a dozen of your plush or
"
I shall do I can find. I "
hopeI
brochetelle drawing-roomgentry; and in the can find something."
chair,gentlyswaying back and "
forward,her eyes
Thee knows thee can
stayhere,as longas
bent on some fine sewing șat our old friend
and thinner than
"
she
"
Eliza. Yes, there she is,paler "0, thank you," said Eliza,"but"
in her Kentucky home, with a world of quiet pointed to "I can't Harry" sleepnights; I can't
sorrow lying under the shadow of her longeyelashes,
rest. Last night I dreamed I saw that man coming
and marking the outline of her gentleinto the yard," she said,shuddering.
mouth ! It was plainto see how old and firm "Poor child!" said Rachel,wiping her eyes;
the girlish grown under the "
disciplinebut thee must n't feel
of heavy sorrow ; and when, anon, her largeit so that never hath a
so. The Lord
fugitive been
hath ordered
stolen from
dark eye was raised to follow the gambolsof her our village Ị trust thine will not be the first."
littleHarry,who was sporting, like some tropical The door here opened, and a littleshort,round,
butterfly, hither and thither over the floorșhe pincushiony stood at the door, with a
showed a depth of firmness and steady resolve cheery,bloomingface,like a ripeapple. She was
that was never there in her earlierand happierdressed,like Rachel,in sober gray,
with the muslin
days.
folded neatly across her round,plump little
By her side sat a woman with a brigh tin pan chest.
in her lap, into which she was "
carefully sorting Ruth Stedman," said Rachel,comingjoyfully
"
some dried peaches. She mightbe fifty-five or forward ; how isthee,Ruth?" she said heartily
sixty; but hers was oneof those faces that time takingboth her hands.
seems to touch only to brighten and adorn. The
Ruth, takingoff her littledrab
"
Nicely," said
snowy lisse crape cap,
made after the strait bonnet,and dusting it with her handkerchief,displaying,
Quaker pattern, the plainwhite muslin handkerchief,
as she did so, a round little head, on
lying in placidfolds across her bosom, which the Quaker cap sat with a sort of jaunty
drab shawl and dress," showed at once air,despite all the strokingand pattingof the
the
community to which she belonged.Her face small fat hands, which were busilyapplied to arranging
was round and rosy, with a healthful downy
it. Certain stray locks of decidedly curly
softness, suggestive of a ripepeach. Her hair, hair,too,
silvered
Eartially
escaped here and there,and had to
by age, was partedsmoothlybe coaxed and cajoledinto their placeagain; and
ack from a highplacidforehead,on which time then the new comer, who might have been fiveand-twentyțurned
from the small looking-glass,
will to men, and beneath shone a largepair before which she had been making these arrangements,
had written no
inscription, exceptpeace on
good earth,
of clear,honest,loving brown eyes ; you only and looked well "
pleased, as most people
needed to look straight into them, to
!who looked at her might have forshe been," was
decidedly a wholesome,whole-hearted, chirruping
little woman, as ever gladdenedman's heart
feel that
you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and
true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So
much has been said and sung of beautiful young
1
having taken cold in earlylife, or from some asthmatic
affection, or perhaps from nervous derange-
[ment; but, as she gentlyswung
backward and
forward, the chair kept up a kind of subdued
"
creechyerawchy," that would have been intol-
]erable in any other chair. But old Simeon
they would n't miss of hearingmother's chair for
anything in the world. For why? for twenty
years or more, nothing but lovingwords, and
gentlemoralities,and motherlylovingkindness,
had come from that chair ;
and
heart-aches innumerable had been cured there,"
difficultiesspiritual and
thee pleases," said Rachel.
withal.
girls, why don't somebody wake up to the "
beauty Ruth, thisfriendisEliza Harris ; and this is
of old women] If any want to get up
an inspiration
the littleboy I told thee of."
under this head,we refer them to our
"
good "I am gladto see thee,Eliza, very,"said
friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sitsthere in her Ruth, if Eliza shakinghands,as were an old friend
littlerocking-chair. It had a turn for quacking'she bad long been expecting; "and this is thv
and that chair either from
I sq"3aking" had," jdearboy," broughta cake forhim," she said,