Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing
Owners
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby had retired to their apartment
for the night. He was lounging in a large easy-chair,
looking over some letters that had come in the afternoon
mail, and she was standing before her mirror, brushing
out the complicated braids and curls in which Eliza
had arranged her hair; for, noticing her pale cheeks
and haggard eyes, she had excused her attendance that
night, and ordered her to bed. The employment,
naturally enough, suggested her conversation with the
girl in the morning; and turning to her husband, she
said, carelessly,
“By the by, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow
that you lugged in to our dinner-table today?”
“Haley is his name,” said Shelby, turning
himself rather uneasily in his chair, and continuing
with his eyes fixed on a letter.
“Haley! Who is he, and what may be his
business here, pray?”
“Well, he’s a man that I transacted some
business with, last time I was at Natchez,”
said Mr. Shelby.
“And he presumed on it to make himself quite
at home, and call and dine here, ay?”
“Why, I invited him; I had some accounts with
him,” said Shelby.
“Is he a negro-trader?” said Mrs. Shelby,
noticing a certain embarrassment in her husband’s
manner.
“Why, my dear, what put that into your head?”
said Shelby, looking up.
“Nothing,—only Eliza came in here,
after dinner, in a great worry, crying and taking
on, and said you were talking with a trader, and that
she heard him make an offer for her boy—the
ridiculous little goose!”
“She did, hey?” said Mr. Shelby, returning
to his paper, which he seemed for a few moments quite
intent upon, not perceiving that he was holding it
bottom upwards.
“It will have to come out,” said he, mentally;
“as well now as ever.”
“I told Eliza,” said Mrs. Shelby, as she
continued brushing her hair, “that she was a
little fool for her pains, and that you never had
anything to do with that sort of persons. Of course,
I knew you never meant to sell any of our people,—least
of all, to such a fellow.”
“Well, Emily,” said her husband, “so
I have always felt and said; but the fact is that
my business lies so that I cannot get on without.
I shall have to sell some of my hands.”
“To that creature? Impossible! Mr.
Shelby, you cannot be serious.”
“I’m sorry to say that I am,” said
Mr. Shelby. “I’ve agreed to sell
Tom.”
“What! our Tom?—that good, faithful
creature!—been your faithful servant from
a boy! O, Mr. Shelby!—and you have
promised him his freedom, too,—you and
I have spoken to him a hundred times of it. Well,
I can believe anything now,—I can believe
now that you could sell little Harry, poor
Eliza’s only child!” said Mrs. Shelby,
in a tone between grief and indignation.
