“Yer oughter seen how mad he looked, when I brought the hoss up.  Lord, he’d a killed me, if he durs’ to; and there I was a standin’ as innercent and as humble.”

“Lor, I seed you,” said Andy; “an’t you an old hoss, Sam?”

“Rather specks I am,” said Sam; “did yer see Missis up stars at the winder?  I seed her laughin’.”

“I’m sure, I was racin’ so, I didn’t see nothing,” said Andy.

“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s pony, “I ’se ‘quired what yer may call a habit o’ bobservation, Andy.  It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy; and I ‘commend yer to be cultivatin’ it, now yer young.  Hist up that hind foot, Andy.  Yer see, Andy, it’s bobservation makes all de difference in niggers.  Didn’t I see which way the wind blew dis yer mornin’?  Didn’t I see what Missis wanted, though she never let on?  Dat ar’s bobservation, Andy.  I ’spects it’s what you may call a faculty.  Faculties is different in different peoples, but cultivation of ’em goes a great way.”

“I guess if I hadn’t helped your bobservation dis mornin’, yer wouldn’t have seen your way so smart,” said Andy.

“Andy,” said Sam, “you’s a promisin’ child, der an’t no manner o’ doubt.  I thinks lots of yer, Andy; and I don’t feel no ways ashamed to take idees from you.  We oughtenter overlook nobody, Andy, cause the smartest on us gets tripped up sometimes.  And so, Andy, let’s go up to the house now.  I’ll be boun’ Missis’ll give us an uncommon good bite, dis yer time.”

CHAPTER VII

The Mother’s Struggle

It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom’s cabin.

Her husband’s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered.  Then there was the parting from every familiar object,—­the place where she had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband,—­everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go from a home like that?

But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger.  Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.