Our Nig, Harriet E. Wilson [carter reed TXT] 📗

“beg my living, or get it from you.”

“Take me, Mag. I can give you a better home than this, and not let you suffer so.”

He prevailed; they married. You can philosophize, gentle reader, upon the impropriety of such unions, and preach dozens of sermons on the evils of amalgamation. Want is a more powerful philosopher and preacher. Poor Mag. She has sundered another bond which held her to her fellows. She has descended another step down the ladder of infamy.

II My Father’s Death

Misery! we have known each other,
Like a sister and a brother,
Living in the same lone home
Many years⁠—we must live some
Hours or ages yet to come.

Shelley.

Jim, proud of his treasure⁠—a white wife⁠—tried hard to fulfil his promises; and furnished her with a more comfortable dwelling, diet, and apparel. It was comparatively a comfortable winter she passed after her marriage. When Jim could work, all went on well. Industrious, and fond of Mag, he was determined she should not regret her union to him. Time levied an additional charge upon him, in the form of two pretty mulattos, whose infantile pranks amply repaid the additional toil. A few years, and a severe cough and pain in his side compelled him to be an idler for weeks together, and Mag had thus a reminder of bygones. She cared for him only as a means to subserve her own comfort; yet she nursed him faithfully and true to marriage vows till death released her. He became the victim of consumption. He loved Mag to the last. So long as life continued, he stifled his sensibility to pain, and toiled for her sustenance long after he was able to do so.

A few expressive wishes for her welfare; a hope of better days for her; an anxiety lest they should not all go to the “good place;” brief advice about their children; a hope expressed that Mag would not be neglected as she used to be; the manifestation of Christian patience; these were all the legacy of miserable Mag. A feeling of cold desolation came over her, as she turned from the grave of one who had been truly faithful to her.

She was now expelled from companionship with white people; this last step⁠—her union with a black⁠—was the climax of repulsion.

Seth Shipley, a partner in Jim’s business, wished her to remain in her present home; but she declined, and returned to her hovel again, with obstacles threefold more insurmountable than before. Seth accompanied her, giving her a weekly allowance which furnished most of the food necessary for the four inmates. After a time, work failed; their means were reduced.

How Mag toiled and suffered, yielding to fits of desperation, bursts of anger, and uttering curses too fearful to repeat. When both were supplied with work, they prospered; if idle, they were hungry together. In this way their interests became united; they planned for the future together. Mag had lived an outcast for years. She had ceased to feel the gushings of penitence; she had crushed the sharp agonies of an awakened conscience. She had no longings for a purer heart, a better life. Far easier to descend lower. She entered the darkness of perpetual infamy. She asked not the rite of civilization or Christianity. Her will made her the wife of Seth. Soon followed scenes familiar and trying.

“It’s no use,” said Seth one day; “we must give the children away, and try to get work in some other place.”

“Who’ll take the black devils?” snarled Mag.

“They’re none of mine,” said Seth; “what you growling about?”

“Nobody will want anything of mine, or yours either,” she replied.

“We’ll make ’em, p’r’aps,” he said. “There’s Frado’s six years old, and pretty, if she is yours, and white folks’ll say so. She’d be a prize somewhere,” he continued, tipping his chair back against the wall, and placing his feet upon the rounds, as if he had much more to say when in the right position.

Frado, as they called one of Mag’s children, was a beautiful mulatto, with long, curly black hair, and handsome, roguish eyes, sparkling with an exuberance of spirit almost beyond restraint.

Hearing her name mentioned, she looked up from her play, to see what Seth had to say of her.

“Wouldn’t the Bellmonts take her?” asked Seth.

“Bellmonts?” shouted Mag. “His wife is a right she-devil! and if⁠—”

“Hadn’t they better be all together?” interrupted Seth, reminding her of a like epithet used in reference to her little ones.

Without seeming to notice him, she continued, “She can’t keep a girl in the house over a week; and Mr. Bellmont wants to hire a boy to work for him, but he can’t find one that will live in the house with her; she’s so ugly, they can’t.”

“Well, we’ve got to make a move soon,” answered Seth; “if you go with me, we shall go right off. Had you rather spare the other one?” asked Seth, after a short pause.

“One’s as bad as t’other,” replied Mag. “Frado is such a wild, frolicky thing, and means to do jest as she’s a mind to; she won’t go if she don’t want to. I don’t want to tell her she is to be given away.”

“I will,” said Seth. “Come here, Frado?”

The child seemed to have some dim foreshadowing of evil, and declined.

“Come here,” he continued; “I want to tell you something.”

She came reluctantly. He took her hand and said: “We’re going to move, by-’m-bye; will you go?”

“No!” screamed she; and giving a sudden jerk which destroyed Seth’s equilibrium, left him sprawling on the floor, while she escaped through the open door.

“She’s a hard one,” said Seth, brushing his patched coat sleeve. “I’d risk her at Bellmont’s.”

They discussed the expediency of a speedy departure. Seth would first seek employment, and then return for Mag. They would take with them what they could carry, and leave the rest with Pete Greene, and come for them when they were wanted. They were long in arranging affairs satisfactorily, and were not a little