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Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | |
Of Tom's New Master, and Various Other Matters |
Page 7 of 11 |
And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing--waiters running twenty ways at once--men tugging trunks, carpet-bags, boxes--women anxiously calling to their children, and everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank towards the landing. Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately vanquished trunk, and marshalling all her goods and chattels in fine military order, seemed resolved to defend them to the last. "Shall I take your trunk, ma'am?" "Shall I take your baggage?" "Let me 'tend to your baggage, Missis?" "Shan't I carry out these yer, Missis?" rained down upon her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, upright as a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of umbrella and parasols, and replying with a determination that was enough to strike dismay even into a hackman, wondering to Eva, in each interval, "what upon earth her papa could be thinking of; he couldn't have fallen over, now,--but something must have happened;"--and just as she had begun to work herself into a real distress, he came up, with his usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the orange he was eating, said, "Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready." "I've been ready, waiting, nearly an hour," said Miss Ophelia; "I began to be really concerned about you. "That's a clever fellow, now," said he. "Well, the carriage is waiting, and the crowd are now off, so that one can walk out in a decent and Christian manner, and not be pushed and shoved. Here," he added to a driver who stood behind him, "take these things." "I'll go and see to his putting them in," said Miss Ophelia. "O, pshaw, cousin, what's the use?" said St. Clare. |
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Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe |
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