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<h2> CHAPTER 9 — Tom Practices Sycophancy </h2>
<p><i>Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a<br/>
funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.</i> —<br/>
Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar<br/>
<br/>
<i>It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.<br/>
There was once a man who, not being able to find any other<br/>
fault with his coal, complained that there were too many<br/>
prehistoric toads in it.</i> —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar<br/></p>
<p>Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands,
and rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and
moaned.</p>
<p>"I've knelt to a nigger wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the
deepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to
this. . . . Well, there is one consolation, such as it is—I've
struck bottom this time; there's nothing lower."</p>
<p>But that was a hasty conclusion.</p>
<p>At ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak,
and wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms, waiting,
for she had heard him.</p>
<p>This was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few
years ago of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness. Nobody
would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most people even
gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no competition, it was
called <i>the</i> haunted house. It was getting crazy and ruinous now,
from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond Pudd'nhead Wilson's
house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the last house in the town
at that end.</p>
<p>Tom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the
corner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the
wall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of
light, and there were various soap and candle boxes scattered about, which
served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said:</p>
<p>"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money
later on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell
you?"</p>
<p>"Well, you—you—oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come
right out and tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on
account of dissipation and foolishness."</p>
<p>"Disposition en foolishness! NO sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't nothin'
at all, 'longside o' what <i>I</i> knows."</p>
<p>Tom stared at her, and said:</p>
<p>"Why, Roxy, what do you mean?"</p>
<p>She rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate.</p>
<p>"I means dis—en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole
Marse Driscoll den I is! <i>dat's</i> what I means!" and her eyes flamed
with triumph.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Yassir, en <i>dat</i> ain't all! You's a <i>nigger!</i>—<i>bawn</i>
a nigger and a <i>slave!</i>—en you's a nigger en a slave dis
minute; en if I opens my mouf ole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river
befo' you is two days older den what you is now!"</p>
<p>"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!"</p>
<p>"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's just de truth, en nothin' <i>but</i> de
truth, so he'p me. Yassir—you's my <i>son</i>—"</p>
<p>"You devil!"</p>
<p>"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' today is Percy
Driscoll's son en yo' <i>marster</i>—"</p>
<p>"You beast!"</p>
<p>"En <i>his</i> name is Tom Driscoll, en <i>yo's</i> name's Valet de
Chambers, en you ain't GOT no fambly name, beca'se niggers don't <i>have</i>
em!"</p>
<p>Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised it, but his mother
only laughed at him, and said:</p>
<p>"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you, nor
de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you got a
chance, for dat's jist yo' style—<i>I</i> knows you, throo en throo—but
I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin' and it's in
safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look for de right
man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo' mother up for
as big a fool as <i>you</i> is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin tell you!
Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up ag'in till I
tell you!"</p>
<p>Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations
and emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction:</p>
<p>"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm
done with you."</p>
<p>Roxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started for the door. Tom
was in a cold panic in a moment.</p>
<p>"Come back, come back!" he wailed. "I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it all
back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!"</p>
<p>The woman stood a moment, then she said gravely:</p>
<p>"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me
<i>Roxy</i>, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey
mammies like dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call me—leastways
when de ain't nobody aroun'. <i>Say</i> it!"</p>
<p>It cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out.</p>
<p>"Dat's all right, don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's good
for you. Now den, you had said you wouldn't ever call it lies en moonshine
ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say it ag'in,
it's de LAS' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as straight to de
judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en <i>prove</i> it. Does you
b'lieve me when I says dat?"</p>
<p>"Oh," groaned Tom, "I more than believe it; I <i>know</i> it."</p>
<p>Roxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to
anybody, and her threat of writings was a lie; but she knew the person she
was dealing with, and had made both statements without any doubt as to the
effect they would produce.</p>
<p>She went and sat down on her candle box, and the pride and pomp of her
victorious attitude made it a throne. She said:</p>
<p>"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to be
no mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month;
you's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!"</p>
<p>But Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and promised
to start fair on next month's pension.</p>
<p>"Chambers, how much is you in debt?"</p>
<p>Tom shuddered, and said:</p>
<p>"Nearly three hundred dollars."</p>
<p>"How is you gwine to pay it?"</p>
<p>Tom groaned out: "Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions."</p>
<p>But she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he
had been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from private
houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his fellow villagers a
fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis; but he doubted
if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the required amount, and was
afraid to make a further venture in the present excited state of the town.
His mother approved of his conduct, and offered to help, but this
frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say that if she would retire
from the town he should feel better and safer, and could hold his head
higher—and was going on to make an argument, but she interrupted and
surprised him pleasantly by saying she was ready; it didn't make any
difference to her where she stayed, so that she got her share of the
pension regularly. She said she would not go far, and would call at the
haunted house once a month for her money. Then she said:</p>
<p>"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year—and
anybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a
good name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes on—en
what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays sayin'
mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me forgit I's a
nigger—en—en—"</p>
<p>She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: "But you know I didn't know
you were my mother; and besides—"</p>
<p>"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it." Then
she added fiercely, "En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll be
sorry, <i>I</i> tell you."</p>
<p>When they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could
command:</p>
<p>"Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?"</p>
<p>He had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken.
Roxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said:</p>
<p>"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to be
shame' o' yo' father, <i>I</i> kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in
dis whole town—ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as
good stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed." She
put on a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: "Does
you 'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex, dat died de same year yo' young
Marse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en
Churches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed?
Dat's de man."</p>
<p>Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of
her earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a dignity
and state that might have passed for queenly if her surroundings had been
a little more in keeping with it.</p>
<p>"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as highbawn as you is. Now
den, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to—you
has de right, en dat I kin swah."</p>
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