on, as best she could, trying to make Topsy a good girl.

She taught her to read and to sew. Topsy liked reading, and learned her
letters like magic. But she could not bear sewing. So she broke her
needles or threw them away. She tangled, broke, and dirtied her cotton
and hid her reels. Miss Ophelia felt sure all these things could not be
accidents. Yet she could never catch Topsy doing them.

In a very few days Topsy had learned how to do Miss Ophelia's room
perfectly, for she was very quick and clever. But if Miss Ophelia ever
left her to do it by herself there was sure to be dreadful confusion.

Instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the
pillow-cases. Then she would butt her woolly head among the pillows,
until it was covered with feathers sticking out in all directions. She
would climb the bedpost, and hang head downwards from the top; wave the
sheets and covers all over the room; dress the bolster up in Miss
Ophelia's nightgown and act scenes with it, singing, whistling, and
making faces at herself in the looking-glass all the time.

'Topsy,' Miss Ophelia would say, when her patience was at an end, 'what
makes you behave so badly?'

'Dunno, missis--I'spects' cause I's so wicked.'

'I don't know what I shall do with you, Topsy.'

'Laws, missis, you must whip me. My old missis always did. I an't used
to workin' unless I gets whipped.'

So Miss Ophelia tried it. Topsy would scream and groan and implore. But
half an hour later she would be sitting among the other little niggers
belonging to the house, laughing about it. 'Miss Feely whip!' she would
say, 'she can't do it nohow.'

'Law, you niggers,' she would go on, 'does you know you's all sinners?
Well, you is; everybody is. White folks is sinners too--Miss Feely says
so. But I 'spects niggers is the biggest ones. But ye an't any of ye up
to me. I's so awful wicked, there can't nobody do nothin' with me. I
'spects I's the wickedest crittur in the world.' Then she would turn a
somersault, and come up bright and smiling, evidently quite pleased with
herself.

CHAPTER XV

EVA AND TOPSY

Two or three years passed. Uncle Tom was still with Mr. St. Clare, far
away from his home. He was not really unhappy. But always in his heart
was the aching longing to see his dear ones again.

Now he began to have a new sorrow. He loved his little mistress Eva very
tenderly, and she was ill.

He saw that she was growing white and th