Wretched and Orphaned - Poor Topsy

     The illustrated edition of the book,  Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was open and I began to leaf through it once again.

 “Linda, darling,” William asked, “has our Topsy costume been properly altered?”

     “Yes,” she replied, “I cut some of the fabric and hemmed it so that it will fit quite nicely. I don’t think we need use the wig, though, because Mel’s hair is long enough. It simply needs to be twisted into the Topsy style.” My hair, though cropped, was still quite long for a boy. Linda said that she would attend to it well before the curtain was to rise, so William returned his attentions to the book. I followed the movement of his fingers along the words as he began to read:

“But Topsy is a negro child, you see,
Who never learned to read like you and me.

A child whom bad men from her mother sold,
Whom a harsh mistress used to cuff and scold,
Whom no one taught or cared for all her days,
No wonder that the girl had naughty ways. 

No home, no school, no Bible she had seen,
How bless’d beside poor Topsy we have been!
Yet boys and girls among ourselves, I've known
Puffed up with praise for merits not their own.”

     “This is the child whom you will portray, Mel,” William said. “The cruelty of slavery has made her wretched and orphaned. There are moments where she will somersault and play, but you must understand that she is still, in many ways, a wretched and forlorn child. One of the abject, though through no fault of her own.”

     I nodded. But for a few words, I was able to understand all that he recited. Poor Topsy, I thought! 

[TO BE CONTINUED.]