Cassy

In this excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Simon Legree, the slave master, has just purchased a fifteen year old slave girl, Emmeline, whom he intends to make his concubine. Legree's plans meet the resistance of Tom's Christian faith and the fury of Cassy, a slave woman in Legree's house who is outraged to see that Legree intends to use Emmeline as he has used her. Cassy devises an ingenious plot in which she suggests to the superstitious Legree that his attic is haunted, and then, making their escape, Cassy and Emmeline double back and hide up there until they can make their way out unnoticed. Tom refuses to whip his fellow slaves or to reveal the whereabouts of Cassy and Emmeline, and for this he is beaten to death.