Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike

a nation to supply their commerce. Disunited, our fair States may become each as trivial as Bavarian princedoms!”
    Grace said, theatrically addressing her sister, “Oh, I
do
adore men, the sensible way they put one thing against another. Myself, Mr. Buchanan, I cannot calmly
think
on the fate of those poor enslaved darkies, the manner in which not only the men in the fields are abused but the colored ladies also—I can
not
, it is a weakness of my nature, I cannot contemplate such wrongs without my heart rising up and yearning to smite those monstrous slavedrivers into the Hades that will be their everlasting abode!”
    Buchanan tut-tutted, “Come now, the peculiar institution presents more sides than that. You speak as a soldier’s daughter, Miss Hubley, but here in peaceable Pennsylvania we take a less absolute view. The slavedrivers, for one, are themselves driven, by circumstances they did not create. Chattel slavery, though I, too, deplore its abuses, is as old as warfare, and to be preferred to massacre. In some societies, such as that of ancient Greece, the contract between master and slave allowed the latter considerable advantages, and our Southern brethren maintain that without the institution’s paternalguidance the negro would perish of his natural sloth and inability. At present, our friends in the South see their share of the national fortune dwindling; much of the urgency would be removed from the territorial question, it is my belief, if new territories—to the south of the South, so to speak—were to be mercifully removed”—he made a nimble snatching gesture, startling both members of his little audience—“from the crumbling dominions of the moribund Spanish crown. Cuba, Texas, Chihuahua, California—all begging to be plucked.”
    He settled back, pleasantly conscious of the breast-fluttering impression his masculine aggressiveness had made. Now he directed his attention, with a characteristic twist of his head, specifically toward Mrs. Jenkins, who had remained standing, held upright by the strands of hostessly duty. “But I mustn’t tarry, delightful though tarrying be,” he said. “Inform Mr. Jenkins, if you will, that the Columbia Bridge Company matter took some hopeful turns under my prodding, and if he wishes to be apprised of their nature, and of the distance I estimate we have left to travel, he will find me in my chambers tomorrow all day.”
    “I will indeed inform him,” the excellent wife agreed. “But please, Mr. Buchanan, you shame me by not letting me offer you a beverage, and then a spot of supper. My sister and I were to sit down to a simple meal—salt-pork roast, fried potatoes, dried succotash, and peach-and-raisin pie. It would brighten our dull fare if you could join us, and would keep you out of the taverns for an evening.”
    “People exaggerate my tavern attendance, even in my unattached days,” Buchanan said, in mock rebuke, and with a jerk of his head rested his vision on Miss Hubley’s alabaster upper chest, bare of any locket or sign of affection pledged. His attachment to Ann nagged at him awkwardly; he should bespeeding from this house and presenting at the Colemans’ door live evidence of his safe return from Philadelphia.
    “Oh,
do
stay with us,” Grace Hubley chimed. “It would be a kindness even after you are gone, for sisters continually need something to gossip about.”
    Between folded wings of peacock-shimmery Persian silk, the woman’s powdered skin glowed in his imperfect vision, which needed for focus constant small adjustments of his head. “I would be honored to serve as helpless fodder for your sororal interchange,” he pronounced, “but there can be no question of imposing my presence for the length of a meal. I will, Mrs. Jenkins,” he announced, relaxing into conviviality, “upon your kind urging have tea to keep Miss Hubley company, and a thimbleful of port to keep company with the tea.”
    When Mrs. Jenkins, to arrange these