Uncle Tom's Cabin: Novel Summary: Chapters 25-27

Chapter 25: Miss Ophelia, Tom, and Eva went off together, and when they came back, Ophelia found that Topsy had cut up some of her things in her absence.  Ophelia dragged her to St. Clare and said she was through with her.  She did not know what to do, and Marie said the child should be whipped until she could not stand.  Ophelia did not agree with that but she did not know what to do.  Eva then took Topsy away from the adults and asked her why she was so bad.  Topsy answered that she was born that way, and Eva made her promise to be better by telling her that she loved her, and that Jesus loved her.  Eva also told her she was going away soon, and wished Topsy to be better in her absence.  No one had told the black child she that she was loved before, and she was touched.  Ophelia and St. Clare had listened in on the conversation between the children, and Ophelia admitted that the child repulsed her.  Eva showed them both that the way to get through to the child was with love. 
Chapter 26: Eva steadily began growing weaker, and one afternoon, she asked her mother to get Miss Ophelia to cut off her curls.  Her father asked her why, and she said to give out to her friends.  When this was done, she called all of the servants to her room and presented each of them with a lock of her hair to remember her by.  Many cried, and she told her father that the rest of her curls were for him.  Topsy who had been trying to be good also got a curl and began to cry, and in her last efforts, Eva tried to get her father to convert to Christianity.  She also expressed the wish that Tom would be freed when she died, and her father complied.  A few more days went by, and then one night at the stroke of midnight, Eva began to die.  Her family including Tom gathered around her, and with a joy of one going to heaven, she died. 
Chapter 27: Everyone was devastated by Eva's death, though none more so than her father.  Miss Ophelia found Topsy balling one day on the floor, and she promised that she would love her in Eva's place.  Marie, in her selfishness, said that her husband did not have a heart and cared that her daughter had died.  In addition, to draw attention to herself, she began proclaiming SHE was dying.  St. Clare left and went to the city and on his journeys; Tom was a faithful follower of consolation.  At one of these times, St. Clare expressed his grief and Tom told him to look to Jesus for strength and love.  Tom then prayed for St. Clare, which made them both feel better and the bond between them strengthened.