The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
sensitive, that only the nose upon his face seemed to be good company
for his hands. When he confronted one, with his head thrown back a
little, his brown eyes staring inquiry, and his nose almost sentient,
the effect was that of a hostile savage just burst from the woods.
That was his condition indeed.
"Look at him in the eyes," said the town-bred, "he's all forester!"
"But look at his hand," added some few observant ones.
Ah! who had ever shaken that hand?
It was now extended to the Judge and he took from its womanly fingers
the terms of the loan. Judge Custis was surprised at the moderation of
Meshach, and he looked up cheerfully into that ever sentinel face on
which might have been printed "_qui vive?_"
"It's not the goodness of the security," said Meshach, "I make it low to
you, socially!"
The Custis pride started with a flush to the Judge's eyes, to have this
ostracised and hooted Shylock intimate that their relations could be
more than a prince's to a pawnbroker. But the Judge was a politician,
with an adaptable mind and address.
"Speaking of social things, Milburn," he said, carelessly, "our town is
not so large that we don't all see each other sometimes. Why do you wear
that forlorn, unsightly hat?"
"Why do you wear the name _Custis?_"
"Oh, I inherited that!"
"And I inherited my hat."
There was a pause for a minute, but before the Judge could tell whether
it was an angry or an awkward pause, the storekeeper said:
"Judge Custis, I concede that you are the best bred man in Princess
Anne. Where did you get authority to question another person about any
decent article of his attire?"
"I stand corrected, Milburn," said the Judge. "Good feeling for you more
than curiosity made me suggest it. And I may also remark to you, sir,
that when you lend me money you will always do it commercially and not
_socially_."
"Very well," remarked Meshach Milburn, "and if I ever enter your door, I
will then take off my hat."
* * * * *
The next morning Meshach Milburn surprised Samson Hat by saying: "Boy,
when you have another fight and make yourself a barbarian again,
remember to bring back, from Nassawongo furnace, about a peck of the bog
ores!"
* * * * *
The years moved on without much change in Princess Anne. The little
Manokin river brought up oysters from the bay, and carried off the corn
and produce. The great brick academy at neighboring "Lower Trappe"
boarded and educated the brightest youths of the best families on the
Peninsula; and these perceived, as the annual summers brought their
fulness, what portion of their beauty remained with Vesta Custis. She
was like Helen of Troy, a subject of homage and dispute in childhood,
and became a woman, in men's consideration, almost imperceptibly. Sent
to Baltimore to be educated, her return was followed by suitors--not
youthful admirers only, but mature ones--and the young men of the
Peninsula remarked with chagrin: "None of us have a chance! Some great
city nabob will get her."
But the academy boys and visitors, and the townspeople, had one common
opportunity to see her and to hear her--when she sang, every Sabbath and
church day, in the Episcopal church.
Her voice was the natural expression of her beauty--sweet, powerful,
free, and easily trained. A divine bird seemed hidden in the old church
when this noble yet tender voice broke forth; but they who turned to see
the singer who had made such Paradise, looked almost on Eve herself.
She was rather slight, tall, and growing fuller slowly every year, like
one in whom growth was early, yet long, and who would wholly mature not
until near middle life. Her head, however, was perfection, even in
girlhood, not less by its proportions than its carriage: her graceful
figure bore it like the slender setting, holding up the first splendor
of the peach; a head of vital and spiritual beauty, where purity and
luxuriance, woman and mind, dwelt in harmony and joy. As she seemed ever
to be ripening, so she seemed never to have been a child, but, with
faculties and sense clear and unintimidated, she was never wanting in
modesty, nor accused of want of self-possession. Judge Custis made her
his reliance and pride; she never reproved his errors, nor treated them
familiarly, but settled the household by a consent which all paid to her
character alone. More than once she had appeared at the furnace mansion
when the Judge's long absence had awakened some jealousy or distrust:
"Father, please go home with me! I want you to drive me back."
The easy, self-indulgent Judge would look a slight protest, but at the
soft, spirited command; "Come, sir! you can't stay here any more,"
dismissed his companions, and took his place at the head of Princess
Anne society.
Vesta was almost a brunette, with the rich colors of her type--eyebrows
like the raven's wing, ripe, red lips, and hair whose darkness and
length, released from the crown into which she wound it, might have spun
her garments. Her eyes were of a steel-blue, in which the lights had the
effect of black. She was dark with sky breaking through, like the rich
dusk and twilights over the Chesapeake.
People wondered that, with such beauty, ease, and accomplishments she
was not proud; but her pride was too ethereal to be seen. It was not the
vain consciousness of gifts and endowments, but the serene sense of
worthiness, of unimpaired health, honor, and descent, which made her
kind and thoughtful to a degree only less than piety. Grateful for her
social rank and parentage, she adorned but did not forget them. The
suitors who came for her were weighed in this scale of perfect
desert--to be sons of such parents and associates of her married sisters
and sisters-in-law. Not one had survived the test, yet none knew where
he failed.
"Vesta is too good for any of them," exclaimed the Judge, on more than
one occasion. "When I get the furnace in such shape that it will run
itself I will take my daughter to Europe and give her a musical
education."
In truth, the Judge had expectations of his daughter; for the reputation
he had attained as a manufacturer was not without its drawbacks. He
maintained two establishments; he supported a large body of laborers and
dependents, some of whom he had brought from distant places under
contract; the experiment in which he had embarked was still an
experiment, and he was subject to the knowledge and judgment of his
manager, being himself rather the patron than the manufacturer at the
works. Many days, when he was supposed to be testing the percentage and
mixture of his ores, he was gunning off on the ocean bars, crabbing on
Whollop's Beach, or hunting up questionable company among the forest
girls, or around the oystermen's or wrecker's cabins. He had plenty of
property and family endorsers, however, and seldom failed to have a
satisfactory interview with Meshach Milburn, who was now assisting him,
at least once a quarter, to keep both principal and interest at home.
The Judge had grown thicker with Meshach, but the storekeeper merely
listened and assented, and took no pains to incur another criticism on
his motives. Meshach wore his great hat, as ever, to church and on
festive days, and it was still derided, and held to be the town wonder.
Vesta Custis often saw the odd little man come into church while she was
singing, and she fancied that his large, coarse ears were turned to
receive the music she was making, and she faintly remembered that once
she had held in her hands that wonderful hat with its copper buckle in
the band, and stiff, wide brim, flowing in a wave. More than that she
knew nothing, except that the wearer was an humble-born, grasping
creature--a forester without social propensities, or, indeed, any human
attachments. The negro who abode under his roof was beloved, compared to
the sordid master, and all testimony concurred that Meshach Milburn
deserved neither commiseration, friendship, nor recognition. Her father,
however, indulgent in all things, said the money-lender had a good mind,
and was no serf.
Milburn had ceased to deal with negroes or dispense drams. His wealth
was now known to be more than considerable. He had ceased, also, to lend
money on the surrounding farms, and rumors came across the bay that he
was a holder of stocks and mortgages on the Western Shore, and in
Baltimore and Pennsylvania. The little town of Princess Anne was full of
speculations about him, and even his age was uncertain; Jack Wonnell had
measured it by hats. Said Jack:
"I bought my bell-crowns the year ole Milburn's daddy and mammy died.
They died of the bilious out yer in Nassawongo, within a few days of
each other. Now, I wear two bell-crowns a year. I come out every Fourth
of July and Christmas. 'Tother day I counted what was left, and I
reckoned that Meshach couldn't be forty-five at the wust."
Vesta Custis was only twenty years old when the townsfolk thought she
must be twenty-five, so long had she been the beauty of Somerset. Her
mother had always looked with apprehension on the possible time when her
daughter would marry and leave her; for Judge Custis had long ceased to
have the full confidence of his lady, whose fortune he had embarked
without return on ventures still in doubt, and he always waived the
subject when it was broached, or remarked that no loss was possible in
his hands while Mrs. Custis lived.
CHAPTER III.
THE FORESTERS.
One Saturday afternoon in October Meshach Milburn drew out his razor,
cup, and hone, and prepared to shave, albeit his beard was never more
than harmless down. By a sort of capillary attraction Samson Hat divined
his purpose, and, opening the big green chest, brought out the
mysterious hat.
"Put it down!" commanded the money-lender. "Go out and hire me a
carriage with two horses--_two_ horses, do you mind!"
Samson dropped the hat in wonderment.
"Make yourself decent," added Meshach; "I want you to drive. Go with me,
and keep with me: do you understand?"
"Yes, marster."
When the negro departed, Meshach himself took up the tall, green,
buckled hat, with the stiff, broad, piratical brim. He looked it over
long and hard.
"Vanity, vanity!" he murmured, "vanity and habit! I dare not disown thee
now, because they give thee ridicule, and without thee they would give
me nothing but hate!"
The people around the tavern and court-house saw, with surprise too
great for jeering, the note-shaver go past in a carriage, driven by his
negro, and with two horses! Jack Wonnell took off his shining beaver to
cheer. As the phenomenal team receded, the old cry ran, however, down
the stilly street: "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's loose!"
The carriage proceeded out the forest road, and soon entered upon the
sandy, pine-slashed region called Hard-scrabble, or Hardship.
Here the roads were sandy as the hummocks and hills in the rear of a sea
beach, and the low, lean pines covered the swells and ridges, while in
occasional level basins, where the stiff clay was exposed, some
forester's unpainted hut sat black and smoking on the slope, without a
window-pane, an ornament, or anything to relieve life from its monotony
and isolation.
But where the rills ran off to the continuous swamps the leafage started
up in splendrous versatility. The maple stood revealed in all its fair,
light harmonies. The magnolia drooped its ivory tassels, and scented the
forest with perfume. The kalmia and the alder gave undergrowth and
brilliancy to the foliage. Hoary and green with precipitate old age, the
cypress-trees stood in moisture, and drooped their venerable beards from
angular branches, the bald cypress overhanging its evergreen kinsman,