The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
to,' she says, swearin' like a man, an' takin' holt of me jess like a
man wrastles. I felt ashamed, an' didn't know what to do, and, befo' I
could wink, Jimmy, dat woman had give me de trip an' shoved me wid a
blow like de kick of an ox, and was a-top of my back wid a knee like
iron pinnin' of me down."
"The awful huzzy of Pangymonum!"
"De fust idee I had was dat she was a man dressed up like a woman. I
started like lightnin' to jump up, an' my legs caught each oder; she had
carried de cord to tie me under her gown, an' clued it aroun' me in a
minute. As I run at her an' fell hard, she drew de runnin' knot tight
an' danced aroun' me like a fat witch, windin' me all up in de rope. De
sweat started from my head, I yelled an' fought an' fell agin, an', as I
laid with my tongue out like a calf in de butcher's cart, she whispered
to me, 'Maybe you're de las' nigger ole Patty Cannon'll ever tie!'
"At dat name I jess prayed to de Lord, but it was too late. She put me
in de cart an' gagged me so I couldn't say a word, and blood came outen
my mouth. I heard her talkin' to people as we passed by a town an' over
a bridge. Nobody looked in de cart whar I laid kivered over, till we
come to a ferry in de night, an' dar we passed over, and I heard her
talkin' to a man on dis side of de ferry. He come to de side of de wagon
an' peeped at me, layin' helpless dar, my eyes jess a-prayin' to
him--and he had an elegant eye in his head, Jimmy. He says softly to
hisself, 'Dis is no consignment, manifes'ly, to Isaac an' Jacob Cannon,'
an' he kivered me up again, an' the woman fetched me yer, put on de
irons, and shoved me into dis hole in de garret."
"I reckon that was Isaac Cannon, t'other Levite that never sees anything
that ain't in his quoshint."
"How's the purty gals, Jimmy? I shall see' em in my dreams, I' spect, if
I _am_ sold Souf. I ain't got long to stay, nohow, Jimmy, fur I'm mos'
sixty. If you ever git out, tell my marster to buy dat gal Virgie, an'
make her free. She ain't fit to be a slave."
"Gals has their place," said Phoebus, "but not whair men has to fight
for liberty. How many fighting men are we here?"
"I 'spect you's de only one, Jimmy; we's all chained up; dese
nigger-dealers is all blacksmifs an' keeps balls, hobbles, gripes, an'
clevises, an' loads us wid iron."
"Who is that woman back yonder so quare an' still?"
"Why, Jimmy, don't you know Aunt Hominy, Jedge Custis's ole cook? Dey
brought her in dis mornin' wi' two little children outen Teackle Hall
kitchen; one of dem you give dat silver to--little Ned. Hominy ain't
said a word sence she come."
Jimmy Phoebus went back to the corner of the den where the old woman
cowered, and called her name in many different accents and with kind
assurances:
"Hominy, ole woman, don't you know Ellenory's Jimmy? Jedge Custis is
comin' for you, aunty. I'm yer to take you home."
She did not speak at all, and Phoebus lifted her without resistance
nearer to the moonlight. Her lips mumbled unintelligibly, her eyes were
dull, she did not seem to know them.
Samson crawled forward, and also called her name kindly:
"Aunt Hominy, Miss Vesty's sent fur you. Dis yer is Jimmy Phoebus."
The little boy Ned now spoke up:
"Aunt Hominy ain't spoke sence dat Quaker man killed little Phillis."
"Jimmy," solemnly whispered Samson, "Aunt Hominy's lost her mind."
"Yes," spoke up the dejected and elegant mulatto prisoner, "she's become
an idiot. They sometimes take it that way."
Phoebus bent his face close down to the poor old creature's, sitting
there in her checkered turban and silver earrings, clean and tidy as
servants of the olden time, and he studied her vacant countenance, her
tenantless eyes, her lips moving without connection or relevance, and
felt that cruelty had inflicted its last miraculous injury--whipped out
her mind from its venerable residence, and left her body yet to suffer
the pains of life without the understanding of them.
"Oh, shame! shame!" cried the sailor, tears finally falling from his
eyes, "to deceive and steal this pore, believin' intelleck! To rob the
cook of the little tin cup full o' brains she uses to git food fur bad
an' fur good folks! Why, the devils in Pangymonum wouldn't treat that a
way the kind heart that briled fur 'em."
"De long man said he was Quaker man," exclaimed Vince, the larger boy,
"an' he come to take Hominy to de free country. Hominy was sold, she
said, an' must go. De long man had a boat--Mars Dennis's boat--an' in de
night little Phillis woke up an' cried. Nobody couldn't stop her. De
long man picked little Phillis up by de leg an' mashed her skull in agin
de flo'. Aunt Hominy ain't never spoke no mo'."
"Did you hear the long man speak after that, Vince?"
"Yes, mars'r. I heerd de long man tell Mars Dennis dat if he didn't
steer de boat an' shet his mouf, he'd shoot him. I heerd de pistol go
off, but Mars Dennis wasn't killed, fur I saw him steerin' afterwards."
"Thank God!" spoke the sailor, kissing the child. "Ellenory's boy was
innocent, by smoke! That nigger-trader shot me an' threatened Levin's
life if he listened to me hailing of him. The noise I heard was the
murder of the baby, whose cries betrayed the coming of the vessel.
Samson, thar's been treachery ever sence we left Salisbury, an' that
nigger Dave's a part of it."
"He said he hated me caze I larned him to box. Maybe my fightin's been
my punishment, Jimmy, but I never struck a man a foul blow."
"And what was _your_ hokey-pokey?" the pungy captain cried to the man
who had been making so much religious din. "Did they sell you fur never
knowin' whar to stop a good thing?"
The man hoarsely explained, himself interested by the disclosures and
fraternity around him:
"I was slave to a local preacher in Delaware, an' de sexton of de
church. It was ole Barrett's chapel, up yer between Dover an'
Murderkill--de church whar Bishop Coke an' Francis Asbury fust met on de
pulpit stairs. My marster an' me was boff members of it, but he loved
money bad, an' I was to be free when I got to be twenty-five years ole,
accordin' to de will of his Quaker fader, dat left me to him. Las'
Sunday night dey had a long class-meetin' dar, an' when nobody was leff
in de church but my marster an' me, he says to me, 'Rodney, le's you an'
me have one more prayer togedder befo' you put out dat las' lamp. You
pray, Rodney!' I knelt an' prayed for marster after I must leave him to
be free next year, an', while I was prayin' loud, people crept in de
church an' tied me, and marster was gone."
"He sold you fur life to them kidnappers, boy, becaze you was goin' to
be free next year. Don't your Bible tell you to watch _an'_ pray?"
"Yes, marster."
"Well, then, boys, it's all watch to-night and no more praying," cried
Jimmy Phoebus, cheerily. "Here are four men, loving liberty, bound to
have it or die. Thar's one of' em with a knife, an' the first kidnapper
that crosses that sill, man or woman--fur we'll trust no more women,
Samson--gits the knife to the hilt! The blessed light that shone onto
Calvary an' Bunker Hill is a gleamin' on the blade. Work off your irons,
if you kin; I'll git you rafters outen this roof to jab with if you
can't do no better. Are you all with me?"
"I am, Jimmy," answered Samson, quietly.
"I'll die with ye, too," exclaimed the praying man, with rekindled
spirit.
"We will all be murdered, gentlemen," protested the dejected mulatto. "I
know these desperate people."
"Then you crawl over in the corner," Phoebus commanded, "and see three
men fight fur you. We don't want any fine buck nigger to spile his
beauty for us."
The man crawled back into the blackness of the den again, and Phoebus
began to search the open half of the garret for implements of war. He
found two long pieces of chain, with which determined men might beat out
an adversary's brains.
"Now, boys," Jimmy delivered himself, "I hain't lost my head yisterday
nor to-day neither, by smoke! I'm goin' to kill the first person that
comes yer, an' git the keys of this den from him, an' lock all of you in
fast, an' the dead kidnapper, too. Then they won't git at you to ship
you off till I kin git to Seaford, over yer in Delaware--it's not more
than six mile--whar I know three captains of pungies, and all of' em's
in port thar now--all friends of Jimmy Phoebus, all well armed, and
their crews enough to handle Pangymonum!"
A noise was heard at the lock of the lower door, and Phoebus slipped
into the enclosed den and took his station just within the door.
"Remember," he whispered, "I open the fight."
The lock snapped at the door below the step-ladder, the bolt fell, and
the light of a lamp flashed up the hatchway and upon the naked roof, and
through the cracks of the boarded garret pen.
The sailor's knife was in his belt-pouch, where he carried it over the
hip. As he leaned down to look through a crack in the low door, he felt
a hand from the gloom behind touch him.
Instinctively he felt for his knife, and it was gone.
"Captain," cried the voice of the dejected mulatto, as the door of the
pen flew open and the bandit-looking stranger appeared with the lamp,
"there's a white man here going to kill you. I've taken his knife from
him and saved your life. It's a rebellion, captain!"
"Help! Patty! Joe!" cried the man, with a loud voice, as Jimmy Phoebus
threw himself upon him and extinguished the lamp, and the two powerful
men rolled on the floor together in a grip of mortal combat.
Phoebus was a man of great power, but his antagonist was strong and
slippery, too, and a spirited rough-and-tumble fighter.
The pungy captain was on top, the bandit man locked him fast in his arms
and legs, and tried to stab him in the side, as Phoebus felt the
handle of a clasp-knife, which seemed slow to obey its spring, strike
him repeatedly all round the groin, in strokes that would have killed,
inflicted by the blade.
Phoebus attempted to drag the man to the hatchway and force him down
it, while the two negro assistants of Phoebus beat down the negro
traitor with their chains, and searched him vainly for the knife he had
filched.
At last Phoebus prevailed, and his antagonist rolled down the open
hatchway, seven feet or more, still keeping his desperate hold on
Phoebus, and dragging him along; and both might have cracked their
skulls but for a woman just in the act of hurrying up the ladder,
against whom their two bodies pitched and were cushioned upon her.
The shock, however, stunned both of them, and when Phoebus recollected
himself he was tied hand and foot and lying on the garret floor again,
and over him stood Joe Johnson, flourishing a cowhide.
The bandages had again been torn from Phoebus's face, and he was
bleeding at the flesh-wound in his cheek, and breathless from his
conflict. A woman had dashed a vessel of water into his face, and this
had revived him.
The other man, called "captain," had, meantime, by the aid of this
woman--the same Phoebus had seen down-stairs--subdued and tied the
black insurgents, and both of them were flourishing their whips over the
backs and heads of the prisoners, big and little, so that the garret was
no slight reflection of the place of eternal torment, as the shadows of
the monsters, under the weak light, whipped and danced against the beams
and shingles, and shrieks and shouts of "Mercy!" blended in hideous
dissonance.
The woman now turned her lamp on the sailor's rough, swarthy, injured
countenance, and looked him over out of her dark, bold eyes:
"Joe, this is a nigger, by God!"
Johnson and the captain also examined him carefully, and, uttering an
oath, the former kicked the prostrate man with his heavy boot.
"I popped this bloke last night," he said, "and thought the scold's cure