The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
stately tide, and bearing up to Cannon's Ferry fish-boats and pungies,
Yankee schooners and woodscows, and the signs of life, however lowly,
that floated in blue smoke from many hearths, or sounded in oars,
rigging, and lading, seemed to Hulda human joy and power, and she cried
to Levin:
"Levin, oh, look! Did you ever see as big a place as this? Yonder is the
road to Seaford, just as far as we have come! The big ships are taking
corn for West Indies, and bringing sugar and molasses. That is the ferry
scow, and on the other side it is only five miles to Laurel."
"Do you like to travel that road?" asked the Captain, with his pleasing
lisp and blush returned again.
"It makes me sad," replied Hulda; "but I do not mutter when I go past
the spot, like grandma."
"What spot?" asked Levin.
"Where father killed the traveller," Hulda said. "He died shamefully for
it. You could almost see the place but for yonder woods, where the road
to Laurel climbs the sandy hill."
"What's this?" said Van Dorn, seeing a little crowd around one of the
single-story cabins, and turning his team into the parallel street.
A very tall, grand-looking man towered above the rest, and seemed unable
to stand upright in the low cottage, with his proportions, so that he
took his place on the grassy sand without and gave his directions to
some one within:
"Levy on the spinning-wheel! Simplify the equation! Stand by your _fi.
fa.!_ Don't be chicken-hearted, constable--she's had the equivalent; now
she sees the quotient, too."
Van Dorn looked on and saw a spinning-wheel come out of the door, and a
little wool in a bag after it. Jacob Cannon put his foot on the wheel
and poked his head in the door.
"I see an axe and a coffee-mill there, constable: levy onto 'em with
your _distringas. Experientia docet stultos!_ Pass out that pair of
shoes!"
A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leaped
out to look.
Hulda also stepped down and disappeared.
A woman, barely able to stand up, and white as illness and anguish could
make her, had staggered to the door to beg that her shoes be given back,
and pointed to her naked feet.
"Now she's off the bed, levy on that!" cried the military figure with
the long, eloquent face and twinkling eyes; "shove it out the window.
Mind your _fi. fa._ and I'll take care of the quotient."
"Have mercy!" cried the woman; "my child was only born last week."
"Fling out that good chair there, constable. Levy on the green chest!
Don't you see a whole quilt or blanket anywhere! Allow neither tret nor
suttle when you serve a writ for Isaac and Jacob Cannon!"
"Where shall I lie with my babe?" cried the poor woman, looking around
on the naked cabin, where neither bed, nor blanket, nor chair, nor
chest, nor spinning-wheel remained.
"_Li-vari facias!_ and _fi-eri facias!_ If there's a mistake a replevin
lies, but no mistakes are made by Isaac and Jacob Cannon. Constable, I
think I see an iron pot on that crane!"
"It's got meat in it, sir--meat a-bilin'," answered the constable.
"Turn out the meat! Levy on the pot! Make the quotient accurate!
Eliminate the pot from the equation!"
Out came the pot, as the material boiling in it put out the October
fire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon's
feet.
"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man," the woman cried, "and turn the
baby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in my
breasts."
"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-looking
man with the gray silvery lights around his horsy nose; "if it's worth
taking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live single
like Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained."
A boy, with his face scratched, and dissipation settled in it, bounded
suddenly into the aghast group of spectators, and made a vicious dive to
recover the effects around Jacob Cannon's feet, but that mighty worthy
took him by the collar and, holding him up, dropped him over a fence
like a bug:
"Owen Daw, here be witnesses to an assault _insultus_, actionable as a
trespass _vi_, the quotient whereof is damages or the equivalent in
Georgetown jail. Take heed, good citizens, and especially I note you,
Captain Van Dorn."
"I'll kill him," shouted the young bully of Johnson's Cross-roads, and
late distrainer on the profile of Cyrus James, Esquire, seizing an ugly
stick.
"Justifiable as _son assault demesne_," remarked the creditor,
carelessly, as he wrenched the bobbin from the spinning-wheel and
knocked the boy down with it.
His commanding manner and the ready hand operated to abash the latter,
and, deeply pained with the scene, Levin Dennis fervently and
impulsively cried to Van Dorn:
"Oh, Captain! can't you pay her debts! I'll give all Joe's going to give
me, to pay you back. See how she lays on the bare floor! Hear her child
crying for her! Oh! I think I hear my mother's voice a-callin' of me
home as I listen to it."
Van Dorn, feeling Levin's hands grasp his own with simple confidence,
heard and did not turn his head, while blushes like roses bloomed
successively upon his fresh, effeminate cheeks. He did not repel the
boy's hands, however, but looked at the scene with worldly and unpitying
curiosity.
"To pay the distraints of Isaac and Jacob Cannon," he murmured, softly,
"would keep a poor slaver poor. You must grow accustomed to such cries:
I had to do so. Learn to love money like that merchant and me, and you
will think them music."
"Oh, when we cry to God for mercy, captain, maybe our cries will sound
like that! I can't bear to hear it."
"You told mother, Jake Cannon, when she rented this ole house," the boy,
Owen Daw, exclaimed, "that she needn't pay the rent, if she didn't want
to, till the day of judgment."
"I've got the judgment," Jacob Cannon answered, his whitish eyes seeming
to chuckle to the bridge of his nose, "and this is the day it's due. All
legal days are 'judgment days' to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
"My son, my son," the woman's voice wailed out to Owen Daw, "I see the
end of your going to Patty Cannon's: my baby to the grave, myself to the
almshouse, and you to the gallows."
"Captain, Captain," Levin cried, "oh, pay the debt for me! Mother's
never been poor as this. Pay it, and I will work fur you anywhair, dear
captain."
"How much is the debt," asked Van Dorn, lispingly.
"Ten dollars," spoke the constable, also moved to shame.
"Cannon, will you take me for it?"
"I'll take your judgment-bond or the cash, Captain Van Dorn, nothing
less."
"Put back her stuff," the captain said, slightly pressing Levin's hand,
as if to say, "This is for you"--"put back her stuff and I'll settle it
with Isaac Cannon."
"God bless you!" cried the woman, taking her babe from the cradle and
hushing its hunger at her breast; "they call you a wicked man, but
blessings on you for all the good you do!"
"_Chito! chito!_" smiled Van Dorn. "I did it for this foolish boy; I pity
none."
Hulda had resorted to the strand, or river street of Cannon's Ferry,
where there were two storehouses, and she had borrowed quill and ink,
and written a letter addressed to "Mrs. Ellenora Dennis, Princess Anne,
Somerset County, Maryland," saying:
"_Madam, Levin, your son, is near this place against his will, among
dangerous men and in great temptation, but he has found a friend. In one
week this friend will try to write again, and, if not heard from, seek
Levin Dennis at Johnson's Cross-roads_."
This letter, written with all her unproficient speed, had just been
folded, wafered, and endorsed, and she had put down one of the shillings
of 1815 to pay the postage, when a shadow fell upon the store counter,
and the letter was withdrawn from her hand; Van Dorn stood by her side.
"_Chis! chito! Es posible?_ A spy, perhaps. Now you will love Van Dorn,
or Grandma Cannon shall hear your letter read!"
"Give it to me, Captain," Hulda pleaded; "she will kill me if she reads
it."
"If it were sent, _pomarosa_, we all might die. No, you are too
dangerous."
He looked, without his blush, at the shilling she was putting back in
her bosom, and his eye was cold and fierce. Hulda's heart sank down.
"Brother Isaac," cried Jacob Cannon, to a man of fine, lean height, who
was at the desk--a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of a
king in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around the
bridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow--"Brother
Isaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debt
of the Widow O'Day, otherwise Daw."
"By cash or judgment-note, captain?"
"Cash," answered Van Dorn, modestly; "take it out of this double-eagle,
with Madam Cannon's rent for your farm."
"There's a tree--a bee-tree, Brother Jacob, I think you said--cut down
from Mrs. Cannon's field?"
"Yes, actionable under statute made and provided, wilfully to spoil or
destroy any timber or other trees, roots, shrubs, or plants; value of
said bee-tree three dollars; _levari facias!_ The quotient is
unsatisfactory to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
The eyes of the elder and smaller brother endeavored to have an
introduction to each other through the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, Brother Jacob," he chuckled, "what an executive help you air!
Captain, isn't he a perfect Marius?"
"Madam Cannon," observed the captain, "throws up the farm with this
payment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line to
son-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about."
"Brother Jacob," spoke Isaac Cannon, "Moore takes the farm! Let him be
notified that his rent commences without day."
"Execution made, Brother Isaac," answered the Marius of the family.
"This morning, perceiving Patty Cannon about to move her effects, my
bailiff seized on her plough as security for the aforesaid bee-tree
spoiled, maimed, and destroyed, and Moore is ploughing to put in his
wheat with it already. Time is money to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
"Ha, ha! what an executive comfort! Brother Jacob never adds an item to
profit and loss."
"Gentlemen," said Van Dorn, "I recommend you not to be charging
bee-trees to tenants in the vicinity of Johnson's Cross-roads. It's an
unusual item, and we are raising young men there who may not understand
it."
"Captain," said the elder Cannon, chuckling as if still in admiration of
Marius's subtlety, "I recollect now that our ferryman brought over a man
from Laurel this morning with some news. A woman with a broken shackle
reported there last night, and said she was the slave of Daniel Custis
of Princess Anne: she came from Broad Creek."
"Where did she go?"
"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master's
with her."
"Then she'll beat the wind," said Van Dorn; "these preachers are all
horse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see to
this."
He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda.
"Come, young people," spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin and
Hulda; "I will show you my museum."
He led the way to a warehouse overhanging the river and unlocked a door,
and told them to walk carefully till they could see in the dark of the
interior.
Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from the
shadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till the
house could hardly hold the vast aggregate of pots and kettles,
spinning-wheels and cradles, bedsteads and beds, harrows and ploughs,
chairs and gridirons, rakes and hoes, silhouettes and picture-frames,
hand-made quilts of calico and pillows of home-plucked geese feathers,
fishermen's nets and oars--whatever made the substance of living in an
old country without minerals and manufactures, in the early part of the
nineteenth century.