The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
even his enemies admired, but a railroad built along one man's spine and
terminated by a steeple depot on his head must wear out the unrelieved
individual at last.
The banks in Baltimore began to break; fierce riots ensued; the state
debt had mounted up, through aid to public works, to fifteen million
dollars; the Eastern Shore Railroad obtained, too late, the vote of the
subsidy expected, and the state treasurer could not find funds to pay
it.
The gazettes announced the failure of Meshach Milburn, Esq., of the
Eastern Shore.
Without an instant's hesitation, Vesta surrendered her own property, and
she and Rhoda Custis opened a select school in a part of Teackle Hall,
and let the remainder for residences.
"Why do you make this sacrifice?" asked her husband; "nobody expected
it."
"They may say we were married to protect my parents," Vesta answered,
"but not that it was to secure myself. My boy shall have a clear name."
His failure ended the active life of Meshach Milburn; too considerate of
his family to renew his former low endeavors, he became a clerk in the
county offices, through Judge Custis's influence, and wore his hat to
stipendiary labor with the regularity, but not the rebellious instincts,
of old days, becoming, instead, the victim of a certain religious trance
or apathy, which deepened with time.
Vesta saw that Milburn's misfortune extinguished the last remnant of
animosity in her father's mind, and the two men went about together,
like two old boys who had both been prisoners of war, and were cured of
ambition.
Milburn resumed his forest walks and bird-tamings, all traces of
ambition left his countenance, and he was as dead to business things as
if he had never risen above his forest origin.
He often talked of William Tilghman, and seemed to wish to see him,
though for no apparent purpose.
The Asiatic cholera, having begun to make annual visits to the United
States, singled out, one day, the wearer of the obsolete hat, and put to
the sternest test of affection and humanity the household at Teackle
Hall.
Whether from the respect his steady purposes had given them, or the
natural devotion in a sequestered society, no soul left his side.
But it brought the final visitation of poverty upon Vesta. Her school
was broken up in a day. She dismissed it herself, and calmly sat by her
husband's bed, to soothe his dying weakness, and await the providence of
God.
He rapidly passed through the stages of cramp and collapse, a nearly
perished pulse, and the cadaverous look of one already dead, yet his
intellect by the law of the disease, lived unimpaired.
"The stream cannot rise above the fountain," he spoke, huskily; "all we
can get from life is love. My darling, you have showered it on me, and
been thirsty all your days."
"I have been happy in my duty," Vesta said; "you have been kind to me
always. We have nothing to regret."
He wandered a little, though he looked at her, and seemed thinking of
his mother.
"Where can we go?" he muttered, pitifully; "I burned the dear old hut
down. It would have been a roof for my boy."
His chin trembled, as if he were about to cry, and sighed:
"Fader an' mammy's quarrelled; the mocking-bird won't sing. Ride for the
doctor! ride hard! Oh! oh! too late, little chillen! They'se both
dead!"
He returned to perfect knowledge in a moment, and fixed his eyes on
Vesta, saying,
"I leave you poor. I tried hard. Perhaps--"
His eye was here arrested by some conflict at the door, where Aunt
Hominy, notwithstanding her imperfect wits, was striving to keep guard.
"De debbil's measurin' him in! Measurin' him in at las'!" the old woman
said; "Miss Vessy's 'mos' free!"
"Admit me!" spoke a clear, familiar voice, "I must see him. Mr. Clayton
has won the lawsuit, and two hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars
damages! Cousin Meshach is rich again."
"That friendly voice," spoke Meshach, with a happy light in his eyes;
"oh, I wanted to hear it again!"
Yet he put his hand up with all his little strength to push away the
intruder, who would have kissed him, and whispered,
"No. The cholera!"
"It's the bishop, uncle!" cried Mrs. Custis; "Bishop Tilghman, from the
West."
"Don't I know him," Milburn whispered, with sinking voice and powers.
"Honest man! Bishop of our church! Bishop in the free West! God bless
him!"
He was lost again, as if he had fainted, for some time, and, all
kneeling, the young bishop made a prayer.
When they arose Milburn seemed speechless, yet he tried to raise his
hand, and, Vesta coming to his aid, his long, lean fingers closed around
hers, and he signalled to William Tilghman with his eyes.
The bishop came near, and, by a painful effort, Milburn put his wife's
hand in her cousin's. His lips framed a word without a sound:
"_Restitution._"
"Glory to God!" suddenly exclaimed Grandmother Tilghman, who seemed to
see without sight all that was going on.
"I knew it would be so, if both would wait," sighed Rhoda to her
husband, through her tears.
There was still something on Milburn's mind, though he was unable to
explain it. Every attempt was made to interpret his want, but in vain,
till Aunt Hominy broke the silence by mumbling:
"He want dat debbil's hat!"
Vesta saw her husband's eyes twinkle as if he had heard the word, and it
gave her a thought. She left the room, and returned with her boy, a fine
young fellow, obedient to her wish. In his hand was his father's hat.
"What will you do if papa leaves us, Custis?" Vesta spoke, loudly, so
that the dying man could hear.
"I will wear my forefather's hat, papa!" said the child.
The dying man drooped his eyes, as if to say "No," and looked fervently
at his son and wearily at the old headpiece.
Vesta placed it on his pillow, and waited to know his next wish.
He made a sign, which they interpreted to mean,
"Lift me!"
He was lifted up, livid as the dead, and raised his eyes towards his
forehead.
His wife set the Entailed Hat upon his temples.
"Bury it!" he said, in a distinct whisper, and passed away.
THE END.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the original manuscript a circumstantial story, as taken from
Milburn's lips, was preserved. The "Tales of a Hat" may be separately
published.
[2] "Slavery, in the State of Delaware, never had any _constitutional_
recognition. It existed in the colonial period by custom, as over the
whole country, but subject to be regulated or abolished by simple
legislative enactment. Very early the State of Delaware undertook its
regulation, with the view of securing the personal and individual rights
of the persons so held in bondage, and to prevent the increase by
importation. In 1787 the export of Delaware slaves was forbidden to the
Carolinas, Georgia, and the West Indies, and two years later the
prohibition was extended to Maryland and Virginia, and it never was
repealed, and in 1793 the first penalties were enacted against
kidnappers."--_Letter of Hon. N. B. Smithers to the Author._
[3] The skull of Ebenezer Johnson can be seen at Fowler & Wells' Museum,
New York, with the bullet-hole through it. There, also, are the skulls
of Patty and Betty Cannon.
[4] At this point the second episode, telling the descent of the
Entailed Hat from Raleigh to Anne Hutchinson, is omitted, to shorten the
book.
[5] Frederick Douglass, afterwards Marshal of the District of Columbia,
was at this time a slave boy twelve years old, living about twenty miles
from the scene of this conversation.
[6] The Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia occurred a year or
thereabout later than this time.
[7] The origin of Patty Cannon is in doubt; a pamphlet published near
her time gives it as above, with strong circumstantial embellishments,
yet there are neighbors who say she was of Delaware and Maryland
stock--a Baker and a Moore. The weight of tradition is the other way.
[8] This incident is fully related in "Niles's Register" of April 25,
1829 (No. 919 of the full series), page 144, where also is a
contemporary account of Patty Cannon's arrest. The date of the exposure
in this story is transposed from April to October. She was to have been
tried in October, but died in May, about six weeks after her arrest.
[9] Thomas Hollyday Hicks, the Union Governor of Maryland in 1861, was
at the date of these events member elect to the Legislature from the
neighborhood of Patty Cannon's operations, and was thirty-one years old.
Lanman's "Dictionary of Congress" says: "He worked on his father's farm
when a boy, and served as constable and sheriff of his county."
[10] See "Niles's Register," 1826.
[11] See "Niles's Register," 1820, for two long accounts of this crime,
saying, "One of them, Perry Hutton, a native of Delaware, formerly a
well-known stage-driver, who lately broke jail at Richmond, where he had
been committed for kidnapping." See, also, "Scharf's Baltimore
Chronicles," pp. 398, 399.
[12] "Niles's Register," 1823.
[13] Spanish proverb: "Little beard, little shame."
[14] This case is related in the "Life of Benjamin Lundy."
[15] A case actually like this, happening twenty-five years later, was
related to me by Judge George P. Fisher, of Dover.
[16] See the case of Whitecar in the Delaware reports.
[17] I take the following note from the _New York Tribune_ of December,
1882: "The town of Richmond, Ind., is said to be the centre of Quakerdom
in this country, and has five meetings in the two creeds of Fox and
Hicks, and the Earlham Quaker College. There I saw the large,
fur-covered white hats, a few of which are still left, which were
imported into Indiana by the North Carolina Quakers from 'Beard's Hatter
Shop,' an extinct locality in the North State, where the Quakers were
prolific, and they all ordered these marvellous hats, which are said to
be literally _entailed_, being incapable of wearing out, and as good for
the grandson as for the pioneer. They are made of beaver-skin or its
imitation in some other fur."
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