The Entailed Hat Part 99

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 pa.s.sed away.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the original ma.n.u.script a circ.u.mstantial 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 _const.i.tutional_ 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and the West Indies, and two years later the prohibition was extended to Maryland and Virginia, and it never was repealed, and in 1793 the first penalties were enacted against kidnappers."--_Letter of Hon.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 Dougla.s.s, 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 circ.u.mstantial 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."