The Entailed Hat | Page 4

eye."
No other incident, beyond indiscriminate ridicule, was recorded of this
hat, except once, when a group of little children in front of Judge
Custis's house began to whisper and titter, and one, bolder than the rest,
the Judge's daughter, gravely walked up to the unsocial man; it was the
first of May, and he was in his best suit:
"Sir," she said, "may I put a rose in your old hat?"
The harsh man looked down at the little queenly child, standing straight
and slender, with an expression on her face of composure and courtesy.
Then he looked up and over the Judge's residence to see if any
mischievous or presuming person had prompted this act. No one was in
sight, and the other children had run away.
"Why do you offer me a flower?" he said, but with no tenderness.

"Because I thought such a very old hat might improve with a rose."
He hesitated a minute. The little girl, as if well-born, received his
strong stare steadily. He took off the venerable old head-gear, and put it
in the pretty maid's hand. She fixed a white rose to it, and then he
placed the hat and rose again on his head and took a small piece of gold
from his pocket.
"Will you take this?"
"My father will not let me, sir!"
Meshach Milburn replaced the coin and said nothing else, but walked
down the streets, amid more than the usual simpering, and the
weather-beaten door of the little rickety storehouse closed behind him.
CHAPTER II.
JUDGE AND DAUGHTER.
Judge Custis was the most important man in the county. He belonged to
the oldest colonial family of distinction, the Custises of Northampton,
whose fortune, beginning with King Charles II. and his tavern credits in
Rotterdam, ended in endowing Colonel George Washington with a
widow's mite. The Judge at Princess Anne was the most handsome man,
the father of the finest family of sons and daughters, the best in estate,
most various in knowledge, and the most convivial of Custises.
In that region of the Eastern Shore there is so little diversity of
productions, the ocean and the loam alone contributing to man, that
Judge Custis had an exaggerated reputation as a mineralogist.
He had begun to manufacture iron out of the bog ores found in the
swamps and hummocks of a neighboring district, and, with the tastes of
a landholding and slaveholding family, had erected around his furnace
a considerable town, his own residence as proprietor conspicuous in the
midst. There he spent a large part of the time, and not always in the
company of his family, entertaining friends from the distant cities,

enjoying the luxuries of terrapin, duck, and wines, and, as rumor said in
the forest, all the pleasures of a Russian or German nobleman on a
secluded estate.
He could lie down on the ground with the barefooted foresters, equal
and familiar with them, and carry off their suffrages for the State
Senate or the Assembly. In Princess Anne he was more discriminating,
rising in that society to his family stature, and surrounded by alliances
which demanded what is called "bearing." In short, he was the head of
the community, and his wealth, originally considerable, had been
augmented by marriage, while his credit extended to Philadelphia and
Baltimore.
Not long after the occurrence of his young daughter, Vesta, placing the
rose in Meshach Milburn's mysterious hat, Judge Custis said to his lady
at the breakfast-table:
"That man has been allowed to shut himself in, like a dog, too long. He
owes something to this community. I'll go down to his kennel, under
pretence of wanting a loan--and I do need some money for the
furnace!"
He took his cane after breakfast and passed out of his large mansion,
and down the sidewalk of the level street. There were, as usually, some
negroes around Milburn's small, weather-stained store, and Samson Hat,
among them, shook hands with the Judge, not a particle disturbed at the
latter's condescension.
"Judge," said Samson, looking that large, portly gentleman over,
"you'se a good man yet. But de flesh is a little soft in yo' muscle,
Judge."
"Ah! Samson," answered Custis, "there's one old fellow that is
wrastling you."
"Time?" said the negro; "we can't fight him, sho! Dat's a fack! But I'm
good as any man in Somerset now."

"Except my daughter's boy, the class-leader from Talbot."
"Is dat boy in yo' family," exclaimed Samson, kindling up. "I'll walk
dar if he'll give me another throw."
The Judge passed into the wide-open door of Meshach Milburn's store.
A few negroes and poor whites were at the counter, and Meshach was
measuring whiskey out to them by the cheap dram in exchange for
coonskins and eggs. He looked up, just a trifle surprised