The Entailed Hat | Page 3

a
merchant or storekeeper, and did deal in various kinds of things,
keeping no clerk or attendant but a negro named Samson, who knew as
little about his mind and affections as the rest of the town. Samson's
business was to clean and produce the mysterious hat, which he knew
to be required every time he saw his master shave.
As soon as the lather-cup and hone were agitated, Samson, without
inquiry, went into a big green chest in the bedroom over the old
wooden store, and drew out of a leather hat-box the steeple-crown,
where Meshach Milburn himself always sacredly replaced it. Then
"Samson Hat," as the boys called him, exercised his brush vigorously,
and put the queer old head-gear in as formal shape as possible, and he
silently attended to its rehabilitation through the medium of the village
hatter, never leaving the shop until the tile had been repaired, and
suffering none whatever to handle it except the mechanic. In addition to
this, Samson cooked his master's food, and performed rough work
around the store, but had no other known qualification for a
confidential servant except his bodily power.
He was now old, probably sixty, but still a most formidable pugilist;
and he had caught, running afoot, the last wild deer in the county.
Though not a drinking man Samson Hat never let a year pass without
having a personal battle with some young, willing, and powerful negro.

His physical and mental system seemed to require some such periodical
indulgence, and he measured every negro who came to town solely in
the light of his prowess. At the appearance of some Herculean or
clean-chested athlete, Samson's eye would kindle, his smile start up,
and his friendly salutation would be: "You're a good man! 'Most as
good as me!" He was never whipped, rumor said, but by an inoffensive
black class-leader whom he challenged and compelled to fight.
"Befo' God, man, I never see you befo'! I'se jined de church! I kint fight!
I never didn't do it!"
"Can't help it, brother!" answered Samson. "You're too good a man to
go froo Somerset County. Square off or you'll ketch it!"
"Den if I must I must! de Lord forgive me!" and after a tremendous
battle the class-leader came off nearly conqueror.
Whenever Samson indulged his gladiatorial propensities he
disappeared into the forest whence he came, and being a free man of
mental independence equal to his nerve, he merely waited in his lonely
cabin until Meshach Milburn sent him word to return. Then silently the
old negro resumed his place, looked contrition, took the few bitter,
overbearing words of his master silently, and brushed the ancient hat.
Meshach kept him respectably dressed, but paid him no wages; the
negro had what he wanted, but wanted little; on more than one occasion
the court had imposed penalties on Samson's breaches of the peace, and
he lay in jail, unsolicitous and proud, until Meshach Milburn paid the
fine, which he did grudgingly; for money was Meshach's sole pursuit,
and he spent nothing upon himself.
Without a vice, it appeared that Meshach Milburn had not an emotion,
hardly a virtue. He had neither pity nor curiosity, visitors nor friends,
professions nor apologies. Two or three times he had been summoned
on a jury, when he put on his best suit and his steeple-crown, and
formally went through his task. He attended the Episcopal worship
every Sunday and great holiday, wearing inevitably the ancient tile,
which often of itself drew audience more than the sermon. He gave a

very small sum of money and took a cheap pew, and read from his
prayer-book many admonitions he did not follow.
He was not litigious, but there was no evading the perfectness of his
contracts. His searching and large hazel eyes, almost proud and quite
unkindly, and his Indian-like hair, were the leading elements of a face
not large, but appearing so, as if the buried will of some long frivolous
family had been restored and concentrated in this man and had given a
bilious power to his brows and jaws and glances.
His eccentricity had no apparent harmony with anything else nor any
especial sensibility about it. The boys hooted his hat, and the little girls
often joined in, crying "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's loose!"
But he paid no attention to anybody, until once, at court time, some
carousing fellows hired Jack Wonnell to walk up to Meshach Milburn
and ask to swap a new bell-crown for the old decrepit steeple-top.
Looking at Wonnell sternly in the face, Meshach hissed, "You
miserable vagrant! Nature meant you to go bareheaded. Beware when
you speak to me again!"
"I was afraid of him," said Jack Wonnell, afterwards. "He seemed to
have a loaded pistol in each