The Entailed Hat | Page 8

level basins, where the stiff clay was exposed, some

forester's unpainted hut sat black and smoking on the slope, without a
window-pane, an ornament, or anything to relieve life from its
monotony and isolation.
But where the rills ran off to the continuous swamps the leafage started
up in splendrous versatility. The maple stood revealed in all its fair,
light harmonies. The magnolia drooped its ivory tassels, and scented
the forest with perfume. The kalmia and the alder gave undergrowth
and brilliancy to the foliage. Hoary and green with precipitate old age,
the cypress-trees stood in moisture, and drooped their venerable beards
from angular branches, the bald cypress overhanging its evergreen
kinsman, and looking down upon the swamp-woods in autumn, like
some hermit artist on the rich pigments on his palette.
But nothing looked so noble as the sweet gum, which rose like a giant
plume of yellow and orange, a chief in joyous finery, where the cypress
was only a faded philosopher.
Beside such a tall gum-tree Samson Hat reined in, where a well-spring
shone at the bottom of a hollow cypress. He borrowed a bucket from
the hut across the road, and watered the horses.
"Marster," ventured the negro, "dey say your gran'daddy sot dis
spring."
"Yes," said Milburn, "and built the cabin. Yonder he lies, on the knoll
by that stump, up in the field: he and more of our wasted race."
"And yon woman is a Milburn," added the negro, socially. "I know her
by de hands."
The barefoot woman living in the cabin--one room and a loft, and the
floor but a few inches above the ground--cried out, impudently:
"If I could have two horses I'd buy a better hat!"
Milburn did not answer, but marked the poor, small corn ears
ungathered on the fodderless stalks, the shrubs of peach-trees, of which

the largest grew on his ancestors' graves, the little cart for one horse or
ox, which was at once family carriage and farm wagon, and the few
pigs and chickens of stunted breeds around the woman's feet.
"Drive on, boy," he exclaimed; "the worst of all is that these people are
happy!"
"Dat's a fack, marster," laughed Samson Hat. "Dey wouldn't speak to
you in Princess Anne. Dey think everybody's proud and rich dar."
"Here the sea once dashed its billows on a bar," said Meshach Milburn,
reflectively. "That geology book relates it! From the North the
hummocks recede in waves, where successive beaches were formed as
the sea slowly retreated. Hardly deeper than a human grave they strike
water, below the sand and gravel. Below the water they drink is nothing
but black mud, made of coarse, decayed grass. No lime is in the soil.
Not a mineral exists in all this low, wave-made peninsula, where my
people were shipwrecked--except the wonderful bog ores."
The negro's genial, wondering nature broke out with comfortable
assurance.
"Dat must be in de Bible," he said. "Marster, de Milburns been heah so
long, dey must hab got shipwrecked wid ole Noah!"
"All families are shipwrecked," absently replied Meshach, "who cast
their lot upon an unrewarding land, and growing poorer, darker, down,
from generation to generation, can never leave it, and, at last, can never
desire to go."
"Marster, dar is one got to go some ob dese days. It's me--pore ole
Samson!"
"Ha! has some one set you on to demand your wages?"
"No, marster, I am old. It's you dat I'm troubled about! Dar's none to
mend for you, cook for you, cure yo' sickness, or lay you in de grave."

No more was said until they passed the settled part of the forest and
entered one of the many straight aisles of sky and sand among the pines,
which had been opened on the great furnace tract of Judge Custis. He
had here several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were cleft
towards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered the
furnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doors
of many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbidding
mill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetable
creation, and above the surface, on splayed and conical mud-washed
roots, the hundreds of strong cypresses towered from the water.
Between the steep banks of dark-colored pines, taller than the forest
growth, this furnace lake lay black and white and burning red as the
shadows, or moonrise, or flames struck upon it, and the stained water
foamed through the breast or dam where the ancient road crossed
between pines, cypresses and gum-trees of commanding stature.
Tawny, slimy, chilly, and solemn, the pond repeated the forms of the
groves it submerged; the shaggy shadows added depth and dread to the
effect; some strange birds hooted as they dipped