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Ole Meshach's hat has made more hokey-pokey than the Bank of Somerset. Pore an' foolish as you air, maybe your ole bell-crowns will ruin you."
Jack Wonnell, wearing one of the new bell-crowns, and barefooted, and looking like a vagrant who had tried on a militia grenadier's imposing bearskin hat, let off this irrelevant addendum: "Ole Milbun's gwyn to see a gal. Fust time a man changes his regler course wilently, it's a gal. I went into my bell-crowns to git a gal. Milbun's gwyn get a gal out yonda in forest.
Said Jack: "I bought my bell-crowns the year ole Milburn's daddy and mammy died. They died of the bilious out yer in Nassawongo, within a few days of each other. Now, I wear two bell-crowns a year. I come out every Fourth of July and Christmas. 'Tother day I counted what was left, and I reckoned that Meshach couldn't be forty-five at the wust."
Milburn had been willing to be hated for his hat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more so that he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of the steeple-top.
"Jack," he said, "I'm a-going to find Levin an' that nigger trader. I may git in a peck of trouble up yonder on the Nanticoke. Tell all the pungy men whair I'm a-goin', an' what fur." "Can't I do somethin' fur you, Jimmy? Can't I give you one o' my bell-crowns; thair's a-plenty of 'em left." "Take my advice, Jack, an' tie a stone to all them hats and sink' em in the Manokin.
The hero of the bell-crowns was much affected, and Levin thought he really was whimpering, though his vacant grin was a poor frame for grief. "Jack," said Levin, "if what Roxy Custis told is true, the gal is the slave of your pertickler enemy, Meshach Milburn."
"Roxy'll burn all the bell-crowns for her beau, and I'll bury the steeple-hat and you that cleans it, and the people will be so glad they'll set me free and I can go North." "Look out, Virgie; I'll put dat high-crown hat on you like Marster Milburn put de bell on de buzzard.
If he know'd I was in love with little Roxy he'd marry her to a nigger." "What makes him hate you so, Jack?" "Becaze I wears my bell-crowns, and he wears the steeple-top hat. He thinks I'm a-mockin' of him. Levin, I ain't got no other kind of hat to wear. Meshach Milburn needn't wear that air hat, but if I don't wear a bell-crown I must go bareheaded.
I bought that lot of hats with the only dollar or two I ever had, as they say a fool an' his money is soon parted. The boys said they was dirt cheap. Now there wouldn't be nothin' to see wrong in my bell-crowns, ef all the people wasn't pintin' at ole Milburn's Entail Hat, as they call it. Why can't he, rich as a Jew, go buy a new hat, or buy me one? I don't want to mock him. I'm afeard of him!
"I 'spect I will have to go to the pore-house some day, Levin; my ole aunt, who takes keer of me, can't live long, an' I ain't good fur nothin'. I can't git no jobs and I run arrands for everybody fur nothin', but the first money I git I'm gwyn to buy a new hat with. Ever sence I wore these bell-crowns Meshach hates me, an' I hope he's the only man that does hate me, Levin.
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