'Twon't hurt you, gal! I'll sprinkle ye fust
wid camomile an' witch-hazel dat I keep up on de chimney-jamb."
Aunt Hominy turned towards the broadly notched chimney sides, where
fifty articles of negro pharmacy were kept--bunches of herbs, dried
peppers, bladders of seeds, and bottles of every mystic potency.
"Aunty," answered Virgie, "if I wasn't afraid of that Bad Man, I would
be afraid to move that hat, because Miss Vessy would be mortified.
Think of her seeing me treating a visitor's things like that. Why, I'd
rather be sold!"
"Dat hat," persisted Aunt Hominy, "is de ruin ob dis family. Dat hat,
gals, de debbil giv' ole Meshach, an' made him wear it fo' de gift ob
gittin' all de gole in Somerset County. Don't I know when he wore it
fust? Dat was when he begun to git all de gole. Fo' dat he had been po'
as a lizzer, sellin' to niggers, cookin' fo' heseff, an' no' count,
nohow. He sot up in de loft of his ole sto' readin' de Bible upside down
to git de debbil's frenship. De debbil come in one night, and says to
ole Meshach: 'Yer's my hat! Go, take it, honey, and measure land wid it,
and all de land you measure is yo's, honey!' An' Meshach's measured mos'
all dis county in. Jedge Custis's land is de last."
The relation affected both girls considerably, and the group of little
colored boys and girls still more, who came up almost chilled with
terror, to listen; but it produced the greatest effect on Aunt Hominy
herself, whose imagination, widened in the effort, excited all her own
fears, and gave irresistible vividness to her legend.
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