"Did it hurt ye, honey?" inquired Aunt Hominy, with her eyes full of
excitement, referring to the hat.
"'Deed I don't know, aunty," Virgie answered; "all I saw was Miss Vessy,
looking away from me, as if she might be going to be ashamed of me, an'
I picked the thing up an' took it to the rack; an' all I know is, it
smelled old, like some of the old-clothes chests up in the garret, when
we lift the lid and peep in, an' it seems as if they were dead people's
clothes."
The little negroes, Ned, Vince, and Phillis, heard this with shining
eyes, and dived their heads under Aunt Hominy's skirts and apron, while
the old woman exclaimed:
"De Lord a massy!" and began to blow what she called "pow-pow" on the
girl's profaned fingers.
"I don't believe it's anything, aunty, but an ugly, old, nasty, dead
folks' hat," exclaimed Virgie. "He just wears it to plague people. He
was drinking tea just like Miss Vessy, but I thought his teeth chattered
a little, as if he had smelt of the old hat, and it give him a chill."
"Where did he get the hat, Aunt Hominy?" Roxy asked. "Did he dig it up
somewhere?"
The question seemed to spur the cook's easy invention, and, after a
cunning yet credulous look up and down the large kitchen, where the pale
light at the windows was invisible in the stronger fire beneath the
great stack chimney, Aunt Hominy whispered:
"He dug dat hat up in ole Rehoboff ruined churchyard.
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