"
"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! He looks at me with them loaded pistols of eyes an' it mos' makes
me cry, becaze I ain't done nothin'. I'm as pore as them trash ducks,"
pointing to a brace of dippers, which were of no value in the market,
"but I ain't got no malice."
"No, Jack. That trader could give you that bag of gold to keep and it
would be safe, becaze it wasn't your own."
"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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