What with the books in the library and the life out of doors in the
afternoons, Joe Maxwell grew very fond of his new home. His work at the
printers' case was not a task, but a pleasure. He grew to be an expert
in type-setting and won unstinted praise from Mr. Snelson. Sometimes he
wrote little paragraphs of his own, crediting them to “The Countryman's
Devil,” and the editor was kind enough to make no objection, and
this fact was very encouraging to the lad, who was naturally shy and
sensitive.
Only the echoes of the war were heard at the Turner place; but once the
editor returned from Hillsborough with some very sad news for a lady who
lived near _The Countryman_ office with her father, Her husband had been
killed in one of the great battles, and her screams when the editor told
her of it, and the cries of her little daughter, haunted Joe Maxwell for
many a long day. Sometimes he lay awake at night thinking about it, and
out of the darkness it seemed to him that he could build a grim mirage
of war, vanishing and reappearing like an ominous shadow, and devouring
the people.
The war was horrible enough, distant as it was, but the people who were
left at home--the women and children, the boys, the men who were exempt,
the aged and the infirm--had fears of a fate still more terrible. They
were fears that grew out of the system of slavery, and they grew until
they became a fixed habit of the mind. They were the fears of a negro
insurrection. The whites who were left at home knew that it was in the
power of the negroes to rise and in one night sweep the strength and
substance of the Southern Confederacy from the face of the earth. Some
of the more ignorant whites lived in constant terror.
Once it was whispered around that the blacks were preparing to rise,
and the fears of the people were so ready to confirm the rumor that the
plantations were placed in a state of siege. The patrol--called by the
negroes “patter-rollers”--was doubled, and for a time the negro quarters
in all parts of the country were visited nightly by the guard. But Joe
Maxwell noticed that the patrol never visited the Turner plantation, and
he learned afterward that they had been warned off. The editor of _The
Countryman_ had the utmost confidence in his negroes, and he would not
allow them to be disturbed at night by the “patter-rollers.” He laughed
at the talk of a negro uprising, and it was a favorite saying of his
that the people who treated their negroes right had nothing to fear from
them.
[Illustration: 0073]
As for Joe Maxwell, he had no time to think about such things. He
sometimes rode with the patrol on their fruitless and sometimes foolish
errands, but his curiosity with regard to them was soon satisfied, and
he was better contented when he was spending his evenings at home with
his books, or in listening to the wonderful tales that Mr. Snelson
told for his benefit. In spite of the fact that his work in the little
printing-office was confining, the lad managed to live an outdoor life
for a good part of the time. He had a task to do--so many thousand ems
to set--and then he was through for the day. The thoughtful Mr. Snelson
added to this task from time to time, but Joe always managed to complete
it so as to have the greater part of the afternoon for his own.
There was a hat-shop on the plantation presided over by Mr. Wall, a
queer old man from North Carolina. With the thrift of youth Joe gave
the amusement of rabbit-hunting a business turn. In the fall and winter,
when the rabbits were in fur, their skins could be sold at the
hat-shop at twenty-five cents a dozen, and the little harriers were so
industrious and so well trained that he sometimes sold as many as three
dozen skins, a week. In addition to the pleasure and the money he got
from the sport, he became very much interested in the hat-shop.
The hats were made as they had been during the Revolution, and as they
were no doubt made in England before the Revolution. The hair on the
pelts or skins was scraped off with a knife fashioned like a shoemaker's
knife. The fur was then cut away with a steel blade that had no handle.
When there was enough fur to make a hat it was placed on a bench or
counter. Over the counter was suspended a long staff, to which was
fastened a bowstring. If the staff had been bent it would have had the
appearance of a huge bow, but it was straight, and the rawhide string
was allowed a little play. With an instrument not unlike a long spool
the hatter would catch the bowstring, pull it away from the staff, and
allow it to whip against the fur as it sprang back into place. This
whipping was carried on very rapidly, and was kept up until every tuft
of fur was broken apart. Then the fur was whipped gently into what was
called a bat, shaped somewhat like a section of orange peel. The hatter
then spread a cambric cloth carefully over it, pressed it down a little,
seized the cloth in the middle between thumb and forefinger, gave it a
flirt in the air and lifted fur and all. To Joe Maxwell it seemed like a
trick of magic.
The cloth, with the bat of fur lying smoothly and neatly in its fold,
was then placed on a heating box, and kneaded rapidly but gently.
When it seemed to be getting too hot it was sprinkled with water. This
kneading was kept up until the fur shrunk together. When taken from the
cloth it was in the shape of the hats the clowns used to wear in the
circus, and it was called a bonnet. The bonnet was then dipped in
boiling water and pressed and kneaded with an instrument shaped like a
rolling-pin, but smaller. The workers in this department were compelled
to protect their hands from the boiling water by means of leather
fastened to the palms of their hands. The more the bonnets were rolled
and kneaded, the more they shrunk, until finally they were ready to be
placed on the blocks that gave them the hat shape. They were fitted to
these blocks, which were of various sizes, and thrown into a caldron of
boiling water, where they were allowed to stay until they would shrink
no more.
When hats became scarce after the breaking out of the war, the editor
bought Mr. Wall's interest in the hat-shop, and made him foreman.
Several negroes were placed under him, and they soon became experts
in hat-making. There was a great demand for the hats from all over
the South, and on one occasion Joe Maxwell sold a dozen wool hats for
$500--in Confederate money.
But the most interesting thing about the shop, as Joe thought, was the
head hatter, Miles Wall, who was the quaintest old man that Joe had ever
seen. He was illiterate--he didn't know a letter in the book--and yet he
was not ignorant. The Bible had been read to him until he was grounded
in its texts and teachings, and he was always ready for an argument on
politics or religion.
[Illustration: 0076]
“Whenever you hear anybody a-axing anything,” he used to say, “'bout how
I'm a-gettin' on, an' how my family is, un' whether er no my health is
well, you thess up an' tell um that I'm a nachul Baptis'. You thess up
an' tell um that, an' I'll be mighty much erbleege to you. Tell um I'm a
born'd Baptis'.”
Although Mr. Wall was unable to read or write, Joe Maxwell found him to
be a very interesting talker. Perhaps it was his ignorance of books
that made him interesting. He was more superstitious than any of the
negroes--a great believer in signs and omens. One night when Joe went to
visit him, the old man told a story that made a very deep impression on
the lad. There was nothing in the story, but Mr. Wall identified himself
with it, and told it in a way that made it seem real, and it was a long
time before Joe could divest himself of the idea that the story was not
true. Wherever Mr. Wall got it, whether he dreamed it or heard it, there
is no doubt that he really believed it.