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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15826-h.zip b/15826-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6ef3af --- /dev/null +++ b/15826-h.zip diff --git a/15826-h/15826-h.htm b/15826-h/15826-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fc9237 --- /dev/null +++ b/15826-h/15826-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2357 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration, by Leona Dalrymple</title> +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + + +</STYLE> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration, by Leona +Dalrymple, Illustrated by Charles L. Wrenn</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration</p> +<p>Author: Leona Dalrymple</p> +<p>Release Date: May 15, 2005 [eBook #15826]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION***</p> +<br><br><center><h3 align="center">E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br> +<hr noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Frontispiece" BORDER="2" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="546"> +<H5> +[Frontispiece: He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face<BR>of his wife bending over them] +</H5> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION +</H1> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Leona Dalrymple +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Author of "Diane of the Green Van," "In the Heart of the Christmas Pines," <BR> +"Uncle Noah's Christmas Party," etc. +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Illustrations by +<BR><BR> +Charles L. Wrenn +<BR><BR><BR><BR> +Decorations by +<BR><BR> +Charles Guischard +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +New York +<BR><BR> +McBride, Nast " Company +<BR><BR> +Third Printing +<br> +<br> +1914 +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +To C. A. W. +<BR><BR> +in grateful recognition<BR> +of an unfailing source of encouragement<BR> +and impartial criticism +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Contents +</H3> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">I.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap01">CHRISTMAS EVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">II.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap02">THE INSPIRATION </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">III.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap03">THE GRAY-EYED LADY </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">IV.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap04">CHRISTMAS INTRIGUE </A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">V.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap05">FERNLANDS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%">VI.</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"><A HREF="#chap06">THE COLONEL'S CHRISTMAS</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Illustrations +</H3> + +<H4> +<a href="#img-front"> +He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife +bending over them . . . . Frontispiece +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<a href="#img-036"> +"Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets from young Massa Dick" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<a href="#img-050"> +"I'se jus' come in--to ask yoh, Miss, if you'd like to buy an ol' +nigger servant. I'se foh sale" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<a href="#img-116"> +"Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, "we're both +citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas day" +</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +I +<BR> +Christmas Cheer +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P> +The twilight of a Christmas Eve, gray with the portent of coming snow, +crept slowly over the old plantation of Brierwood, softening the +outlines of a decrepit house still rearing its roof in massive dignity +and a tumbledown barn flanked by barren fields. A quiet melancholy +hovered about the old house as if it brooded over a host of bygone +Yuletides alive with the shouts of merry negroes and the jingle of +visiting sleighs--Yuletides when the snowy dusk had been ushered in to +the lowing of cattle and the neighing of horses safely housed in the +old barn. There were no negroes now, no blooded stock--no fluttering +fowls save one belligerent old turkey gobbler fleeing from a +white-haired darky who tried in vain to drive him to his roost in the +barn. +</P> + +<P> +In the library of the old house a man, tall and eagle-eyed, peered out +beneath bushy white eyebrows at the fading landscape blurred by the +dancing forms of the negro and the recalcitrant turkey. He watched the +chase end with an impertinent gobble from the turkey, and, at the sound +of a closing door in the rear of the house, tapped a bell at his side. +Footsteps shuffled along the hallway, and, breathless from his chase, +the old negro entered. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Fairfax wheeled with military precision. "Uncle Noah," he said +sternly, "to-morrow will be Christmas." +</P> + +<P> +The darky nodded and hobbled hurriedly to the wood fire, bending over +as he poked it to hide the look of anxiety in his face. "Laws-a-massy, +Massa Fairfax," he grumbled in good-natured evasion, "yoh'd mos' freeze +to deaf, I reckons, 'thout sendin' foh me"--he coughed, and amended +hastily: "'thout sendin' foh one ob de servants to pile up dis yere +fire." +</P> + +<P> +The amendment was but one of Uncle Noah's many subterfuges to convince +himself and his master that there had been no changes in the Fairfax +fortunes since the old days. That he was the last of the Colonel's +retainers, a wageless, loyal old dependent attending to the manifold +tasks of a sole domestic, the negro never admitted even to himself. +That his quaint pretensions, however, were daily stimulants to the +fierce old Colonel hungrily eating his heart out with memories Uncle +Noah was well aware. So the pitiful little subterfuges, revealing the +subtle understanding of the two, peopled the old house with swarming +negroes and the horn of plenty to the joy of both. +</P> + +<P> +But to-day Uncle Noah felt uneasily that the reference to the servants +had not bolstered the Colonel as it usually did, and the old darky +groaned inwardly as he added wood to the fire. From the corner of his +eye he saw that the Colonel had drawn himself up to military rigidity, +an evidence that the old soldier was on his mettle and would brook no +opposition. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Noah," he said, fixing a stern eye on the old man, "in the +Fairfax family there has always been a turkey at Christmas." +</P> + +<P> +There was no suggestion in the darky's affable tones of the erratic +manner in which his heart was beating. "Yes, sah," he agreed, +"ofttimes mo' than one." +</P> + +<P> +"Owing to circumstances understood by you and myself, but by ho one +else, there would be no turkey this year save that--" +</P> + +<P> +"Y-e-e-s, sah?" Uncle Noah laid a wrinkled brown hand upon the nearest +chair for support. +</P> + +<P> +"We have a live turkey in stock," ended the Colonel firmly, looking +squarely into the trembling negro's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah's heart gave a convulsive leap. The thunderbolt had fallen! +The fierce old turkey gobbler, solitary tenant of the crazy +outbuildings, the imperial tyrant upon whom Uncle Noah had bestowed the +affection of his loyal old heart, had been sentenced to death by the +highest earthly tribunal the old negro recognized. +</P> + +<P> +"I'se--I'se afeard he'll be tough, Colonel Fairfax," he quavered. +"I--I--Gord-a-massy, Massa Dick, yoh wouldn't kill ol' Job? He's too +smart foh a bird an' he's done a most powahful sight o' runnin', sah; I +reckons he's mos' all muscle." +</P> + +<P> +There was an agonized appeal in the darky's voice that cut straight to +the Colonel's heart. "Uncle Noah," he said kindly, "it can't be +helped. Job goes for the sake of--someone else." +</P> + +<P> +"Ol' Missus?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Thank God, Uncle Noah," the Colonel laid a gentle hand on the +negro's shoulder, "that she doesn't know of our--er--financial +crisis"--his halting utterance showed how distasteful the words were to +him--"save, of course, that we must live with economy, as we have for +years. Of the catastrophe of last fall she is ignorant, and a Fairfax +Christmas without a turkey would--she must not know," he finished +abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel had spoken with a simple dignity and confidence that +brought the old negro back from the field of sentiment to the barren +desert of reality. Dimly in his mental chaos stood forth three +pitiless facts: "Ol' Missus" was grieving her heart out for the son +with whom the Colonel had quarreled three years before; of this money +trouble from which Colonel Fairfax had shielded her she must as yet +know nothing; and there was no turkey for the Christmas dinner. Verily +things looked dark for the ill-fated Job, roosting in unsuspecting +security in the desolate old barn. With bowed head the darky walked +slowly toward the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Noah," the Colonel's tones were incisive, "you will kill Job +tonight." +</P> + +<P> +"I mos' forgot, Massa Dick," faltered Uncle Noah, "dat supper's ready, +sah. Ol' Missus done come downstairs jus' foh I chases Job to roost. +Laws-a-massy, Massa Dick, can't he live till after supper?" +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel nodded, carefully avoiding the old man's troubled eyes, and +went to join his wife at supper. +</P> + +<P> +"Christmas Eve, my dear," he announced cheerfully as he bent to kiss +the sweet, wistful face that turned to greet him. "I beg your pardon +for keeping you waiting. Uncle Noah and I were discussing to-morrow's +turkey;" he gazed calmly at the old negro nervously handling the tea +things; "he has selected a large bird and I have been advising a +smaller." +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel opened his napkin and deftly tucked the hole in the end out +of sight beneath the table. "Now, Uncle Noah, what is there to-night +for supper?" +</P> + +<P> +To Uncle Noah this nightly question had become a sacred institution, a +stimulus to imaginative powers highly developed in his quaint dialogues +with the Colonel. He forgot the doomed Job. It was Christmas Eve, and +his creative gift took festive wings. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sah," he beamed, "we has a little chicken gumbo, some fried +chicken jus' the right golden brown, sah, creamed potatoes, hot +biscuits with currant jelly--er--sliced ham and baked potatoes." +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Fairfax thoughtfully considered the appetizing prospect in +accordance with the rules of the game. What mattered it that the +luscious edibles existed only in the brain of the loyal old darky? The +little pretense gave to each a delightful thrill--surely an adequate +extenuation of the harmless diversion. As usual Colonel Fairfax found +the key to the situation in the closing items of Uncle Noah's list. +</P> + +<P> +"It all sounds delicious, Uncle Noah," he observed graciously, "but I +have a touch of my old enemy the dyspepsia today. I think I shall have +sliced ham and baked potatoes. That, I think, will do for us both." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fairfax agreed, her kindly eyes fixed upon Uncle Noah's attentive +face. +</P> + +<P> +"And, sah," Uncle Noah began--it was Christmas Eve and this game must +be perfectly played--"shall I attend to de distribution of gifts in de +negroes' quarters, sah?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," agreed the Colonel, "see that no one is slighted!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fairfax bowed her wistful face upon her hands to hide the blinding +tears, and an odd, uncomfortable silence fell upon the little group. +</P> + +<P> +At length the Colonel pushed his chair back and rose. "Uncle Noah," he +said sternly, a suspicious brightness gleaming in his eyes, "that +turkey of yours is making a terrible noise under the window. Make him +quit gobbling. Patricia, I don't wonder he makes you nervous. He's an +old renegade!" +</P> + +<P> +That the object of the Colonel's wrath had long since retired to roost +mattered not to his accuser. The turkey had developed a convenient +habit of gobbling under the window whenever emotion forced the Colonel +to seek a vent in stern commands. Uncle Noah crossed to the window and +commanded Job to be silent. Mrs. Fairfax, southern gentlewoman and +thoroughbred from tip to toe, quivered proudly, and, as Uncle Noah +returned, bade him serve the supper in tones as well controlled as they +were gentle. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +II +<BR> +The Inspiration +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<P> +In the great barren kitchen Uncle Noah wiped his steel-rimmed +spectacles and glared angrily about him. +</P> + +<P> +"Ol' Missus grievin' her heart out foh young Massa Dick," he reflected, +"and de Colonel say '<I>slight no one</I>!' Gord-a-massy, whut am dis yere +ol' worl' a-comin' to? Ebery time ol' Mis' cry for young Massa Dick, +Colonel say Job gobbles--" +</P> + +<P> +The old darky choked miserably at the thought of the destined check to +Job's gobbling career and, replacing his spectacles, carefully carried +in the supper, prolonging its simple service to the uttermost, with the +single idea of adding precious minutes to the doomed turkey's span of +life. +</P> + +<P> +When at length he sought the barn it was quite dark and the velvet +stillness of the night was dotted thickly with snowflakes. With +trembling fingers he opened the great barn-door, lit a queer old +lantern hanging just within, and hung it high upon a projecting hook. +The dim light revealed an antique carriage-house, in one corner of +which upon a rude, improvised roost of shingles the tyrant Job slept +the sleep of the just and the unjust rolled into one. As the lights +flickered upon his ruffled feathers the turkey emitted a throaty grunt +of disapproval and moved cumbrously around to avoid the light. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah addressed him with great firmness. "Now see yere, Massa +Job," he said, "tain't no use yoh puttin' on yoh high and mighty airs +to-night. I'se come to interview yoh, sah! Understand?" +</P> + +<P> +Job majestically tucked his head beneath his wing as if to intimate his +indifference to the proposed interview. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah surveyed his ruffled back feathers with increased respect. +"So," he said, "yoh refuse me an interview, Massa Job Fairfax. Yoh is +sleepy, sah, dat's whut's got into yoh." He stroked the turkey with a +gentle hand, and, Job, resenting the indignity, withdrew his head from +the sheltering wing and pecked at the brown fingers, turning around +with a stately movement and facing the light once more with a sleepy +blink of his bright, beadlike eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, sah, we can talk," exclaimed the negro in delight. Drawing up an +old box he seated himself before the roost and beamed benevolently over +his glasses. +</P> + +<P> +"Colonel done say yoh gobble under de winder 'bout suppertime," he +began confidentially. "When ol' Mis' cry 'bout young Massa Dick de +Colonel he jus' gotta scold 'bout sumthin', and as yoh is de mos' +important person about he jus' naturally selects yoh." +</P> + +<P> +The turkey held his head upon one side, apparently in critical +admiration of the darky's quaint old scarfpin which resembled a grain +of corn mounted on a needle. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah, who had always had a faint mistrust of Job's attitude +toward this ancient Ethiopian heirloom, promptly removed it to a place +of safety. Then with a sudden resolve that no thought of the coming +tragedy should mar his last visit with his old companion he rose and +sought a dim, cobwebby corner of the barn, whence he returned with a +box. +</P> + +<P> +"Dese yere, Job," he explained, "is de flowers whut young Massa Dick +have sent to his mother ebery holiday since he done went away from +yere. Mornin', I specs, when de Colonel sees 'em at her plate, he'll +declare yoh gobblin' sumthin' fierce under de winder again; he always +do." +</P> + +<P> +The old negro broke the string of the box and removed a glowing mass of +purple orchids--odd, transient tenants of the crazy old barn. Job +suddenly reached over and pecked a blossom from its stem, ate the heart +with the dainty air of an epicure, and discarded the remainder with a +noise akin to a gobble of disgust. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah rose in scandalized protest. "Yoh good-foh-nothin', +miserable, sassy turkey!" he scolded, hastily removing the orchids; +"you sartinly is de mos' scan'lous, no-'count bird I ever knowed. Eat +one o' ol' Missus's orchards! Laws-a-massy, Job, yoh goes mos' too +far. Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets from young +Massa Dick," and he carefully deciphered the written lines for the +listening Job. +</P> + +<P> + +<I>Dear Uncle Noah</I>: I have written Foster and Company as usual to send +Mother's orchids. They should get there Christmas Eve. Will you put +them at her plate in the morning? I find they are the only suggestion +of me that the Colonel will allow in the house. I tried another letter +this week, but it came back unopened. Uncle Noah, give Mother "A Merry +Christmas" for me. DICK. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-036"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-036.jpg" ALT="Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen..." BORDER="2" WIDTH="329" HEIGHT="549"> +<H5> +[Illustration: Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets from young Massa Dick] +</H5> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Uncle Noah laid the letter on his knee and drew from a worn leather +wallet several newspaper clippings. They were glowing reports, gleaned +from a stray newspaper, of the success of a young architect in a +distant northern city, one Richard Fairfax, Jr. Uncle Noah proudly +read them aloud for the hundredth time, interpolating little +explanatory remarks to the turkey, who gobbled threateningly but failed +to intimidate his tormentor. +</P> + +<P> +"Job, whut yoh think 'bout dis yere quarrel?" Uncle Noah said as the +turkey eyed him sternly. "I say de Colonel's too hard on de boy. A +quarrel's a quarrel, yoh say. H'm, maybe yoh right, but it's dis +Fairfax pride ob de Colonel's dat keep him from readin' de boy's +letters, and nothin' else, sah. He sorry for dat quarrel, doan you +fo'get it. But de Colonel he prouder'n Lucifer. H'm, yoh say yoh +understan' pride cause yoh is proud yohself." Then as the turkey +relapsed into slumber, "Now, see yere, Massa Job, yoh ain't no mo' +sleepier'n I is." Uncle Noah poked the turkey with his finger, and Job +arched his neck with a threatening flap of his wings and descended from +his perch. "Fight me, will yoh?" demanded Uncle Noah in secret +delight, "yoh is de touchiest bird! Yere, fight wid dese yere crusts +o' bread." +</P> + +<P> +Job spread his tail magnificently and began an erratic consumption of +the bread crusts, pertly taking them one by one from the old negro's +hand and arranging them upon the barn floor for later and more personal +inspection. Uncle Noah watched him with misty eyes. Presently his +gaze furtively sought the rusty ax in the corner, and great tear rolled +down his cheek. Caught in the wave of a sudden panic he dropped upon +his knees and clasped his trembling hands. The dusky barn, littered +with odds and ends, was dimly visible in the glimmering light of the +old-fashioned lantern whose slanting rays fell upon the doomed bird and +the praying negro. No thought of sacrilege marred the quaint, halting +prayer. A terrible earnestness lined the negro's face with a holiness +of purpose and made it beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lord," he prayed, "save dis yere ol' turkey gobbler. I knows, +Lord, he's a powahful wuthless bird, but he's all I'se got. I'se jus' +an' ol' slave, Massa, what's been free since de War, an' Job, sah, he +understan's me. Lord, I doan wanta live no mo' if I has to kill ol' +Job. Send me an inspiration, Lord, an' tell me how I can save his +wuthless ol' hide. Save him an'--an' God bless de Colonel! Amen." +</P> + +<P> +For an interval, in which the only sound was that of Job's feet as he +strutted about seeking an edible successor to the bread, Uncle Noah +remained upon his knees in the attitude of prayer, perhaps awaiting +inspiration. At length he rose, and, seating himself upon the box once +more, buried his white head dejectedly in his hands. The snow-flakes +filtered slowly through a crevice at the side, heaping fantastically +into a miniature drift. Absently Uncle Noah watched them, his mind +traveling back to many a snowy Christmas "before the War." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly his brown face glowed with radiance and he drew a long breath +of relief. "Job," he said, leaning forward and patting the turkey, "I +has it! Yoh'd scarcely believe it, sah, but I'se a-goin' to save yoh." +</P> + +<P> +He arose transformed, the despondent droop of his lean body replaced by +an alert energy. "Now, Job," he coaxed, "I jus' wants yoh foh to come +along wif me peaceable, sah. I'se after yoh to save yoh ol' hide from +de Christmas platter." +</P> + +<P> +But Job, with a malicious enjoyment of the game, was prancing wildly +about the barn, flapping his wings in hysterical derision of his +breathless pursuer. Brought to bay he squawked a protest and struggled +violently as Uncle Noah unceremoniously imprisoned him beneath one arm. +</P> + +<P> +"There, sah," exclaimed the negro triumphantly, "I has yoh! Yoh is +sartinly the mos' wuthless turkey on dis yere plantation." +</P> + +<P> +Tightly clasping the outraged tyrant Uncle Noah tiptoed to the lantern +and blew it out. Then stumbling across the floor he stealthily left +the barn and set out across the snowy fields to a tumble-down shanty, +sole survivor of a string of negro huts long since burned one by one in +the library fireplace. Into its dilapidated interior he thrust the +protesting turkey, pausing at the door as he struck a match to view the +bird's temporary quarters. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Massa Job Fairfax," he began, "I knows yoh is jus' mad clean +through. Yoh jus' naturally objects to bein' toted out in de snow in +de middle o' de turkey night 'thout bein' asked. Yoh says yoh back is +full o' snow? Well, I jus' asks yoh, Massa Job Fairfax, ain't dat +better'n bein' wifout a head? Now, sah, I asks yoh to be mos' terrible +quiet dis yere night. I'se a-goin' into Cotesville on a little trip +an' I doan want de Colonel to know yoh here." +</P> + +<P> +He closed the rickety door, and, hurrying back across the fields, +sought the kitchen, his eyes behind their spectacles shining with +excitement. Muffling himself in a quaint red knitted scarf, a dingy +overcoat and a worn fur cap, plentifully earlapped, he left the house +again, pausing only long enough to peer through the library window at +the Colonel, who was reading aloud to his wife, both drawn up in the +cheery warmth of a blazing wood fire. Then he hurried on along the +road to town. +</P> + +<P> +With a prayer in his heart for the success of his mission Uncle Noah +trudged sturdily down the two miles to Cotesville, past Major Verney's +old plantation, the cheery lights of the great house twinkling brightly +through a curtain of snow, and into the snow-laden air of the village +streets alive with Christmas shoppers. Holly and mistletoe, Christmas +trees filling the air with the odor of pine, dancing snowflakes and +bright lights, wonderful windows wreathed and dotted in Christmas +glitter, and cheery voices--who could resist them? Uncle Noah felt his +heart quiver with hope; jubilantly he turned his steps toward the +railroad station ahead. +</P> + +<P> +The Northern Express flashed through the snow and came to a stop with a +clang and a roar, disgorging a chattering holiday crowd who paused for +a change of cars at Cotesville on their southbound trips. Uncle Noah +hastened his shuffling footsteps: the Northern Express with its horde +of transient visitors had been a vital part of the inspiration. Upon +the station platform people stamped up and down in the snow or laughed +and chatted, quite oblivious to the timid gaze of the old darky who +slowly made his way among them. One by one Uncle Noah left them all +behind, a great disappointment in his face. In their laughing +countenances he had found nothing of what he sought. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +III +<BR> +The Gray-Eyed Lady +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<P> +Just ahead a girl appeared from the shadows and walked quickly toward +the waiting-room. Uncle Noah looked into her fresh, sweet face; then +his own lit up with renewed hope and he followed her in and touched her +timidly on the arm. The girl turned, revealing a face rosy with cold, +and a pair of warm gray eyes fringed in lashes of black, eyes that +frankly offered a glimpse of a girl's impulsive heart brimming over +with Christmas spirit. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah removed the battered fur cap and bowed low with the +deference of a Cavalier. "I'se jus' come in to--to ask yoh, Miss," he +said simply, "if yoh'd like to buy an ol' nigger servant. I'se foh +sale." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-050"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-050.jpg" ALT="I'se jus' come in to--to ask yoh..." BORDER="2" WIDTH="329" HEIGHT="543"> +<H5> +[Illustration: "I'se jus' come in to--to ask yoh, Miss," he saidsimply,<BR> +"if yoh'd like to buy an ol' nigger servant. I'se foh sale."] +</H5> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"For sale!" The girl took in the quaint figure with a glance of blank +astonishment. "Why," she gasped, "surely you--" +</P> + +<P> +"I'se ol', Miss," he interrupted timidly, but meeting her gaze with +unwavering sincerity; "I specs I'se mos' a hundred; but I'se powahful +tough an' full o' work, an'--an', Miss, I has to sell maself tonight +'cause--'cause--" +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah paused uncertainly, seeking a fit expression of his dilemma, +and the girl, readily intuitive, glanced swiftly about to assure +herself that the waiting-room was free from unsympathetic +eavesdroppers. Then, strangely drawn by this quaint old vender of +humanity, and warmly eager to put him more at his ease, she impulsively +pushed a rocking-chair toward the old stove in the center and motioned +him to be seated. But Uncle Noah had been reared in the Fairfax +family, and a Fairfax never sat when a lady was still upon her feet. +With a courtly gesture the old man bowed her to the chair she had drawn +for him. A quick gleam of approval flashed in the gray eyes and with a +deepening flush of puzzled interest, the girl instantly seated herself, +unfastening the silver fox at her throat as she felt the warmth of the +old country stove. +</P> + +<P> +"Please, I would <I>so</I> much rather you, too, would sit down," she said +impulsively, and as Uncle Noah drew forward another of the rickety old +rocking-chairs with which the Cotesville waiting-room was dotted, she +bent toward him--a light in the wonderful gray eyes that won Uncle +Noah's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me," she said kindly: "Tell me just why you want to sell +yourself." +</P> + +<P> +No, she had not laughed at him. Uncle Noah glowed to the tips of his +fingers at the ready sympathy of her tone. He beamed mildly at her +over his spectacles, turning the old fur cap round and round in his +hands as he sought to voice the words that struggled to his lips. "Ol' +Massa's money--an', Miss, he hain't had much since de War; jus' 'nuff +to live comfutable--all go in de Cotesville bank crash las' fall an' he +doan want ol' Mis' foh to know. I'se de only one o' de niggers whut's +left, an' dere's only one ol' turkey gobbler left o' de stock. He's my +ol' pet, Miss, mos' like a chile, an'--an'--" Uncle Noah choked. +</P> + +<P> +The girl's eyes were misty velvet. "And he told you to kill your pet +for the Christmas dinner?" she finished gently. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah nodded. "Massa done say we mus' hab a turkey for de +Christmas dinner, or ol' Mis'll suspect de--de financial crisis whut +we're in. Out in de barn I prays foh an inspiration an' I 'spect it +come." +</P> + +<P> +"And so you decided to sell yourself--" began the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Yas'm." Uncle Noah's voice had grown apologetic. "Yoh see, Miss, +I'se de only thing whut I really owns 'cept dis yere ol' stickpin. +Cose I'se free now, but I reckons if I has a mind to sell maself de +Norf can't stop me. I'se sellin' ma own property." There was a gentle +defiance in the old negro's argument. +</P> + +<P> +"And you--you wouldn't accept a--a loan?" The girl flushed. +</P> + +<P> +The negro's hurt eyes were answer enough. Uncle Noah had not lived in +an atmosphere permeated with Fairfax pride without feeling its +influence. +</P> + +<P> +"I'se not askin' foh charity, Miss," he averred stubbornly. "I'se +a-sellin' sumthin'. I reckons if yoh buy me, Miss, an' yoh lemme go +back an' stay Christmas wif ol' Massa, I'll sell maself cheap. Yoh see +I'se a-plannin' first to buy a turkey whut'll take Job's place on de +platter, an' den to give de Massa a gran' Christmas wif de rest o' de +money what I gits foh maself, savin' out jus' enough to buy ma ol' +turkey an' come to yoh first day after Christmas. It'll be hard to +leave ol' Massa and Mis', but I reckons it's jus' gotta be done." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah gulped and blinked, and there was a glimmer of wet lashes +about the warm gray eyes that had won his heart. +</P> + +<P> +The girl was silent so long that Uncle Noah shifted uneasily; but at +last she spoke a little tremulously. "For what price will you sell +yourself?" she asked, and Uncle Noah never doubted but that she +regarded the purchase in the same light in which he himself had viewed +it. +</P> + +<P> +He turned about for his purchaser's thorough inspection, his bald head +above the fringe of white wool about it glistening in the lamplight. +"Do yoh think I'se wuth, say, twenty-five dollahs?" he queried, +regarding her fixedly over his spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +The girl touched her throat with an unconscious gesture. "Yes, you +are," she cried impulsively; "you are indeed!" And before Uncle Noah +had quite time to adjust himself to the joy of his unique sale the girl +thrust a roll of bills into his hands and disappeared through the +station door. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +IV +<BR> +Christmas Intrigue +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<P> +Uncle Noah hobbled after her. His new mistress had quite forgotten to +tell him where to deliver himself when his Christmas with the Colonel +was over. But when he reached the door she was eagerly greeting a man +who had just alighted from a waiting carriage. Uncle Noah could but +dimly see him, but as the genial voice reached his ears he halted in +the shadow quite content. It was Major Verney. The fact that the +Colonel's old friend and neighbor had driven in from Fernlands to meet +the radiant lady whose great gray eyes, Uncle Noah now recalled, had +had the Verney look which endeared the owner of Fernlands to all who +knew him, seemed to the watching negro a direct interposition of +Providence. A scant mile of cottonfields lay between the two +plantations, and, Christmas over, Uncle Noah had but to trudge across +the fields to deliver himself to the Major's guest. +</P> + +<P> +"And, Ruth," concluded Major Verney in laughing reprimand, "you have +kept me waiting. Why, child, the Northern Express came in fifteen +minutes ago." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah did not catch the girl's reply as Major Verney assisted her +into the carriage and they drove rapidly away. +</P> + +<P> +The old darky beamed happily after the retreating carriage; then, with +his hand tightly clasped about the precious roll of greenbacks for +which he had so willingly bartered his freedom, he began a tour of the +Cotesville stores. When at length he staggered into the big grocery +store for his final purchases he was laden with a miscellaneous +collection of Christmas packages from which he was cheerfully +disentangled by the bulky proprietor himself. Uncle Noah made a +critical pilgrimage about the store, pausing at last before a counter +where the proprietor had laid out a number of turkeys for the careful +inspection of this beaming shopper about to select an understudy for +the incomparable Job. A very respectable fowl was presently mantled in +brown paper and laid beside the other bundles, along with sundry bags +of cranberries and apples, oranges and nuts, celery and raisins, cigars +for the Colonel, a box of candy for Mrs. Fairfax, huge bunches of holly +and mistletoe, Christmas wreaths for the windows, and a great bag of +cracked corn for the reprieved tyrant gloomily roosting in the ruined +hut. +</P> + +<P> +As Uncle Noah carefully counted out the money required to purchase this +astonishing outlay the bulky proprietor tasked pleasantly: "Uncle Noah, +do you happen to know where I can get a good woman to scrub up my store +every morning?" +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah fingered his scarfpin uncertainly. "How much do yoh pay foh +de work?" he queried. +</P> + +<P> +"Fifty cents a day." +</P> + +<P> +The negro leaned forward in tense expectancy. "Do yoh 'spect I could +do it?" he demanded excitedly. +</P> + +<P> +The proprietor, secretly astonished by the old man's manner, nodded +assuringly. "Why, yes, you could easily; it's nothing much; but the +Colonel--" +</P> + +<P> +"Colonel doan have foh to know," exclaimed Uncle Noah. "I comes yere +mornin's foh he's up--an I 'clare to goodness, sah, I needs de money +mos' powahful." +</P> + +<P> +The proprietor was easy-going and too phlegmatic to harbor curiosity. +So the bargain was straightway sealed under a pledge of deepest secrecy. +</P> + +<P> +Somewhat confused by the unusual series of events, Uncle Noah, his eyes +shining with a strange excitement, started for the door, quite +forgetting the countless packages on the counter. +</P> + +<P> +The proprietor recalled him with a hearty laugh. "Uncle Noah," he +called, "you've forgotten one or two little bundles here." +</P> + +<P> +With a smothered gasp the old negro hurried back. But try as they +would, room for all the numerous bundles could not be found. The +proprietor energetically tucked bundles into all of Uncle Noah's +pockets, piled them tower fashion upon his arms, and even hung a +collection bound together with a string over his shoulder, while Uncle +Noah wheezed and groaned and struggled to find new and unsuspected +storage space in his clothes, but still there remained bundles and +bundles at which Uncle Noah gazed over his spectacles in growing +discomfiture. +</P> + +<P> +"Whut am I a-goin' to do?" he demanded. "I nevah can come all de way +hack yere in de snow wif dese yere ol' legs o' mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Get one of them station cabs," advised the grocer; and so, after +considerable discussion, the bundle problem was solved. +</P> + +<P> +Ten minutes later Uncle Noah entered a hired carriage for the first +time in his life. At the town florist's he rapped a timid signal to +the driver to stop, and, glowing with anticipation, spryly shuffled +into the warm, scented air of the little shop. Here, to the smiling +clerk's astonishment, he ordered a bunch of violets to be delivered +Christmas morning to "de young lady wif de gray eyes whut's at Major +Verney's." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely," smiled the clerk, "you don't want that on the card?" +</P> + +<P> +But Uncle Noah was stubborn; more, he insisted on writing the +inscription himself, his orthography quite as quaint as his penmanship, +and so the card went to be read by the wonderful gray eyes in the +morning. +</P> + +<P> +Back through the snow in his rickety carriage rolled Uncle Noah, +rattling home along the snowy road down which he had trudged in the +early evening, chuckling now intermittently in a mental rehearsal of +his new plan. +</P> + +<P> +"Fifty cents a day!" he thought, "an' to-morrow I'se a-goin' to slip +over to Fernlands in de mornin' an' ask her to lemme buy maself back on +de 'stallment plan. Mos' likely she'll take a dollar a week, an' wid +all de rest o' dat grocer money ol' Mis' doan have to know whut de +Colonel an' me is a-goin' through." +</P> + +<P> +In accordance with Uncle Noah's whispered directions the cab crept +gently up the driveway at Brierwood and paused at the kitchen door, +where the driver, who had taken a great fancy to Uncle Noah, became +transformed into a benevolent stevedore, tiptoeing in and out of the +kitchen with the bundles which the old darky drew from the cavernous +pit of the cab. Job's understudy came last, and Uncle Noah, tightly +pressing the precious fowl in his arms, watched the carriage drive +slowly away. Then, after an interval in the kitchen devoted to hiding +his purchases, he sought the library, striving to simulate a decent +depression over the assumed decapitation of Job. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Fairfax looked up inquiringly as he entered. +</P> + +<P> +"I'se jus' come to tell yoh, sah," said Uncle Noah with a meaning +glance at Mrs. Fairfax, "dat I has de turkey all ready foh de oven." +</P> + +<P> +A faint red crept through the Colonel's skin, but he met the darky's +eyes squarely. "Thank you, Uncle Noah!" he said, and the negro +shuffled hurriedly away. +</P> + +<P> +In his old rocking-chair by the kitchen fire Uncle Noah, alert and +excited, waited until he heard the Colonel and Mrs. Fairfax go up to +bed; then, chuckling to himself, he extinguished the kitchen lights, +and, carrying one of his Christmas bundles, plodded across the field to +Job's nocturnal hermitage. The light of a match revealed the tyrant +roosting glumly on the summit of a ruined plowshare. +</P> + +<P> +"I'se brought yoh a Christmas surprise, Massa Job Fairfax," said Uncle +Noah, and he sprinkled the floor of the hut thick with corn that the +turkey might find it in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +With his heart full of thanksgiving the negro plodded homeward through +the snow. As he reached the old barn the great clock in the library +struck twelve and faintly through the snowy air floated the distant +silvery chimes of the Cotesville bells, clear and sweet, ringing in a +Christmas morning. +</P> + +<P> +Creeping to bed long after the first rooster had crowed Uncle Noah had +sought the kitchen again with the sunrise, his tired eyes opening +jubilantly upon a snapping cold Christmas morning radiant in gold and +white. Downstairs clusters of holly and mistletoe festooned doors and +windows, dotted the old-fashioned hanging lamps with spots of crimson, +and crowned the family portraits with royal diadems, and evergreen +wreaths hung in the windows--all the work of a wrinkled pair of +faithful brown hands toiling while the world slept. In the library a +blazing wood fire leaped and crackled, while in the dining-room the +table was spread for breakfast. Certain long-needed articles of china, +which had mysteriously disappeared from time to time since the autumn, +dotted a tablecloth free from holes (a new one subjected to a severe +laundry process during the night), and the napkins no longer resembled +Ku-Klux masks. A great bowl of purple orchids glowed at Mrs. Fairfax's +plate. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +V +<BR> +Fernlands +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<P> +The Colonel greeted the Christmas festoons of holly in the library with +a stare of astonished approval. A question had risen to his lips, but +the warning look in Uncle Noah's eyes as they rested on Mrs. Fairfax +had checked it. These two had had many financial and domestic secrets +from the dear lady, and the Colonel promptly decided that Uncle Noah +had sold some forgotten relic and had once more made use of his highly +developed faculty for expanding a small sum to incredible elasticity, +and he praised the result accordingly. Mrs. Fairfax, too, brightened +wonderfully, yielding to the Christmas spirit with which the old darky +had contrived to fill the house. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah felt a glow of delight at their outspoken appreciation, and, +bowing elaborately, he ushered his master and mistress in to breakfast. +Here again, as he seated himself, the Colonel was conscious of an +agreeable flood of astonishment. There was quite an air about this +Christmas breakfast. Fixing his keen eyes on the tablecloth and +napkins, he stealthily fingered them with a searching look at the +waiting negro. Fortunately his interest was speedily diverted. He +caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife +bending over them. With a wrench of his chair he arose. +</P> + +<P> +"Patricia!" he said stormily, "did I not say that nothing of his--did I +not--" he paused and gulped. "Uncle Noah," he added unsteadily, "that +turkey of yours is gobbling like a fiend under the window; you--he--" +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel stopped abruptly, reddened as his eyes fell upon the negro +(Uncle Noah had wisely turned away), and sternly reseated himself, +somewhat confused by his thoughtless reference to the late lamented Job, +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Noah hobbled from the room, his brown face working convulsively. +In the kitchen he shook with silent laughter, doubling over +breathlessly and clasping his hands over his stomach in aching distress. +</P> + +<P> +"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel kindly as the old negro +presently re-entered the dining-room, "have we for our Christmas +breakfast?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sah," Uncle Noah began fluently, "we has grapefruit, cereal wif +cream, quail on toast, fried oysters--er--oatmeal, hot muffins, fried +chicken, co'nbread an' coffee!" +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel, appearing to be thoughtfully considering his choice, +replied as usual: "It all sounds delicious, Uncle Noah, but I have a +touch of my old enemy dyspepsia to-day. I think I shall have some +cornbread and coffee, and so will Mrs. Fairfax." +</P> + +<P> +"I doan think you quite understand me, sah," averred Uncle Noah, "an' +sah, I 'spects yoh dyspepsia ain't so bad dis mornin'. We has foh +breakfast, sah, grapefruit, cereal wif cream, quail on toast, fried +oysters--er--<I>oatmeal, fried chicken, hot muffins, co'nbread an' +coffee</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +There was no mistaking the emphasis this time. Colonel Fairfax darted +a lightning glance at the negro and amended his selection with a +question in his voice. "Well, now I come to think of it, Uncle Noah," +he said, "my dyspepsia isn't nearly so bad. I'll have, let me see, +oatmeal--that was in the list, I believe--er--fried chicken--am I +right?--muffins, cornbread and coffee." +</P> + +<P> +There was a conviction in the Colonel's deep voice that something +extraordinary was afoot, and Uncle Noah, flurried by its ominous ring, +hurried from the room. Dimly he had pictured his master's gracious +astonishment and pleasure. Any queries relative to the financial +source of the Christmas delicacies, however, had been lost entirely in +the darky's jubilant excitement. Now he groaned in dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"Yoh is in a mess for sure, Uncle Noah," he apostrophized himself. +"Whut'll yoh do when it come time foh dinnah? Yere yoh has a Christmas +dinnah fit foh a King, an' de Colonel he know right well dat we has +only a little 1ef from de money whut we done get when we sold de silver +teapot." +</P> + +<P> +It was Christmas, however, and Uncle Noah felt convinced that the +Providence that had watched so well over his Christmas Eve would order +a special dispensation for his new dilemma. While awaiting its +manifestation he would studiously avoid the Colonel, and would slip +across to Fernlands, once the pseudo Job was safe in the oven, and beg +the gray-eyed lady to accept a dollar a week of the grocer's money in +his inspired scheme of self-redemption. +</P> + +<P> +With this in mind Uncle Noah served the breakfast, hurried his +preparations for the midday feast, and at five minutes of eleven, the +turkey safely roasting, set out across the fields for Major Verney's. +</P> + +<P> +At Fernlands the eleven strokes of the grandfather's clock in the great +hall found the gray-eyed lady in the arms of a young fellow who had but +that instant bounded lightly up the walk from the sleigh Major Verney +had dispatched to Cotesville to meet the Northern Express. The Major, +smilingly awaiting his opportunity to greet the newcomer, ran his eye +approvingly over the lines of the well-knit figure and handsome face of +the young man. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Dick," said the Major, advancing with outstretched hand as the +girl flushed prettily and smoothed back the dark mist of hair from her +forehead, "how are you, my boy? Busy, of course. We read fine things +of you in the papers at times." Then, as the young man took off his +overcoat, "What, sir," the Major inquired, "do you mean by falling in +love with my only niece? Here my brother writes me that his daughter +is engaged to a man who knows me, and will I pack off a carload of +testimonials by special messenger indorsing the little rascal who used +to steal my apples. What, sir, do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Major," Dick answered as he was ushered into the big +living-room, his laughing eyes alight with happiness, "she had the +Verney eyes, and you remember I always liked them." He sank into a +chair by Ruth with a smiling glance at the Major. "It is unusually +cold for down here. There's a real bracing Northern sting in the air. +And what a snow! It's packed down so that the runners fairly flew. +Major, do sit down!" +</P> + +<P> +The Major was still bustling about, urging Ruth into another chair by +the fire that he himself might sit by Dick, poking energetically at the +blazing logs, and firing a volley of directions at black Sam. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" he exclaimed, finally seating himself. "Now, sir, relative to +this infatuated young person on my left, who has condescended to visit +her uncle for the first time since she arrived on the planet. I met +her last night according to telegraphed instructions, and she kept me +waiting--let me see--" +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle!" protested Ruth, "you've added fifteen minutes to that wait +every time you've mentioned it." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear child, politeness alone has kept me from naming the full +extent of my wait. If you please, sir," he turned to Dick, "she was in +the clutches of a beggar who obtained twenty-five dollars by a most +extraordinary yarn." +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-five dollars!" Dick whistled, smiling at the flush that crept +up to the gray eyes. "Was it an aged father this time or a hungry +brood of motherless waifs, Ruthie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dick, listen!" cried the girl. "Uncle misjudges him. It was a dear +old colored man and he told me the strangest story." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't often find a grateful beggar who sends you violets in the +morning purchased with some of your own shekels," said the Major, +pinching the flushed cheek. "Tell him, Ruthie; it was odd, and I +believe I'd have done the same thing myself." +</P> + +<P> +The girl flashed a grateful look at him and then told the story of her +purchase of the night before so eloquently that the Major and Dick +heard her through with sober faces, secretly touched by its pathos. +"And he must have recognized Uncle," she ended, "for the violets came +this morning with the quaintest card." +</P> + +<P> +For an instant she dreamily scanned the fire, seeing in its glowing +embers the brown wrinkled negro face with its honest eyes, peering at +her over his spectacles in troubled apprehension; then she sprang to +her feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Edward," she cried, "did you tell Uncle Neb to wait with the +sleight? Those sleigh-bells are beginning to sound hysterical." +</P> + +<P> +"Merciful goodness!" cried the Major; "I certainly did. I had the +strictest commands to drive in to church for Mother Verney at eleven +o'clock. Hi, Sam, you black rascal, tell Uncle Neb I'll be right out." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell him, Uncle," called Ruth, flying swiftly up the long hall to +the library window. +</P> + +<P> +But no clear call went ringing over the snow to Uncle Neb; instead, +there was silence, broken at length by a voice that called softly in +great excitement, "Dick! Uncle Edward! do come here. Look!" she cried +as they quickly joined her. "You see, Uncle, he didn't forget!" +</P> + +<P> +Smiling, the two men looked from the window. An old negro muffled in a +threadbare overcoat was plodding up the walk, his eyes scanning the +house with evident curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +The Major uttered a quick exclamation and the girl wheeled about. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you see?" she cried. "He's come to-day, honest old fellow that +he is! See, Dick--" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped abruptly, looking from one to the other. There was +something in the two stern faces staring beyond her at the bent negro +that struck a chill to her heart. Dick's face had gone white, and the +Majors hand had stolen to the younger man's shoulder as if to steady +him. +</P> + +<P> +There was a startled incredulity in the Major's face as he said: "Brace +up, old man! You didn't know, neither did I." +</P> + +<P> +"Ruth," Dick asked unsteadily, "is that the old colored man +whose--whose master--" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" cried the girl, the sharp pain of premonition in her voice. +"Oh, Dick, who is he?" +</P> + +<P> +Dick's miserable eyes sought hers as he answered, "It's--it's Dad's +Uncle Noah. Ruth, I--" He turned and sought the hall. +</P> + +<P> +Ruth's face flamed at his words. Uncle Noah's pathetic story came +crowding over her again in the light of Dick's revelation. His father +and mother! The stern old Colonel, of whom Dick always spoke with such +respectful loyalty in spite of their quarrel, and the dear mother, +whose tender eyes gazing from the old-fashioned daguerreotype Dick +always carried had made her choke with sudden tears--these two were +Uncle Noah's beloved "ol' Massa an' ol' Mis'"! +</P> + +<P> +She turned; the Major had followed Dick to the hallway. A shuffling +step sounded on the porch outside, and the girl hurried toward the +door, a sudden light of daring in her eyes. Impulse had always ruled +the Verneys, and Ruth was a Verney from the crown of her dark head to +the tips of her small feet. Catching up Grandmother Verney's long +cloak hanging over a chair, she softly left the house. +</P> + +<P> +Dick, struggling into his overcoat, turned at the Major's touch on his +arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Just a minute, Dick." Major Verney's genial voice was sympathetic as +a woman's. "Remember that what the Colonel refused in prosperity he's +not likely to take in adversity. Sit down here by the fire until we +talk it over." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Major"--there was a note of anguish in the boy's voice--"I must +go to him. Think of Uncle Noah selling himself to help them, and I--" +</P> + +<P> +But the Major had already removed the overcoat and gently pushed his +guest into a chair by the fire. "Yes, yes," he said as he seated +himself; "we know all about that, my boy; but I'm afraid, Dick," he +added regretfully, "that the Colonel wouldn't let you in. He's very +bitter." +</P> + +<P> +Dick groaned. He was calmer now. "You're right, Major," he said +steadily; "it hurt so at first that I didn't think. I can't go now." +He leaned forward anxiously. "The Cotesville Bank--?" he questioned +abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Crashed in the autumn--in September." Dick bit his lip, and the Major +added: "He was heavily interested?" +</P> + +<P> +Dick stared at the fire. "It was all he had," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I see." The Major's quiet voiced gave no hint of his own emotion. "I +didn't know. Of course I heard he had lost something; we all did; but +I thought he had other money." +</P> + +<P> +"No. Tell me, Major, you've been going to Brierwood this winter just +as usual?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course; every Wednesday night. The Colonel and I are too old to +alter the habit of a lifetime, and besides we both love that long +evening playing chess. There's always a roaring wood fire and a +steaming pot of coffee, and your mother always plays Beethoven for us +just before I go." +</P> + +<P> +A look of relief shone in Dick's eyes. "'Always a fire,'" he repeated. +"I'm glad of that. There was no suggestion of--of want?" +</P> + +<P> +"Heavens, no!" The Major's deep voice was full of assurance. "Last +week," he added thoughtfully, "the coffee was pretty weak, but it never +occurred to me that--" he stopped abruptly, rose from his chair with +sudden energy, violently blew his nose, and tramped down to the end of +the hall and back. "Damn the Fairfax pride!" he exclaimed fiercely. +"Here Uncle Noah has been coming into the library Wednesday nights and +telling the Colonel that the stock had all been bedded down for the +night when all the time there's been nothing left but this confounded +old turkey gobbler we've been hearing about. He swore last week that +somebody had stolen the silver teapot. Abominable old liar! He must +have sold it." The Major threw out his arms with a wrathful gesture. +"All this comedy, if you please, for my benefit. Here I've been there +every week, and never suspected, thanks to the infernal stratagems of +that black fiend of an Uncle Noah. Damn the Fairfax pride!" +</P> + +<P> +The Major sat down as suddenly as he had risen, and, bending over, +attacked the fire with vicious energy. + +"Tell me, Major," Dick presently asked, "have you ever mentioned me to +the Colonel since I went North?" +</P> + +<P> +"Once." The Major made a wry face. "I never tried again." +</P> + +<P> +Dick colored. "Does he know about Ruth?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I dared not mention it." The Major looked at the other intently. +"Dick," he said, "what was this quarrel all about, anyway?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the beginning, Major," admitted the young man, flushing, "it was so +childish--I'm ashamed to speak of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Out with it!" commanded the Major. "I won't be hoodwinked by a +Fairfax any longer." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, if you must know, it was about--the War." +</P> + +<P> +"The War!" exploded the Major. "By gad, sir, what about the War?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dad and I were talking it over, and--well, to be frank, Major, I said +I thought the North had been right, and that, if I had been in the +world at the time, I would have fought with them despite my kinsmen." +</P> + +<P> +"Go on! Did you fight in any other post-mortem wars? The Revolution, +or the fall of Rome?" +</P> + +<P> +Dick ignored the sarcasm. "My sympathy for the North made him +furious," he went on. "We quarreled terribly and both of us said +things that I know we didn't mean. It was the Fairfax temper, sir; I--" +</P> + +<P> +"Damn the Fairfax temper!" roared the Major. "Thank Heavens, the +Verneys are mild!" +</P> + +<P> +Dick laughed, in spite of himself. "I apologized," he continued +soberly, "but he wouldn't listen; told me to get out; said if I chose +to change my opinions about the North, we'd talk it over, and I, of +course, refused." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" interpolated the Major trimly. +</P> + +<P> +"I've written since, suggesting that we forget it all and start anew, +but he won't listen, sir." +</P> + +<P> +The Major stroked his beard ominously. "Did it ever occur to you, +Dick," he demanded, "that enough families were estranged by that War +without carrying it over into the Twentieth Century? Let me see--how +long after the War were you born? Twenty years, wasn't it? I +remember; your father and Ruth's were married about the same time." +</P> + +<P> +"Every man has a right to his opinions, Major," Dick asserted with +spirit. "Of course I've no personal knowledge of the War, +but"--stubbornly--"the North was right." +</P> + +<P> +"Fairfax to the core!" thought the Major in secret admiration. "The +boy's his father all over again. Well, Dick," he said mildly, "we +older men of the South feel a little differently about this War; but, +my boy, these post-bellum disputes don't pay, particularly when one +participant was born long after the guns were quiet. In my opinion you +didn't know enough about the War to quarrel over it. Great Scott, +quarreling over the War! Dick, you deserved to be spanked." +</P> + +<P> +The jingle of sleigh-bells rang blithely through the silence that +followed, and the Major sprang to his feet. "Merciful Heavens!" he +exclaimed, staring at his watch, "it's twelve o'clock. That must be +Uncle Neb still waiting, and Grandmother Verney's probably standing on +the church porch yet, mad as a hornet." He was at the door now, +calling wildly to the negro: "Uncle Neb, why under the canopy didn't +you call me?" +</P> + +<P> +The darky scratched his head. "Massa Edward," he confessed, "I ain't +been yere. I jus' druv Missy Ruth over to Brierwood with Uncle Noah to +see Colonel Fairfax." +</P> + +<P> +The Major summoned Dick in great excitement. "Dick," he exclaimed, +"get into your overcoat as fast as you can and drive over to Brierwood +with Uncle Neb. Ruth's gone ahead of you, and you couldn't have a +better deputy short of an angel." +</P> + +<P> +Dick wrung the Major's hand and fled to the waiting sleigh, the color +flooding his face. +</P> + +<P> +"And, Uncle Neb," called the Major frantically, "hurry back, or +Grandmother Verney will be tramping home in the snow, rheumatism or no +rheumatism." +</P> + +<P> +With a wild jingle of bells that seemed to Dick the hysterical echo of +his own heartbeats the sleigh was off. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +VI +<BR> +The Colonel's Christmas +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<P> +At Brierwood the Colonel, wrought to a high tension of excitement by +the mysterious flood of Christmas prosperity, of which the latest +manifestation had been a fresh newspaper dated the night before, +surmounted by a cigar of no mean label, had been vainly searching for +Uncle Noah, bewildered by the darky's odd vagaries which had culminated +in the culprit's disappearance. Just as the Colonel had returned to +the library, drawn his favorite chair up to the cheerful blaze of the +wood fire, and opened his favorite volume, a door in the rear of the +house shut softly, and, convinced that Uncle Noah had returned, the +Colonel closed his book and adjusted his glasses, determined to have an +immediate reckoning with the author of all this Christmas cheer. +</P> + +<P> +A light step sounded behind his chair, and the Colonel turned, quite +primed for an altercation. In an instant, however, the old man was on +his feet, bowing grandly in spite of his astonishment. A girl stood in +the doorway, her cloak falling loosely about her figure. Her cheeks +were blazing scarlet from the cold, and the deep gray eyes, fringed in +black, bore something in their warm depths that stirred familiar +memories. +</P> + +<P> +"Colonel," she said, stretching out a slim, white hand, "I'm Ruth +Verney, Major Edward's niece. I've just driven one of your servants" +(rare tact was but one of the Verney charms) "over from Fernlands and I +thought you wouldn't mind if I ran in for an instant to enjoy your +fire." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, child," the Colonel cried, forgetting all else in his delight, +"you must be Walter Verney's daughter." Ruth smilingly nodded. "I +knew it," he went on; "you have his eyes. Sit down here. I knew your +father well; when we were boys he and I were inseparable." He paused +and added simply: +</P> + +<P> +"That was before the War." +</P> + +<P> +The dark lashes veiled for an instant, a certain excitement in the gray +eyes. "I'm down for Christmas with Uncle Edward," Ruth explained; and +before the Colonel had fully realized it they were chatting happily +together like old friends. Suddenly the girl exclaimed: "Colonel +Fairfax, I know you'll be glad to hear that Dad and the Major are +friends again." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I am!" agreed the Colonel heartily. "In the old days we would +have laughed at the man who could possibly have suggested a quarrel for +the Verney twins." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing but a cruel war could have done it," said the girl quietly. +"What does it matter now," she demanded impetuously, "if Daddy did +fight for the North and the Major for the South? It's all so long ago +that a quarrel about it is foolish." +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel cleared his throat. "Yes, it is foolish," he admitted. +</P> + +<P> +"You see," Ruth leaned eagerly forward, "I met a man who knew the +Major, and he praised him so highly that I lay awake all one night +thinking what a pity it was that two such splendid men as Daddy and his +brother should still be enemies over an old bygone war. You know, +Colonel, they would have been friends ages ago, only each was too proud +to make the first advance. Wasn't it foolish?" +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel nodded, carefully shading his eyes from the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"They were just wasting precious years of companionship," went on the +girl. "That thought came to me as I lay awake in bed, and the very +next morning I wrote to the Major. You see, Colonel Fairfax, I feel +this way," she explained. "There's no North and no South. Daddy and +the Major are citizens of the United States." +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel rose and busied himself about the fire. When he put back +the tongs and reseated himself his cheeks were hot from its blazing +warmth. +</P> + +<P> +"And that's what I told Uncle Edward in the letter, and, Colonel, he +wrote me such a glorious letter back that I had to show it to Daddy. +He was delighted, and he said that any two men who fought over the +battles of a dead war were 'old fools.'" +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Fairfax winced. +</P> + +<P> +"So," finished the girl with glowing eyes, "Uncle Edward came rushing +North in a great state of excitement, and that's how I came to be down +here over Christmas." +</P> + +<P> +In her impetuous criticism of the war-time quarrel that had separated +the Verney twins for more than forty years, and the expression of her +broad, impulsive patriotism. Colonel Fairfax had listened to certain +truths which had long been subconsciously germinating in his own mind. +Before he could recover from the surprise of finding that he agreed +with her, Ruth, touched by the lines of care graven upon his fine old +face, had caught her breath with a little sob, slipped from her place +by the fire, and was kneeling, beside his chair, her eyes starry with +light, her lovely face glorified with its tender appeal. +</P> + +<P> +"Colonel," she cried, a catch in her voice, "I'm going to marry Dick! +It was he who praised Uncle Edward so." +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel's face grew scarlet; then he laid a trembling hand upon the +girl's bowed head. "Child," he said, "you--you--" Tears blinded his +eyes and he stopped. +</P> + +<P> +In the silence that followed came the sharp sound of a quick footfall. +The Colonel looked up. Dick Fairfax stood in the doorway, his eyes +burning strangely in the white misery of his face. +</P> + +<P> +The father rose and straightened himself with something of his old, +stern dignity; but at a warm, girlish touch he gulped. +</P> + +<P> +"Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, "we're--we're +both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas Day." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-116"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-116.jpg" ALT=""Dick," he said queerly..." BORDER="2" WIDTH="333" HEIGHT="574"> +<H5> +[Illustration: "Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand,<BR> +"we're--we're both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas Day."] +</H5> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Almost before he had finished the boy had bounded across the floor and +wrung the outstretched hand, his face radiant with delight. By the +fire Ruth cried softly and the Colonel gently patted her dark head, his +eyes full of tenderness. Then taking refuge from the sharp pain of his +emotion in austere command: +</P> + +<P> +"Dick," he said sternly, "go to your mother." +</P> + +<P> +When Uncle Noah, in a state of beatification impossible to describe, +summoned the four to the wonderful Christmas dinner Colonel Fairfax was +eagerly listening to the tales of Dick's success as told by Ruth, and +Dick was gently patting his mother's gray hair, a halo of silver +crowning a face radiant with happiness--a Christmas quartet whose +reconciliation Uncle Noah could as yet but imperfectly comprehend. +That he had been the unconscious instrument of it all the gray-eyed +lady had already told him; but Uncle Noah, busy with numberless +culinary problems in the kitchen, had not as yet had time to ferret it +out. +</P> + +<P> +At four o'clock Major Verney, who had been restrained from dashing over +to Brierwood hours before only by the necessity of soothing the ruffled +feelings of his irate mother after her long wait for a belated sleigh +on the porch of the Cotesville church, blustered in with the aggrieved +old lady upon his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"We've come to supper," announced the Major. "No, Dick," as the +Colonel rose, "sit down. I know all about it, and to-night you're all +going back to Fernlands with me to celebrate the betrothal of these two +youngsters." +</P> + +<P> +"It has been a day of mysteries," the Colonel said; "but will someone +please tell me what Uncle Noah was doing over at Fernlands this morning +when he was needed here?" +</P> + +<P> +A silence fell over the little group. The subject was one whose +delicacy forbade the ghost of a blunder. +</P> + +<P> +It was the Major who at last drew his old friend into the deep window +recess where but the night before he had watched Uncle Noah pursuing +the elusive Job, and told him the story of the faithful old negro's +Christmas Eve. +</P> + +<P> +The Colonel listened intently, the snowy landscape outside growing +blurred and misty as the record of the old man's devotion gradually +unfolded. Before the Major had finished the Colonel's hand had crept +to the bell at his side, and, as the darky's shuffling footsteps echoed +along the corridor, he turned again and stared with unseeing eyes at +the outline of the old barn. Dick shifted the log and a crimson glow +irradiated the old library, making a halo of soft fire about the figure +of the old darky as he paused before his master. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Noah," said the Colonel brokenly, "I--" but his voice failed +him, and he wrung the old man's hand in silence. +</P> + +<P> +The Major bent and whispered a few swift words to the startled darky +and a great light illumined the brown face. "Doan yoh go foh to thank +me, Massa Dick," he crooned, patting the Colonel's hand with reverent +devotion; "I ain't wuth it. All I needs, sah, is jus' a good kick for +disobeyin' orders. 'Spects I doan understan' it all, but I does know, +sah, dat de lady wid de gray eyes whut's at Major Verney's is--is a +good fairy, sah. An', Colonel, de Christmas supper am ready." +</P> + +<P> +Joyously they filed out, Dick lingering in the firelight for a word +with Ruth. Grandmother Verney, in high good humor, went out on the +Colonel's arm, the grievance of the morning's belated sleigh quite +forgotten in the genial warmth of the Fairfax hospitality. +</P> + +<P> +"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel of the old darky as usual, +"have we to-night for supper?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sah," beamed Uncle Noah, "we has ham an' turkey, an' cranberry +sauce an' celery, an' baked apples an' mince pie an' fruitcake +an'--an'--laws-a-massy, Massa, I'se too kerflusterated to ricomember +any mo'." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll have them all!" cried the Colonel. +</P> + +<P> +A terrific gobbling arose beneath the dining-room window, and the Major +rose and stared out in astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Merciful goodness, Dick," he demanded, "what is that horrible racket?' +</P> + +<P> +"Laws-a-massy, Massa," cried the old darky, "it's Job! I let him out a +while back, sah, an' I done fohgot to put him to roost. I reckon he's +come to remind me." +</P> + +<P> +And, beaming happily at the radiant Christmas party, Uncle Noah flung +up the window and in a terrible voice commanded the tyrant to be silent. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<hr noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15826-h.txt or 15826-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/2/15826">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/2/15826</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Wrenn + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration + + +Author: Leona Dalrymple + +Release Date: May 15, 2005 [eBook #15826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS +INSPIRATION*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15826-h.htm or 15826-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/2/15826/15826-h/15826-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/2/15826/15826-h.zip) + + + + + +UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION + +by + +LEONA DALRYMPLE + +Author of "Diane of the Green Van," "In the Heart of the Christmas +Pines," "Uncle Noah's Christmas Party," etc. + +Illustrations by Charles L. Wrenn + +Decorations by Charles Guischard + +New York +McBride, Nast & Company +Third Printing + +1914 + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face +of his wife bending over them] + + + + + + To C. A. W. + + in grateful recognition + of an unfailing source of encouragement + and impartial criticism + + + + +Contents + + + I. CHRISTMAS EVE + + II. THE INSPIRATION + + III. THE GRAY-EYED LADY + + IV. CHRISTMAS INTRIGUE + + V. FERNLANDS + + VI. THE COLONEL'S CHRISTMAS + + + + +The Illustrations + + +He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife +bending over them . . . . Frontispiece + +"Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets from young Massa +Dick" + +"I'se jus' come in--to ask yoh, Miss, if you'd like to buy an ol' +nigger servant. I'se foh sale" + +"Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, "we're both +citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas day" + + + + +I + +Christmas Cheer + + + + +Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration + +I + + +The twilight of a Christmas Eve, gray with the portent of coming snow, +crept slowly over the old plantation of Brierwood, softening the +outlines of a decrepit house still rearing its roof in massive dignity +and a tumbledown barn flanked by barren fields. A quiet melancholy +hovered about the old house as if it brooded over a host of bygone +Yuletides alive with the shouts of merry negroes and the jingle of +visiting sleighs--Yuletides when the snowy dusk had been ushered in to +the lowing of cattle and the neighing of horses safely housed in the +old barn. There were no negroes now, no blooded stock--no fluttering +fowls save one belligerent old turkey gobbler fleeing from a +white-haired darky who tried in vain to drive him to his roost in the +barn. + +In the library of the old house a man, tall and eagle-eyed, peered out +beneath bushy white eyebrows at the fading landscape blurred by the +dancing forms of the negro and the recalcitrant turkey. He watched the +chase end with an impertinent gobble from the turkey, and, at the sound +of a closing door in the rear of the house, tapped a bell at his side. +Footsteps shuffled along the hallway, and, breathless from his chase, +the old negro entered. + +Colonel Fairfax wheeled with military precision. "Uncle Noah," he said +sternly, "to-morrow will be Christmas." + +The darky nodded and hobbled hurriedly to the wood fire, bending over +as he poked it to hide the look of anxiety in his face. "Laws-a-massy, +Massa Fairfax," he grumbled in good-natured evasion, "yoh'd mos' freeze +to deaf, I reckons, 'thout sendin' foh me"--he coughed, and amended +hastily: "'thout sendin' foh one ob de servants to pile up dis yere +fire." + +The amendment was but one of Uncle Noah's many subterfuges to convince +himself and his master that there had been no changes in the Fairfax +fortunes since the old days. That he was the last of the Colonel's +retainers, a wageless, loyal old dependent attending to the manifold +tasks of a sole domestic, the negro never admitted even to himself. +That his quaint pretensions, however, were daily stimulants to the +fierce old Colonel hungrily eating his heart out with memories Uncle +Noah was well aware. So the pitiful little subterfuges, revealing the +subtle understanding of the two, peopled the old house with swarming +negroes and the horn of plenty to the joy of both. + +But to-day Uncle Noah felt uneasily that the reference to the servants +had not bolstered the Colonel as it usually did, and the old darky +groaned inwardly as he added wood to the fire. From the corner of his +eye he saw that the Colonel had drawn himself up to military rigidity, +an evidence that the old soldier was on his mettle and would brook no +opposition. + +"Uncle Noah," he said, fixing a stern eye on the old man, "in the +Fairfax family there has always been a turkey at Christmas." + +There was no suggestion in the darky's affable tones of the erratic +manner in which his heart was beating. "Yes, sah," he agreed, +"ofttimes mo' than one." + +"Owing to circumstances understood by you and myself, but by ho one +else, there would be no turkey this year save that--" + +"Y-e-e-s, sah?" Uncle Noah laid a wrinkled brown hand upon the nearest +chair for support. + +"We have a live turkey in stock," ended the Colonel firmly, looking +squarely into the trembling negro's eyes. + +Uncle Noah's heart gave a convulsive leap. The thunderbolt had fallen! +The fierce old turkey gobbler, solitary tenant of the crazy +outbuildings, the imperial tyrant upon whom Uncle Noah had bestowed the +affection of his loyal old heart, had been sentenced to death by the +highest earthly tribunal the old negro recognized. + +"I'se--I'se afeard he'll be tough, Colonel Fairfax," he quavered. +"I--I--Gord-a-massy, Massa Dick, yoh wouldn't kill ol' Job? He's too +smart foh a bird an' he's done a most powahful sight o' runnin', sah; I +reckons he's mos' all muscle." + +There was an agonized appeal in the darky's voice that cut straight to +the Colonel's heart. "Uncle Noah," he said kindly, "it can't be +helped. Job goes for the sake of--someone else." + +"Ol' Missus?" + +"Yes. Thank God, Uncle Noah," the Colonel laid a gentle hand on the +negro's shoulder, "that she doesn't know of our--er--financial +crisis"--his halting utterance showed how distasteful the words were to +him--"save, of course, that we must live with economy, as we have for +years. Of the catastrophe of last fall she is ignorant, and a Fairfax +Christmas without a turkey would--she must not know," he finished +abruptly. + +The Colonel had spoken with a simple dignity and confidence that +brought the old negro back from the field of sentiment to the barren +desert of reality. Dimly in his mental chaos stood forth three +pitiless facts: "Ol' Missus" was grieving her heart out for the son +with whom the Colonel had quarreled three years before; of this money +trouble from which Colonel Fairfax had shielded her she must as yet +know nothing; and there was no turkey for the Christmas dinner. Verily +things looked dark for the ill-fated Job, roosting in unsuspecting +security in the desolate old barn. With bowed head the darky walked +slowly toward the door. + +"Uncle Noah," the Colonel's tones were incisive, "you will kill Job +tonight." + +"I mos' forgot, Massa Dick," faltered Uncle Noah, "dat supper's ready, +sah. Ol' Missus done come downstairs jus' foh I chases Job to roost. +Laws-a-massy, Massa Dick, can't he live till after supper?" + +The Colonel nodded, carefully avoiding the old man's troubled eyes, and +went to join his wife at supper. + +"Christmas Eve, my dear," he announced cheerfully as he bent to kiss +the sweet, wistful face that turned to greet him. "I beg your pardon +for keeping you waiting. Uncle Noah and I were discussing to-morrow's +turkey;" he gazed calmly at the old negro nervously handling the tea +things; "he has selected a large bird and I have been advising a +smaller." + +The Colonel opened his napkin and deftly tucked the hole in the end out +of sight beneath the table. "Now, Uncle Noah, what is there to-night +for supper?" + +To Uncle Noah this nightly question had become a sacred institution, a +stimulus to imaginative powers highly developed in his quaint dialogues +with the Colonel. He forgot the doomed Job. It was Christmas Eve, and +his creative gift took festive wings. + +"Well, sah," he beamed, "we has a little chicken gumbo, some fried +chicken jus' the right golden brown, sah, creamed potatoes, hot +biscuits with currant jelly--er--sliced ham and baked potatoes." + +Colonel Fairfax thoughtfully considered the appetizing prospect in +accordance with the rules of the game. What mattered it that the +luscious edibles existed only in the brain of the loyal old darky? The +little pretense gave to each a delightful thrill--surely an adequate +extenuation of the harmless diversion. As usual Colonel Fairfax found +the key to the situation in the closing items of Uncle Noah's list. + +"It all sounds delicious, Uncle Noah," he observed graciously, "but I +have a touch of my old enemy the dyspepsia today. I think I shall have +sliced ham and baked potatoes. That, I think, will do for us both." + +Mrs. Fairfax agreed, her kindly eyes fixed upon Uncle Noah's attentive +face. + +"And, sah," Uncle Noah began--it was Christmas Eve and this game must +be perfectly played--"shall I attend to de distribution of gifts in de +negroes' quarters, sah?" + +"Yes," agreed the Colonel, "see that no one is slighted!" + +Mrs. Fairfax bowed her wistful face upon her hands to hide the blinding +tears, and an odd, uncomfortable silence fell upon the little group. + +At length the Colonel pushed his chair back and rose. "Uncle Noah," he +said sternly, a suspicious brightness gleaming in his eyes, "that +turkey of yours is making a terrible noise under the window. Make him +quit gobbling. Patricia, I don't wonder he makes you nervous. He's an +old renegade!" + +That the object of the Colonel's wrath had long since retired to roost +mattered not to his accuser. The turkey had developed a convenient +habit of gobbling under the window whenever emotion forced the Colonel +to seek a vent in stern commands. Uncle Noah crossed to the window and +commanded Job to be silent. Mrs. Fairfax, southern gentlewoman and +thoroughbred from tip to toe, quivered proudly, and, as Uncle Noah +returned, bade him serve the supper in tones as well controlled as they +were gentle. + + + + +II + +The Inspiration + + + + +II + +In the great barren kitchen Uncle Noah wiped his steel-rimmed +spectacles and glared angrily about him. + +"Ol' Missus grievin' her heart out foh young Massa Dick," he reflected, +"and de Colonel say '_slight no one_!' Gord-a-massy, whut am dis yere +ol' worl' a-comin' to? Ebery time ol' Mis' cry for young Massa Dick, +Colonel say Job gobbles--" + +The old darky choked miserably at the thought of the destined check to +Job's gobbling career and, replacing his spectacles, carefully carried +in the supper, prolonging its simple service to the uttermost, with the +single idea of adding precious minutes to the doomed turkey's span of +life. + +When at length he sought the barn it was quite dark and the velvet +stillness of the night was dotted thickly with snowflakes. With +trembling fingers he opened the great barn-door, lit a queer old +lantern hanging just within, and hung it high upon a projecting hook. +The dim light revealed an antique carriage-house, in one corner of +which upon a rude, improvised roost of shingles the tyrant Job slept +the sleep of the just and the unjust rolled into one. As the lights +flickered upon his ruffled feathers the turkey emitted a throaty grunt +of disapproval and moved cumbrously around to avoid the light. + +Uncle Noah addressed him with great firmness. "Now see yere, Massa +Job," he said, "tain't no use yoh puttin' on yoh high and mighty airs +to-night. I'se come to interview yoh, sah! Understand?" + +Job majestically tucked his head beneath his wing as if to intimate his +indifference to the proposed interview. + +Uncle Noah surveyed his ruffled back feathers with increased respect. +"So," he said, "yoh refuse me an interview, Massa Job Fairfax. Yoh is +sleepy, sah, dat's whut's got into yoh." He stroked the turkey with a +gentle hand, and, Job, resenting the indignity, withdrew his head from +the sheltering wing and pecked at the brown fingers, turning around +with a stately movement and facing the light once more with a sleepy +blink of his bright, beadlike eyes. + +"Now, sah, we can talk," exclaimed the negro in delight. Drawing up an +old box he seated himself before the roost and beamed benevolently over +his glasses. + +"Colonel done say yoh gobble under de winder 'bout suppertime," he +began confidentially. "When ol' Mis' cry 'bout young Massa Dick de +Colonel he jus' gotta scold 'bout sumthin', and as yoh is de mos' +important person about he jus' naturally selects yoh." + +The turkey held his head upon one side, apparently in critical +admiration of the darky's quaint old scarfpin which resembled a grain +of corn mounted on a needle. + +Uncle Noah, who had always had a faint mistrust of Job's attitude +toward this ancient Ethiopian heirloom, promptly removed it to a place +of safety. Then with a sudden resolve that no thought of the coming +tragedy should mar his last visit with his old companion he rose and +sought a dim, cobwebby corner of the barn, whence he returned with a +box. + +"Dese yere, Job," he explained, "is de flowers whut young Massa Dick +have sent to his mother ebery holiday since he done went away from +yere. Mornin', I specs, when de Colonel sees 'em at her plate, he'll +declare yoh gobblin' sumthin' fierce under de winder again; he always +do." + +The old negro broke the string of the box and removed a glowing mass of +purple orchids--odd, transient tenants of the crazy old barn. Job +suddenly reached over and pecked a blossom from its stem, ate the heart +with the dainty air of an epicure, and discarded the remainder with a +noise akin to a gobble of disgust. + +Uncle Noah rose in scandalized protest. "Yoh good-foh-nothin', +miserable, sassy turkey!" he scolded, hastily removing the orchids; +"you sartinly is de mos' scan'lous, no-'count bird I ever knowed. Eat +one o' ol' Missus's orchards! Laws-a-massy, Job, yoh goes mos' too +far. Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets from young +Massa Dick," and he carefully deciphered the written lines for the +listening Job. + + +_Dear Uncle Noah_: I have written Foster and Company as usual to send +Mother's orchids. They should get there Christmas Eve. Will you put +them at her plate in the morning? I find they are the only suggestion +of me that the Colonel will allow in the house. I tried another letter +this week, but it came back unopened. Uncle Noah, give Mother "A Merry +Christmas" for me. DICK. + + +[Illustration: Now, sah, yoh be quiet and listen to dis note I gets +from young Massa Dick] + + +Uncle Noah laid the letter on his knee and drew from a worn leather +wallet several newspaper clippings. They were glowing reports, gleaned +from a stray newspaper, of the success of a young architect in a +distant northern city, one Richard Fairfax, Jr. Uncle Noah proudly +read them aloud for the hundredth time, interpolating little +explanatory remarks to the turkey, who gobbled threateningly but failed +to intimidate his tormentor. + +"Job, whut yoh think 'bout dis yere quarrel?" Uncle Noah said as the +turkey eyed him sternly. "I say de Colonel's too hard on de boy. A +quarrel's a quarrel, yoh say. H'm, maybe yoh right, but it's dis +Fairfax pride ob de Colonel's dat keep him from readin' de boy's +letters, and nothin' else, sah. He sorry for dat quarrel, doan you +fo'get it. But de Colonel he prouder'n Lucifer. H'm, yoh say yoh +understan' pride cause yoh is proud yohself." Then as the turkey +relapsed into slumber, "Now, see yere, Massa Job, yoh ain't no mo' +sleepier'n I is." Uncle Noah poked the turkey with his finger, and Job +arched his neck with a threatening flap of his wings and descended from +his perch. "Fight me, will yoh?" demanded Uncle Noah in secret +delight, "yoh is de touchiest bird! Yere, fight wid dese yere crusts +o' bread." + +Job spread his tail magnificently and began an erratic consumption of +the bread crusts, pertly taking them one by one from the old negro's +hand and arranging them upon the barn floor for later and more personal +inspection. Uncle Noah watched him with misty eyes. Presently his +gaze furtively sought the rusty ax in the corner, and great tear rolled +down his cheek. Caught in the wave of a sudden panic he dropped upon +his knees and clasped his trembling hands. The dusky barn, littered +with odds and ends, was dimly visible in the glimmering light of the +old-fashioned lantern whose slanting rays fell upon the doomed bird and +the praying negro. No thought of sacrilege marred the quaint, halting +prayer. A terrible earnestness lined the negro's face with a holiness +of purpose and made it beautiful. + +"Oh, Lord," he prayed, "save dis yere ol' turkey gobbler. I knows, +Lord, he's a powahful wuthless bird, but he's all I'se got. I'se jus' +an' ol' slave, Massa, what's been free since de War, an' Job, sah, he +understan's me. Lord, I doan wanta live no mo' if I has to kill ol' +Job. Send me an inspiration, Lord, an' tell me how I can save his +wuthless ol' hide. Save him an'--an' God bless de Colonel! Amen." + +For an interval, in which the only sound was that of Job's feet as he +strutted about seeking an edible successor to the bread, Uncle Noah +remained upon his knees in the attitude of prayer, perhaps awaiting +inspiration. At length he rose, and, seating himself upon the box once +more, buried his white head dejectedly in his hands. The snow-flakes +filtered slowly through a crevice at the side, heaping fantastically +into a miniature drift. Absently Uncle Noah watched them, his mind +traveling back to many a snowy Christmas "before the War." + +Suddenly his brown face glowed with radiance and he drew a long breath +of relief. "Job," he said, leaning forward and patting the turkey, "I +has it! Yoh'd scarcely believe it, sah, but I'se a-goin' to save yoh." + +He arose transformed, the despondent droop of his lean body replaced by +an alert energy. "Now, Job," he coaxed, "I jus' wants yoh foh to come +along wif me peaceable, sah. I'se after yoh to save yoh ol' hide from +de Christmas platter." + +But Job, with a malicious enjoyment of the game, was prancing wildly +about the barn, flapping his wings in hysterical derision of his +breathless pursuer. Brought to bay he squawked a protest and struggled +violently as Uncle Noah unceremoniously imprisoned him beneath one arm. + +"There, sah," exclaimed the negro triumphantly, "I has yoh! Yoh is +sartinly the mos' wuthless turkey on dis yere plantation." + +Tightly clasping the outraged tyrant Uncle Noah tiptoed to the lantern +and blew it out. Then stumbling across the floor he stealthily left +the barn and set out across the snowy fields to a tumble-down shanty, +sole survivor of a string of negro huts long since burned one by one in +the library fireplace. Into its dilapidated interior he thrust the +protesting turkey, pausing at the door as he struck a match to view the +bird's temporary quarters. + +"Now, Massa Job Fairfax," he began, "I knows yoh is jus' mad clean +through. Yoh jus' naturally objects to bein' toted out in de snow in +de middle o' de turkey night 'thout bein' asked. Yoh says yoh back is +full o' snow? Well, I jus' asks yoh, Massa Job Fairfax, ain't dat +better'n bein' wifout a head? Now, sah, I asks yoh to be mos' terrible +quiet dis yere night. I'se a-goin' into Cotesville on a little trip +an' I doan want de Colonel to know yoh here." + +He closed the rickety door, and, hurrying back across the fields, +sought the kitchen, his eyes behind their spectacles shining with +excitement. Muffling himself in a quaint red knitted scarf, a dingy +overcoat and a worn fur cap, plentifully earlapped, he left the house +again, pausing only long enough to peer through the library window at +the Colonel, who was reading aloud to his wife, both drawn up in the +cheery warmth of a blazing wood fire. Then he hurried on along the +road to town. + +With a prayer in his heart for the success of his mission Uncle Noah +trudged sturdily down the two miles to Cotesville, past Major Verney's +old plantation, the cheery lights of the great house twinkling brightly +through a curtain of snow, and into the snow-laden air of the village +streets alive with Christmas shoppers. Holly and mistletoe, Christmas +trees filling the air with the odor of pine, dancing snowflakes and +bright lights, wonderful windows wreathed and dotted in Christmas +glitter, and cheery voices--who could resist them? Uncle Noah felt his +heart quiver with hope; jubilantly he turned his steps toward the +railroad station ahead. + +The Northern Express flashed through the snow and came to a stop with a +clang and a roar, disgorging a chattering holiday crowd who paused for +a change of cars at Cotesville on their southbound trips. Uncle Noah +hastened his shuffling footsteps: the Northern Express with its horde +of transient visitors had been a vital part of the inspiration. Upon +the station platform people stamped up and down in the snow or laughed +and chatted, quite oblivious to the timid gaze of the old darky who +slowly made his way among them. One by one Uncle Noah left them all +behind, a great disappointment in his face. In their laughing +countenances he had found nothing of what he sought. + + + + +III + +The Gray-Eyed Lady + + + + +III + +Just ahead a girl appeared from the shadows and walked quickly toward +the waiting-room. Uncle Noah looked into her fresh, sweet face; then +his own lit up with renewed hope and he followed her in and touched her +timidly on the arm. The girl turned, revealing a face rosy with cold, +and a pair of warm gray eyes fringed in lashes of black, eyes that +frankly offered a glimpse of a girl's impulsive heart brimming over +with Christmas spirit. + +Uncle Noah removed the battered fur cap and bowed low with the +deference of a Cavalier. "I'se jus' come in to--to ask yoh, Miss," he +said simply, "if yoh'd like to buy an ol' nigger servant. I'se foh +sale." + +[Illustration: "I'se jus' come in to--to ask yoh, Miss," he said +simply, "if yoh'd like to buy an ol' nigger servant. I'se foh sale."] + +"For sale!" The girl took in the quaint figure with a glance of blank +astonishment. "Why," she gasped, "surely you--" + +"I'se ol', Miss," he interrupted timidly, but meeting her gaze with +unwavering sincerity; "I specs I'se mos' a hundred; but I'se powahful +tough an' full o' work, an'--an', Miss, I has to sell maself tonight +'cause--'cause--" + +Uncle Noah paused uncertainly, seeking a fit expression of his dilemma, +and the girl, readily intuitive, glanced swiftly about to assure +herself that the waiting-room was free from unsympathetic +eavesdroppers. Then, strangely drawn by this quaint old vender of +humanity, and warmly eager to put him more at his ease, she impulsively +pushed a rocking-chair toward the old stove in the center and motioned +him to be seated. But Uncle Noah had been reared in the Fairfax +family, and a Fairfax never sat when a lady was still upon her feet. +With a courtly gesture the old man bowed her to the chair she had drawn +for him. A quick gleam of approval flashed in the gray eyes and with a +deepening flush of puzzled interest, the girl instantly seated herself, +unfastening the silver fox at her throat as she felt the warmth of the +old country stove. + +"Please, I would _so_ much rather you, too, would sit down," she said +impulsively, and as Uncle Noah drew forward another of the rickety old +rocking-chairs with which the Cotesville waiting-room was dotted, she +bent toward him--a light in the wonderful gray eyes that won Uncle +Noah's heart. + +"Tell me," she said kindly: "Tell me just why you want to sell +yourself." + +No, she had not laughed at him. Uncle Noah glowed to the tips of his +fingers at the ready sympathy of her tone. He beamed mildly at her +over his spectacles, turning the old fur cap round and round in his +hands as he sought to voice the words that struggled to his lips. "Ol' +Massa's money--an', Miss, he hain't had much since de War; jus' 'nuff +to live comfutable--all go in de Cotesville bank crash las' fall an' he +doan want ol' Mis' foh to know. I'se de only one o' de niggers whut's +left, an' dere's only one ol' turkey gobbler left o' de stock. He's my +ol' pet, Miss, mos' like a chile, an'--an'--" Uncle Noah choked. + +The girl's eyes were misty velvet. "And he told you to kill your pet +for the Christmas dinner?" she finished gently. + +Uncle Noah nodded. "Massa done say we mus' hab a turkey for de +Christmas dinner, or ol' Mis'll suspect de--de financial crisis whut +we're in. Out in de barn I prays foh an inspiration an' I 'spect it +come." + +"And so you decided to sell yourself--" began the girl. + +"Yas'm." Uncle Noah's voice had grown apologetic. "Yoh see, Miss, +I'se de only thing whut I really owns 'cept dis yere ol' stickpin. +Cose I'se free now, but I reckons if I has a mind to sell maself de +Norf can't stop me. I'se sellin' ma own property." There was a gentle +defiance in the old negro's argument. + +"And you--you wouldn't accept a--a loan?" The girl flushed. + +The negro's hurt eyes were answer enough. Uncle Noah had not lived in +an atmosphere permeated with Fairfax pride without feeling its +influence. + +"I'se not askin' foh charity, Miss," he averred stubbornly. "I'se +a-sellin' sumthin'. I reckons if yoh buy me, Miss, an' yoh lemme go +back an' stay Christmas wif ol' Massa, I'll sell maself cheap. Yoh see +I'se a-plannin' first to buy a turkey whut'll take Job's place on de +platter, an' den to give de Massa a gran' Christmas wif de rest o' de +money what I gits foh maself, savin' out jus' enough to buy ma ol' +turkey an' come to yoh first day after Christmas. It'll be hard to +leave ol' Massa and Mis', but I reckons it's jus' gotta be done." + +Uncle Noah gulped and blinked, and there was a glimmer of wet lashes +about the warm gray eyes that had won his heart. + +The girl was silent so long that Uncle Noah shifted uneasily; but at +last she spoke a little tremulously. "For what price will you sell +yourself?" she asked, and Uncle Noah never doubted but that she +regarded the purchase in the same light in which he himself had viewed +it. + +He turned about for his purchaser's thorough inspection, his bald head +above the fringe of white wool about it glistening in the lamplight. +"Do yoh think I'se wuth, say, twenty-five dollahs?" he queried, +regarding her fixedly over his spectacles. + +The girl touched her throat with an unconscious gesture. "Yes, you +are," she cried impulsively; "you are indeed!" And before Uncle Noah +had quite time to adjust himself to the joy of his unique sale the girl +thrust a roll of bills into his hands and disappeared through the +station door. + + + + +IV + +Christmas Intrigue + + + + +IV + +Uncle Noah hobbled after her. His new mistress had quite forgotten to +tell him where to deliver himself when his Christmas with the Colonel +was over. But when he reached the door she was eagerly greeting a man +who had just alighted from a waiting carriage. Uncle Noah could but +dimly see him, but as the genial voice reached his ears he halted in +the shadow quite content. It was Major Verney. The fact that the +Colonel's old friend and neighbor had driven in from Fernlands to meet +the radiant lady whose great gray eyes, Uncle Noah now recalled, had +had the Verney look which endeared the owner of Fernlands to all who +knew him, seemed to the watching negro a direct interposition of +Providence. A scant mile of cottonfields lay between the two +plantations, and, Christmas over, Uncle Noah had but to trudge across +the fields to deliver himself to the Major's guest. + +"And, Ruth," concluded Major Verney in laughing reprimand, "you have +kept me waiting. Why, child, the Northern Express came in fifteen +minutes ago." + +Uncle Noah did not catch the girl's reply as Major Verney assisted her +into the carriage and they drove rapidly away. + +The old darky beamed happily after the retreating carriage; then, with +his hand tightly clasped about the precious roll of greenbacks for +which he had so willingly bartered his freedom, he began a tour of the +Cotesville stores. When at length he staggered into the big grocery +store for his final purchases he was laden with a miscellaneous +collection of Christmas packages from which he was cheerfully +disentangled by the bulky proprietor himself. Uncle Noah made a +critical pilgrimage about the store, pausing at last before a counter +where the proprietor had laid out a number of turkeys for the careful +inspection of this beaming shopper about to select an understudy for +the incomparable Job. A very respectable fowl was presently mantled in +brown paper and laid beside the other bundles, along with sundry bags +of cranberries and apples, oranges and nuts, celery and raisins, cigars +for the Colonel, a box of candy for Mrs. Fairfax, huge bunches of holly +and mistletoe, Christmas wreaths for the windows, and a great bag of +cracked corn for the reprieved tyrant gloomily roosting in the ruined +hut. + +As Uncle Noah carefully counted out the money required to purchase this +astonishing outlay the bulky proprietor tasked pleasantly: "Uncle Noah, +do you happen to know where I can get a good woman to scrub up my store +every morning?" + +Uncle Noah fingered his scarfpin uncertainly. "How much do yoh pay foh +de work?" he queried. + +"Fifty cents a day." + +The negro leaned forward in tense expectancy. "Do yoh 'spect I could +do it?" he demanded excitedly. + +The proprietor, secretly astonished by the old man's manner, nodded +assuringly. "Why, yes, you could easily; it's nothing much; but the +Colonel--" + +"Colonel doan have foh to know," exclaimed Uncle Noah. "I comes yere +mornin's foh he's up--an I 'clare to goodness, sah, I needs de money +mos' powahful." + +The proprietor was easy-going and too phlegmatic to harbor curiosity. +So the bargain was straightway sealed under a pledge of deepest secrecy. + +Somewhat confused by the unusual series of events, Uncle Noah, his eyes +shining with a strange excitement, started for the door, quite +forgetting the countless packages on the counter. + +The proprietor recalled him with a hearty laugh. "Uncle Noah," he +called, "you've forgotten one or two little bundles here." + +With a smothered gasp the old negro hurried back. But try as they +would, room for all the numerous bundles could not be found. The +proprietor energetically tucked bundles into all of Uncle Noah's +pockets, piled them tower fashion upon his arms, and even hung a +collection bound together with a string over his shoulder, while Uncle +Noah wheezed and groaned and struggled to find new and unsuspected +storage space in his clothes, but still there remained bundles and +bundles at which Uncle Noah gazed over his spectacles in growing +discomfiture. + +"Whut am I a-goin' to do?" he demanded. "I nevah can come all de way +hack yere in de snow wif dese yere ol' legs o' mine." + +"Get one of them station cabs," advised the grocer; and so, after +considerable discussion, the bundle problem was solved. + +Ten minutes later Uncle Noah entered a hired carriage for the first +time in his life. At the town florist's he rapped a timid signal to +the driver to stop, and, glowing with anticipation, spryly shuffled +into the warm, scented air of the little shop. Here, to the smiling +clerk's astonishment, he ordered a bunch of violets to be delivered +Christmas morning to "de young lady wif de gray eyes whut's at Major +Verney's." + +"Surely," smiled the clerk, "you don't want that on the card?" + +But Uncle Noah was stubborn; more, he insisted on writing the +inscription himself, his orthography quite as quaint as his penmanship, +and so the card went to be read by the wonderful gray eyes in the +morning. + +Back through the snow in his rickety carriage rolled Uncle Noah, +rattling home along the snowy road down which he had trudged in the +early evening, chuckling now intermittently in a mental rehearsal of +his new plan. + +"Fifty cents a day!" he thought, "an' to-morrow I'se a-goin' to slip +over to Fernlands in de mornin' an' ask her to lemme buy maself back on +de 'stallment plan. Mos' likely she'll take a dollar a week, an' wid +all de rest o' dat grocer money ol' Mis' doan have to know whut de +Colonel an' me is a-goin' through." + +In accordance with Uncle Noah's whispered directions the cab crept +gently up the driveway at Brierwood and paused at the kitchen door, +where the driver, who had taken a great fancy to Uncle Noah, became +transformed into a benevolent stevedore, tiptoeing in and out of the +kitchen with the bundles which the old darky drew from the cavernous +pit of the cab. Job's understudy came last, and Uncle Noah, tightly +pressing the precious fowl in his arms, watched the carriage drive +slowly away. Then, after an interval in the kitchen devoted to hiding +his purchases, he sought the library, striving to simulate a decent +depression over the assumed decapitation of Job. + +Colonel Fairfax looked up inquiringly as he entered. + +"I'se jus' come to tell yoh, sah," said Uncle Noah with a meaning +glance at Mrs. Fairfax, "dat I has de turkey all ready foh de oven." + +A faint red crept through the Colonel's skin, but he met the darky's +eyes squarely. "Thank you, Uncle Noah!" he said, and the negro +shuffled hurriedly away. + +In his old rocking-chair by the kitchen fire Uncle Noah, alert and +excited, waited until he heard the Colonel and Mrs. Fairfax go up to +bed; then, chuckling to himself, he extinguished the kitchen lights, +and, carrying one of his Christmas bundles, plodded across the field to +Job's nocturnal hermitage. The light of a match revealed the tyrant +roosting glumly on the summit of a ruined plowshare. + +"I'se brought yoh a Christmas surprise, Massa Job Fairfax," said Uncle +Noah, and he sprinkled the floor of the hut thick with corn that the +turkey might find it in the morning. + +With his heart full of thanksgiving the negro plodded homeward through +the snow. As he reached the old barn the great clock in the library +struck twelve and faintly through the snowy air floated the distant +silvery chimes of the Cotesville bells, clear and sweet, ringing in a +Christmas morning. + +Creeping to bed long after the first rooster had crowed Uncle Noah had +sought the kitchen again with the sunrise, his tired eyes opening +jubilantly upon a snapping cold Christmas morning radiant in gold and +white. Downstairs clusters of holly and mistletoe festooned doors and +windows, dotted the old-fashioned hanging lamps with spots of crimson, +and crowned the family portraits with royal diadems, and evergreen +wreaths hung in the windows--all the work of a wrinkled pair of +faithful brown hands toiling while the world slept. In the library a +blazing wood fire leaped and crackled, while in the dining-room the +table was spread for breakfast. Certain long-needed articles of china, +which had mysteriously disappeared from time to time since the autumn, +dotted a tablecloth free from holes (a new one subjected to a severe +laundry process during the night), and the napkins no longer resembled +Ku-Klux masks. A great bowl of purple orchids glowed at Mrs. Fairfax's +plate. + + + + +V + +Fernlands + + + + +V + +The Colonel greeted the Christmas festoons of holly in the library with +a stare of astonished approval. A question had risen to his lips, but +the warning look in Uncle Noah's eyes as they rested on Mrs. Fairfax +had checked it. These two had had many financial and domestic secrets +from the dear lady, and the Colonel promptly decided that Uncle Noah +had sold some forgotten relic and had once more made use of his highly +developed faculty for expanding a small sum to incredible elasticity, +and he praised the result accordingly. Mrs. Fairfax, too, brightened +wonderfully, yielding to the Christmas spirit with which the old darky +had contrived to fill the house. + +Uncle Noah felt a glow of delight at their outspoken appreciation, and, +bowing elaborately, he ushered his master and mistress in to breakfast. +Here again, as he seated himself, the Colonel was conscious of an +agreeable flood of astonishment. There was quite an air about this +Christmas breakfast. Fixing his keen eyes on the tablecloth and +napkins, he stealthily fingered them with a searching look at the +waiting negro. Fortunately his interest was speedily diverted. He +caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife +bending over them. With a wrench of his chair he arose. + +"Patricia!" he said stormily, "did I not say that nothing of his--did I +not--" he paused and gulped. "Uncle Noah," he added unsteadily, "that +turkey of yours is gobbling like a fiend under the window; you--he--" + +The Colonel stopped abruptly, reddened as his eyes fell upon the negro +(Uncle Noah had wisely turned away), and sternly reseated himself, +somewhat confused by his thoughtless reference to the late lamented Job, + +Uncle Noah hobbled from the room, his brown face working convulsively. +In the kitchen he shook with silent laughter, doubling over +breathlessly and clasping his hands over his stomach in aching distress. + +"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel kindly as the old negro +presently re-entered the dining-room, "have we for our Christmas +breakfast?" + +"Well, sah," Uncle Noah began fluently, "we has grapefruit, cereal wif +cream, quail on toast, fried oysters--er--oatmeal, hot muffins, fried +chicken, co'nbread an' coffee!" + +The Colonel, appearing to be thoughtfully considering his choice, +replied as usual: "It all sounds delicious, Uncle Noah, but I have a +touch of my old enemy dyspepsia to-day. I think I shall have some +cornbread and coffee, and so will Mrs. Fairfax." + +"I doan think you quite understand me, sah," averred Uncle Noah, "an' +sah, I 'spects yoh dyspepsia ain't so bad dis mornin'. We has foh +breakfast, sah, grapefruit, cereal wif cream, quail on toast, fried +oysters--er--_oatmeal, fried chicken, hot muffins, co'nbread an' +coffee_!" + +There was no mistaking the emphasis this time. Colonel Fairfax darted +a lightning glance at the negro and amended his selection with a +question in his voice. "Well, now I come to think of it, Uncle Noah," +he said, "my dyspepsia isn't nearly so bad. I'll have, let me see, +oatmeal--that was in the list, I believe--er--fried chicken--am I +right?--muffins, cornbread and coffee." + +There was a conviction in the Colonel's deep voice that something +extraordinary was afoot, and Uncle Noah, flurried by its ominous ring, +hurried from the room. Dimly he had pictured his master's gracious +astonishment and pleasure. Any queries relative to the financial +source of the Christmas delicacies, however, had been lost entirely in +the darky's jubilant excitement. Now he groaned in dismay. + +"Yoh is in a mess for sure, Uncle Noah," he apostrophized himself. +"Whut'll yoh do when it come time foh dinnah? Yere yoh has a Christmas +dinnah fit foh a King, an' de Colonel he know right well dat we has +only a little 1ef from de money whut we done get when we sold de silver +teapot." + +It was Christmas, however, and Uncle Noah felt convinced that the +Providence that had watched so well over his Christmas Eve would order +a special dispensation for his new dilemma. While awaiting its +manifestation he would studiously avoid the Colonel, and would slip +across to Fernlands, once the pseudo Job was safe in the oven, and beg +the gray-eyed lady to accept a dollar a week of the grocer's money in +his inspired scheme of self-redemption. + +With this in mind Uncle Noah served the breakfast, hurried his +preparations for the midday feast, and at five minutes of eleven, the +turkey safely roasting, set out across the fields for Major Verney's. + +At Fernlands the eleven strokes of the grandfather's clock in the great +hall found the gray-eyed lady in the arms of a young fellow who had but +that instant bounded lightly up the walk from the sleigh Major Verney +had dispatched to Cotesville to meet the Northern Express. The Major, +smilingly awaiting his opportunity to greet the newcomer, ran his eye +approvingly over the lines of the well-knit figure and handsome face of +the young man. + +"Well, Dick," said the Major, advancing with outstretched hand as the +girl flushed prettily and smoothed back the dark mist of hair from her +forehead, "how are you, my boy? Busy, of course. We read fine things +of you in the papers at times." Then, as the young man took off his +overcoat, "What, sir," the Major inquired, "do you mean by falling in +love with my only niece? Here my brother writes me that his daughter +is engaged to a man who knows me, and will I pack off a carload of +testimonials by special messenger indorsing the little rascal who used +to steal my apples. What, sir, do you mean?" + +"Well, Major," Dick answered as he was ushered into the big +living-room, his laughing eyes alight with happiness, "she had the +Verney eyes, and you remember I always liked them." He sank into a +chair by Ruth with a smiling glance at the Major. "It is unusually +cold for down here. There's a real bracing Northern sting in the air. +And what a snow! It's packed down so that the runners fairly flew. +Major, do sit down!" + +The Major was still bustling about, urging Ruth into another chair by +the fire that he himself might sit by Dick, poking energetically at the +blazing logs, and firing a volley of directions at black Sam. + +"There!" he exclaimed, finally seating himself. "Now, sir, relative to +this infatuated young person on my left, who has condescended to visit +her uncle for the first time since she arrived on the planet. I met +her last night according to telegraphed instructions, and she kept me +waiting--let me see--" + +"Uncle!" protested Ruth, "you've added fifteen minutes to that wait +every time you've mentioned it." + +"My dear child, politeness alone has kept me from naming the full +extent of my wait. If you please, sir," he turned to Dick, "she was in +the clutches of a beggar who obtained twenty-five dollars by a most +extraordinary yarn." + +"Twenty-five dollars!" Dick whistled, smiling at the flush that crept +up to the gray eyes. "Was it an aged father this time or a hungry +brood of motherless waifs, Ruthie?" + +"Dick, listen!" cried the girl. "Uncle misjudges him. It was a dear +old colored man and he told me the strangest story." + +"You don't often find a grateful beggar who sends you violets in the +morning purchased with some of your own shekels," said the Major, +pinching the flushed cheek. "Tell him, Ruthie; it was odd, and I +believe I'd have done the same thing myself." + +The girl flashed a grateful look at him and then told the story of her +purchase of the night before so eloquently that the Major and Dick +heard her through with sober faces, secretly touched by its pathos. +"And he must have recognized Uncle," she ended, "for the violets came +this morning with the quaintest card." + +For an instant she dreamily scanned the fire, seeing in its glowing +embers the brown wrinkled negro face with its honest eyes, peering at +her over his spectacles in troubled apprehension; then she sprang to +her feet. + +"Uncle Edward," she cried, "did you tell Uncle Neb to wait with the +sleight? Those sleigh-bells are beginning to sound hysterical." + +"Merciful goodness!" cried the Major; "I certainly did. I had the +strictest commands to drive in to church for Mother Verney at eleven +o'clock. Hi, Sam, you black rascal, tell Uncle Neb I'll be right out." + +"I'll tell him, Uncle," called Ruth, flying swiftly up the long hall to +the library window. + +But no clear call went ringing over the snow to Uncle Neb; instead, +there was silence, broken at length by a voice that called softly in +great excitement, "Dick! Uncle Edward! do come here. Look!" she cried +as they quickly joined her. "You see, Uncle, he didn't forget!" + +Smiling, the two men looked from the window. An old negro muffled in a +threadbare overcoat was plodding up the walk, his eyes scanning the +house with evident curiosity. + +The Major uttered a quick exclamation and the girl wheeled about. + +"Don't you see?" she cried. "He's come to-day, honest old fellow that +he is! See, Dick--" + +She stopped abruptly, looking from one to the other. There was +something in the two stern faces staring beyond her at the bent negro +that struck a chill to her heart. Dick's face had gone white, and the +Majors hand had stolen to the younger man's shoulder as if to steady +him. + +There was a startled incredulity in the Major's face as he said: "Brace +up, old man! You didn't know, neither did I." + +"Ruth," Dick asked unsteadily, "is that the old colored man +whose--whose master--" + +"Yes!" cried the girl, the sharp pain of premonition in her voice. +"Oh, Dick, who is he?" + +Dick's miserable eyes sought hers as he answered, "It's--it's Dad's +Uncle Noah. Ruth, I--" He turned and sought the hall. + +Ruth's face flamed at his words. Uncle Noah's pathetic story came +crowding over her again in the light of Dick's revelation. His father +and mother! The stern old Colonel, of whom Dick always spoke with such +respectful loyalty in spite of their quarrel, and the dear mother, +whose tender eyes gazing from the old-fashioned daguerreotype Dick +always carried had made her choke with sudden tears--these two were +Uncle Noah's beloved "ol' Massa an' ol' Mis'"! + +She turned; the Major had followed Dick to the hallway. A shuffling +step sounded on the porch outside, and the girl hurried toward the +door, a sudden light of daring in her eyes. Impulse had always ruled +the Verneys, and Ruth was a Verney from the crown of her dark head to +the tips of her small feet. Catching up Grandmother Verney's long +cloak hanging over a chair, she softly left the house. + +Dick, struggling into his overcoat, turned at the Major's touch on his +arm. + +"Just a minute, Dick." Major Verney's genial voice was sympathetic as +a woman's. "Remember that what the Colonel refused in prosperity he's +not likely to take in adversity. Sit down here by the fire until we +talk it over." + +"But, Major"--there was a note of anguish in the boy's voice--"I must +go to him. Think of Uncle Noah selling himself to help them, and I--" + +But the Major had already removed the overcoat and gently pushed his +guest into a chair by the fire. "Yes, yes," he said as he seated +himself; "we know all about that, my boy; but I'm afraid, Dick," he +added regretfully, "that the Colonel wouldn't let you in. He's very +bitter." + +Dick groaned. He was calmer now. "You're right, Major," he said +steadily; "it hurt so at first that I didn't think. I can't go now." +He leaned forward anxiously. "The Cotesville Bank--?" he questioned +abruptly. + +"Crashed in the autumn--in September." Dick bit his lip, and the Major +added: "He was heavily interested?" + +Dick stared at the fire. "It was all he had," he said. + +"I see." The Major's quiet voiced gave no hint of his own emotion. "I +didn't know. Of course I heard he had lost something; we all did; but +I thought he had other money." + +"No. Tell me, Major, you've been going to Brierwood this winter just +as usual?" + +"Of course; every Wednesday night. The Colonel and I are too old to +alter the habit of a lifetime, and besides we both love that long +evening playing chess. There's always a roaring wood fire and a +steaming pot of coffee, and your mother always plays Beethoven for us +just before I go." + +A look of relief shone in Dick's eyes. "'Always a fire,'" he repeated. +"I'm glad of that. There was no suggestion of--of want?" + +"Heavens, no!" The Major's deep voice was full of assurance. "Last +week," he added thoughtfully, "the coffee was pretty weak, but it never +occurred to me that--" he stopped abruptly, rose from his chair with +sudden energy, violently blew his nose, and tramped down to the end of +the hall and back. "Damn the Fairfax pride!" he exclaimed fiercely. +"Here Uncle Noah has been coming into the library Wednesday nights and +telling the Colonel that the stock had all been bedded down for the +night when all the time there's been nothing left but this confounded +old turkey gobbler we've been hearing about. He swore last week that +somebody had stolen the silver teapot. Abominable old liar! He must +have sold it." The Major threw out his arms with a wrathful gesture. +"All this comedy, if you please, for my benefit. Here I've been there +every week, and never suspected, thanks to the infernal stratagems of +that black fiend of an Uncle Noah. Damn the Fairfax pride!" + +The Major sat down as suddenly as he had risen, and, bending over, +attacked the fire with vicious energy. + +"Tell me, Major," Dick presently asked, "have you ever mentioned me to +the Colonel since I went North?" + +"Once." The Major made a wry face. "I never tried again." + +Dick colored. "Does he know about Ruth?" + +"No, I dared not mention it." The Major looked at the other intently. +"Dick," he said, "what was this quarrel all about, anyway?" + +"In the beginning, Major," admitted the young man, flushing, "it was so +childish--I'm ashamed to speak of it." + +"Out with it!" commanded the Major. "I won't be hoodwinked by a +Fairfax any longer." + +"Well, sir, if you must know, it was about--the War." + +"The War!" exploded the Major. "By gad, sir, what about the War?" + +"Dad and I were talking it over, and--well, to be frank, Major, I said +I thought the North had been right, and that, if I had been in the +world at the time, I would have fought with them despite my kinsmen." + +"Go on! Did you fight in any other post-mortem wars? The Revolution, +or the fall of Rome?" + +Dick ignored the sarcasm. "My sympathy for the North made him +furious," he went on. "We quarreled terribly and both of us said +things that I know we didn't mean. It was the Fairfax temper, sir; I--" + +"Damn the Fairfax temper!" roared the Major. "Thank Heavens, the +Verneys are mild!" + +Dick laughed, in spite of himself. "I apologized," he continued +soberly, "but he wouldn't listen; told me to get out; said if I chose +to change my opinions about the North, we'd talk it over, and I, of +course, refused." + +"Of course!" interpolated the Major trimly. + +"I've written since, suggesting that we forget it all and start anew, +but he won't listen, sir." + +The Major stroked his beard ominously. "Did it ever occur to you, +Dick," he demanded, "that enough families were estranged by that War +without carrying it over into the Twentieth Century? Let me see--how +long after the War were you born? Twenty years, wasn't it? I +remember; your father and Ruth's were married about the same time." + +"Every man has a right to his opinions, Major," Dick asserted with +spirit. "Of course I've no personal knowledge of the War, +but"--stubbornly--"the North was right." + +"Fairfax to the core!" thought the Major in secret admiration. "The +boy's his father all over again. Well, Dick," he said mildly, "we +older men of the South feel a little differently about this War; but, +my boy, these post-bellum disputes don't pay, particularly when one +participant was born long after the guns were quiet. In my opinion you +didn't know enough about the War to quarrel over it. Great Scott, +quarreling over the War! Dick, you deserved to be spanked." + +The jingle of sleigh-bells rang blithely through the silence that +followed, and the Major sprang to his feet. "Merciful Heavens!" he +exclaimed, staring at his watch, "it's twelve o'clock. That must be +Uncle Neb still waiting, and Grandmother Verney's probably standing on +the church porch yet, mad as a hornet." He was at the door now, +calling wildly to the negro: "Uncle Neb, why under the canopy didn't +you call me?" + +The darky scratched his head. "Massa Edward," he confessed, "I ain't +been yere. I jus' druv Missy Ruth over to Brierwood with Uncle Noah to +see Colonel Fairfax." + +The Major summoned Dick in great excitement. "Dick," he exclaimed, +"get into your overcoat as fast as you can and drive over to Brierwood +with Uncle Neb. Ruth's gone ahead of you, and you couldn't have a +better deputy short of an angel." + +Dick wrung the Major's hand and fled to the waiting sleigh, the color +flooding his face. + +"And, Uncle Neb," called the Major frantically, "hurry back, or +Grandmother Verney will be tramping home in the snow, rheumatism or no +rheumatism." + +With a wild jingle of bells that seemed to Dick the hysterical echo of +his own heartbeats the sleigh was off. + + + + +VI + +The Colonel's Christmas + + + + +VI + +At Brierwood the Colonel, wrought to a high tension of excitement by +the mysterious flood of Christmas prosperity, of which the latest +manifestation had been a fresh newspaper dated the night before, +surmounted by a cigar of no mean label, had been vainly searching for +Uncle Noah, bewildered by the darky's odd vagaries which had culminated +in the culprit's disappearance. Just as the Colonel had returned to +the library, drawn his favorite chair up to the cheerful blaze of the +wood fire, and opened his favorite volume, a door in the rear of the +house shut softly, and, convinced that Uncle Noah had returned, the +Colonel closed his book and adjusted his glasses, determined to have an +immediate reckoning with the author of all this Christmas cheer. + +A light step sounded behind his chair, and the Colonel turned, quite +primed for an altercation. In an instant, however, the old man was on +his feet, bowing grandly in spite of his astonishment. A girl stood in +the doorway, her cloak falling loosely about her figure. Her cheeks +were blazing scarlet from the cold, and the deep gray eyes, fringed in +black, bore something in their warm depths that stirred familiar +memories. + +"Colonel," she said, stretching out a slim, white hand, "I'm Ruth +Verney, Major Edward's niece. I've just driven one of your servants" +(rare tact was but one of the Verney charms) "over from Fernlands and I +thought you wouldn't mind if I ran in for an instant to enjoy your +fire." + +"Why, child," the Colonel cried, forgetting all else in his delight, +"you must be Walter Verney's daughter." Ruth smilingly nodded. "I +knew it," he went on; "you have his eyes. Sit down here. I knew your +father well; when we were boys he and I were inseparable." He paused +and added simply: + +"That was before the War." + +The dark lashes veiled for an instant, a certain excitement in the gray +eyes. "I'm down for Christmas with Uncle Edward," Ruth explained; and +before the Colonel had fully realized it they were chatting happily +together like old friends. Suddenly the girl exclaimed: "Colonel +Fairfax, I know you'll be glad to hear that Dad and the Major are +friends again." + +"Indeed I am!" agreed the Colonel heartily. "In the old days we would +have laughed at the man who could possibly have suggested a quarrel for +the Verney twins." + +"Nothing but a cruel war could have done it," said the girl quietly. +"What does it matter now," she demanded impetuously, "if Daddy did +fight for the North and the Major for the South? It's all so long ago +that a quarrel about it is foolish." + +The Colonel cleared his throat. "Yes, it is foolish," he admitted. + +"You see," Ruth leaned eagerly forward, "I met a man who knew the +Major, and he praised him so highly that I lay awake all one night +thinking what a pity it was that two such splendid men as Daddy and his +brother should still be enemies over an old bygone war. You know, +Colonel, they would have been friends ages ago, only each was too proud +to make the first advance. Wasn't it foolish?" + +The Colonel nodded, carefully shading his eyes from the fire. + +"They were just wasting precious years of companionship," went on the +girl. "That thought came to me as I lay awake in bed, and the very +next morning I wrote to the Major. You see, Colonel Fairfax, I feel +this way," she explained. "There's no North and no South. Daddy and +the Major are citizens of the United States." + +The Colonel rose and busied himself about the fire. When he put back +the tongs and reseated himself his cheeks were hot from its blazing +warmth. + +"And that's what I told Uncle Edward in the letter, and, Colonel, he +wrote me such a glorious letter back that I had to show it to Daddy. +He was delighted, and he said that any two men who fought over the +battles of a dead war were 'old fools.'" + +Colonel Fairfax winced. + +"So," finished the girl with glowing eyes, "Uncle Edward came rushing +North in a great state of excitement, and that's how I came to be down +here over Christmas." + +In her impetuous criticism of the war-time quarrel that had separated +the Verney twins for more than forty years, and the expression of her +broad, impulsive patriotism. Colonel Fairfax had listened to certain +truths which had long been subconsciously germinating in his own mind. +Before he could recover from the surprise of finding that he agreed +with her, Ruth, touched by the lines of care graven upon his fine old +face, had caught her breath with a little sob, slipped from her place +by the fire, and was kneeling, beside his chair, her eyes starry with +light, her lovely face glorified with its tender appeal. + +"Colonel," she cried, a catch in her voice, "I'm going to marry Dick! +It was he who praised Uncle Edward so." + +The Colonel's face grew scarlet; then he laid a trembling hand upon the +girl's bowed head. "Child," he said, "you--you--" Tears blinded his +eyes and he stopped. + +In the silence that followed came the sharp sound of a quick footfall. +The Colonel looked up. Dick Fairfax stood in the doorway, his eyes +burning strangely in the white misery of his face. + +The father rose and straightened himself with something of his old, +stern dignity; but at a warm, girlish touch he gulped. + +"Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, "we're--we're +both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas Day." + +[Illustration: "Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, +"we're--we're both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas +Day."] + +Almost before he had finished the boy had bounded across the floor and +wrung the outstretched hand, his face radiant with delight. By the +fire Ruth cried softly and the Colonel gently patted her dark head, his +eyes full of tenderness. Then taking refuge from the sharp pain of his +emotion in austere command: + +"Dick," he said sternly, "go to your mother." + +When Uncle Noah, in a state of beatification impossible to describe, +summoned the four to the wonderful Christmas dinner Colonel Fairfax was +eagerly listening to the tales of Dick's success as told by Ruth, and +Dick was gently patting his mother's gray hair, a halo of silver +crowning a face radiant with happiness--a Christmas quartet whose +reconciliation Uncle Noah could as yet but imperfectly comprehend. +That he had been the unconscious instrument of it all the gray-eyed +lady had already told him; but Uncle Noah, busy with numberless +culinary problems in the kitchen, had not as yet had time to ferret it +out. + +At four o'clock Major Verney, who had been restrained from dashing over +to Brierwood hours before only by the necessity of soothing the ruffled +feelings of his irate mother after her long wait for a belated sleigh +on the porch of the Cotesville church, blustered in with the aggrieved +old lady upon his arm. + +"We've come to supper," announced the Major. "No, Dick," as the +Colonel rose, "sit down. I know all about it, and to-night you're all +going back to Fernlands with me to celebrate the betrothal of these two +youngsters." + +"It has been a day of mysteries," the Colonel said; "but will someone +please tell me what Uncle Noah was doing over at Fernlands this morning +when he was needed here?" + +A silence fell over the little group. The subject was one whose +delicacy forbade the ghost of a blunder. + +It was the Major who at last drew his old friend into the deep window +recess where but the night before he had watched Uncle Noah pursuing +the elusive Job, and told him the story of the faithful old negro's +Christmas Eve. + +The Colonel listened intently, the snowy landscape outside growing +blurred and misty as the record of the old man's devotion gradually +unfolded. Before the Major had finished the Colonel's hand had crept +to the bell at his side, and, as the darky's shuffling footsteps echoed +along the corridor, he turned again and stared with unseeing eyes at +the outline of the old barn. Dick shifted the log and a crimson glow +irradiated the old library, making a halo of soft fire about the figure +of the old darky as he paused before his master. + +"Uncle Noah," said the Colonel brokenly, "I--" but his voice failed +him, and he wrung the old man's hand in silence. + +The Major bent and whispered a few swift words to the startled darky +and a great light illumined the brown face. "Doan yoh go foh to thank +me, Massa Dick," he crooned, patting the Colonel's hand with reverent +devotion; "I ain't wuth it. All I needs, sah, is jus' a good kick for +disobeyin' orders. 'Spects I doan understan' it all, but I does know, +sah, dat de lady wid de gray eyes whut's at Major Verney's is--is a +good fairy, sah. An', Colonel, de Christmas supper am ready." + +Joyously they filed out, Dick lingering in the firelight for a word +with Ruth. Grandmother Verney, in high good humor, went out on the +Colonel's arm, the grievance of the morning's belated sleigh quite +forgotten in the genial warmth of the Fairfax hospitality. + +"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel of the old darky as usual, +"have we to-night for supper?" + +"Well, sah," beamed Uncle Noah, "we has ham an' turkey, an' cranberry +sauce an' celery, an' baked apples an' mince pie an' fruitcake +an'--an'--laws-a-massy, Massa, I'se too kerflusterated to ricomember +any mo'." + +"We'll have them all!" cried the Colonel. + +A terrific gobbling arose beneath the dining-room window, and the Major +rose and stared out in astonishment. + +"Merciful goodness, Dick," he demanded, "what is that horrible racket?' + +"Laws-a-massy, Massa," cried the old darky, "it's Job! I let him out a +while back, sah, an' I done fohgot to put him to roost. I reckon he's +come to remind me." + +And, beaming happily at the radiant Christmas party, Uncle Noah flung +up the window and in a terrible voice commanded the tyrant to be silent. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION*** + + +******* This file should be named 15826.txt or 15826.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/2/15826 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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