UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION

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.