Chapter 2

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?"