Uncle Noahs Christmas Inspiration

Uncle Noah's Christmas
Inspiration

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Leona Dalrymple, Illustrated by Charles L. Wrenn
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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)
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NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION***
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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