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.