At four o’clock in the afternoon before Christmas Eve darkies began springing around the corners of the twin houses, and from closets and from behind doors, upon the white folks and shouting “Christmas gift,” for to the one who said the greeting first the gift came, and it is safe to say that no darky in the Blue-grass was caught that day.  And the Pendleton clan made ready to make merry.  Kinspeople gathered at the old general’s ancient home and at the twin houses on either side of the road.  Stockings were hung up and eager-eyed children went to restless dreams of their holiday king.  Steve Hawn, too, had made ready with boxes of cartridges and two jugs of red liquor, and he and Jason did not wait for the morrow to make merry.  And Uncle Arch Hawn happened to come in that night, but he was chary of the cup, and he frowned with displeasure at Jason, who was taking his dram with Steve like a man, and he showed displeasure before he rode away that night by planting a thorn in the very heart of Jason’s sensitive soul.  When he had climbed on his horse he turned to Jason.

“Jason,” he drawled, “you can come back home now when you git good an’ ready.  Thar ain’t no trouble down thar just now, an’ Babe Honeycutt ain’t lookin’ fer you.”

Jason gasped.  He had not dared to ask a single question about the one thing that had been torturing his curiosity and his soul, and Arch was bringing it out before them all as though it were the most casual and unimportant matter in the world.  Steve and his wife looked amazed and Mavis’s heart quickened.

“Babe ain’t lookin’ fer ye,” Arch drawled on, “he’s laughin’ at ye.  I reckon you thought you’d killed him, but he stumbled over a root an’ fell down just as you shot.  He says you missed him a mile.  He says you couldn’t hit a barn in plain daylight.”  And he started away.

A furious oath broke from Jason’s gaping mouth, Steve laughed, and if the boy’s pistol had been in his hand, he might in his rage have shown Arch as he rode away what his marksmanship could be even in the dark, but even with his uncle’s laugh, too, coming back to him he had to turn quickly into the house and let his wrath bite silently inward.

But Mavis’s eyes were like moist stars.

“Oh, Jasie, I’m so glad,” she said, but he only stared and turned roughly on toward the jug in the corner.

Before day next morning the children in the big houses were making the walls ring with laughter and shouts of joy.  Rockets whizzed against the dawn, fire-crackers popped unceasingly, and now and then a loaded anvil boomed through the crackling air, but there was no happy awakening for little Jason.  All night his pride had smarted like a hornet sting, his sleep was restless and bitter with dreams of revenge, and the hot current in his veins surged back and forth in the old channel of hate for the slayer of his father.  Next morning his blood-shot eyes opened fierce and sullen and he started the day with a visit to the whiskey jug:  then he filled his belt and pockets with cartridges.