“Ain’t you ‘shamed o’ yo’self—­suh—?” said the old butler, “keeping me from ketchin’ Christmas gifts dis day?”

Uncle Billy was indignant, for the negroes begin at four o’clock in the afternoon of Christmas Eve to slip around corners and jump from hiding-places to shout “Christmas Gif’—­Christmas Gif’”; and the one who shouts first gets a gift.  No wonder it was gloomy for Satan—­Uncle Carey, Dinnie, and all gone, and not a soul but Uncle Billy in the big house.  Every few minutes he would trot on his little black legs upstairs and downstairs, looking for his mistress.  As dusk came on, he would every now and then howl plaintively.  After begging his supper, and while Uncle Billy was hitching up a horse in the stable, Satan went out in the yard and lay with his nose between the close panels of the fence—­quite heart-broken.  When he saw his old friend, Hugo the mastiff, trotting into the gaslight, he began to bark his delight frantically.  The big mastiff stopped and nosed his sympathy through the fence for a moment and walked slowly on, Satan frisking and barking along inside.  At the gate Hugo stopped, and raising one huge paw, playfully struck it.  The gate flew open, and with a happy yelp Satan leaped into the street.  The noble mastiff hesitated as though this were not quite regular.  He did not belong to the club, and he didn’t know that Satan had ever been away from home after dark in his life.  For a moment he seemed to wait for Dinnie to call him back as she always did, but this time there was no sound, and Hugo walked majestically on, with absurd little Satan running in a circle about him.  On the way they met the “funeral dog,” who glanced inquiringly at Satan, shied from the mastiff, and trotted on.  On the next block the old drunkard’s yellow cur ran across the street, and after interchanging the compliments of the season, ran back after his staggering master.  As they approached the railroad track a strange dog joined them, to whom Hugo paid no attention.  At the crossing another new acquaintance bounded toward them.  This one—­a half-breed shepherd —­was quite friendly, and he received Satan’s advances with affable condescension.  Then another came and another, and little Satan’s head got quite confused.  They were a queer-looking lot of curs and half-breeds from the negro settlement at the edge of the woods, and though Satan had little experience, his instincts told him that all was not as it should be, and had he been human he would have wondered very much how they had escaped the carnage that day.  Uneasy, he looked around for Hugo; but Hugo had disappeared.  Once or twice Hugo had looked around for Satan, and Satan paying no attention, the mastiff trotted on home in disgust.  Just then a powerful yellow cur sprang out of the darkness over the railroad track, and Satan sprang to meet him, and so nearly had the life scared out of him by the snarl and flashing fangs of the new-comer that he hardly had the strength to shrink back behind his new friend, the half-breed shepherd.