Now it was customary for the Fiddling Governor, Tennessee's best loved man, to give the inmates of the State's prison a fine dinner on Christmas Day; and on this occasion, he had decided that he would drive out to say grace over it himself. He arrived half an hour before noon-time. The warden met him at the office door, bowed almost reverently, for the Governor was a man whose faults were so magnificently human that they were almost virtues, and greeted him with the compliments of the season. He entered, drew off his overcoat and gloves, and sat down before the glowing stove. Just then Old Buck Wolfe, an iron gray giant whom stripes seemed altogether unable to disgrace, appeared before the door of heavy iron-lattice that stood between the office and the prison proper. His range of vision did not take in the distinguished visitor. "Warden," said he, "will you please see if you can't get a fiddle for me--just for this one afternoon, sir? I used to fiddle. I don't think I've forgot how. If it's not asking too much, that is." The warden looked toward his caller. "It's Christmas Day, Warden," the Governor said. "Get one if you can. I think I can understand how a fiddler feels when he hasn't touched a fiddle for several years. Who is it, Warden?" "The chief of the Wolfes, sir." At that the Governor rose, went to a desk, sat down beside it and reached for a telephone receiver. He asked for his residence, got the connection, and ordered that his own fiddle be sent at once to the penitentiary! Old Buck Wolfe turned away the gladdest and proudest man in the sovereign State of Tennessee. When he had gone, the Governor asked of the warden, "How are these mountaineers behaving now?" "Men couldn't conduct themselves better than our mountaineers, sir," the warden answered. "They've done finely, all of them. The old man had a fight soon after his arrival here, but we couldn't blame him for it; he was very much in the right, sir. I'd be glad to tell you about that fight." "I'd be glad to hear about it, Warden." "The Wolfes," the prison official began, "had just finished putting on their first stripes when the supper gong rang. We marched them to a table that was all taken up on one side by Bully McCrary and his following. They had always made trouble among the other prisoners, the McCraryites had, and we kept them to themselves when it was convenient. "Old Buck talked in mountaineer dialect then--Pale Tom Ledworth has since taught the Wolfes how to read and write and speak correctly, as well as a great many other things; oh, they've made the best of their prison term! Well, as I was saying--Old Buck looked across the table, straight at McCrary, drew his shaggy brows, and drawled this: "'You fellers over thar bend yore heads down'ards a little. I am now a-goin' to ax the blessin'. The' hain't no use in a-bein' damned hawgs jest acause we happens to be here in the penitenchy.'