Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "_I seen he eye light on her as she came down the steps smilin'._"] UNC' EDINBURG A PLANTATION ECHO BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE ILLUSTRATED BY B. WEST CLINEDINST CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK, 1897 Copyright, 1889, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "_I seen he eye light on her as she came down the steps smilin'._" . . . . . . Frontispiece. "_I got de ker'idge heah for you._" "_We come 'way next mornin'._" "_Mars George lead her out on de porch._" "_Hit begin so low evybody had to stop talkin'._" "_Miss Charlotte she 'mos' 'stracted._" "_An' Marse George he ain' answer._" [Illustration: "_I got de ker'idge heah for you._"] "Well, suh, dat's a fac--dat's what Marse George al'ays said. 'Tis hard to spile Christmas anyways." The speaker was "Unc' Edinburg," the driver from Werrowcoke, where I was going to spend Christmas; the time was Christmas Eve, and the place the muddiest road in eastern Virginia--a measure which, I feel sure, will, to those who have any experience, establish its claim to distinction. A half-hour before he had met me at the station, the queerest-looking, raggedest old darkey conceivable, brandishing a cedar-staffed whip of enormous proportions in one hand, and clutching in the other a calico letter-bag with a twisted string; and with the exception of a brief interval of temporary suspicion on his part, due to the unfortunate fact that my luggage consisted of only a hand-satchel instead of a trunk, we had been steadily progressing in mutual esteem. "Dee's a boy standin' by my mules; I got de ker'idge heah for you," had been his first remark on my making myself known to him. "Mistis say as how you might bring a trunk." I at once saw my danger, and muttered something about "a short visit," but this only made matters worse. "Dee don' nobody nuver pay short visits dyah," he said, decisively, and I fell to other tactics. "You couldn' spile Christmas den noways," he repeated, reflectingly, while his little mules trudged knee-deep through the mud. "Twuz Christmas den, sho' 'nough," he added, the fires of memory smouldering, and then, as they blazed into sudden flame, he asserted, positively: "Dese heah free-issue niggers don' know what Christmas is. Hawg meat an' pop crackers don' meck Christmas. Hit tecks ole times to meck a sho'-'nough, tyahin'-down Christmas. Gord! I's seen 'em! But de wuss Christmas I ever seen tunned out de best in de een," he added, with sudden warmth, "an' dat wuz de Christmas me an' Marse George an' Reveller all got drownded down at Braxton's Creek. You's hearn 'bout dat'?"