Christmas Day came snowy and cold, with a biting north wind. The spirit of peace and good-will had found its way through the high and forbidding stone walls of the penitentiary. The convicts were not kept in their cells, nor were they made to work, on this day. Even Bully McCrary, who had been an incorrigible and the fighting man of the prison before the coming of the Wolfes, cried "Merry Christmas!" to every person he met—which included his former sworn enemy, a sad-eyed, intelligent fellow nicknamed and named Pale Tom Ledworth.
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.