Christmas Is Something Else

J . Stre»/· tí*/«Christmas Is Something Else by Samantha Clementine "Christmas is comin, the old goose is fat," sung my friend, Tom, from acrost the alley. And when he wasn't sengin hit, through the day on that Christmas Eve as he come and went about his chores, inside the house and out agin, he was whistlin it. Tom was so skinny hit seemed like mock'ry fer him to even be sengin about fat. It was the season, though, that made him seng. You seng, or else you don't seng, on Christmas. That's the choice you got. It don't do to wait fer a rich reason. Not if you want to git any sengin done, hit don't. So Tom sung and whistled, comin and goin, all day, whall I waited, patient and impatient. He'd promised to go with me to git my tree. And I knowed he'd do it if he promised, if it was even humanly possible. But as the day wore on and his folks kept on a handin him more stuff to do, I begun to be mighty anxious lessen he never would git a minute free to he'p me, tell it was too late. See, if he could git a minute, we could take a hour. That never was no trouble. Hit was gittin the minute that was chancey . And it was goin to take both of us 43 to git that tree home. Even late in the evenin after frettin all day, I still wa'nt ready to settle fer no little tree. An I kept on a lookin out the door, and a runnin acrost the alley onct in a whall to see ef he was ready to go yit. And he kept on a sengin, er whistlin, that song, and a wenkin at me as much as to say, "Don't worry your mind. I hain't fergot ." I was promised a free Christmas tree by a nice, frienly man that had a lot full of them about halfway acrost town, on the condition that I come to git hit after noon on Christmas Eve. And he even promised it would be a big tree, fer I toit him that I never wanted no little tree. To this vury day, I still don't like no little Christmas tree. Don't never try to putt one off on me, fer I won't have hit. So he says, "Don't you worry. I got a big un hyere that'll never in this world sell. And ef anybody offers to buy hit, a'll show him its flat side whur it set up against the hill and knock my own sale jist so you kin have hit. But maybe they might be a better one left. So you jist wait." Well, I wanted to take hit right then, jist to make shore nobody else wanted hit. And maybe he would of let me have it, right thare and then, and never mind waitin tell Christmas Eve, ef I'd a had any way of gittin hit off a the lot. But that tree must of been seven foot tall and about a mountain around. I didn't keer none about hit havin a flat side. You kin always putt a flat side to the wall. But they ain't nothin you kin do with a little, old tree that you kin look over the top of. I couldn't git hit home, though, 'thout somebody to he'p me, and both him and Tom, which was about the only friens I had in the world butMommie and Pappy, was both so ca'm about hit that, ef I'd a knowed what a nervous breakdown was then, I'd a lit in and had me one, jist to r'lieve some of the tinsion. But I never knowed anytheng like that, so I jist stood hit. I stood hit tell six o'clock, and hit was gittin mighty dark fer goin after anytheng . And then I slipped off by myself, meanin to git my tree home ef I had to drag hit a eench at...