A Texas Jubilee: Thirteen Stories from the Lone Star State

One: Xmas Tree, O Xmas Tree (1928)

O N E Xmas Tree, O Xmas Tree 1 9 2 8 Grady Dell hated Christmas. And he hated Homer Brantley. At least he hated Homer around Christmastime because Homer ordered a lot of packages parcel post that filled up the back seat of Grady’s old 490 Chevrolet. He couldn’t leave the packages at the mailbox. He had to walk what seemed like a mile up a muddy drive to put them on the porch if Homer wasn’t home. This Christmas Eve Homer not only had three packages, but, what was worse, Homer had a registered letter. That meant that Grady had to stop his car, get out, and track Homer down to sign for the letter. There was never any telling where Homer was rambling around on any given day. Homer, who had lost an arm in the war, had what Grady thought was a cushy job as caretaker for the Bodark Springs Waterworks out on Eastis County Lake, and Homer was always off somewhere looking at the dam or using his good arm to skim rocks across the lake. “Sometimes I hate that one-armed son of a bitch,” Grady mumbled to himself. 1 2 A Texas Jubilee “Christmas gift!” Homer hollered from behind Grady’s car. “Goddamn, Homer, you scared me out of a year’s growth,” Grady said, “slipping up on me like that and screaming in my ear.” Then Grady relented and said, “Christmas gift yourself. I am glad you showed up. I got all these damned packages and a registered letter that you have got to sign for. Who the hell would send you a registered letter anyway? And on Christmas Eve.” “I bet it’s from old Sam Rayburn up in Congress.” “Naw, hell, it ain’t from Congress. That would be on the return. This is smeared but it says something about the war department.” “I guess they are telling me one more time how sorry they are that I lost an arm in the Argonne Forest. They may be sorry, but they don’t never send no money. That was one sorry battle for me, but you was in the Argonne, so you know how shitty that whole deal was.” “Yeah,” Grady said, “we went into that massacre led by a colonel and came out led by a corporal.” Grady always said massa -cree like the old folks who had been out West in the Indian Wars said it. And he always brought up the fact that they lost so many men and had to come out with nobody higher than a corporal . Grady had been a PFC and figured if it had been much worse, he might have been leading the 18th infantry regiment out of the forest himself. Grady was over hating Homer and would be till Homer ordered a bunch of heavy parcel-post packages next year. Grady remembered how Homer was usually near the mailbox when Grady brought the mail. He lived alone and was about as desperate for company as anybody on Grady’s rural route, which covered part of Eastis County and part of Fannin. Grady had been delivering mail out of Bodark Springs Post Office since he got out of the army in 1919. Besides that, he had been born and raised on the edge of Eastis and Fannin and knew nearly everybody in both counties. “You got your tree up yet?” Homer asked Grady. “Not yet.” “How come? It’s already Christmas Eve.” Grady laughed. “You don’t have to tell me it’s Christmas Eve. The only time worse for a mail carrier is when the Sears and Roebuck catalogs come out. But tomorrow’ll end the worst of the Christmas rush.” “You government men are about the only people I know who have to work on Christmas Day. You ought to write old Sam a letter about it,” Homer said. “Which Sam? Uncle Sam or Sam Rayburn?” Grady asked. “I guess either one of ’em. It’d do about the same good, wouldn’t it?” Homer laughed. “Yeah, I reckon so,” Grady said. “No good at all. If Calvin Coolidge wants it hauled on Christmas Day, it’ll get hauled on Christmas Day. Still, the only good thing about working on Christmas Day is that it’ll hold off Mamie from bellyaching about me not puttin’ up a tree.” “You don’t never have a Christmas...