A CHRISTMAS LETTER
Dear miss:
For this pink stationery
Forgive me; it's all I could find
In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry,
So I took it—I hope you won't mind.
For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending,
Though in words not the best ever slung,
To you, where the Tiber is wending.
From me, on the banks of the Tongue.
Perhaps you've forgotten the morning
When your car of the Overland Mail
Broke loose on a curve, without warning,
And was ditched by the spread of a rail?
I was herding near by in the valley,
And I pulled out your father and you,
And I found that your name, Miss, was Sallie,
And—well, I remember. Do you?
You were there for five hours at least, Miss,
Then the whistle, a smile, a last word,
And you rolled away to the East, Miss,
While I galloped back to the herd.
You back to your world and its beauties.
New York, Paris, Rome, and all those,
I, back to a cowboy's rough duties
In sunshine and rainstorm and snows.
But to-night I'm alone in the shack here
On my quarter-square Government claim,
While coyotes are yelping out back here—
You'd be scared, Miss, I guess, by the same.
The moonlight is white on the river,
And the long, frozen miles of the plain
Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver
And wish it was summer again.
It's different where you are, I reckon,
Leastways from the books it must be,
Where the green hills of Italy beckon
And the Tiber sings down to the sea;
Where the red roses always are climbing
And the air smells of olives and pines,
And at evening the vesper bells' chiming
Floats up toward the far Apennines.
You like it, no doubt, and you'd never
See beauties that nature can hold
Where the snow lies in drifts on the river
And the prairies are empty and cold.
But somehow I wouldn't forego it
For all of those soft, southern lands.
I breathe it and feel it and know it;
It grips me as if it had hands.
The stars in the night, how they glisten!
The plains in the day, how they spread!
There's room to stand up in, and listen,
And know there's a God overhead.
And then, when the summer is coming
And the cattle start out on the trails,
And you hearken at dawn to the drumming
Of prairie-hens down in the swales.
Why, Italy simply ain't in it!—
But, Miss, here I'm talking too free.
Excuse me; my thoughts for a minute
Got sort of the better of me.
It was just about Christmas I started;
To me, it was only a name
Till that day when we met, talked and parted,
But since it has not been the same.
For you gave me a new kind of notion
Of the countries and people and such
On the trails that lie over the ocean—
I guess we don't differ so much.
And Christmas is chuck full of spirit
That everywhere under the sun
Warms up anyone who comes near it
And fills them with good-will and fun.
So I want you to know from this letter
That the time by the train wreck with you
Made me know all humanity better
And like the whole bunch better, too.
And I hope, if it seems like presuming
That a letter shall come to your door
In the land where the roses are blooming
From me, on the Tongue's icy shore,
You'll forgive, Miss, an uncultured party
In the spirit of Christmas, and take
These thanks and good wishes, all hearty,
From
Your most sincere