One afternoon, about first drink time, little Enright Peets comes waddlin’ up to Old Man Enright on them short reedic’lous black-b’ar laigs of his, an’ says:
“Say, gran’dad Enright, don’t you-all cim-marons never have no Christmas in this camp? Which if you does, all I got to say is I don’t notice no Christmas none since I’ve been yere, an’ that’s whatever!”
“Will you-all listen to this preecocious child!” observes Enright to Doc Peets, with whom he’s in talk. “Wherever now do you reckon, Doc, he hears tell of Christmas?”
“How about it, Uncle Doc?” asks little Enright Peets, turnin’ his eyes up to Peets when he notices Enright don’t reply.
At this Enright an’ Peets makes a disparin’ gesture an’ wheels into the Red Light for a drink, leavin’ pore little Enright Peets standin’ in the street.
“That baby puts us to shame, Doc,” says Enright, as he signs up to Black Jack, the barkeep, for the Valley Tan; “he shows us in one word how we neglects his eddication. The idee of that child never havin’ had no Christmas! It’s more of a stain on this commoonity than not hangin’ Navajo Joe that time.”
“That’s whatever!” assents Peets, reachin’ for the nose-paint in his turn. “‘Out of the mouths of babes an’ sucklin’s,’ as the good book says.” This infantile bluff of little Enright Peets goes a long way to stir up the sensibilities of the public. As for Enright, he don’t scroople to take Dave Tutt to task.