“Don’t alloode to sech a thing, Jack,” says Dan, with a shudder; “don’t alloode to it. Little Enright Peets would up an’ blow his yoothful light out; an’ then Tucson Jennie would camp on our trails forevermore as the deestroyers of her child. The mere idee gives me the fantods!” An’ Dan, who’s a nervous party, shudders ag’in.
“Gents,” says Texas Thompson, “I ain’t cut in on this talk for two reasons: one is I ain’t had nothin’ to say; an’ ag’in, it was Christmas Day when my Laredo wife—who I once or twice adverts to as gettin’ a divorce—ups an’ quits me for good. For which causes it has been my habit to pass up all mention an’ mem’ry of this sacred season in a sperit of silent pra’r. But time has so far modified my feelin’s that, considerin’ the present purposes of the camp, I’m willin’ to be heard. Thar’s nothin’ that should be looked to more jealously than this ye re givin’ of presents. It’s grown so that as a roole the business of makin’ presents degen’rates to this: Some sport who can’t afford to, gives some sport something he don’t need. Thar’s no fear of the first, since we gents can afford anything we likes. As to the second prop’sition, we should skin our kyards some sharp. We-all ought to lavish on little Enright Peets a present which, while safegyardin’ his life an’ his morals, is calc’lated to teach him some useful accomplishments. Books, blocks, an sweetmeats, as proposed by our fac’natin’ townswoman, Miss Faro Nell”—Nell tosses Texas a kiss—“is in admir’ble p’int as coverin’ a question of amooze-ments. For the rest, an’ as makin’ for the deevel-opment of what will be best in the character of little Enright Peets, I moves you we-all turns in an’ buys that baby the best bronco—saddle, bridle, rope an’ spurs, complete—that the southwest affords.”
Texas, who’s done stood up to make this yere oration, camps down ag’in in the midst of a storm of applause. The su’gestion has immediate adoption.
We-all gives a cold thousand for the little boss. We gets him of the sharp who—it bein’ in the old day before railroads—is slammin’ through the mails from Chihuahua to El Paso, three hundred miles in three nights. This bronco—he’s a deep bay, shadin’ off into black like one of them overripe violins, an’ with nostrils like red expandin’ hollyhocks—can go a hundred miles between dark an’ dark, an’ do it three days in a week. Which lie’s shore a wonder, is that little hoss; an’ the saddle an’ upholstery that goes with him, Spanish leather an’ gold, is fit for his company.
As Dan leads him up in front of the Red Light Christmas Eve for us to look at, he says:
“Gents, if he ain’t a swallow-bird on four legs, then I never sees no sech fowl; an’ the only drawback is that, considerin’ the season, we can’t hang him on no tree.”
An’ y ere, now, is where we-all gets scared up. It spoils the symmetry of this story to chunk it in this a-way; but I can’t he’p myse’f, for this story, like that tale of James of the Beads, is troo.
Jest as we-all is about to prounce down with our gifts on Dave’s wickeyup like a mink on a settin’ hen—Dan bein’ all framed an’ frazzled up in cow-tails an’ buffalo horns like a Injun medicine man, thinkin’ to make the deal as Santa Claus—Tucson Jennie comes surgin’ up, wild an’ frantic, an’ allows little Enright Peets is lost. Dave, she says, is chargin’ about, tryin’ to round him up.
“Which I knows he’s done been chewed up by wolves,” says Tucson Jennie, wringin’ her hands an’ throwin’ her apron over her head. “He’d shore showed up for supper if he’s alive.”
It’s obvious that before that Christmas can proceed, we-all has got to recover the beneficiary. Thar’s a gen’ral saddlin’ up, an’ in no time Wolf-ville’s population is spraddlin’ about the surroundin’ scenery.