“That’s a mighty low-down trick in Old Sandy Claus to take and leave you out, Grover Cleveland. Them Pistopals is the no-countest critters to be found in these yer mountings.”
“If I was the boss of all the meetin’-houses I wouldn’t have any but jes’ one, so’s Old Sandy Claus ’ud have to do ’em all alike,” the treble weakened and the boy gazed off into the woods with suspicious intensity.
“Now don’t you go to takin’-on, Grover Cleveland; maybe you and me can git up a Christmas tree all to ourselves; how’d that do? I reckon ole gran’dad’s about as rich right now as ary somebody round yer. I’ve just sold Copperhead Hill to the mining company and got the money down, two hundred and five dollars!” For a moment the old man gloated in silence over his wealth, for among these North Carolina mountaineers commerce is mostly carried on by barter and cash in hand is a scarce commodity.
“The Pistopals’ Chrisamus tree is only jes’ a holly”—gradually as the new idea had possessed his mind the limp little head had faced front again—“I clum up into that thar fiddle-leaf poplar that grows front of the meetin’-house winder and looked in, and there ain’t many berries on it at all; there’s a heap prettier ones in our woods.”
“Certainly there is, Grover Cleveland. There’s a hundred in Whiteoak Gulley that’s jes’ the shape of a yaller-pine burr, and all shinin’ with berries. You and me’ll take Butterfly and Bonaparte up thar and we’ll haul one of them ar holly bushes down to the house right soon, we will.”
“Them Pistopals has got theirs sot up in a box like it growed there.” The blue eyes, though encircled with a tale-telling sedimentary deposit, were now lifted brightly to the kind old face and for gran’daddy there was no retreat.
“By gum, we’ll set our tree up in a box in our t’other room like it growed there too.”
“And le’s don’t jes’ you and me have it all to ourselves, gran’daddy. Le’s have something for Vance Long and Harve Edney too; his pa’s a Red Baptis’ and his ma’s a Methdis’, but I reckon Harve’s the biggest part Methdis’ cause he never does me mean. And I’d be proud to put a hymn-book on for Suly Jordan; she sings so good and she tied up my toe in turpentine that day I stubbed it. And there’s Zeb’lon, old Aunt Dicey’s gran’son—looks like he’s growed bigger’n there’s any call for—but he has troubles yet jes’ like little fellers. Ole man Sumter, he shot Zeb’s tame deer last Friday, and Zeb and me, we got to it ’fore it was plumb dead and it looked up at Zeb, and Zeb he cried sure-’nough tears, he did. So you see Zeb’s only a boy yet and I don’t want to forgit him a-Chrisamus.”
“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, we’ll have a present on that ar tree for Zeb and Suly and for every Methdis’ boy and girl in Junaluska. There can’t be more’n a dozen of ’em since old man Simpson and his children and his gran’children and all his kinfolks left and jined the Baptises. And you can count their mas and their pas in too. But I’ll have to depend on you a heap, Grover Cleveland, gran’daddy never did see a Christmas tree in all his life; it’s a new institution in these mountings. Now if your gran’ma or your ma was alive they could help us out o’ this scrape, but”——he leaned over, trailed his whiplash in the sand and watched it reminiscently.
“And there’s two or three old women I want to remember; there’s old Aunt Dicey, she and your gran’ma was always close friends. I believe I’ll put a new frock on the Christmas tree for her. And ’way off up in Cutter’s Cove there’s Dan Cutter’s widow; she and your gran’ma was girls together, a pretty pair, too. I won’t pass her by. And just ’cross the branch from her is where Sam Long’s got his family stowed away. His mother—she’s a queer ole stick as ever was—but they do say that Sam’s wife does the old woman mean, so I’ll give her a frock just to show ’em all that she’s some thought of. If them old critters don’t see a Christmas tree this year, the chances is they’ll die ’thout ever seein’ one. Haw, Bonaparte! By gum, if we’d a’ been a steam car we’d have run plumb over old Mis’ Jimson’s cow; ’pears like she ain’t got heart in her to get out of the way; I reckon that pore old somebody ain’t got enough for herself to eat, let alone the cow. Gran’son, you jes’ get over in behind thar and heave her out that thar corn that’s under the bag of meal.”