“Naw; he didn't have no harp and no wings neither.”
“It must have been a skeleton,” explained Lina.
“And Uncle Doc' just keeps that poor man there and won't let him go to Heaven where dead folks b'longs.”
“I spec' he wasn't a good man 'fore he died and got to go to the Bad Place,” suggested Frances.
“I'll betcher he never asked God to forgive him when he 'ceived his papa and sassed his mama,”—this from Jimmy, “and Doctor Sanford's just a-keeping old Satan from getting him to toast on a pitchfork.”
“I hope they'll have a Christmas tree at Sunday-School next Christmas,” said Frances, harking back, “and I hope I'll get a heap o' things like I did last Christmas. Poor little Tommy Knott he's so skeered he wasn't going to get nothing at all on the tree so he got him a great, big, red apple an' he wrote on a piece o' paper 'From Tommy Knott to Tommy Knott,' and tied it to the apple and put it on the tree for hi'self.”
“Let's ask riddles,” suggested Lina.
“All right,” shouted Frances, “I'm going to ask the first.”
“Naw; you ain't neither,” objected Jimmy. “You all time got to ask the first riddle. I'm going to ask the first one—
“'Round as a biscuit, busy as a bee,
Prettiest little thing you ever did see?'—
'A watch.'
“Humpty Dumpty set on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Can't put Humpty Dumpty back again.'
'A egg.'
“'Round as a ring, deep as a cup,
All the king's horses can't pull it up.'
'A well.'
“'House full, yard full, can't ketch—'”