The last thing Mose heard as Duke descended the levee that morning was the crack of the new whip; and he said, as he filled his pipe, "De idee o' dat little tar-baby o' mine fetchin' me a Christmas-gif'!"
It was past noon when Duke got home again, bearing upon his shoulder, like a veritable little Santa Claus himself, a half-filled coffee-sack, the joint results of his service in the market and of the generosity of its autocrats.
The latter had evidently measured their gratuities by the size of their beneficiary, as their gifts were very small. Still, as the little fellow emptied the sack upon the floor, they made quite a tempting display. There were oranges, apples, bananas, several of each; a bunch of soup-greens, scraps of fresh meat—evidently butchers' "trimmings"—odds and ends of vegetables; while in the midst of the melee three live crabs struck out in as many directions for freedom.
They were soon landed in a pot; while Mose, who was really no mean cook, was preparing what seemed a sumptuous mid-day meal.
Late in the afternoon, while Mose nodded in his chair, Duke sat in the open doorway, stuffing the last banana into his little stomach, which was already as tight as a kettle-drum. He had cracked his whip until he was tired, but he still kept cracking it. He cracked it at every fly that lit on the floor, at the motes that floated into the shaft of sunlight before him, at special knots in the door-sill, or at nothing, as the spirit moved him. A sort of holiday feeling, such as he felt on Sundays, had kept him at home this afternoon. If he had known that to be a little too full of good things and a little tired of cracking whips or tooting horns or drumming was the happy condition of most of the rich boys of the land at that identical moment, he could not have been more content than he was. If his stomach ached just a little, he thought of all the good things in it, and was rather pleased to have it ache—just this little. It emphasized his realization of Christmas.
As the evening wore on, and the crabs and bananas and molasses-candy stopped arguing with one another down in his little stomach, he found himself thinking, with some pleasure, of the pan of scraps he was to get for his grandfather, and he wished for the hour when he should go. He was glad when at last the old man waked with a start and began talking to him.
"I been wushin' you'd weck up an' talk, gran'dad," he said, "caze I wants ter ax yer what's all dis here dey say 'bout Christmas? When I was comin' 'long to-day I stopped in a big chu'ch, an' dey was a preacher-man standin' up wid a white night-gown on, an' he say dis here's our Lord's birfday. I heerd 'im say it myse'f. Is dat so?"
"Co'se it is, Juke. Huccome you ax me sech ignunt questioms? Gimme dat Bible, boy, an' lemme read you some 'ligion."
Mose had been a sort of lay-preacher in his day, and really could read a little, spelling or stumbling over the long words. Taking the book reverently, he leaned forward until the shaft of sunlight fell upon the open page, when with halting speech he read to the little boy, who listened with open-mouthed attention, the story of the birth at Bethlehem.
"An' look heah, Juke, my boy," he said, finally, closing the book, "hit's been on my min' all day ter tell yer I ain't gwine fishin' no mo' tell de high-water come back—you heah? 'Caze yer know somebody's chickens mought come an' pick up de bait, an' I'd be bleeged ter kill 'em ter save 'em, an' we ain' gwine do dat no mo', me an' you. You heah, Juke?"