“Ah, dat’s better, Marse John,” he said a moment afterwards—“I’ve jes’ be’n scorin’ now—jes’ watch me pace.
“An’ swappin’ dese Kris’mus gif’s, Lord, it do make me tired! It’s like de time ole Marster tole ole Miss he sold his fine hound fur a thousand dollars, an’ ole Miss wuz so glad, kase she hated dat hound, he sucked her eggs. But she wuz hot when she found out ole Marster had jes swapped him fur two five hundred dollar pups.
“Dat’s Kris’mus givin’ all over.
“Kris’mus gif’s now is jes’ Kris’mus gittin’, an’ ev’y man is jes tryin’ to git his piece on earth an’ de good will o’ de other man long enuff to skin him endurin’ de year.
“Now, dar’s Dinah. She starts in right after Jinuary an’ spen’s de res’ o’ de year gittin ready fur Kris’mus, an’ no heathen in Aferca spen’s a year of harder wuck, whittlin’ his god out o’ a gum-stump wid a clam shell, den my ’liggus ole ’oman does fixin’ fur Kris’mus. ‘Save it fur Kris’mus, Wash,’ is whut she chirps on frum Jinuary to Jinuary. She’s tuck down de good ole sign I useter hab up in de house, ‘Save a nickel and own a dime,’ an’ now all she’s got up is, ‘Save it all fur Kris’mus!’ She drilled dis so in our chillun dat it liketer led to a ’vorcement wid our oldes’ gal, Sally. Sally she married a nice nigger, but I soon seed sumpin’ wuz wrong. De nigger got mad an’ started for a ’vorcement, an’ when I gits to de bottom of it, he said Sally nurver had kissed him yit. I gin dat gal a strappin’ an’ she ’fessed up and sed she lubbed de nigger, but she lubbed ’im so hard she wuz savin’ de fust kiss fur Kris’mus!
“I tell you, sah, it’s jes got redikerlus de way we go on. Now heah’s de way it wucks wid me:
“We spen’s de summer an’ fall raisin’ a flock o’ tuckies es Kris’mus gif’s fur our frien’s. Fur dese we gits back a armful ob ‘Foot-paths ob Peace’ cyards, a few po’ pullits an’ a lot o’ candy made in Black Bottom an’ painted by dat Irish Dago you calls Mike Angelo. Fur de fall lambs er two we sen’s out mos’ly to de preachers, we gits back sumpin’ dat looks like wool, but it ain’t, on de painted toys de chillun can’t eat; an’ fur de good garments Dinah makes an’ distrubutes ’mong her frien’s, she gits back cobweb collars dat you can’t wear an’ hankerchefs dat you wouldn’t no mo’ think o’ blowin’ your nose in den you would in a sifter.
“An’ some fool ’oman had spent a half a year a-makin’ ’em.
“O, we gits cyards a plenty. But I’ve noticed dat de ones dat sen’s me de ‘Foot-paths ob Peace’ is allers in a scrap er fuss wid us, an’ de very nigger dat led de prayer-meetin’ an’ sent us dat framed card, ‘Our Faith is Our Fishiency,’ ’loped wid our darter an’ tuck all de blooded chickens wid him dat night. Eny way, he didn’t leab us a fishiency—no, not eben a minnery.
“But I got enuff now sense I played Sandy Claws last week.”