CHAPTER TWELVE

CHRISTMAS

Next, I'll tell you some Christmas tales.

One Yuletide season , the good citizens were plagued with fire crackers, and the city fathers decreed that anyone caught firing one on the square would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and would be punished accordingly. One night a little before Christmas, four of us young outlaws were in possession of some of those dastardly engines of destruction, and conspired to violate the new Ordinance forthwith. We were in front of Conger Brothers at the time. No sooner had we fired our first salvo than a deputy sheriff appeared out of the darkness as though by magic. We split, two going toward the Post Office and safety, and my partner and I going around the Burton and Jennings corner toward the Methodist church. We were fast afoot, but the deputy was faster, and he collared us in the alley behind the stores.

He didn't read us our rights -- they had not been well defined at the time. He did tell us to appear before the Justice of the Peace the next morning at ten o'clock. We did, and pled nolo contendere. His Honor threw the book at us, to coin a phrase, as well as his gold plated spittoon; he fined us five dollars.

That happened to be the amount I had saved for Christmas, and I could see my season's jollies flying out the window.

After a stern lecture to boot, he released us on our own recognizance, with the understanding that we would pay our fines into the court by day's end.

I drooped home, and found the family having lunch.

"You are late, James" Mom said. "Sit down and eat your dinner."

"I'm not hungry Mama," I replied.

"What's the matter, son," she asked, reading me like a book, as usual.

"Well I'm in trouble with the law," I answered in a dry voice, and then told them the whole story.

Pop's face turned white, and, without a word, he pushed his peach cobbler back, untouched, and headed for the front door.

He was back in about an hour, a hard glint still in his blue-gray eyes, but a little smile beginning to soften the muscles of his jaw.

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"What happened, Jim?" Mom asked excitedly.

"Oh, nothing much" he replied. "I just told _____ that I thought the boys should have another chance. But don't try it again, son. I can't get you off another time."

"How did you argue that skin-flint out of the money?" Munner wanted to know.

"Oh, we are pretty good friends; we were young boys together. I guess I just knew how to talk to him. Let's forget it! Where's my peach cobbler, Nannie?"

She got it out of the safe, and Pop ate it without another word.

I never learned how he really got me out of that scrape. He was hot headed and could get pretty tough at times, and I had my own theory of what he said to Mr. _____.

I always thought the idea of my having to give up my Christmas money was doubly repugnant to him because of something that happened to him when he was a little boy. I have heard him tell his tale with tears in his eyes.

Grandpa Jack died from exposure in his tan yard when Pop was ten, and Sister Fannie was just a baby. Grandma and her two little orphans went to live off the charity of one of her relatives. Grandma was crippled with what was then called rheumatism, and they had no other place to go.

One year when Pop was about twelve, he borrowed an ax from the relative and started early in December chopping wood for his Christmas money. He had saved one dollar when misfortune overtook him. He and another boy were chopping, left and right and the boy's ax stuck in the log. Pop came down hard on it, and broke a large corner out of his blade. It could have been welded for thirty-five cents, but Pop had to buy a new head, which cost him his Christmas dollar. He had no daddy to bail him out.

Grandma died; and at about age fourteen or fifteen, Pop went to Chattanooga, where he learned the painting trade.

His formal education was over. I have often thought how successful he might have been, had he received the education he and Mom helped their three boys obtain. And yet, what is success? And how can you be better than the best?

Pardon me, Dick, for wandering, but I had to tell this story -- I have wanted all my life to shout it for all the world to hear. I am afraid you didn't hear me, else you, too, would be crying.

But let's move on. I'll tell you a happier Christmas tale.

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For years, the four churches in Smithville got together for two community Christmas trees. The Methodists teamed up with the Cumberland Presbyterians, and we joined the Baptists. I guess those were the only times we ever joined anything.

Meeting place alternated each year, and the big event took place on Christmas Eve. The afternoon would be taken up with the delivery of packages, which had to be properly arranged on and under the huge evergreen. Shiny tinsels already would have been strung on the upper branches.

The programs started about seven o'clock. There would be a couple of Christmas songs, and a brief prayer of thanksgiving which always seemed so long to fidgety boys and girls.

Finally, jingle bells would ring at the door, and big fat Santa Claus would enter, as little necks craned and little eyes popped to catch the first possible glimpse of that wonderful man. After a few choice tidbits from the North Pole, and the standard question of "Who has been Good?", Santa's helpers would begin handing packaged to him. He, in turn, would call out a name in a deep stentorian voice (insofar as nature had endowed him).

An excited and happy "Here!" aided by a frantically waving little hand would send a helper posthaste to the lucky girl or boy.

The more opulent parents had wrapped many packages that day, and it seemed that little Johnny's name had been called a dozen times before Santa got around to me.

Grown folks, of course, were not forgotten, and they did some peculiar things.

Mom loved to tell about the time Pop put a rocking chair on the tree. When the party was over and package-laden families were ready to go home, it was raining cats and dogs. Pop put the chair over his head, and with Mom and George in close pursuit, headed due east.

All was well until they had passed through the square. Then their troubles began. Mud was ankle deep in the street, and deeper along the sides. Pop decreed that they should forget about firm footing -- just get home as fast as they could!

They made it in record time. They left their shoes and stockings on the front porch, and were soon trying to ward off pneumonia in front of a back-log of half-live coals glowing dully through warm ashes.

I wasn't there for this episode, but I remember the chair so well. It became Munner's when she came to live with us, and, during the blessed years we were together, I spent countless hours snuggled up to her on a corner of that chair.

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Our last Christmas in Smithville was in 1922, and the party was at the Baptist building. This one was of special significance to me. Mom and Pop had determined that each of their boys would receive a nice watch on the Christmas following their sixteenth birthday. George had gotten his in 1911, and now it was my turn. (You would get yours in l927, when things were a lot better for us.)

Carlyn was one of Santa's helpers, and Mom gave him my watch for safekeeping. Soon after the program started, he called for quiet and presented my watch to me, not trusting even Santa.

It was a beautiful open-faced Elgin, and I am sure it made me the happiest boy in town. It became more precious as I grew older, as I came to realize the sacrifices they had made to give me such a beautiful gift.

It was a fourteen carat gold case with a twenty-year warranty. That really meant for life, for to a sixteen year old, twenty years will never pass. But, they did pass, and another twenty years passed, and another twelve years passed; and now the watch is tarnished and is hanging in Mildred's shadow box in the den. It is hanging between my bank service pin and my Silver Beaver. The pin, too, is tarnished, with only its diamond showing any life; and the blue of the Beaver's ribbon is beginning to fade.

These were my treasured possessions, but just bagatelles to everyone else. When Mildred has finished with them, I do hope Jimmy and his family will give them a home.

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