Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1895 — JES' 'FORE CHRISTMAS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JES' 'FORE CHRISTMAS

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will, Mother calls me Willie—but the fellers call ire Bill! Mighty glad I ain’t a girl—ruther be a boy Without them sashes, curls and things that’a w. rn by Fauntleroy: Love to chawnk green apples an’ go swimmin’ in the lake— Hate to take the castor-lie they give fr belly-ache! Most all the time the hull year roun' their ain't no flies on me. But jes’ ’fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be! Got a yaller dog named Sport—sick ’rm on the cat; Fust thing she knows she doesn't know where site is at I

Got a clipper-sled, an’ when us boys goesout to slide ’Long comes the grocery cart an’ we all hook a ride!. But, sometimes, when the grocery man is worrited and cross, He reaches at me with his whip and larrups up his hoes; An’ then I latt and holler: “Oh, you never teched me!” But jes' ’fore Christmas I’m as good as I klu be! Jran'ma says she hope* that when I get to be a man I’ll be a missloner like her oldes' brother Dun, As wuz et up by the cannibals that lives In Ceylon's Isle, Where every prospeek pleases an’ only man Is vile! But gran’ma she hud never been to see a Wild West show. Or read the life uv Daniel Boone, or else I guess! she'd, know

That Buffalo Bill an’ cowboys Is good enough f'r me— Excep’ jes’ 'fore Christmas, when I'm good as I kin be! Then ol’ Sport he hangs around, so solium like and still— His eyes they seem a-sayln’: “What’s er matter, little Bill?” ' The cat she sneaks down off her perch, a-wonderln’ what’s become Uv them two enemies uv hern that use ter make things hum! But I am so perlite and stick so earnestlike t>- biz. That mother sez to father: “How Improved our Willie Is!” But father, havin’ been a boy hisself, suspicions me, When, jes' ’fore Christmas, I’m as good as I kin be! For Christmas, with Its lots an’ lots uv candies, cakes and toys, Wuz made, they say, f’r proper kids, and not f’r naughty boys! So wash yer face, and bresh yer hair, an' mln’ yer p’s and q’s,

An’ don’t bust out yer pantaloons, an’ don’t wear cut your shoes; Say yessum to the ladles, an’ yessir to the men An' whenthey's company don’t pass yer plate f’r pie again; y But, thinkin’ uv the things you'd like to see upon that tree, Jes’ ’fore Christmas be as good as you kin be! —Eugene Field, In Ladles* Home Journal.