Love-Songs of Childhood

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></SPAN></p> <h2> JEST 'FORE CHRISTMAS </h2> <p>Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,<br/> Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!<br/> Mighty glad I ain't a girl&mdash;ruther be a boy,<br/> Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!<br/> Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake&mdash;<br/> Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!<br/> 'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,<br/> But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!<br/> Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;<br/> First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!<br/> Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,<br/> 'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!<br/> But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,<br/> He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,<br/> An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"<br/> But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!<br/> Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,<br/> I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,<br/> As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon's Isle,<br/> Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!<br/> But gran'ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,<br/> Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she'd know<br/> That Buff'lo Bill an' cow-boys is good enough for me!<br/> Excep' jest 'fore Christmas, when I'm good as I kin be!<br/> And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like an' still,<br/> His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?"<br/> The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become<br/> Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!<br/> But I am so perlite an' 'tend so earnestly to biz,<br/> That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"<br/> But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me<br/> When, jest 'fore Christmas, I'm as good as I kin be!<br/> For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys,<br/> Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys;<br/> So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's,<br/> An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes;<br/> Say "Yessum" to the ladies, an' "Yessur" to the men,<br/> An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again;<br/> But, thinkin' of the things yer'd like to see upon that tree,<br/> Jest 'fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />