The boy who brought Christmas

								

Pistopal girls and boys is goin’ to pick ’em off for keeps. But he
ain’t left nary thing for the Methdises, or the Presaterians or
the Red-Baptises or the Yaller-Baptises. Don’t you reckon that’s a
low-down trick, gran’daddy? He was down yer last night agin with
another pack o’ things for ’em and he come afoot this time for me and
Dixie’s tracked him; we’ve done follered his tracks to the ford but
we can’t strike his trail on t’other side. Git out, gran’daddy, and
help us!”
“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, granddad’ll shore do what he kin for you,”
the old man kept a serious face and began a clumsy descent, “but what
you aim to do when you come on to him? You aim to clean him out?”
“No, I ain’t goin’ to tech nary thing ’thout he tells me; but I aim
to let on to him that the Red-Baptises and the Yaller-Baptises and
the Presaterians is jes’ as good as the Pistopals; and the Methdises
is a heap better’n any of ’em (you and me is Methdises, ain’t we
gran’daddy?) and I don’t guess he’ll think I’m a storyin’; do you
gran’daddy?”
“Not if he’s as knowin’ as I take him to be, he won’t.”
Gran’daddy mounted the footlog and steadied himself by the hand rail
as he crossed, while boy and dog scampered like squirrels ahead of
him. On the other side he pretended to identify every print the boy
discovered as track of deer, coon, bear, or catamount; there was
nothing indefinite that might stand for a possible Santa Claus.
“He must have waded a right smart,” there was a disappointed quiver
in the shrill treble, “so’s to throw us off the track; you reckon he
kept to the branch as far up as the mill, gran’daddy?”
“It looks right much like he’s just criss-crossed first one side the
branch and then t’other; anyway he’s got the sleight of coverin’ up
his tracks. I reckon we’ll have to give it up, Grover Cleveland.
Gran’daddy’s powerful rushed for time to-day.”
The old man recrossed the log, got into the wagon, and started on his
jogging way, the boy a quiet, drooping little figure beside him.
“That’s a mighty low-down trick in Old Sandy Claus to take and leave
you out, Grover Cleveland. Them Pistopals is the no-countest critters
to be found in these yer mountings.”
“If I was the boss of all the meetin’-houses I wouldn’t have any but
jes’ one, so’s Old Sandy Claus ’ud have to do ’em all alike,” the
treble weakened and the boy gazed off into the woods with suspicious
intensity.
“Now don’t you go to takin’-on, Grover Cleveland; maybe you and me
can git up a Christmas tree all to ourselves; how’d that do? I reckon
ole gran’dad’s about as rich right now as ary somebody round yer.
I’ve just sold Copperhead Hill to the mining company and got the
money down, two hundred and five dollars!” For a moment the old man
gloated in silence over his wealth, for among these North Carolina