Morning journal and courier., 1886-12-25

in the most unexpected places. This is th' only reason that can be given for its appear
 ance on Cat Greek, Missouri, several year.
 ago, in the cabin of Nimrod Cumplin, and
 for Nimrod's daughter Piney to startle hel
 mother with the question:
 "Mother, what's this here Christmas all
 about, anyhow2"
 Mrs. Cumplin, who was frying venison
 steaks over fire of hickory coals, was SC
 amazed by the question that she turned
 quickly to look at her daughter, and in SC
 doing allowed particularly fine steak, which
 she was in the act of turning, to glide of
 of the old iron fork, miss the frying pan and
 fall into the fire.
 "Fur pity's sake, gal, what's the good of l skeerin' the life most out of the only mother you've got to your namea You've gone an
 give me reg1ar fit O the jerks, comin' on me so sudden with an outlandish question like that. An you've made me spile the
 hest chunk of venison in that there pan. l Twas one of them pieces that your father specially likes too-just where the side leaves off an the ham begins. You mind
 this fryin' now till go see eff ther's another one."
 Mrs. Cumplin went out and looked in the family refrigerator-a barrel, out of doors 1 on the northern side of the house, and cov- 1 cred with short logs to keep out "varmints. i" | Her daughter knelt in front of the tlre- place
 and attended to the sizzling, spluttering con tents of the frying pan, but she gave most 1 of her spare seconds to contemplation of the fire. In this she displayed correct taste, for | the fire was the prettiest thing in the room. l The log cabin of "settler'' may be made as
 pretty as a boudoir full of bric-a-bric if
 but evidently the rage for decoration has never come withing injecting distance of the Cumplin domicile, for the only relief to the dark gray of the log walls was an occasional
 bit of yellowish gray, showing where bits of l bark had been torn off to quicken slow fire on mornings when the family wood-pile had been suddenly covered with snow. There 1 was homemade bed in one corner of the room but the framework was invisible, and l the coverlid was about as darkly gray as the l wall behind it. There was ladder that led | to the loft above, which was Piney's bed
 chamber, but that too was gray and dingy 1 from long use. The table-a slab split from | a thick log and supplied with four legs driv- ! en into augur holes-was without 8 cloth, l and the cups and saucers were of dreadful 1 mottled gray that is highly popular in some
 sections of the country because, according to ! it's owners. Git don't show dirt" l The girl found the fire so interesting that 1 she continued to stare at it until her mother, l returning with duplicate of the lost steak, | exclaimed:
 l "Fur pity sakes, gal, what are you 1ettin all the dinner burn to crisp for?" | Piney allowed herself to be astonished and pushed aside, but as as the work at the l fire seemed again to be progressing properly she repeated the question::
 | 'sMother. what's this here Christmas all l about anyhowa"
 l "You know, just as well as do," said her mother. "Youve seed fourteen or fifteen 1 Christmases a'ready-I don't know but it's sixteen, an you ort to know what they're | about.''
 'But what's Christmas for?' persisted Pi- ney, ''that's what want to know" What's it fur? Why it's fur men to fire 1 off Christmas guns on an'-an' drink moren | ordinary an'-an' fur women to cook moren
 usual eff ther's anything more'n usual in the l house. That's all"
 "Every bit of it!'
 "Tis, ez fur ez knows on, 'xcept in some l parts of the country the children an niggers 1 say Christmas gift to folks, an folks give lem sonethin' eff they've mind to-" 1 ''But how did it begina What makes men l fire guns and drink more than other times, and women cook more?"
 1 "Cause they want to be more than usual glad l spose. Mems way of doin' it is to make noise an git drunk; women's way is to do their best cookin'-that's all." "But what do they want to get gladder
 fora' asked the girl. t'Why isn't one day l just as good as another for that7', sWell, pears to me it's because that's tho day the good Lord wuz born in the world; Il don't say it fur certain though, cause FL | ! sAaI., -syA s.-1 l about it long ez he's ben holdin' monthly
 meetin's up at the Forks. But want to know what's been putin all this talk in your head, Piney, gala''
 l q don't know,n said the girl, ''exeept heard dad talking to Jed Kipner about | an caps for Christmas, an Jed said he'd been up to the Forks store an seen Cap.
 tain Martins wife givin' the storekeeper n 1 awful big order to git Christmas gifts for l her young ones. What is Christmas gift | anyhow? ?-what kind of thing2" 1 Mrs. Cump1in seemed to struggle with 1 her memory for two or three minutes. Then she replied:
 sfWell, most generally it's money or some | thin booty. Young fellers give ther gals I candy or ribbons; if they're fust rate fsl-
 SEs fss they they give eh breas' pins or S0methin
 ''What did dad give you when ycu was 1 a young gal, mothers' The girl sprang | from the block stool on which she had l been sitting, placed herself dangerously
 near the fire in her desire to get in front
 of her mother, bent yey ungracefuliy in figure before her, and prolonged her ques- ton with an appealing "Saya" Mrs. Cumplin suddenly found that the Venison in the pan required the closest at tention; her daughter, however, was not thinking of venison or anything else except fha cu1, of cho ued:
 "Mother-mammy-tell me. Tell your very only gal daughter, won't youa' Some hot eoals not far from Mrs. Cum plin's face began to hiss spasmodicsllY, for biz tesrs weea dropping upon them. "Mammyl" exclaimed the girl, putting both hands upon the head which, though thing else in the room. Mrs. Cumplin anatahed st the skirt of her dress, wiped her eyes with it and said;
 Gle give me the hreas' pin I wear when ever go to meetin'. an anybody thet sez there's ever any in the meetin' house that can beat it don't know nothin' at all about breas' pins. That's what he give me, When Pm dead an buried I want that breas. pin buried with me ai' on me; it's the-tfe only booty thing ever he'd 'xcept you"
 "pidn't dad ever give you anything OuTlS IndS aAtoI yOu was 1naIGLou! askeu the girl.
 "Sho! Of course not. What would a man want to give anythin' to hia wife for after he'd got hera'
 s!Then all Christmas out here is goin' to be this year is men firing guns ap' gettin' drunk. Is that its"
 s:0f course it is. Fer pity sakas. gal, yer don't think things is go1n' to change after they've been that way aliuz, do yers Eff yer don't bleeve me just see what yer dad'Il bring home from the Forks store to- day-two pounds of gqnpowder instid of aHartar's W4th, an' g hull jug of Whiskey ihstid of only fask.s
 Piney went to the window, not So much to look for her father as to change the object of her gage while looking at nothing in particu- lar She felt certain, as children often do In matters which they but dimly understand, that something more was going on in the world than she saw, that she deserved it, was not getting it and felt aggrieved.
 As she looked out she saw her father com ing. The gunpowder was not visible, but the jug of which her mother had spoken was
 .r.I.