one day near christmas when i was just a child mama called us all together mama tried to smile she said you know the cotton crop hasn t been too good this year there s just no spending money and well at least we re all here i hope you won t expect a lot of christmas presents just be thankful that there s plenty to eat that s quite a blessing it ll make things a little more pleasant and us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were at least we were all healthy and best of all we had her roy cut down a pigapple tree and we drug it home jack and me daddy killed a squirrel and louise made the bread reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed mama and daddy sacrificed cause this christmas was lean but after all there was the babies tom and joanne babies need a few things i whittled a whistle for my brother jack and though we fought now and then when i gave jack that whistle he knew i thought the world of him mama made the girl s dresses out of flower sacks and when she ironed them down you couldn t tell that they hadn t come from town a sharecropper family across the road didn t have it as good as us they didn t even have a light and it was way past dusk and mama said well i bet they don t even have coal oil or beans to boil let alone apples and oranges and such me and jack took a jar of coal oil and some hickory nuts we d found we walked to the sharecropper s porch and set em down a poor old ragged lady eased open the door she picked up the coal oil and hickory nuts and said i sure do thank you and quickly closed the door we started back home me and jack and about halfway we stopped and looked back in the sharecropper s window at last was a light so for one of the neighbors and for us it was a good christmas night christmas came and christmas went christmas that year was heaven sent then daddy put on his gumboots and waited for the thaw back home in dyess arkansas