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