Mr. Pettit said he was surprised to hear it. It
couldn't have been the weather that kept them away, could it?
Janey said she didn't know. Then he asked her what they were going
to sing for Christmas, and she began on "We three kings of Orient
are," and broke off to ask him what "Orient" meant, and he told her
that Orient was out on the Sunbury pike, about three miles this side
of Olive Green, and her Ma said: "Lester Pettit, I wish't you'd
ever grow up and learn how to behave yourself. Why, honey, it means
the East. The three wise men came from the East, don't you mind?"
At the Centre Street M. E. Church, where Janey Pettit went to
Sunday-school, there were big doings. Little Lycurgus Emerson,
whose mother sent him down to Littell's in a hurry for two pounds
of brown sugar, and who had already been an hour and a half getting
past Plotner's and Case's, heard Brother Littell and Abel Horn
talking over what they had decided at the "fishery meetin'." (By
the time Curg got so that he shaved, he knew that "officiary" was
the right way to say it, just as "certificate" is the right way to
say "stiffcut.") There was going to be a Christmas tree clear up
to the ceiling, all stuck full of candles and strung with pop-corn,
and a chimney for Santa Claus to climb down and give out the
presents and call out the names on them.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241