Where can I find the poem......

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I am looking for a poem that I had memorized in my childhood. I cannot remember the name of the poem (I think it is entitled "Just 'for Christmas") but I am not sure. There is a line in it that goes "My father calls me William, my mother calls me Will, my sister calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill."

Please let me know if anyone has heard of this poem, who the author is and where I could find a copy of it (preferably online).

-- Robert Gaul (bobgaul@hotmail.com), April 27, 1999

Answers

=)

Cute little poem.

-- Nonnie (Nonnie@switchboardmail.com), April 28, 1999.


Jest 'Fore Christmas 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 belly-ache!

'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 cannibals that live 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 as good as I kin be!

And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like 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,

And 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'a 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!

-- ilza (ilza@pobox.com), April 27, 1999.


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