One day near Christmas, when I was just a child Mama called us 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 is plenty to eat That's quite a blessing that'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 flour 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 “why I bet they don't even have coaloil or beans to boil Let alone apples, oranges and such” Me and Jack took a jar of coaloil and some hickernuts 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 coaloil and hickernuts and said “I sure do thank you” and quickly closed the door We started back home me and Jack and about halfway we stopped 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 waited for the thaw back home in Dyess, Arkansas The father heard church bells at midnight A wrong time for church bells to chime He went to the tower, found a little girl there Said, "Why ring the bells at this time?" "I'm just ringing the bells for Jim Please father, ringing the bells for Jim I'm sorry, I'm cryin' but my brother Jim's dyin' So, I'm ringing the bells for Jim" Please father, pray for him this Christmas He's sick and he's in so much pain The doctors all say, he'll be gone any day So, I must ring the bells again I'm just ringing the bells for Jim Please father, ringing the bells for Jim I'm sorry, I'm cryin' but my brother Jim's dyin' So, I'm ringing the bells for Jim On the day after Christmas She brought him, said "Father, heed little Jim You see, he got well, when he heard the church bells I was ringing the bells for Jim" "I'm just ringin’ the bells for Jim Please father, ringing the bells for Jim I'm sorry, I'm cryin' but my brother Jim's dyin' So, I'm ringing the bells for Jim" “Son” said my mother when I was knee high “You need of clothes to cover you and not a rag have I. There's nothing in the house to make a boy's britches, Nor shears to cut a cloth with nor thread to take stitches. There's nothing in the house but a loaf end of rye And the harp with a with the woman's head nobody will buy.” and she began to cry That was in the early fall and when came the late fall “Son” she said “the sight of you makes your mother's blood crawl. Little skinny shoulder blades stickin' through your clothes. And where you get a jacket from, God above knows It's lucky for me lad your daddy's in the ground And can't see the way I let his son go around.” and she made a queer sound That was in the late fall, when the winter came I'd not a pair of bridges nor a shirt to my name I couldn't go to school or out of doors to play And all the other little boys passed our way “Son” said my mother “come climb into my lap And I'll chave your little bones while you take a nap” And oh but we were silly for half an hour or more Me with my long legs draggin' on the floor I rocked rocked rocking to a mother goose rhyme Oh but we were happy for half an hour's time But there was I, a great boy, and what would folks say? To hear my mother singin' me to sleep all day in such a daft way Men say the winter was bad that year, fuel was scarce and food was dear A wind with a wolf's head howled about our door And we burned up the chairs and sat upon the floor All that was left us was a chair we couldn't break And the harp with the woman's head nobody would take for song or pity sake The night before Christmas I cried with the cold I cried myself to sleep like a two year old And in the deep night I felt my mother rise And stare down upon me with love in her eyes I saw my mother sitting on the one good chair A light falling on her face from... I couldn't tell where Looking nineteen and not a day older And the harp with the woman's head leaned against her shoulder Her thin fingers moving in the thin tall strings Were weave weave weaving wonderful things Many bright threads from where I couldn't see Were running through the harp strings rapidly And gold threads whistlin' through my mother's hands I saw the web grow and the pattern expand She wove a child's jacket and when it was done She laid it on the floor and wove another one She wove a red cloak so regal to see “She's made it for a king's son” I said and not for me, but I knew it was for me She wove a pair of bridges and quicker than that She wove a pair of boots a little cocked hat She wove a pair of mittens, she wove a little blouse She wove all night in the still cold house She sang as she worked and the harp strings spoke But her voice never faltered and the thread never broke But, but when I awoke, there sat my mother With the harp against her shoulder lookin' nineteen, not a day older A smile about her lips and a light about her head And her hands in the harp strings frozen dead