ELSIE—I don’t one little one want. I want one big one.
CHLOE—Shuah you do, ma honey. Like de quality allers has, a-settin’
in de parlah, an’ a-reachin’ clar up to de high ceilin’, wid candles
a-twinklin’ an’ pretty, tings a-shinin’. Mammy’s seen ’em, in de Souf.
If we was dah, now! Dey grows dah, an’ Pompey could go out wid his axe
an’ cut one down fo’ his li’l Missy.
ELSIE—(_very eager_) Yes, Mammy Chloe, that just what I want! Just like
the tree I always did have every Christmas.
CARLOTTA—But where we so mucha mon’ getta?
HILDA—They haff the so large trees the churches in. What bane they do
with them after?
OPPERMAN—Dot vos so! Dot Svede voman vos one pargin hunter a’retty. Dot
tree be segond hand de day after de Christmas, and he gome cheap.
CHLOE—Mah Pompey he know dah sextant ob dat big chu’ch on Ellum Street,
’n ah reckon he’ll git it mo’n cheap. Yo’ shill hab yo’ tree, Ailsie
lamb.
TONY—I wanta tree, too.
ELSIE—It will be one tree for everbody, a’retty.
BRIDGET—So it shall. The entire communerty of inhabitints is invoited
to be prisint at a gran Christmas party, with a tree, refrishments and
an intertainmint, in McCarthy’s fore room the noight afther Christmas.
ELSIE—No, not the night after; I want it the Christmas Day on.
BRIDGET—And so it will be, bedad! I hereby make the announcemint that
Christmas at McCarthy’s will be the twinty-sixth of Dacimber this year,
and thot’s whin we’ll have our grand hippodromy.
MICKEY—Begorry, it’s mither knows the grand worrds!
CARLOTTA—My Antonio, he giva da peanutta and da poppa, and da bambinos
sewa it da stringa on.
HILDA—I can sweetmeats make.
CHLOE—Ole Chloe know how make all de good tings—de crullahs an’ cakes.
KATIE—Mither makes foine melasses candy.
BRIDGET—Yis, ’n I know how to make a whole cirrcus of animiles, all av
cooky dough.
OPPERMAN—Mine brudder he work a varm on. I git him zum abbles me to
send. I—I—I gif von prezent to efery laddy in der tinemint!
CHLOE—Purty good foh an ole bach! He, he! Chloe knows how to mek a heap
o’ li’l knick-knacks out o’ nuffin. I show yo’ li’l gals how mek de
nice Christmas gif’. Yo’ wait’n see.
JIMMY—And everybody there must have somethin’ fer Ilsie, fer ’twas her
got it up. Murphy’s tinemint niver kipt Christmas before.
BRIDGET—It’s goin’ ter do thot same this year, me bye. Remimber, at
McCarthy’s the avenin of the twinty-sixth, and ivery blissed sowl must
do something for the grand vodyville intertainmint.
OPPERMAN—But vy your rooms, instead of dose room of mine? Mine der
piggest is, und downstairs, a’retty, und you all vould velcome be.
BRIDGET—Sure yours is the biggest, an’ the most cluttered, I’d be
thinkin’. Yez see, Mr. Opperman, yer one room is pretty well filled
wid yer shtove an’ yer bed, an’ yer table, an’ all your clutter, which
a old bachelor niver doos pick up nor clane up, and me own fore room
is large and nearly impty, wid the parlor set Oi’ll be afther havin’
some day shtill in the shtore, and it’s the foine place for the parrty,
nayther way up shtairs nor way down, an’ it’s there let it be.
CHLOE—(_starting up_) Dar’s de whistle a-blowin’, chillen. Pappy’ll be
hum ter he suppah in two shakes ob a lamb’s tale. (_All the women hurry
in, and the children stand up, and wave their hands and shout._)
MICKY—Three chairs fer Christmas at McCarthy’s!