This cannot be understood unless the degree
of sibling rivalry between Louise and Jimmy
is also understood.
But that is another item discussed elsewhere.
Christmas morning.
Presents opened.
Floor littered.
Santa had arrived and just the right presents were
now being enjoyed.
Louise had a perfectly pretty doll she adored.
Jimmy had a six-shooter pistol with holster and belt.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Running through the house shooting everything in sight.
Cap smoke and smell filled the air.
“Jimmy! Get on your coat and take that outside,”
Mom yelled from the kitchen.
“Get out of here,” Louise echoed from the living room.
That sounded like a good idea to Jimmy.
Outside meant more targets imagined or real.
After Christmas dinner and because of the early awakening,
Jimmy fell asleep.
But no sooner had his eyes popped open again
than he was up looking for his pistol, holster and belt.
Search as his might they were nowhere in sight.
Outside.
He must have left them outside.
The search continued and they were outside for sure.
Belt and holster were tossed aside.
The pistol was smashed to smithereens
between two bricks!
Weeping and wailing, he ran to the house and
told Dad what had happened.
Louise went into hiding in the darkest corner
she could find.
But Dad found her.
And with her doll in hand and her hand
reluctantly in Dad’s hand the scene of the crime was revisited.
Justice would be done.
The pretty doll was then laid on one brick
and Louise was made to bash it to pieces with the other one.
Pieces of broken pistol littered the ground
joined by pieces of broken doll.
Tears kept on streaming to the ground from Jimmy’s cheeks
soon to be mixed with even more tears
as Louise joined the chorus of weeping and wailing.
The two kids were too young to think
of anything or anyone else.
But if someone else had been there to notice,
the bitterest Christmas tears that day
were in Dad’s eyes.
