country's business and now it's gone and got so goldum big that the
thermometer is makin' the weather. When Wall Street feels muggy it's
got to rain and the sun don't dare shine without takin' a peek at the
thermometer first off.

"Christmas ain't any longer an opportunity to show good will to your
neighbors. It's a time when you got to show off before your neighbors.
You women make yourselves and us men sick the way you carry on all
through December. And the children!--they're worse'n the grown-ups.

"Old-fashioned Christmas was like old-fashioned circuses--mostly meant
for the young ones. Nowadays circuses have growed so big and so
improper that nobody would dast take a child to one, or if you do, they
get crazy notions.

"When I was a boy, if I got a drum and a tin horn I was so happy I
couldn't keep quiet. But last Christmas little Ulie Junior cried all
day because he got a 'leven dollar automobile when he wanted a
areaplane big enough to carry the cat over the barn.

"This Christmas trust business ought to be investigated by the gov'ment
and dissolved. Talk about your tariff schedules! What we need is
somebody to pare down this Christmas gouge. It's the one kind of tax
you can't swear off.

"And as for you--why, you're goin' daffy. Other years I didn't mind so
much. You spent a lot of time and some money on your annual splurge,
but I will say, you took in better'n you gave. But now you're on the
other side the fence. These Carthage women have got you on the run.
You'll have to give 'em twice as good as they send or you're gone.