Call it “A Christmas Carol” with a Pike County twang instead of an English accent.

A man who developed his talent for writing as a teenager in Louisiana created a poem whose themes hint at the Charles Dickens classic.

“A Pike County Christmas Tree” is among the amusing yarns found in the 1904 book “Poems All the Way From Pike” by Robertus Donnell Love.

The verses include the benevolent, the villainous and a poor family that finally gets a break. There are no ghosts from the past, present or future, but Love conjures the spirits of world famous Pike County icons Joe Bowers and his brother, Ike.

Love was the Mark Twain of Pike County. In fact, the two humorists became good friends during the Hannibal author’s last trip to Missouri in 1902.

As with Twain, Love had a clever way of telling a story, and he often used the Missouri vernacular he heard, and spoke, as a boy. Proof can be found in “A Pike County Christmas Tree.”

Narrating is one of the heroes, who is joined by fellow Bible class members Minky Peters and the Bowers brothers. Love seemingly enjoys folklore surrounding the mythical siblings – who show up in other poems in the book – and argues that Pike is “the most famous county in the United States” because of 19th century songs in which they appear.

In the poem, the four adult friends have for more than a decade helped their church congregation decorate a Christmas tree that contains everything from toys to Scripture lessons.

 

“There was popcorn balls and candy bags for Jim and Jess and Nell

And Mother Goose’s poetry for kids that couldn’t spell

And skates and tops and jumpin’ jacks, and dolls and hoods and caps

With here and there a Testament for solemn little chaps.”

 

For a reason not disclosed, the neediest kid in town seems to have her name left off of the giving tree each year.

 

“The poorest child in Sunday School was little Jennie Kerr,

She didn’t have no Santy Clause to put things on for her

So, Minky Peters, or Joe Bowers, or his brother Ike or me,

Would always buy some trick for her and sneak it on the tree.”

 

Jennie had at least one friend – Marthy Simpson. She was the daughter of a man who owned the local bank and grocery, and had “money to incinerate.”

When the two girls ran away from home once, Simpson got mad and swore he would “never lift a hand to help his darter – or her brats.” When Jennie’s father died, Simpson kept his word and shunned Jennie’s mother.

 

“In all them years to aid the gal, who had to work and slave,

With one foot on the porehouse stoop and t‘other in the grave

So, little Jennie’s pathway wasn’t filled with dolls and things,

Exceptin’ when us grown up guys got sorter soft, by jings!”

 

Joe Bowers portrays Claus. The kids quietly walk down the aisle as St. Nick boisterously calls out their names, but soon turn the pews messy and sticky with wrapping paper and candy.

The narrator gets “flustrated” when he sees Jennie sitting on her mother’s knee in the corner without a present. He’s also a little upset with himself.

 

“For all at once I tumbled that we’d clean forgot that night,

To put a present on the tree and make her Christmas bright

So I winked at Minky Peters, and he winked at Santy Claus

And Santy winked at Isaac, who enlisted in the cause.”

 

The narrator and his buddies had “a short confab” behind the decorated props that surrounded the tree and hatched a plan.

Joe Bowers was to entertain the audience with “some most amusin’ antics and some edifyin’ slang” about “chimbley tops and reindeers, and Kris Kringle and his packs” while “the rest of us for Christmas goods to Simpson’s store made tracks.”

When told about the mission to buy a gift for “the poorest kid in Pike,” Simpson’s “hard face sorter sof’ened and he hung his ornery head.” The store keeper handed the three wise men an envelope.

 

“We-alls was somewhat doobious, but we took the letter in,

And sneaked it on the Christmas tree while Bowers drowned the din

And read the name of Jennie Kerr, who toddled down the aisle

As gay as any young ‘un there, though somewhat out of style.”

 

When Jennie’s mother read the contents of the envelope, she “fainted dead away, as if she’d swallered dope.”

The three kings were frankly so incensed that they gathered their mirth and began the journey for Simpson’s store. Instead of gold, they grabbed some rope. They wanted to wrap up and hang the schmuck like a “present on a Christmas tree outside,” only with “the devil’s name writ on it acrost old Simpson’s hide!”

The angry narrator says that just in the St. Nick of time, Joe Bowers “called us back, and likewise called us several names – in language that I lack.”

 

“And when we got to church agin, he read that letter out,

And every lung among the crowd was bustin’ with a shout

Was it an insult to the kid? Not on your liver-pads!

He’d sent that little gal his check for twenty thousand scads!