Colonel Crocketts Co-operative Christmas

Colonel Crockett's Co-operative
Christmas, by

Rupert Hughes This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
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Title: Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas
Author: Rupert Hughes
Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22696]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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CO-OPERATIVE CHRISTMAS ***

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COL. CROCKETT'S CO-OPERATIVE CHRISTMAS
RUPERT HUGHES

[Illustration]

Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas
[Illustration: LAST NIGHT I ATE A HORRIBLE MOCKERY OF A
CHRISTMAS DINNER IN A DESERTED RESTAURANT]

[Illustration]
Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas
By Rupert Hughes
Philadelphia and London George W Jacobs and Company

COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
Published September, 1906
All rights reserved Printed in U. S. A.

Illustrations
Last night I ate a horrible mockery of a Christmas dinner in a deserted
restaurant Frontispiece
As blue as all the swear words ever swore Facing page 14
He said if I ever come near again he'd sic the dogs on me 18
"Only one thousand plunks," says he 40
James J. James, Publicity Expert 48

Old Miss Samanthy Clay got a box of cigars meant for Judge Randolph
60
[Illustration]

Foreword
Of all the strange gatherings that have distinguished Madison Square
Garden, the strangest was probably on the occasion, last Christmas,
when the now well-known Colonel D. A. Crockett, of Waco, rented the
vast auditorium for one thousand dollars, and threw it open to the
public. As he is going to do it again this coming Christmas, an account
of the con-, in-, and re-ception of his scheme may interest some of the
thousands who find themselves every Christmas in the Colonel's plight.
My plan to describe it was frustrated by the receipt, from his wife, of
three letters he wrote her. It seems only fair, then, that the author of an
achievement which is likely to become an institution should be allowed
to be the author of its history. I shall, therefore, content myself with
publishing verbatim two of the Colonel's own letters.
RUPERT HUGHES

LETTER ONE
New York, N. Y., Dec. 26, 1904.
FRIEND WIFE:
The miserablest night I ever spent in all my born days--the solitariest,
with no seconds--was sure this identical Christmas night in New York
City. And I've been some lonesome, too, in my time.
I've told you how, as a boy, I shipped before the mast--the wrong
mast--and how the old tub bumped a reef and went down with all
hands--and feet--except mine. You remember me telling how I grabbed

aholt of a large wooden box and floated on to a dry spot. It knocked the
wind out of my stummick considerable, but I hung on kind of
unconscious till the tide went out. When I come to, I looked round to
see where in Sam Hill I was at, and found I was on a little pinhead of
an island about the size a freckle would be on the moon. All around
was mostly sky, excepting for what was water. And me with nothing to
drink it with!
I set down hard on the box and felt as blue as all the swear words ever
swore. There was nothing in sight to eat, and that made me so hungry
that me and the box fell over backward. As I laid there sprawled out,
with my feet up on the box, I looked between my knees and read them
beautiful words, "Eat Buggins' Biscuit," in plain sight before me on the
end of the box.
[Illustration: AS BLUE AS ALL THE SWEAR WORDS EVER
SWORE]
Well, me and friend Buggins inhabited that place--about as big as one
of Man Friday's footprints--for going on four weeks. When tide was in,
I held the box on my head to keep my powder dry. 'Long toward the
end of my visit, just before the ship that saved me hove in sight, I
began to feel a mite tired of that place. I kind o' felt as if I'd saw about
all that was int'resting on that there island. I thought I was unhappy and
I had a sneaking idea I was lonesome. But I see I was mistaken. I hadn't
spent a Christmas night alone in a big city then.
Then once when I was prospecting for our mine, I was snowed up in a
pass. I reckon I've told you how I got typhoid fever and wrestled it out
all day by my lonesome; unparalleled thirst,