Cammy lived on this street. She was my girl friend. There were Denny and Elizabeth Ann and lots of other little children. We all played outside most all the time. I had a gym set with swings and bars that the little girl who lived in my little white house had before I moved there.

We all had different collections. I had coins and dolls and stamps and fuzz, lots of fuzz-green fuzz, blue fuzz, tan fuzz, pink fuzz-to tickle my nose with and to hold onto to make me feel warm.

We had lots of parties on this street, where we lived in the little white house. One party was a sugarplum tree party. I asked Mommy one day where the sugarplum tree was.

She invited all the children to come to find out and there was a tree with a gingham dog that Mrs. Dougherty, the landlady in Champaign, gave me when I was very little. There was a calico cat, and all the sweets the poem tells about. Here is the poem:

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown;

It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop Sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of the fruit to be happy next day.

 

When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below-

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

 

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground-

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

 

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as you apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town. (1)

Page 3