It goes round and round on the shining track. Then the track goes shining round and round.
“Will what be there?”
“That train. In the window.”
“You go to sleep. You can see tomorrow if it’s there.”
Maybe Santa Claus won’t know they are town boys.
“Dewey Dell.”
“You go to sleep. He ain’t going to let none of them town boys have it.”
It was behind the window, red on the track, and the track shining round and round. It made my heart hurt. And then it was pa and Jewel and Darl and Mr. Gillespie’s boy. Mr. Gillespie’s boy’s legs come down under his nightshirt. When he goes into the moon, his legs fuzz. They go on around the house toward the apple tree.
“What are they going to do, Dewey Dell?”
They went around the house toward the apple tree.
“I can smell her,” I say. “Can you smell her, too?”
“Hush,” Dewey Dell says. “The wind’s changed. Go to sleep.”
And so I am going to know where they stay at night soon. They come around the house, going across the yard in the moon, carrying her on their shoulders. They carry her down to the barn, the moon shining flat and quiet on her. Then they come back and go into the house again. While they were in the moon, Mr. Gillespie’s boy’s legs fuzzed. And then I waited and I said Dewey Dell? and then I waited and then I went to find where they stay at night and I saw something that Dewey Dell told me not to tell nobody.