ANNIE CHRISTMAS -------- After Roark Bradford and Lyle Saxon in The New Orleans Times-Picayune. Also see as a possible source CARL CARMER's 1939 THE HURRICANE'S CHILDREN. Both of the above were reprinted in B.A. Botkin's Treasury Of Folklore books. Jackie Torrence's retelling of Annie Christmas seems to be taken from Carl Carmer's piece.

The ANNIE CHRISTMAS I told was from all of the above---plus puns etc. and off the top o' my head changes---some of which stayed in---but some didnt.(see below)

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The black folks say Annie was black and the white folks say she was white. Happened so long ago nobody knows for sure. What they did agree on was that she was just one hell of a woman. Annie Christmas stood 7 and a half feet tall in her stocking feet. She weighed 750 pounds and made her living as a keelboat pilot on the Mississippi River---poling those boats up against the current---stickin' the pole in the mud of the bottom and pushin' with all her strength. Muscles werejust a-ripplin' on her arms. Folks lined the shore for miles just to watch Annie work. It was such a prodigious effort. Mostly she wore buckskin and she had a red turkey feather in her hair. She was some sight to see when she was working.

There wasn't a man that Annie couldn't beat in a fight -- fair or otherwise. They came from all over to fight her. Even Mike Fink showed up to fight her one time. You know 'bout Mike Fink on the Ohio? He tried to jump the Ohio River once. Got half way across & saw he wasn't gonna make it-----so he turned around and went back.

Now, Annie saw these new steamboats every so often and she thought they were pretty fine lookin'. To her they seemed like floating wedding cakes comin' down the river in the misty light of mornin'. She saw the fancy ladies and the gamblers too. They looked fine to Annie too and she set her mind to takin' a ride on a steamboat. She went and got SYXTY YARDS of red satin and made herself a fine little shorty frock. She put the turkey feather in her hair---and she put on her famous necklace-----the one made out of ears and noses and eyes she had bit and gouged off o' guys in those fights she had. When Annie Christmas died, folks said that necklace was 28 feet long !)

Well, Annie got on board The River Queen and she met and fell in love with Charlie---a gambler. For both of 'em it was love at first sight. Just a few days after meeting Charlie and Annie Christmas asked the captain to marry them. Exactly one year to the day after gettin' hitched, Annie Christmas gave birth to twelve sons. And all were born at the same time. Within 6 months all of her sons stood 7 and a half feet tall and weighed 750 pounds each---just like their mother. And you think people lined up to watch when Annie was workin' ? Hell, when that family was working they were lined up 5 and 6 deep along the shore.

Charlie, himself, never did any work 'cept play roulette. One day he felt lucky --- and he bet on red. Red won ! Charlie yelled, "Just let it ride"---and he planted his hand down on the table to support all his weight. Twenty-five times in a row Charlie won ! The captain came over and told Charlie that he had to cut him off. Seems Charlie had won every dollar that boat had on it...

...Annie walked over to Charlie, took his arm to lead him away--------and Charlie keeled over----dead as a doornail. Apparently he had been dead for quite a while. That steamboat had been losing to a dead man !

Well, you know Annie felt pretty sad then ---. She pined away and died herself not too long after that. And her 12 sons built her a coal black coffin. And it was a very special coffin. It had a pilothouse up top and boilers and a red turning sternwheel behind. And on the darkest night of the year----they cut the rope and Annie Christmas's coffin glided out into the foggy night.

And folks say that if you're down on those lowland backwaters of the Mississippi River -- if ya listen close -- you can hear the slapping of the coffin's bucketboards as it glides on by.

Art Thieme