Twas the Night Before Peg Leg

Deepest and most sincere apologies to the ghost of Clement Clarke Moore.

‘Twas the night before Columbus Day, when all through the barn now,  
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Milk Cow;
The milking bucket was hung by the hay bales with care, 
In hopes that those gambling hooligans from DeKoven Street were no longer there;
*
The O’Learys were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
*
And Bessie in her ’COWchief, and I in my top hat,
Had just settled our brains for a long harvest nap.
When out in the barn there arose such a clatter,
I VAULTED from the bed with my peg, to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
*
The moon on the door of the faded red barn,
revealed something quite odd that would give me alarm,
When, what to my two bloodshot eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and SEVEN tiny reindeer,
*
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Bessie and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
*

I hopped toward the barn as that Jolly elf flew,
and when I got there, I could hear a loud MOO!
I shouted at Nick, “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?
You’ve messed up the barn, now you take my cow too?”
*
I knew right away that this guy can’t be sober,
he was driving his reindeer in FREAKING OCTOBER!
I yelled out again as my good leg got a cramp,
“Your reindeer knocked over a kerosene lamp!”
*
So up to the house-top, cow and reindeer flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and furrowed my brow,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a COW.
*
Nick was dressed all in fur, smoking from head to foot,
And his clothes were all charred with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys had caught fire in his sack,

And he looked like a demon from hell who came back.
His eyes—how they panicked! his dimples how scary!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a flambeed cherry!
I said “look here, Saint Nick…” He stared back with a smirk,
“You started a fire, you red hatted jerk!”
A twist of his head and a look thru the barn,
Soon gave him to know he had done some real harm;
*
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh and his reindeer did whine,
And away they all flew from the scene of this crime,
But I heard him exclaim, as he fled this satire,
“It was Peg Leg who started the Great Chicago Fire!”
*

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