 From Hollywood CBS radio presents the CBS Radio Workshop dedicated to man's imagination the theater of the mind Tonight transcribed an original story ballad the legend of Annie Christmas by Edmund Brophy With original music composed and conducted by Leith Stevens and starring William Conrad as the narrator and Amanda Randolph as Annie night wind Long the levy crying Night wind sobbing against the shore ghost of Annie Christmas scion Monon blue for days no more Where did Annie come from from the yonder seas out there from the mountains of the moon the far-off land of the Cameroon Dambala's child it has been said Others say a king's instead Greatest of the newbie and great with bloodlines back beyond recorded date Wise one skilled in magic's way say she first saw lighted day cast to earth by the devil's spell For breaking all the rules a hell Others claim a mortal birth a god and goddess straight on earth And let their offspring stay behind a symbol of content for mere mankind Think of other times forgotten scenes the year of 1800 in the city of New Orleans Rovers from all nations while men at Kentucky Lucky if you stayed alive just lucky Swamp rats cutthroats mountaineers buccaneers with gold ringed ears bloody politics and scheming wardsman Pistol ears and deadly swordsman Rivermen of varied shades and races Buckskin hunters wearing leather faces outlaws from the bloody Natchez trace gamblers in broadcloth with cuffs alice Boy Jackson John Lafitte weaned on tigers milk and meat red-handed pirates from seven seas of blue Napoleon's artillery captain Dominic you End of the Mississippi's mouth Annie sealed from the ocean south She came on Christmas hence her name But no one knows from whence she came 12 black Giants manned her ship Broad of back and slim of hip each stood eight feet tall Twizod and a like is 12 peas in a pod They left her silent on the riverbank turned round about and slowly sank from view into the distant faraway out to the Gulf past Barataria Bay And then Annie saw the people gathered round good people. I am the most renowned Prolific mother I bore 12 sons and a single birth She's bigger yet than a circus Giants, but majestic no less a female Samson or Hercules out work a plantation mule all bet a brawny griff took in her size and claimed her as his slave and prize You'll do in place of a ship your mind by the right of my raw hard whip You too footage swine The sin blood white man gave you used to enslave the free man of color moves slowly and well Annie's eyes grew dark as sin by the brawn of my arm and this whip so dread Team your mouth to flog you did She caught the whip as it cut the air with a movement fast as a haunted hair And then they charge like wounded buffalo these human mammoths head bent low And the griff cried out in mortal pain as Annie broke his ribs and twain They rolled in the mud in a lack of death Or the river's rule you could hear the breath of the watch and cry out in the awful gas for the would-be Slaver and Annie's class. She gouged an eye Chaud is here the crowd stood on and all appear She raised him up a hookah broken bones and beat him to the music of his moans And like a toy she flung him high The bully boy swung through the sky out of sight far into another county Worth no more now than a dead skunk's bounty And the crowd tracked Annie around the city's streets Proclaiming on her wildcat fighting feats this day We found a champion a champion of guards forgotten children bless you any Christmas this day He'll be remembered a long time to come she walks in glory with the Saints Then she vanished up the Natchez trace a sudden legend of her ancient race They honored her name on st. John's Eve For the voodoo folk were quick to believe in the giant goddess who wore the seven points of her kerchief turned to heaven The years brought Annie far wide fame Poor folk of all races blessed her name She mothered the weak and fought the evil strong But when it came to love Her luck went wrong Her first great love was goldmouth bill a gambler from Natchez under the hill Voices yeah, that's and to me. I'm through here's a chair open. You got my last suit. How about you travel? Where you hail from gambling man Natchez under the hill under the hill and under the deck It was a smooth dealer cards from the bottom. I mean My boy knife says you're alive. I got its meat gambling man, and I'm a colonel He lost his head above the neck for six aces and a loaded deck Annie drowned her sorrow in her tears with a thousand dips of the cup that cheers Her lamentations rocked each river town Her wailing blew a hundred oak trees down Her next great love was a wild sea rover a pirate known the wide world over Again fate stepped on the neck of her hope They were parted by a length of manila rope They swung him from a yard arm as the first light split the sky I love you Annie Christmas dear These words he chose to die And he drowned her tears and sorrow Cursed past and present and tomorrow Wallet and a sea of fiery rum That's all of love for me till kingdom come I'll buy a pot for gree gree So my heart shall never never more its loving part Love's not for me what's two is three This voodoo charm my heart sets fancy free Annie grew a mustache wore a hat of felt stuck a brace of pistols down her sailor's belt Annie cropped her hair wore a pair of jeans and took to running flat boats down to New Orleans Oh Mississippi River man Blue waters light your awe Oh Mississippi ring so tall against the sky Your flat boat skims the water with a cargo Mississippi River man Your song rings down the shore You're floating down today Annie's reputation grew to fable standing She trounced a local bully at Ever River land And she wore a turkey feather rising from her hat A challenge to all comers or any river rat Such was the river custom such was the river code A turkey feather was the badge of anyone who rode As champion of a flat boat along the waterways Of the mighty Mississippi in Annie Christmas days Now Annie wore a necklace made of yellow beads It served to keep a record of all her fighting deeds She slowly added to it for each eye and ear and nose Till it was long enough to use for a hang and wash day clothes When her boat was lashed to the city dock She strutted proud as a turkey cock Unloading was the least of all her troubles Two ton was light as water bubbles She strode the gangway with iron arms And people came from towns and farms To gaze with much amaze and stare And then follow her on to Congo Square Now whenever she joined the Congo revels She spit in the eye of invisible devils For evil spirits of day or night Annie was gifted with second sight Annie danced to the sad mad tunes Scattered a thousand picayoons To all the poor folk of the land Her purse had coin for every hand Old Bumbula drum beat with a rum Bum bum bum bum is the beef bone stomp On the scarred up skin A thousand devils dance within your heart And soul and brain And a swift mad ecstasy of pain Nums and maddens and spreads a flame That burns and sears till you call the name And grasp the necklace crossed To save your soul's immortal laws And I say Bumbula, ba-doom, ba-doom And I say Bumbula, ba-doom, ba-doom Oh, here the old Bumbula drum beat With a rum, bum bum bum bum bum Dance calendar in Congo Square Ankle bells and posied hair Bring a magic powder When the bugles blew and the wardrums beat Annie marched off with Jean Lafitte Her river men and his buccaneers And rugged deadshot mountaineers She fought the battle of New Orleans And pirate boats and sailors' jeans And when she caught loose with a sneeze Coats died in the breeze She fought by batteries three and four Beside two men of fighting lore The wild Beluche and Dominic Yu Who'd left his blood at Waterloo She pitched the cannonballs like stones And cracked a thousand heads and bones And when all the cannonballs ran out She threw the cannons and gave a shout A shout that shivered the enemy ranks And raised the tide on the riverbanks A shout of mad blood curdling yell Like a demon legion loose from hell Red coats broke and fled They envied the peace of the quiet dead And the ones who saved their skins by flight They slept no more in their hair-toned white Men and cannon and horses flew Into the void of heaven's blues And she smashed the lines to smithery And acquitted the riverboats Bought herself some cows and shouts Settled on in a quiet place near a bayou Off the Natchez Trace Ah, peace at last and a pleasant home Her great feet itch no more to roam She sat in the shade of her small estate Content and pleased with her happy fate And people traveled from every town To see this goddess of renown Those shared her fire and told strange tales To the cordial chant of the wildlife wales Yes, that's the way it was There was only 14 in crew on this little old boat So I pickled my fist and brine and sailed into them Wasn't a fair fight by my way of reckoning And sometimes on a star-bride night Her thoughts would soar in fancy's flight And she wished as only the lonely can For a life with the love of a goodly man This single bliss is a bitter kiss Had too many as of this She tossed the gregory charm into the air And it fell on a distant planet there And then something danced in her light gay heart Her blood raced up with a sudden start She rested well that fateful night For she saw her love with her second sight And along the trail in the morning dew He rode like a knight that Annie knew In the fairy tale of a picture book His bold blue eye had the eagle's look She waited on her swamp grass mat And he tied his mule Removed his hat advanced and took her in his arms Her heart sang true to his gentle charms I'm brimstone peat, a trapper man I preached a gospel when I came You Annie Christmas sure is life Now I'm a man of few words Will you be my wife? That tongue was tired But her ardent look made brimstone reach for his holy book Heavenly Father In the dawn of thy newborn day I stand reverently before thee My name is Peter Peppercorn Better known throughout the bayous of Louisiana As brimstone peat My chosen bride is Annie Christmas Bless this union good lord My witness is mule A humble faithful beast A kin to the one who carried thy beloved son into the holy city I pledge the Annie in the presence of God's early light My name, my love, my honor, my heart and my life Whom God hath joined together Let no man set asunder Just say I do Annie I do So be it Thank thee our Father in heaven Bend down and kiss me, love He married himself to Annie then And a bird choir sang when he said amen Now brimstone peat was a sight to see He was six feet wide, stood five foot three He feared the Lord and prayed his prayers And exercised with mountain bears Now Annie's favorite Bible tale was Jonah Swallowed by the whale brimstone read it Until she knew word for word of it all way through That Jonah was a wise old bird You know what I think Now what do you think, Peter? I think he tickled the inside of the fool whale's belly with his whiskers And the whale just had to chuck him up Is that the truth? No, to in gospel, but I'm assuming Her love and kisses, beans and rice Transported peat to paradise Hot red beans and creole rice Cooked with love and lots of spice Dixie, chicken, fresh corn, poles Starch, electric, fingers to the bone Way down there in congel square Besting fair in New Orleans Hush, puppy, hushes Call it barking dogs Folks need their mushes Just like starving hogs Smell a heaven floating down along the street Annie's cooking gumbo for Louisiana trees Sugar sack around your neck Wreck yourself a tasty peck You ain't gonna leave a speck When Annie cooks with special lovin' memes Way down there in congel square Besting fair in New Orleans But sad to say it had to end Pete had the Lord in his traps to tend He kissed as Annie's tears away Rowed down the trail at break of day As she waited alone the long month through The poor Pete was lost long overdue Six weeks went by and Annie's eyes Clouded with a grim surmise That alligator called old Nick Haunted and lived in the very thick of the dreadful Swamper sweet Pete crossed on his trip to redeem And baptized lost Old Nick had teeth like crosscut sores And was 40 feet from tail to jaws And the smoke of the fire that very night She summoned the powers of her second sight Then into the swamp's dark dismal deep She went alone with a vow to keep Three hunting weeks And then the very sky shook like a hurricane on high Out of the swamp in a racecrossed bayou water Annie chased Nick a mile and a quarter Nick smashed his head against the stony shore Annie swung him high and asked and forth Snapped his jaws with strong bare hands His dying tremble shook the bayou land Annie gutted him open wide But brimstone Pete was not inside She looked and searched from throat to tail But old Nick was a devil, not Jonah's wail His hunting boots and his watch and chain Were all of brimstone to remain Yet a miracle greeted a further look There fully intact was his holy book Great Oaks mourned for Annie's loss There were tears on the beard There were tears on the beards of Spanish moss And the silence was such you could have heard The fall of a leaf or the wing of a bird Now the good folks said when old Nick died That Satan left the earth to hide For no one ever sinned no more And crops grew bigger than before Now Annie's grief grew multi-form The great heart chilled which once was warm And the 23rd of the holy Psalms gave peace to her widowhood Her qualms were quieted She shut her cypress door upon the world And all forevermore I'll be this day with thee in paradise, sweet Pete I'm bringing beans and rice And then a great heart broke And a clap of thunder She died a smile and this warm and wonder And woods and water and earth and sky Lent music to alas goodbye The night was dark as the earth sinned side And that night when Annie Christmas died The stars, the moon, the high blue sky Turned darker than an evil lie Her 12 black suns and cold black boots Appeared in frock-tailed cold black suits With a coffin black as the river sticks Black hearse, black horses, 26 Black hearse, black horses, 12 black suns Raced along the road where the bayou runs In town, by the dark of the waterside They took to sea on the morning tide As she went as she came in mystery Deep and dark as the deeper sea Her sins were washed, her soul set free To join sweet Pete in eternity Wise and small folk never grieve for Annie Look high on Christmas Eve Twin stars shine far out there Quite close to God Adorn in heaven's air Along the levee crying Night wind, sobbing against the shore Ghost of Annie Christmas, sighing Monon blue for days no more Monon blue for days no more Radio Workshop is produced in Hollywood by William N. Robeson. Featured in tonight's cast were Roy Glenn, Tony Barrett, Lou Merrill, Jack Moyles and Ken Christie, songs by Bill Lee. Next week from New York, the CBS Radio Workshop will present When the Mountain Fell, adapted by Draper Lewis from the book by Charles Fernand Ramos. Under the brilliant direction of Demetri Metropolis, the New York Philharmonic Symphony returns to the air this Sunday on most of these same stations. The Handel Concerto for Orchestra No. 2 and B-flat, Beethoven Symphony No. 5 and C Minor, and Samuel Barber's Capricorn Concerto begin the new broadcast season of the New York Philharmonic Symphony on a note of excitement.