MANSFIELD, Texas (AP) - The rain pours down, and Bernice Mitchner smiles.
She's thrilled to be here, standing outside Wal-Mart in 45-degree weather, shaking a hand-held bell with rhythmic cheer.
"Hey, baby!" she shouts to a passer-by. "How you doin' today? All right, all right!"
The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1lpSmxN ) reports that Mitchner, better known by her nickname, "Queen Bee," has been the top-grossing Salvation Army bell ringer in the Arlington-Mansfield area each year since 2009. She averages $500 a day in donations, and during last year's holiday season, she personally brought in a total of $19,000 for the nonprofit.
Her secret? Surprisingly simple: Smile, make eye contact and say something nice to every person who walks by.
"Make 'em smile and make 'em happy all over, and they have to give!" she says. "That's my strategy all the time. They say, 'You know, you made my day. I was feeling so bad until I seen you.' I love hearing that."
Queen Bee has become something of an icon at the Wal-Mart on Walnut Creek Drive, where she posts up six days a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Employees and customers know her as the jolly bell ringer who dances, sings, tacks "honey child" onto the end of sentences and calls all children "boo-day-boo," a made-up term of endearment.
"She makes people feel good about themselves, and that makes people want to give," says her supervisor, Patrick Jones.
Wal-Mart customer Julian Ambriz of Mansfield puts it this way: "It's not Christmas unless I see her."
But Queen Bee, who rarely gets to see her five daughters and 18 grandchildren over the holidays because she chooses to live in a hotel near the store during bell-ringing season, has personal reasons to dedicate as much as 15 hours a day to her job.
She once needed the Salvation Army's help herself.
The sight of her stops them midstride.
"There she is!" cries a woman carrying a rainbow umbrella.
"I hoped you would be here," says a store employee on her way into work.
One family gets so excited that they put Queen Bee on the phone with their grandmother in Mexico, who became a fan of hers during a recent visit.
These reunions unfold in the Wal-Mart parking lot, where dollar bills and spare change fill Queen Bee's kettle, which is decorated with a tangle of half-lit yellow Christmas lights.
The 59-year-old, who has smooth dark skin and spirals of caramel-colored hair, is bundled up in red gloves, a signature Salvation Army vest and a Minnie Mouse Santa hat. On her badge, the nameplate is covered with a strip of masking tape, where she's written her nickname in black marker.
"Queen Bee, the bell ringer," she reads off her badge. "That's me, baby!"
She started ringing the bell at this Wal-Mart in 2008, while she was staying in an Arlington homeless shelter.
She had recently fled to Texas from Tennessee, where she says she left behind a five-bedroom house, a steady job as a production line worker - and an abusive husband.
She lived in a motel until her savings ran out and then, she says, she sought refuge at a homeless shelter for the first time in her life.
Not long after that, she says, she had a nervous breakdown after she saw a truck resembling her husband's and thought he had come here to kill her. She says she became suicidal and was admitted to a hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, for which she now takes medication.
That marked a turning point in her life, according to her daughter, LaTanya Barnes of the Burleson area.
They say she began receiving Social Security money, obtained partial housing assistance for a two-bedroom apartment in Fort Worth and started volunteering avidly for the first time.
She now works with grocer Tom Thumb to deliver food to the needy and rocks sick babies at the hospital, they say. And, of course, she rings the bell during the holiday season.
The Salvation Army has volunteer and paid bell ringers. Queen Bee makes $8 an hour, money that goes toward bills and a splurge trip to the Bahamas. But she says she also volunteers extra hours, arriving early and staying late.
Representing the Salvation Army, she said, "makes me feel good. It makes me forget about myself and think about others."
On busy Black Friday, the cha-cha-ching of her bell reaches all the way inside the store, where customers are stocking up on 50-inch TVs, Purina dog chow and Frozen doll sets.
"Usually the bell gets on everyone's nerves, but she makes it wonderful, delightful," says Wal-Mart employee Amanda Stearns.
Queen Bee could work closer to her home in Fort Worth, but she says it's more meaningful to return to the place where her journey began. Employees and customers here have become her friends. Throughout the month, they buy her pizza, hot drinks and her favorite candy, Mr. Goodbar. On Christmas Eve, she hands out homemade jewelry.
"I come back here all the time because they treat me like royalty," she says, pointing out that she's, literally, "a Queen Bee."
But the bell ringer also believes she's there to spread the season's spirit of generosity.
"I hope my smile, the way I approach them, makes them feel Christ," she says. "It's God, it's not us. The season is for Jesus."
That's what keeps her going, even when her shoulders and feet grow so sore that she needs a hot bath filled with Epsom salt and a splash of alcohol at night.
Until then, she stands - never sits. She bounces up and down to the rhythm of her bell. The rain pours down, hour after hour, and still, she smiles.
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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com