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A Christmas Tail
You all know how it goes, do you not? The Night Before Christmas? How not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse? Bullocks, I tell you. I got a family to, you know. And it just so happens, that on Christmas Eve I was running like the wind. Oh, who am I? Excuse my manners, I am Jeremiah Lettersworth and I live in the cozy mouse hole behind the liquor cabinet.
Now where was I? Oh yes: Christmas Eve and I was, indeed, “stirring”. My little daughter, Elsa, had become sick some weeks ago. Good Doctor Hermes had prescribed several medications for my darling angel, but nothing had helped and she was slowly getting worse. I feared for her life but tried so very hard to keep her spirits up. And just five days ago I watched, as she wrote a letter from her spot nestled between her sheets, to Santa Claus.
“Elsa? What are you asking Santa to bring you this year?” I asked as I sat myself by her side, wrapping a paw around her. She smiled at me, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I’m asking him to make me better, so I can spend every Christmas with you, Daddy.” My heart broke, it truly did. Under the guise of putting her letter into the mail, I left the room to hide my tears. Stepping outside, knee deep in the snow, I looked at the neatly addressed letter in my paws. Santa… could he save my little girl? I was sure he could but I was not convinced that the mail carrier could get Elsa’s letter to him in time.
That night I called my brother Frederick and asked if he could watch over Elsa as I left town for a short while. Agreeing, he asked me where I was off to so close to Christmas but I stayed quiet, stating that I merely had some business to attend to outside of town. However, being a mouse, getting to the train station on the other side of the city was not an easy feat. It took all those five days before Christmas Eve to get to the train station and, by then I knew it was far too late to get my daughter’s letter to Santa Clause. Luckily, I was able to sneak into handbag and made it home in time to spend Christmas, possibly my last one, with my Elsa.
Pushing open the door and wearily, miserably trudging inside, late Christmas morning I was surprised to see her standing in the door way.
“What are you doing out of bed, Elsa? Your fever- oomph!” The words were knocked clear out of me as my daughter came barreling into me, hugging me tightly.
“I’m better, Daddy! I’m all better! Santa took the fever away!” Sure enough, as I placed a paw on her head, the fever was gone and all signs of illness seemed to have vanished from her face. A tear fell from my eyes as I hugged her close.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” I whispered. We made out way to our little tree and my brother and I chatted happily as Elsa opened her gifts.
“Daddy, this is for you,” Elsa murmured distractedly, handing me an envelope she found, my name written across it in a graceful font I did not recognize. My gaze skimmed over the message inside, my eyes watered with unshed tears:
Jeremiah Lettersworth:
Traveling in such an environment as you did to try and deliver a letter with such a pure and simple wish. Letters, however, are not needed for me to hear the wishes of ones heart. Merry Christmas, to you and Elsa, and many more to come.
~S.C.
 Sanguine Lioness · Sun Dec 09, 2007 @ 06:59am · 0 Comments |
