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Das ist jetzt nicht irgendwie moralisch gemeint, sollte ich vielleicht dazu sagen. Ich finde diese kleine Geschichte bloss so exquisit nett. Der gute Edwards! Und ausserdem ist sie ja wohl wahr.

Laura Ingalls:

�Great fishhooks, Edwards! Come in, man! What�s happened?� Pa exclaimed.
Laura saw the stockings limply dangling, and she scrooged her shut eyes into the pillow. She heard Pa piling wood on the fire, and she heard Mr. Edwards say he had carried his clothes on his head when he swam the creek. His teeth rattled and his voice shivered. He would be all right, he said, as soon as he got warm.
�It was too big a risk, Edwards,� Pa said. �We�re glad you�re here, but it was too big a risk for a christmas dinner.� �Your little ones had to have a christmas,� Mr. Edwards replied. �No creek could stop me after I fetched them their gifts from Independence.�
Laura sat straight up in bed. �Did you see Santa Claus?� she shouted.
�I sure did,� Mr. Edwards said.
�Where? When� What did he look like? What did he say? Did he really give you something for us?� Mary and Laura cried. �Wait, wait a minute!� Mr. Edwards laughed. And Ma said she would put the presents in the stockings, as Santa Claus intended. She said they mustn�t look.
Mr. Edwards came and sat on the floor by their bed, and he answered every question they asked him. They honestly tried not to look at Ma, and they didn�t quite see what she was doing.
When he saw the creek rising, Mr. Edwards said, he had known that Santa Claus could not get across it. (�But you crossed it,� Laura said. �Yes,� Mr. Edwards replied, �but Santa Claus is too old and fat. He couldn�t make it, where a long, lean razor-back like me could do so.�)
And Mr. Edwards reasoned that if Santa Claus couldn�t cross the creek, likely he would come no farther south then Independence. Why should he come forty miles across the prairie, only to be turned back? Of course he wouldn�t do that! So Mr. Edwards had walked to Independence. (�In the rain?� Mary asked. Mr. Edwards said he wore his rubber coat.) And there, coming down the street in Independence, he had met Santa Claus. (�In the daytime?� Laura asked. She hadn�t thought that anyone could see Santa Claus in the daytime. No, Mr. Edwards said, it was night, but light shone out across the street from the saloons.)
Well, the first thing Santa Claus said was, �Hello, Edwards!� (�Did he know you?� Mary asked, and Laura asked, �How did you know it was really Santa Claus?� Mr. Edwards said that Santa Claus knew everybody. And he had recognized Santa at once by his whiskers. Santa Claus had the longest, thickest, whitest set of whiskers west of the Mississippi.) So Santa Claus said, �Hello, Edwards! Last time I saw you, you were sleeping on a corn-shuck bed in Tennessee.� And Mr. Edwards well remembered the little pair of red-yarn mittens that Santa Claus had left for him that time. Then Santa Claus said: �I understand you�re living now down along the Verdigris River. Have you ever met up, down yonder, with two little girls named Mary and Laura?�
�I sure am acquainted with them,� Mr. Edwards replied.
�It rests heavy on my mind,� said Santa Claus. �They are both of them sweet, pretty, good little young things, and I know they are expecting me. I surely do hate to disappoint two good little girls like them. Yet with the water up the way it is, I can�t ever make it across that creek. I can figure no way whatsoever to get to their cabin this year. Edwards,� Santa Claus said. �Would you do me the favor to fetch them their gifts this one time?� �I�ll do that, and with pleasure,� Mr. Edwards told him. Then Santa Claus and Mr. Edwards stepped across the street to the hitching-posts where the pack-mule was tied. (�Didn�t he have his reindeer?� Laura asked. �You know he couldn�t,� Mary said. �There isn�t any snow,� Exactly, said Mr. Edwards. Santa Claus traveled with a pack-mule in the southwest.)
And Santa Claus uncinched the pack and looked through it, and he took out the presents for Mary and Laura.
�Oh, what are they?� Laura cried; but Mary asked, �Then what did he do?�
Then he shook hands with Mr. Edwards, and he swung up on his fine bay horse. Santa Claus rode well, for a man of his weight and build. And he tucked his long, white whiskers under his bandana. �So long, Edwards,� he said, and he rode away on the Fort Dodge trail, leading his pack-mule and whistling.
Laura and Mary were silent an instant, thinking of that.
Then Ma said, �You may look now, girls.�
Something was shining bright on the top of Laura�s stocking. She squealed and jumped out of bed. So did Mary, but Laura beat her to the fireplace. And the shining thing was a glittering new tin cup.
Mary had one exactly like it.
These new tin cups were their very own. Now they each had a cup to drink out of. Laura jumped up and down and shouted and laughed, but Mary stood still and looked with shining eyes at her own tin cup.
Then they plunged their hands into the stockings again. And they pulled out two long, long sticks of candy. It was peppermint candy, striped red and white. They looked and looked at that beautiful candy, and Laura licked her stick, just one lick. But Mary was not so greedy. She didn�t take even one lick of her stick.
Those stockings weren�t empty yet. Mary and Laura pulled out two small packages. They unwrapped them, and each found a little heart-shaped cake. Over their delicate brown tops was sprinkled white sugar. The sparkling grains lay like tiny drifts of snow. The cakes were too pretty to eat. Mary and Laura just looked at them. But at last Laura turned hers over, and she nibbled a tiny nibble from underneath, where it wouldn�t show. And the inside of the little cake was white!
It had been made of pure white flour, and sweetened with white sugar.
Laura and Mary never would have looked in their stockings again. The cups and the cakes and the candy were almost too much. They were too happy to speak. But Ma asked if they were sure the stockings were empty.
Then they put their arms down inside them, to make sure.
And in the very top of each stocking was a shining bright, new penny!

Weiterhin ist hier jetzt Pause bis auf weiteres, die Weyhnachtsaktion ist aber nicht vorbei: ich brimme buchstaeblich mit Ideen, was man noch alles an Kanada moegen kann (as if anybody cares).
Haben Sie also allesamt ein froehliches Weyhnachtsfest.

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