Read an Excerpt
Santa's Reindeer Hay
By Fernan M. Gruber Jr.
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Fernan M. Gruber Jr.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-9501-7
Chapter One
Supper and dessert are long past. The front door and living room windows are open. School is out, Spring is turning into Summer, and lilac blossoms scent the late evening air. A father, a carpenter by trade, sits studying a set of blue prints for a house he will build. A child lies upon a braided rug coloring a picture book laying on the hardwood floor before her.
The girl child is in thought about the other day and the white fuzzy haired and whisker faced gentleman whose eye blinked at her mother when he stood up after personally talking with her. It was the same kind of a twitch that she had seen mysteriously appear between her parents whenever they sometimes spoke of things that were sort-of over her head. She just had to talk to her all-knowing father about what she had seen.
"Daddy?" the girl said, stopping her coloring.
"Yes Splinter!" the father answered from behind his house plans.
"I think I saw Santa Clause." the child said, pushing up on her arms to eventually sit upright, her feet under her.
"When?" Her father asks, rolling up his blue prints.
"The other day and today." the girl answers.
"You did?: Her father's eyes widened.
"I knew who he was right-away ... Mommy and I saw him at the Supermarket." squaring her shoulders, puffing up her chest, and in the deepest voice she could manage "He went "Ho! Ho! Ho!" ..." and relaxes into her usual pretty-self, "Then he bent down, .. And asked me, "Have you been a good little girl?" ... Only Santa would do that!"
The father leans forward laying his prints aside, and hums a questionable, "Hmm."
"Today! Mommy and I were on the way home and I saw him on a big green tractor ... He waved at me, Daddy ... His Santa Claus wave."
"He waved?" the father voiced in astonishment.
"Yes!" the little girl said, putting her hand up, slowly moving it back and forth, saying "Like this, Daddy."
"Well that seems like a Santa Clause wave alright ..." and, in fatherly agreement and he asks, "... And what was he doing?"
"I ... uh ... think he was mowing some real tall grass, with a red machine pulled behind a dark green tractor."
"Hmm ... could be!" the father agreed stroking his chin.
"But, wouldn't Santa be at the North Pole making toys?"
"Oh..! I don't know, Splinter? I hear he has a large staff of elves helping him make Christmas toys."
"But, why would he be cutting grass?"
"Well now, that is a good question? Lets see!.." The thought filled father rubbed his chin a moment. "... Maybe a disguise to check on children to see if they're minding their parents....."
The child interrupts, "Oh..! Daddy!"
".....or perhaps he's making hay for his reindeer?"
"Making hay? Why would Santa be doing that?
"Well living at the North Pole, as we all believe he does, he has to feed his reindeer just as farmers have to feed their animals in our country sides."
The girl's voice rising a bit as she questions her father, "He hasn't any reindeer hay.. At the North Pole?"
"No! I doubt it. The North Pole cold all year long covered in ice and snow ... no! ..Santa may come down into our warmer climates to make the fodder he needs."
The girl questioningly giggles, "Fodder?"
"Fodder is what farm-folk sometimes call hay."
"Ah! Santa doesn't do that."
"What? .. Call the hay, fodder?"
"No, silly Daddy! .. Make hay!"
"What makes you so sure?" the father questions with a smile, looking his daughter straight in her eye.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Santa's Reindeer Hay by Fernan M. Gruber Jr. Copyright © 2012 by Fernan M. Gruber Jr.. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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