from Zachary Bonine, age 11, North Dakota
“It is fine weather” said I,
“With snow swirling and storming,
For tomorrow the critters will be playing in the heather,
Tomorrow Christmas morning.”
So I grabbed my coonskin hat,
And hoped to catch a bear,
Before midnight, noon or just that day,
So I set my traps out there.
And I stepped outside the trees adorned,
With the white of snow and ice,
In these hills I could never be bored,
Where I could find enough to suffice.
With my traps I loaded them on sled,
And set them with my dog,
And came back to supper and bed,
Before the frosty fog.
That morn when presents were unwrapped,
I myself had of excellent form,
Five new traps,
And outside still raged a storm.
When the storm collapsed,
The chores done and cow milked,
I set out to check my traps,
And could feel the muskrat fur like silk.
Even with the fresh new powder,
The tracks of animals abounded,
My feet were no louder,
When I stood there astounded.
For I saw something new,
The tracks of a man,
And the tracks of a caribou,
The tracks showed the caribou ran.
I followed the tracks and saw Santa Claus,
A trap had caught his mukluk,
And he was grabbing with hairy paws,
To get himself unstuck.
He had a fox fur coat,
And held the skin of a lynx kitten,
I also made a note,
He was wearing skunk skin mittens.
I saw his rain-deer,
In a clearing grazing,
They were still near,
Tho slightly dazing.
I saw his coonskin hat shaking,
He still did not see me,
But I could not tell if he was faking,
For I heard of the seeing Santa fee.
If you took him by surprise,
And caused him great fear,
You would realize,
He would not give you any presents next year.
Santa looked at me and said,
“Can you help me out of here?”,
“Are my rain-deer fed?”,
And “You have nothing to fear.”
I set his boot free,
Opened the jaws,
And reset the trigger key,
He thanked me as I shook his hairy paw.
He said that Mrs. Claus,
Wanted him to help some trappers,
So she made him some laws,
Said he shaking with laughter.
He said he had been trapping all year,
And everything he said,
Seemed quite strange and queer,
And he just enjoyed going to bed.
Then he pulled out of the trees a sleigh of red,
“Santa besides to trap”,
“What do you want for Christmas” I said,
He winked at me and replied “A nap”.