How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas Read Online Free PDF

and managed a farm by herself. This was supposed to be done on her behalf by a husband or son or uncle or cousin, or at least a close male friend. I had none of these.
    â€œChoose a man and get on with your life,” people told me over and over. When I tried to hire workers to harvest the grain, they all refused to work for a woman. A year after my uncle had passed I was still unmarried, and even the other women in the village began to act uncomfortable around me. Once, several of them pulled me aside and told me I was acting “unnatural.”

    Layla
    I knew better. I had spent the year making plans. Never forgetting Aunt Lodi’s words, I was not only keeping my dreams, I was going to try to make them come true.
    Besides the farm, which was worth something itself, Uncle Silas had bequeathed me some money. It wasn’t a fortune by any means, but the small pile of coins he’d accumulated over the years amounted to enough for what I needed—a sum sufficient to keep me in simple food and clothing for a long time, with quite a bit left over. And I knew what I wanted to do with the money that was left.
    The mysterious gift-giver of local legend might be magical, or might not. I could not be that person—I certainly had no special powers—but I could do some of the same things. I would take my money and use it to buy blankets and cloaks and food for people in need. During the year between my uncle’s death and the time I left Niobrara, I thought long and hard about how best to do this. Gradually, I realized several things.
    First, as a giver I, too, must remain anonymous. Even the very poorest people still had pride and might be insulted by a strange woman simply handing them gifts. The legendary gift-giver, whoever that was or might have been, was right to leave presents at night and in secret.
    Second, I must distribute my gifts as widely as possible. There were poor, deserving people everywhere. To stay in one place for too long would also cause another problem. After a while, people in the area would begin to stay awake at night in the hope that they could find out who the gift-giver might be. Besides, I wanted badly to travel.
    Third, it would be impossible to give anyone in need all that he or she might require. If I helped a few in a substantial way, all my money would soon be gone and I would have nothing left for anyone else. But if I did something small but important for each one, then hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of good if impoverished men, women, and children would at least know that, in a hard world, someone had cared enough about them to leave tokens of respect and assistance. In a very real sense, my gift to them would be hope.
    There was, of course, another inevitable dilemma. Even if I was very frugal regarding my own needs, and kept the gifts I gave small and inexpensive, the money I had would only last for so long. In seven or eight years, ten at the most, it would all be gone. I had only one farm to sell, only one accumulation of coins to spend. When they were used up, I would have no way to get any more. It was possible, even probable, that when my final gifts were given I would then become exactly the same as those I’d done my best to help—an impoverished person who would have to depend on the charity of others. Starvation might be my eventual fate.
    I accepted this. It didn’t frighten me, perhaps because I did not expect something like that to happen. I believed—somehow, actually, I knew —my future held something different, something wonderful. At night I still dreamed of being in many places with the white-bearded man, and the inspiration I felt that first afternoon at the tomb of St. Nicholas had remained with me ever since.
    So it was just after my twenty-fifth birthday that I walked into Niobrara and announced to the men gathered near the well there that I was selling my uncle’s farm. Did anyone want to buy it at a fair price?
    Oh,