Santa Claus and the Mouse

One Christmas Eve, when Santa Claus came to a certain house,
To fill the children's stockings there, he found a little mouse.
"Merry Christmas, little friend", said Santa good and kind.
"The same to you, sir", said the mouse, "I thought you wouldn't mind
If I should stay awake tonight and watch you for a while".
"You're very welcome, little friend", said Santa with a smile.

And then he filled the stockings up before the mouse could wink
from top to toe, from toe to top he never left a chink.
"There, they won't hold one more thing", said Santa Claus with pride.
A twinkle came in mousie's eye as humbly he replied,
"It's not polite to contradict, your pardon I implore,
But in that fullest stocking there I could put one thing more".

"Ho, ho" laughed Santa, "Silly mouse, don't I know how to pack?;
From filling stockings all these years I should have learned the knack!"
But then he took the stocking down from where it hung so high
And said, "all right, put in one thing more, I give you leave to try".
Mousie chuckled to himself and then he softly stole
Right up to that stocking's crowded toe and he gnawed a little hole.

"There, kind sir, I've put in one thing more,
For you must own that little hole was not in there before".
How Santa Claus did laugh and laugh and then he gaily spoke,
"Why you shall have a Christmas cheese for that nice little joke".

by Emile Poulsson from "The Christmas Book" published in 1954 by the Whitman publishing company