UNDER THE SNOW
“It’s getting so warm, it is. I can hardly find any breff,” cried
Kiddiwee.
“I call it beautifully cosy. This is how the snow keeps the flowers
warm, I suppose. I like it,” said Coppertop.
“Oh, dear! It’s getting hotterer and hotterer!” he panted.
“The snow is melting all round us--we shall soon have room to walk,”
said his sister. “And there will be more air, too.”
“The question is, how are we going to get out?” cried Tibbs.
“If you had any sense--which I very much doubt--you wouldn’t want to,
at least till the blizzard’s gone!” piped up a little shrill voice
beside them. And looking down, they beheld a tiny little creature, so
wee that, small as they were just then, he made them feel like giants.
He was so very minute that he could have built a ninety-roomed castle
on Coppertop’s little finger-nail, and hung out the household washing
upon one of her golden eyelashes, if she had been her natural size.
“Make yourselves at home--you’re quite welcome,” continued the small
voice.
“Is this YOUR home?” asked Coppertop.
“Yes, more or less. Let me explain,” went on the little voice. “My name
is Mr. A. Tom--Atom for short.”
“’Es, very short!” interrupted Kiddiwee, looking down grandly upon the
little creature.
“You shouldn’t say that!” cried Coppertop; “he might be offended, and
we’re in his house, you know.”
“’Es, and I wish we weren’t,” said Kiddiwee, wearily; “it’s drefful
stuffy, it is.”
“Yes, I know,” agreed Coppertop; “but don’t say so, it sounds so rude.
We’ll just ask him to tell us the nearest way to the South Wind’s
Castle.”
“I will,” volunteered Tibbs. “Please, Mr. Adam----”
“Atom--ATOM! Not Adam! Mr. A. Tom.”
“Well, Mr. Atom, please----” repeated Tibbs, rather confused by his
mistake. “Please, Mr. Atom, can you tell us where the South Wind’s
Castle is?”
“Still in the same place, I should imagine,” answered the merry little
man, with a twinkling eye. “Unless it has moved,” he added.
“Oh, please, he means how can we get there?” cried Coppertop, coming to
the rescue.
“Well, you can run there, walk there, jump there, fly there, or think
there! But you’re far too small as you are to undertake a journey like
that. Bless me, you’d spend all your time climbing over the snowflakes.”
At this the children looked very crestfallen.
“But, my dears,” continued Mr. Atom, “it is a very simple thing for
me--with a wave of my hand and the use of a magic spell--thus--to cause
you to become any size you may wish.”
Mr. Atom stretched out one hand towards the children, and with
the other he beckoned to the snow, saying at the same time,
“Elementi-allione!”
As the strange little person said this, the snow on either side of the
children melted away, and they found themselves growing.
“Oh, how funny!” cried Coppertop, as she felt herself getting larger
and larger. “Oh, Mr. Atom! However can you do it?”
“It’s a ripping feeling!” cried Tibbs. “I feel as if I could jump over
a house.”
And still they continued to grow, larger and larger.
“Hallo! Where is Mr. Atom gone?” exclaimed Tibbs. “I can’t see him at
all.”
“I’m here, sure enough,” said a tiny voice, which seemed to come from
everywhere at once. “Only you are getting so large that you can’t see
me, except with a microscope.”
And still they grew.
Then came a crash and a crunch, and a shower of snow fell all round
them. And, to their surprise, they found that their heads had smashed
through the snow under which they had been concealed, and they were
once more able to look out upon the great white world.
“We are still growing!” cried Tibbs.
“We shall be giants soon,” replied Coppertop; “but I only hope our
clothes grow as well, or we shall look too silly for words.”
“How lovely to be giants!” cried Kiddiwee, gleefully.
And now the world round them seemed to be growing very small.
“The Clerk of the Weather did us little harm with his blizzard after
all,” remarked Tibbs.
“Horrid person,” said Coppertop.
“He doesn’t know what a good friend we’ve found through his old
blizzard. Mr. Atom is awfully nice. And he is going to help us--heaps.
It’s funny how things happen.”