BUILDING A SNOW MAN
The rehearsals for the play went on merrily, and the children were
faithful in attendance. Meg, though, was an hour late getting home
from school one afternoon, and as Bobby could not practice without her,
he was very much put out.
"Where have you been?" he demanded. "Everybody's been waiting for you.
Miss Mason didn't keep you in, did she?"
Meg looked uncomfortable.
"No, I didn't have to stay in," she admitted.
"Then where were you?" insisted Bobby.
"I was hunting for my locket," confessed Meg. "I heard Daddy say the
snow melted a lot last night, and I thought maybe I could find it. But
I didn't." She sighed deeply.
Meg still clung to the hope of finding her locket, though the rest of
the family had long ago given up the idea that it would ever be found.
A day or two later when the children came into the school yard they
were surprised to find a small army of snow soldiers drawn up to
receive them. There were six men in a row, headed by a captain,
wearing a rakish snow hat and carrying a fine wooden sword.
"Who did it?" asked every one. "Did Mr. Carter make 'em?"
Miss Wright was ready to tell them.
"Some poor tramp who was once a sculptor made them for you," she told
the wondering pupils. "John, the janitor, tells me that he was here
all last night keeping the fires going because he was afraid the pipes
would freeze. This poor artist saw the light, and knocked at the door
to ask if he might come in and get warm. I'm glad to say John asked
him in and shared his midnight lunch with him. Then he took him home
to breakfast with him. But first the artist made these snow men to
please you, and perhaps to see if his old skill still was left to him."
"Let us make a snow man in our back yard," proposed Bobby to Meg on the
way home from school that afternoon. "Dot and Twaddles tried it, but
there wasn't enough snow then. We can make a good one."
They found the twins ready to help them, and in a very short time they
had rolled a huge snowball that was pronounced just the thing for Mr.
Snowman's body.
"We can't make long thin legs like the soldiers," said Bobby
regretfully. "I wonder how the man made 'em like that. We'll have to
have short roundish legs for ours."
The short "roundish" legs finished, they had still to make the head.
This was done by rolling a smaller snowball and mounting it on the
large round one.
"Now he needs a face," said Dot, gazing with admiration on their work.
"How'll you make his eyes and nose, Bobby?"
"With coal," said Bobby. "Meg, will you go and get some lumps of coal?
And ask Mother if there is an old hat we can have. He ought to have a
hat."
Meg ran info the house, and was back again in a few seconds, carrying a
handful of coal done up in a bit of newspaper.
"Mother's hunting up an old derby hat," she reported. "She'll throw it
to us. Oh, Bobby, doesn't he look funny?"
The snow man was a bit cross-eyed, but he had a cheerful, companionable
look for all of that, and the children were well pleased with him.
"But arms!" cried Meg suddenly. "He hasn't any arms, Bobby."
Sure enough, they had forgotten to make him any arms. This omission
was quickly remedied. Mother Blossom called to them, as they were
putting the finishing touches on the right hand.
"Here's an old hat of Daddy's," she said, stepping out on the porch.
"Will it do? Here, Meg, catch."
She tossed the hat over to Meg.
"Wait and see how it looks, Mother," begged Dot. "Want a chair, Bobby?
I'll get it."
The snow man was so tall that Bobby could not reach the top of his
head, and when Dot came back, dragging a chair for him to stand on,
even then he had to get up on his tiptoes to place the hat.
"He's a beauty, isn't he?" said Mother Blossom enthusiastically.
"We'll keep him there to guard our yard as long as the snow lasts.
You haven't built him where he will bother Norah when she wants to hang
out clothes, have you?"
The four little Blossoms were sure they had not; and Norah herself,
when she came to the door presently to have a peep at the wonderful
snow man, declared that he wouldn't be in her way at all.
"'Tis fresh cookies I've been baking," she announced smilingly. "I
don't suppose any one will be after wanting to sample 'em? Ye do?
Well, then, wipe your feet on the mat and come in. And, for the love
of goodness, leave the kitchen door open. I'm near perishing for a
breath of cool air."
The kitchen was very warm, for Norah had been ironing. She was a
thrifty soul, and when she had a big fire to heat her irons she liked
to bake good things to eat in the oven at the same time. A basket full
of beautifully ironed and starched clothes sat on the table, ready to
be carried upstairs, and a bowl of crisp sugar cookies sat beside it.
"Leave the door open," ordered Bobby, his eyes on the cookies. "My,
they look good, Norah. How many may we have?"
"Two apiece, and no more," said Norah firmly. "'Tis blunting your
appetite for supper if ye take more than two. Are they good, Twaddles?"
Twaddles' mouth was too full for an answer, but his eyes spoke for him.
Those cookies were simply delicious.
"Bobby!" cried Meg from the window where she had wandered with her
cakes. "Oh, Bobby, here's that horrid Tim Roon and Charlie Black.
Look! They're going to throw snowballs at our snow man."
There was a rush for the window. Sure enough there stood Tim Roon and
Charlie Black, just outside the fence, and as the four little Blossoms
watched, Tim flung a snowball smack at the poor defenseless snow man.
"Leave 'em alone," counseled Norah, putting a restraining hand on
Twaddles, who was making for the door. "As long as 'tis only the snow
man they're aiming at, let 'em be."
But as Norah spoke, whiz! through the kitchen door came a big snowball.
It landed right on top of the basket of wash, and lay wet and dirty on
top of a ruffled guimpe of Dot's.
"The dirty ragamuffins!" The angry Norah snatched the slushy ball and
flung it into the coal-scuttle. "The miserable spalpeens!"
Bobby seized his cap.
"I'll fix them!" he muttered, as he dashed out of the house.
Tim Roon and Charlie Black saw him coming, and they judged that it
would be better to run. They didn't want to fight Bobby, even two to
one, so close to his own house. Some one might come out and help him.
The two boys tore up the street, Bobby after them. Unfortunately,
Bobby ran head-first into an old gentleman who, before he let him go,
collared him and read him a lecture on the rights of people in the
street. This gave Tim and Charlie a chance to hide behind some bushes
on a vacant lot.
"Jump on him when he comes along," advised Tim, who was not a fair
fighter.
So when Bobby came running by, for he did not know how far up the
street the boys had gone, Tim and Charlie pounced on him and rolled him
in the snow.
"None of that," said a strange voice. "Two to one's no fair. One of
you leave off, or I'll stop the fight."
The strange voice belonged to a high-school boy, Stanley Reeves, and
both Tim and Charlie knew he was a member of the gymnasium wrestling
team and quite capable of stopping any small-boy fight.
"You're too old to fight a boy of that size, anyway," declared Stanley,
surveying Tim with disgust.
"But I'm going to punch him," announced Bobby heatedly.
"Oh, you are?" said Reeves with interest. "Go ahead, then, and I'll
sit here and keep an eye on this chicken to see that he doesn't pitch
in at the wrong moment"
Reeves took a firm hold on Charlie's coat collar and backed him off to
one side.
"Wash his face for him--it needs it," the high-school lad went on to
Bobby.
Like a small but angry bumble bee, Bobby flew at Tim. They clinched
and plunged head-long into the snow, where they pounded and wrestled
and grunted and gasped as all boys do when they are fighting a thing
out. Tim was not a fair fighter, nor a very brave one, and most of his
victories had been won over smaller boys or by using unfair methods.
Now with Stanley Reeves looking on, he did not dare cheat, and so Bobby
unexpectedly found himself, after perhaps five minutes of tussling,
sitting on Tim's chest, with Tim breathless and beaten.
"Wash his face," insisted Stanley, suddenly scooping up a handful of
snow and beginning to rub it thoroughly into Charlie's eyes and mouth.