IT was a perfect snowball day! There had been a heavy snowstorm, and
then the sky had cleared and the weather turned soft and warm. What
could be more delightful?
Rita was too little to go to school, but she was not too little to make
snowballs.
So Mammy put on the little girl’s coat and hood, and leggings and
overshoes and mittens, and turned her out of doors in the sunshine.
Oh, how bright it was! How the world sparkled and twinkled and laughed!
Rita laughed, too, and at first could only jump up and down for pure
joy, and sing,—
“Ho! ho! ho!
Pretty white snow!”
A song of her own composition, of which she was justly proud.
But presently she said to herself, “snowballs!” and from that moment
she had no time for singing or jumping.
First she made some dumplings, and set them in a row on the piazza to
bake in the sun; then she saw three little birds in a tree, and threw
the dumplings at them, in case they might be hungry.
Then she made a pudding, and stirred it with a large icicle, which made
the best possible pudding stick; then she made some eggs, and pelted
Rover with them till that good dog fairly yelled with excitement.
At last she said, “_I_ know what I will do! I’ll make a Great Snowball,
like the Great Sausage in my German picture book.”
So the little girl set to work, and rolled and patted and pressed
till she had a well-shaped ball to begin with. Then she laid it on
the smooth snow table-cloth of the lawn, and began to roll it in good
earnest, here and there, over and over and over.
The snow was in perfect condition, soft and moist; every particle clung
to the ball, which grew bigger and _bigger_ and BIGGER and BIGGER!
At last Rita’s arms were tired, and she stopped to rest and to look
about her. She was at the end of the lawn, where the bank sloped up
to the stone wall. How nice it would be if she could roll the Great
Snowball up the bank, and push it to the top of the wall!
[Illustration]
Then Papa would see it when he came home to dinner, and he would be
_so_ ’stonished! he would say, “Who—upon—_yerth_—put that great,
hugeous snowball _there_?” And Rita would say, “_I_ did, Pappy! just
’cisely all my own pitickiler self.”
And then Papa would say, “Why-ee! what a great, big girl my Rita is! I
must take her to town to-morrow-day, and buy her a muff, and a doll
with wink eyes, and a squeaky dog, and a prayer-book, and a nalbum, and
big boots, and a gold watch and a stick of striped candy! and then—”
But by this time Rita was quite ready to go to work again.
The snowball was very big by this time, quite as big as she was; and
the bank, though not high, was very steep. But Rita’s short arms were
sturdy, and her courage knew no measure; so at it she went, pushing
the great ball up, inch by inch; puffing, panting, her cheeks growing
redder and redder, but with no thought of giving up.
Now, by this time the snowball began to have its own ideas. Just at
what point of bigness a snowball begins to have a mind of its own
I cannot tell you, so you must ask some one wiser than I; but this
snowball had reached the point.
At this moment it was saying to itself, “What fun this child is having!
but I do not enjoy it at all. It is the pushing that is the fun,
apparently. Why should not I push the child? I am bigger than she; it
would be very pleasant to roll down the bank, and push her before me. I
might try! I think I will! There!”
Down went the snowball! Down went little Rita! roly-poly,
rumble-tumble, ruffle-puffle, _flop_!
When Papa drove into the yard, two minutes later, he saw a great mound
of soft snow, with two little black legs sticking out of it.
“Never mind!” said Rita, shortly, when Papa had pulled her out, and she
stood shaking the snow from her wet, rosy face, “the old thing didn’t
hurt me a bit, and it broke its old self all—to pieces!”