“Look out the window, my lamb,” Granny called one morning early in
December. Maida opened her eyes, jumped obediently out of bed and
pattered across the room. There, she gave a scream of delight,
jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
“Snow! Oh goody, goody, goody! Snow at last!”
It looked as if the whole world had been wrapped in a blanket of the
whitest, fleeciest, shiningest wool. Sidewalks, streets, crossings
were all leveled to one smoothness. The fences were so muffled that
they had swelled to twice their size. The houses wore trim, pointy
caps on their gables. The high bushes in the yard hung to the very
ground. The low ones had become mounds. The trees looked as if they
had been packed in cotton-wool and put away for the winter.
“And the lovely part of it is, it’s still snowing,” Maida exclaimed
blissfully.
“Glory be, it’ull be a blizzard before we’re t’rough wid ut,” Granny
said and shivered.
Maida dressed in the greatest excitement. Few children came in to
make purchases that morning and the lines pouring into the
schoolhouse were very shivery and much shorter than usual. At a
quarter to twelve, the one-session bell rang. When the children came
out of school at one, the snow was whirling down thicker and faster
than in the morning. A high wind came up and piled it in the most
unexpected places. Trade stopped entirely in the shop. No mother
would let her children brave so terrific a storm.
It snowed that night and all the next morning. The second day fewer
children went to school than on the first. But at two o’clock when
the sun burst through the gray sky, the children swarmed the
streets. Shovels and brooms began to appear, snow-balls to fly,
sleigh-bells to tinkle.
Rosie came dashing into the shop in the midst of this burst of
excitement. “I’ve shoveled our sidewalk,” she announced
triumphantly. “Is anything wrong with me? Everybody’s staring at
me.”
Maida stared too. Rosie’s scarlet cape was dotted with snow, her
scarlet hat was white with it. Great flakes had caught in her long
black hair, had starred her soft brows—they hung from her very
eyelashes. Her cheeks and lips were the color of coral and her eyes
like great velvety moons.
“You look in the glass and see what they’re staring at,” Maida said
slyly. Rosie went to the mirror.
“I don’t see anything the matter.”
“It’s because you look so pretty, goose!” Maida exclaimed.
Rosie always blushed and looked ashamed if anybody alluded to her
prettiness. Now she leaped to Maida’s side and pretended to beat
her.
“Stop that!” a voice called. Startled, the little girls looked up.
Billy stood in the doorway. “I’ve come over to make a snow-house,”
he explained.
“Oh, Billy, what things you do think of!” Maida exclaimed. “Wait
till I get Arthur and Dicky!”
“Couldn’t get many more in here, could we?” Billy commented when the
five had assembled in the “child’s size” yard. “I don’t know that we
could stow away another shovel. Now, first of all, you’re to pile
all the snow in the yard into that corner.”
Everybody went to work. But Billy and Arthur moved so quickly with
their big shovels that Maida and Rosie and Dicky did nothing but hop
about them. Almost before they realized it, the snow-pile reached to
the top of the fence.
“Pack it down hard,” Billy commanded, “as hard as you can make it.”
Everybody scrambled to obey. For a few moments the sound of shovels
beating on the snow drowned their talk.
“That will do for that,” Billy commanded suddenly. His little force
stopped, breathless and red-cheeked. “Now I’m going to dig out the
room. I guess I’ll have to do this. If you’re not careful enough,
the roof will cave in. Then it’s all got to be done again.”
Working very slowly, he began to hollow out the structure. After the
hole had grown big enough, he crawled into it. But in spite of his
own warning, he must have been too energetic in his movements.
Suddenly the roof came down on his head.
Billy was on his feet in an instant, shaking the snow off as a dog
shakes off water.
“Why, Billy, you look like a snow-man,” Maida laughed.
“I feel like one,” Billy said, wiping the snow from his eyes and
from under his collar. “But don’t be discouraged, my hearties, up
with it again. I’ll be more careful the next time.”
They went at it again with increased interest, heaping up a mound of
snow bigger than before, beating it until it was as hard as a brick,
hollowing out inside a chamber big enough for three of them to
occupy at once. But Billy gave them no time to enjoy their new
dwelling.
“Run into the house,” was his next order, “and bring out all the
water you can carry.”
There was a wild scramble to see which would get to the sink first
but in a few moments, an orderly file emerged from the house, Arthur
with a bucket, Dicky with a basin, Rosie with the dish-pan, Maida
with a dipper.
“Now I’m going to pour water over the house,” Billy explained. “You
see if it freezes now it will last longer.” Very carefully, he
sprayed it on the sides and roof, dashing it upwards on the inside
walls:
“We might as well make it look pretty while we’re about it,” Billy
continued. “You children get to work and make a lot of snow-balls
the size of an orange and just as round as you can turn them out.”
This was easy work. Before Billy could say, “Jack Robinson!” four
pairs of eager hands had accumulated snow-balls enough for a sham
battle. In the meantime, Billy had decorated the doorway with two
tall, round pillars. He added a pointed roof to the house and
trimmed it with snow-balls, all along the edge.
“Now I guess we’d better have a snow-man to live in this mansion
while we’re about it,” Billy suggested briskly. “Each of you roll up
an arm or a leg while I make the body.”
Billy placed the legs in the corner opposite the snow-house. He
lifted on to them the big round body which he himself had rolled.
Putting the arms on was not so easy. He worked for a long time
before he found the angle at which they would stick.
Everybody took a hand at the head. Maida contributed some dulse for
the hair, slitting it into ribbons, which she stuck on with glue.
Rosie found a broken clothes-pin for the nose. The round, smooth
coals that Dicky discovered in the coal-hod made a pair of
expressive black eyes. Arthur cut two sets of teeth from orange peel
and inserted them in the gash that was the mouth. When the head was
set on the shoulders, Billy disappeared into the house for a moment.
He came back carrying a suit-case. “Shut your eyes, every manjack of
you,” he ordered. “You’re not to see what I do until it’s done. If I
catch one of you peeking, I’ll confine you in the snow-house for
five minutes.”
The W.M.N.T.’s shut their eyes tight and held down the lids with
resolute fingers. But they kept their ears wide open. The mysterious
work on which Billy was engaged was accompanied by the most
tantalizing noises.
“Oh, Billy, can’t I please look,” Maida begged, jiggling up and
down. “I can’t stand it much longer.”
“In a minute,” Billy said encouragingly. The mysterious noises kept
up. “Now,” Billy said suddenly.
Four pairs of eyes leaped open. Four pairs of lips shrieked their
delight. Indeed, Maida and Rosie laughed so hard that they finally
rolled in the snow.
Billy had put an old coat on the snow-man’s body. He had put a tall
hat—Arthur called it a “stove-pipe”—on the snow-man’s head.
He had put an old black pipe between the snow-man’s grinning,
orange-colored teeth. Gloves hung limply from the snow-man’s arm-stumps
and to one of them a cane was fastened. Billy had managed to give the
snow-man’s head a cock to one side. Altogether he looked so spruce
and jovial that it was impossible not to like him.
“Mr. Chumpleigh, ladies and gentlemen,” Billy said. “Some members of
the W.M.N.T., Mr. Chumpleigh.”
And Mr. Chumpleigh, he was until—until—
Billy stayed that night to dinner. They had just finished eating
when an excited ring of the bell announced Rosie.
“Oh, Granny,” she said, “the boys have made a most wonderful coast
down Halliwell Street and Aunt Theresa says I can go coasting until
nine o’clock if you’ll let Maida go too. I thought maybe you would,
especially if Billy comes along.”
“If Misther Billy goes, ’twill be all roight.”
“Oh, Granny,” Maida said, “you dear, darling, old fairy-dame!” She
was so excited that she wriggled like a little eel all the time
Granny was bundling her into her clothes. And when she reached the
street, it seemed as if she must explode.
A big moon, floating like a silver balloon in the sky, made the
night like day. The neighborhood sizzled with excitement for the
street and sidewalks were covered with children dragging sleds.
“It’s like the ‘Pied Piper’, Rosie,” Maida said joyfully, “children
everywhere and all going in the same direction.”
They followed the procession up Warrington Street to where Halliwell
Street sloped down the hill.
Billy let out a long whistle of astonishment. “Great Scott, what a
coast!” he said.
In the middle of the street was a ribbon of ice three feet wide and
as smooth as glass. At the foot of the hill, a piled-up mound of
snow served as a buffer.
“The boys have been working on the slide all day,” Rosie said. “Did
you ever see such a nice one, Maida?”
“I never saw any kind of a one,” Maida confessed. “How did they make
it so smooth?”
“Pouring water on it.”
“Have you never coasted before, Maida?” Billy asked.
“Never.”
“Well, here’s your chance then,” said a cheerful voice back of them.
They all turned. There stood Arthur Duncan with what Maida soon
learned was a “double-runner.”
Billy examined it carefully. “Did you make it, Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty good piece of work,” Billy commented. “Want to try it,
Maida?”
“I’m crazy to!”
“All right. Pile on!”
Arthur took his place in front. Rosie sat next, then Dicky, then
Maida, then Billy.
“Hold on to Dicky,” Billy instructed Maida, “and I’ll hold on to
you.”
Tingling with excitement, Maida did as she was told. But it seemed
as if they would never start. But at last, she heard Billy’s voice,
“On your marks. Get set! Go!” The double-runner stirred.
It moved slowly for a moment across the level top of the street.
Then came the first slope of the hill—they plunged forward. She
heard Rosie’s hysterical shriek, Dicky’s vociferous cheers and
Billy’s blood-curdling yells, but she herself was as silent as a
little image. They struck the second slope of the hill—then she
screamed, too. The houses on either side shot past like pictures in
the kinetoscope. She felt a rush of wind that must surely blow her
ears off. They reached the third slope of the hill—and now they had
left the earth and were sailing through the air. The next instant
the double-runner had come to rest on the bank of snow and Rosie and
she were hugging each other and saying, “Wasn’t it GREAT?”
They climbed to the top of the hill again. All the way back, Maida
watched the sleds whizzing down the coast, boys alone on sleds,
girls alone on sleds, pairs of girls, pairs of boys, one seated in
front, the other steering with a foot that trailed behind on the
ice, timid little girls who did not dare the ice but contented
themselves with sliding on the snow at either side, daring little
boys who went down lying flat on their sleds.
At the top they were besieged with entreaties to go on the
double-runner and, as there was room enough for one more, they took a
little boy or girl with them each time. Rosie lent her sled to those
who had none. At first there were plenty of these, standing at the
top of the coast, wistfully watching the fun of more fortunate
children. But after a while it was discovered that the ice was so
smooth that almost anything could be used for coasting. The sledless
ones rushed home and reappeared with all kinds of things. One little
lad went down on a shovel and his intrepid little sister followed on
a broom. Boxes and shingles and even dish-pans began to appear. Most
reckless of all, one big fellow slid down on his two feet, landing
in a heap in the snow.
Maida enjoyed every moment of it—even the long walks back up the
hill. Once the double-runner struck into a riderless sled that had
drifted on to the course, and was overturned immediately. Nobody was
hurt. Rosie, Dicky and Arthur were cast safely to one side in the
soft snow. But Maida and Billy were thrown, whirling, on to the ice.
Billy kept his grip on Maida and they shot down the hill, turning
round and round and round. At first Maida was a little frightened.
But when she saw that they were perfectly safe, that Billy was
making her spin about in that ridiculous fashion, she laughed so
hard that she was weak when they reached the bottom.
“Oh, do let’s do that again!” she said when she caught her breath.
Never was such a week as followed. The cold weather kept up.
Continued storms added to the snow. For the first time in years came
four one-session days in a single week. It seemed as if Jack Frost
were on the side of the children. He would send violent flurries of
snow just before the one-session bell rang but as soon as the
children were safely on the street, the sun would come out bright as
summer.
Every morning when Maida woke up, she would say to herself, “I
wonder how Mr. Chumpleigh is to-day.” Then she would run over to the
window to see.
Mr. Chumpleigh had become a great favorite in the neighborhood. He
was so tall that his round, happy face with its eternal orange-peel
grin could look straight over the fence to the street. The
passers-by used to stop, paralyzed by the vision. But after studying
the phenomenon, they would go laughing on their way. Occasionally a
bad boy would shy a snow-ball at the smiling countenance but Mr.
Chumpleigh was so hard-headed that nothing seemed to hurt him. In
the course of time, the “stove-pipe” became very battered and, as
the result of continued storms, one eye sank down to the middle of
his cheek. But in spite of these injuries, he continued to maintain
his genial grin.
“Let’s go out and fix Mr. Chumpleigh,” Rosie would say every day.
The two little girls would brush the snow off his hat and coat,
adjust his nose and teeth, would straighten him up generally.
After a while, Maida threw her bird-crumbs all over Mr. Chumpleigh.
Thereafter, the saucy little English sparrows ate from Mr.
Chumpleigh’s hat-brim, his pipe-bowl, even his pockets.
“Perhaps the snow will last all winter,” Maida said hopefully one
day. “If it does, Mr. Chumpleigh’s health will be perfect.”
“Well, perhaps, it’s just as well if he goes,” Rosie said sensibly;
“we haven’t done a bit of work since he came.”
On Sunday the weather moderated a little. Mr. Chumpleigh bore a most
melancholy look all the afternoon as if he feared what was to come.
What was worse, he lost his nose.
Monday morning, Maida ran to the window dreading what she might see.
But instead of the thaw she expected, a most beautiful sight spread
out before her. The weather had turned cold in the night. Everything
that had started to melt had frozen up again. The sidewalks were
liked frosted cakes. Long icicles made pretty fringes around the
roofs of the houses. The trees and bushes were glazed by a sheathing
of crystal. The sunlight playing through all this turned the world
into a heap of diamonds.
Mr. Chumpleigh had perked up under the influence of the cold. His
manner had gained in solidity although his gaze was a little glassy.
Hopefully Maida hunted about until she found his nose.
She replaced his old set with some new orange-peel teeth and stuck
his pipe between them. He looked quite himself.
But, alas, the sun came out and melted the whole world. The
sidewalks trickled streams. The icicles dripped away in showers of
diamonds. The trees lost their crystal sheathing.
In the afternoon, Mr. Chumpleigh began to droop. By night his head
was resting disconsolately on his own shoulder. When Maida looked
out the next morning, there was nothing in the corner but a mound of
snow. An old coat lay to one side. Strewn about were a hat, a pair
of gloves, a pipe and a cane.
Mr. Chumpleigh had passed away in the night.