Jolly Robin awoke at dawn. And he knew at once that the day was going
to be a fine one. Though the sun had not yet peeped above the rim of
the eastern hills, Jolly Robin was sure that there would be plenty of
sunshine a little later. He had many ways of his own for telling the
weather; and he never made a mistake about it.
Now, it had grown quite warm by the time Jolly Robin went to the woods
late in the morning to meet Jimmy Rabbit. And the snow had melted away
as if by magic.
"Summer's coming! Summer's coming!" Jolly called joyfully as soon as
Jimmy Rabbit came hopping into sight. "The apple-blossoms will burst
out before we know it."
"Yes--and the cabbages, too," Jimmy Rabbit replied. "I'm glad the
white giant in the orchard lost his head," he added, "because there's
no telling what he would have done to the cabbages later, if he had
wandered into the garden. He might have eaten every one of them. And I
shouldn't have liked that very well."
Then they started off together toward the orchard to look at the
headless stranger who had given Jolly Robin such a fright the day
before. Jimmy Rabbit went bounding along with great leaps, while Jolly
Robin flew above him and tried not to go too fast for his long-eared
friend.
Once in the orchard, Jolly led Jimmy to the spot where he had seen
Johnnie Green knock off the giant's head with the snowball.
"Here he is!" Jolly Robin whispered--for he was still somewhat afraid
of the giant, in spite of his having lost his head. "He doesn't seem
as big as he was yesterday. And he has dropped the stick that he
carried."
Jimmy Rabbit stopped short in his tracks and stared at the still
figure under the apple tree. For a few moments he did not speak.
"That looks to me like _snow_," he said at last. And he crept up to
what was left of the giant and sniffed at him. "It _is_ snow!" he
declared.
When he heard that, Jolly Robin flew to a low branch just above the
giant.
"I don't understand it," he said. "There's his head on the ground,
with the big, black eyes. _They_ certainly aren't made of snow."
"No!" Jimmy Rabbit agreed, as he sniffed at the terrible eyes.
"They're _butternuts_--that's what they are!"
Well, Jolly Robin was so surprised that he all but tumbled off his
perch.
"There's his hat--" he continued, as he clung to the limb--"that's a
real hat. It's not made of snow--or butternuts, either."
"Yes!" Jimmy Rabbit said. "It's a sure-enough hat. Farmer Green wore
it on Sundays for a good many years. I've often seen him starting for
the meeting-house over the hill with this very hat on his head."
"Then the giant stole it from him!" Jolly Robin cried in great
excitement.
But Jimmy Rabbit thought differently.
"It's my opinion--" he said--"it's my opinion that Johnnie Green took
this old hat and put it on the giant's head, after he had made him."
"Made him!" Jolly Robin repeated. "You don't mean to say that Johnnie
Green could make a giant, do you?"
"Well, he knows how to make a snow-man--so I've been told," Jimmy
Rabbit replied. "And though I've never seen one before, it's plain
that that's what this creature is."
Jolly Robin had listened with growing wonder. Spending his winters in
the South, as he did, he had never even heard of a snow-man.
"Are they dangerous--these snow-men?" he inquired anxiously.
"This one certainly isn't," Jimmy Rabbit told him. "With his head off,
he can't do any harm. And with the sun shining so warm I should say
that by to-morrow he'll be gone for good. It looks to me as if he
might be the last snow-man of the winter, for I don't believe there'll
be any more snow until next fall."
"Good!" Jolly Robin cried. "I shall come back to the orchard to live,
after all, just as I had intended." And he felt so happy that he began
to sing.
"I'm glad I brought you here to see the snow giant," he told Jimmy
Rabbit, when he had finished his song. "But when my wife and I start
to build our summer-house a little later in the spring, I hope you'll
say nothing to her about this affair. It might upset her, you know, if
she knew that a giant lost his head in the orchard--even if he was
made of snow."
"I understand!" said Jimmy Rabbit. "And I won't mention the matter to
her. You're afraid she might lose _her_ head, I suppose, if she heard
about it."
Having made a joke, Jimmy Rabbit thought it was a good time for him to
be leaving. So he said good-by and hopped briskly away.
And Jolly Robin's wife never knew that her husband and Jimmy Rabbit
had a secret that they did not tell her.
Of course, if they had told her it would have been no secret at all.