One afternoon of a cold winter's day, two children asked leave of
their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The older
child was a little girl, so tender and modest that every one called
her Violet. The boy was called Peony because of his fat, round face
which made everybody think of sunshine and scarlet flowers.
The children lived in the city and had no wider play place than a
little garden before the house, divided from the street by a white
fence. The pear and plum trees, and the rose bushes in front of the
parlor window were covered with white, with here and there an icicle
for the fruit. It was a pleasant place to play. Their mother bundled
them up in woolen jackets and wadded sacks, and a pair of striped
gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their
hands. Out they ran, with a hop-skip-and-jump, into the heart of a
huge snowdrift. When they had frosted one another all over with
handfuls of snow, Violet had a new idea.
"Let us make an image out of snow," she said. "It shall be our little
sister and shall run about and play with us all winter long!"
"Oh, yes!" cried Peony. "And mother shall see it."
"Yes," Violet answered. "Mother shall see the new little girl. But she
must not make her come into the warm parlor, for our little snow
sister will not love the warmth."
So the children began this great business of making a snow image that
should run about. Violet told Peony what to do, while with her own
careful fingers she shaped all the nicer parts of the snow figure. It
seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children as to grow up
under their hands as they were playing and talking about it. Their
mother, who was sitting at the window, watched them. The longer she
looked, the more and more surprised she grew.
"What remarkable children mine are!" she said to herself. "What other
children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out
of snow at the first trial?"
"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, "bring me some of that
fresh snow from the farthest corner where we have not been trampling.
I want to make our little snow sister's dress with it. You know it
must be white, just as it came out of the sky."
"Here it is, Violet!" Peony said as he came floundering through the
drifts. "Here is the snow for her dress. Oh, Violet, how beautiful she
begins to look!"
"Yes," Violet said thoughtfully and quietly, "our snow sister does
look very lovely. I did not know, Peony, that we could make such a
sweet little girl as this. Now bring me those light wreaths of snow
from the lower branches of the pear tree. You can climb up on a
snowdrift and reach them. I must have them to make some curls for our
little snow sister's head."
"Here they are, Violet," answered the little boy. "Take care you do
not break them. Oh, how pretty!"
"We must have some shining little bits of ice to make the brightness
of her eyes. She is not finished yet," Violet went on.
"Here they are," cried Peony. "Mother, mother! Look out and see what a
nice little girl we have made!"
Their mother put down her work for an instant and looked out of the
window. She was dazzled by the sun that had sunk almost to the edge of
the world so she could not see the garden very distinctly. Still,
through all the brightness of the sun and the snow, she saw a strange,
small white figure in the garden. Peony was bringing fresh snow, and
Violet was moulding it as a sculptor adds clay to his model.
"They do everything better than other children," their mother thought.
"No wonder they make better snow images."
She sat down again to her work, and Violet and Peony talked about
what a nice playmate their little snow sister would be for them all
winter. Suddenly Violet called out joyfully:
"Look, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek from
that rose-colored cloud, and the color does not go away."
"And look, Violet!" Peony answered. "Oh, look at her hair! It is all
like gold."
"Oh, of course," Violet said. "That color, you know, comes from the
golden clouds. She is almost finished now. But her lips must be very
red. Let us kiss them, Peony!"
Just then there came a breeze of the pure west wind blowing through
the garden. It sounded so wintry cold that the mother was about to tap
on the window pane to call the children in, when they both cried out
to her with one voice:
"Mother, mother! We have finished our little snow sister and she is
running about the garden with us!"
"They make me almost as much of a child as they," the mother said. "I
can almost believe now that the snow image has really come to life."
She went to the door and looked all over the garden. There was no
gleam or dazzle now on it and she could see very well. What do you
think she saw there?
Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl
dressed all in white, with rosy cheeks and golden curls, playing with
Violet and Peony. She was none of the neighboring children. Not one
had so sweet a face. Her dress fluttered in the breeze; she danced
about in tiny white slippers. She was like a flying snowdrift.
"Who is this child?" the mother asked. "Does she live near us?"
Violet laughed that her mother could not understand so clear a matter.
"This is our little snow sister," she said, "whom we have just been
making."
At that instant a flock of snowbirds came flitting through the air. As
was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But--and this looked
strange--they flew at once to the white-robed child, lighted on her
shoulder, and seemed to claim her as their friend.
The little snow image was as glad to see these birds, old Winter's
grandchildren, as they were to see her, and she welcomed them by
holding out both of her hands. They tried to all alight on her ten
small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another with a great fluttering
of wings. One snowbird nestled close to her heart and another put its
bill to her lips.
Just then the garden gate was thrown open and the children's father
came in. A fur cap was drawn down over his ears and the thickest of
gloves covered his hands. He had been working all day and was glad to
get home. He smiled as he saw the children and their mother. His heart
was tender, but his head was as hard and impenetrable as one of the
iron pots that he sold in his hardware shop. At once, though, he
perceived the little white stranger, playing in the garden, like a
dancing snow wraith with the flock of snowbirds fluttering around her
head.
"What little girl is that," he asked, "out in such bitter weather in a
flimsy white gown and those thin slippers?"
"I don't know," the mother said. "The children say she is nothing but
a snow image that they have been making this afternoon."
As she said this, the mother glanced toward the spot where the
children's snow image had been made. There was no trace of it--no
piled-up heap of snow--nothing save the prints of little footsteps
around a vacant space!
"Nonsense!" said the father in his kind, matter-of-fact way. "This
little stranger must be brought in out of the snow. We will take her
into the parlor, and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and
milk and make her as comfortable as you can."
But Violet and Peony seized their father by the hand.
"No," they cried. "This is our little snow girl, and she needs the
cold west wind to breathe."
Their mother spoke, too. "There is something very strange about this,"
she said. "Could it be a miracle come to the children through their
faith in their play?"
The father laughed. "You are as much a child as Violet and Peony," he
said. Then he reached out his hand to draw the snow child into the
house.
As he approached the snowbirds took to flight. He followed the snow
child into a corner where she could not possibly escape. It was
wonderful how she gleamed and sparkled and seemed to shed a glow all
around her. She glistened like a star, or like an icicle in the
moonlight.
"Come, you odd little thing," cried the honest man, seizing the snow
child by her hand. "I have caught you at last and will make you
comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice new pair of
stockings on your feet and you shall have a warm shawl to wrap
yourself in. Your poor little nose, I am afraid, is frost bitten. But
we will make it all right. Come along in."
So he led the snow child toward the house. She followed him, drooping
and reluctant. All the glow and sparkle were gone from her.
"After all," said the mother, "she does look as if she were made of
snow."
A puff of the west wind blew against the snow child; she sparkled
again like a star.
"That is because she is half frozen, poor little thing!" said the
father. "Here we are where it is warm!"
Sad and drooping looked the little white maiden as she stood on the
hearth rug. The heat of the stove struck her like a pestilence. She
looked wistfully toward the windows and caught a glimpse, through its
red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, the frosty stars and the
delicious intensity of the cold night.
The mother had gone in search of the shawl and stockings, and Violet
and Peony looked with terror at their little snow sister.
"I am going to find her parents," said the father, but he had scarcely
reached the gate when he heard the children scream. He saw their
mother's white face at the window.
"There is no need of going for the child's parents," she said.
There was no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were a heap
of snow which, while they were gazing at it, melted quite away upon
the hearth rug.
"What a quantity of snow the children brought in on their feet," their
father said at last. "It has made quite a puddle here before the
stove."
The stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to grin like a
red-eyed demon at the mischief which it had done, for the story of the
snow image is one of those rare cases where common sense finds itself
at fault.