All the creatures, fur and feather,
Cuddle close this snowy weather;
Chippy Chipmunk ’neath a tree
In his home as safe can be.
Squirrel Nutkin when it snows
Hides his head beneath the clothes
Of his little wooden bed
In the oak tree overhead.
And within the Bramble Patch
Little Rabbit’s drawn the latch.
Everyone’s almost asleep
Waiting for the Spring’s first peep.
Chilly Mr. North Wind blows from his home at the North Pole, making his
snow horses whirl over the Sunny Meadow and along the Old Rail Fence.
The Bubbling Brook is covered with a coat of ice, and the Farmer’s Boy
skates across the Old Duck Pond. But Granddaddy Bullfrog doesn’t hear
him, for he is sound asleep in the mud ’way down deep where the ice
never forms.
Timmy Meadowmouse makes little tunnels through the snow, for he is too
small to walk over the drifts. But Danny Fox, that sly old robber,
sneaks along the bare places so as to leave no footprints to show where
he has been.
Sometimes he turns to the Shady Forest, and sometimes to the farm,
where Cocky Doodle and Henny Penny prune their feathers on the sunny
side of the High Haystack.
The Weathercock swings to and fro on the Big Red Barn and wishes it
were Spring.
Busy Beaver swims about under the ice in the Forest Pond, coming back
to his little house, whose front door is deep down where the water
never freezes. In the upper room he has stored away twigs and things
to eat till Mr. Merry Sun melts the ice and tells the flowers to bloom
again.
All the birds have gone south except a few. Charlie Chickadee and Jimmy
Junko, though, don’t mind the chilly weather. They flutter here and
there, eating the dry seeds that still cling to the tall meadow grass,
or the dry berries in the Old Bramble Patch.
Peter Possum and his family are curled up in a warm hollow stump, and
the Big Brown Bear is snoring in his cave.
The earth is clad in snow white,
But all the trees are bare.
The farmer reads the almanac
Within his old arm chair.
Good Mrs. Cow safe in the shed
Upon the manger rubs her head,
And if you listen you can tell
How many times she rings her bell.
She never takes her collar off
For fear she’ll catch the whooping cough.
Imagine how that little bell
Would tinkle in a coughing spell.