“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 [pg 251]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.
