THE SNOW MAN


    "IT is so delightfully cold," said the Snow Man, "that it
makes my whole body crackle. This is just the kind of wind to
blow life into one. How that great red thing up there is
staring at me!" He meant the sun, who was just setting. "It
shall not make me wink. I shall manage to keep the pieces."

    He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head, instead
of eyes; his mouth was made of an old broken rake, and was, of
course, furnished with teeth. He had been brought into
existence amidst the joyous shouts of boys, the jingling of
sleigh-bells, and the slashing of whips. The sun went down,
and the full moon rose, large, round, and clear, shining in
the deep blue.

    "There it comes again, from the other side," said the Snow
Man, who supposed the sun was showing himself once more. "Ah,
I have cured him of staring, though; now he may hang up there,
and shine, that I may see myself. If I only knew how to manage
to move away from this place,- I should so like to move. If I
could, I would slide along yonder on the ice, as I have seen
the boys do; but I don't understand how; I don't even know how
to run."

    "Away, away," barked the old yard-dog. He was quite
hoarse, and could not pronounce "Bow wow" properly. He had
once been an indoor dog, and lay by the fire, and he had been
hoarse ever since. "The sun will make you run some day. I saw
him, last winter, make your predecessor run, and his
predecessor before him. Away, away, they all have to go."

    "I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "Is
that thing up yonder to teach me to run? I saw it running
itself a little while ago, and now it has come creeping up
from the other side.

    "You know nothing at all," replied the yard-dog; "but
then, you've only lately been patched up. What you see yonder
is the moon, and the one before it was the sun. It will come
again to-morrow, and most likely teach you to run down into
the ditch by the well; for I think the weather is going to
change. I can feel such pricks and stabs in my left leg; I am
sure there is going to be a change."

    "I don't understand him," said the Snow Man to himself;
"but I have a feeling that he is talking of something very
disagreeable. The one who stared so just now, and whom he
calls the sun, is not my friend; I can feel that too."

    "Away, away," barked the yard-dog, and then he turned
round three times, and crept into his kennel to sleep.

    There was really a change in the weather. Towards morning,
a thick fog covered the whole country round, and a keen wind
arose, so that the cold seemed to freeze one's bones; but when
the sun rose, the sight was splendid. Trees and bushes were
covered with hoar frost, and looked like a forest of white
coral; while on every twig glittered frozen dew-drops. The
many delicate forms concealed in summer by luxuriant foliage,
were now clearly defined, and looked like glittering
lace-work. From every twig glistened a white radiance. The
birch, waving in the wind, looked full of life, like trees in
summer; and its appearance was wondrously beautiful. And where
the sun shone, how everything glittered and sparkled, as if
diamond dust had been strewn about; while the snowy carpet of
the earth appeared as if covered with diamonds, from which
countless lights gleamed, whiter than even the snow itself.

    "This is really beautiful," said a young girl, who had
come into the garden with a young man; and they both stood
still near the Snow Man, and contemplated the glittering
scene. "Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight," she
exclaimed, while her eyes sparkled.

    "And we can't have such a fellow as this in the summer
time," replied the young man, pointing to the Snow Man; "he is
capital."

    The girl laughed, and nodded at the Snow Man, and then
tripped away over the snow with her friend. The snow creaked
and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on
starch.

    "Who are these two?" asked the Snow Man of the yard-dog.
"You have been here longer than I have; do you know them?"

    "Of course I know them," replied the yard-dog; "she has
stroked my back many times, and he has given me a bone of
meat. I never bite those two."

    "But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.

    "They are lovers," he replied; "they will go and live in
the same kennel by-and-by, and gnaw at the same bone. Away,
away!"

    "Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the
Snow Man.

    "Well, they belong to the same master," retorted the
yard-dog. "Certainly people who were only born yesterday know
very little. I can see that in you. I have age and experience.
I know every one here in the house, and I know there was once
a time when I did not lie out here in the cold, fastened to a
chain. Away, away!"

    "The cold is delightful," said the Snow Man; "but do tell
me tell me; only you must not clank your chain so; for it jars
all through me when you do that."

    "Away, away!" barked the yard-dog; "I'll tell you; they
said I was a pretty little fellow once; then I used to lie in
a velvet-covered chair, up at the master's house, and sit in
the mistress's lap. They used to kiss my nose, and wipe my
paws with an embroidered handkerchief, and I was called 'Ami,
dear Ami, sweet Ami.' But after a while I grew too big for
them, and they sent me away to the housekeeper's room; so I
came to live on the lower story. You can look into the room
from where you stand, and see where I was master once; for I
was indeed master to the housekeeper. It was certainly a
smaller room than those up stairs; but I was more comfortable;
for I was not being continually taken hold of and pulled about
by the children as I had been. I received quite as good food,
or even better. I had my own cushion, and there was a stove-
it is the finest thing in the world at this season of the
year. I used to go under the stove, and lie down quite beneath
it. Ah, I still dream of that stove. Away, away!"

    "Does a stove look beautiful?" asked the Snow Man, "is it
at all like me?"

    "It is just the reverse of you,' said the dog; "it's as
black as a crow, and has a long neck and a brass knob; it eats
firewood, so that fire spurts out of its mouth. We should keep
on one side, or under it, to be comfortable. You can see it
through the window, from where you stand."

    Then the Snow Man looked, and saw a bright polished thing
with a brazen knob, and fire gleaming from the lower part of
it. The Snow Man felt quite a strange sensation come over him;
it was very odd, he knew not what it meant, and he could not
account for it. But there are people who are not men of snow,
who understand what it is. "'And why did you leave her?" asked
the Snow Man, for it seemed to him that the stove must be of
the female sex. "How could you give up such a comfortable
place?"

    "I was obliged," replied the yard-dog. "They turned me out
of doors, and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest of
my master's sons in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I
was gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I thought; but they were so
angry, and from that time I have been fastened with a chain,
and lost my bone. Don't you hear how hoarse I am. Away, away!
I can't talk any more like other dogs. Away, away, that is the
end of it all."

    But the Snow Man was no longer listening. He was looking
into the housekeeper's room on the lower storey; where the
stove stood on its four iron legs, looking about the same size
as the Snow Man himself. "What a strange crackling I feel
within me," he said. "Shall I ever get in there? It is an
innocent wish, and innocent wishes are sure to be fulfilled. I
must go in there and lean against her, even if I have to break
the window."

    "You must never go in there," said the yard-dog, "for if
you approach the stove, you'll melt away, away."

    "I might as well go," said the Snow Man, "for I think I am
breaking up as it is."

    During the whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through
the window, and in the twilight hour the room became still
more inviting, for from the stove came a gentle glow, not like
the sun or the moon; no, only the bright light which gleams
from a stove when it has been well fed. When the door of the
stove was opened, the flames darted out of its mouth; this is
customary with all stoves. The light of the flames fell
directly on the face and breast of the Snow Man with a ruddy
gleam. "I can endure it no longer," said he; "how beautiful it
looks when it stretches out its tongue?"

    The night was long, but did not appear so to the Snow Man,
who stood there enjoying his own reflections, and crackling
with the cold. In the morning, the window-panes of the
housekeeper's room were covered with ice. They were the most
beautiful ice-flowers any Snow Man could desire, but they
concealed the stove. These window-panes would not thaw, and he
could see nothing of the stove, which he pictured to himself,
as if it had been a lovely human being. The snow crackled and
the wind whistled around him; it was just the kind of frosty
weather a Snow Man might thoroughly enjoy. But he did not
enjoy it; how, indeed, could he enjoy anything when he was
"stove sick?"

    "That is terrible disease for a Snow Man," said the
yard-dog; "I have suffered from it myself, but I got over it.
Away, away," he barked and then he added, "the weather is
going to change." And the weather did change; it began to
thaw. As the warmth increased, the Snow Man decreased. He said
nothing and made no complaint, which is a sure sign. One
morning he broke, and sunk down altogether; and, behold, where
he had stood, something like a broomstick remained sticking up
in the ground. It was the pole round which the boys had built
him up. "Ah, now I understand why he had such a great longing
for the stove," said the yard-dog. "Why, there's the shovel
that is used for cleaning out the stove, fastened to the
pole." The Snow Man had a stove scraper in his body; that was
what moved him so. "But it's all over now. Away, away." And
soon the winter passed. "Away, away," barked the hoarse
yard-dog. But the girls in the house sang,

            "Come from your fragrant home, green thyme;
              Stretch your soft branches, willow-tree;
            The months are bringing the sweet spring-time,
              When the lark in the sky sings joyfully.
            Come gentle sun, while the cuckoo sings,
            And I'll mock his note in my wanderings."

    And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.


                            THE END