Various - Famous Stories Every Child Should Know

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Nevertheless, the ideas seized upon her imagination; and ever and
anon, she took a glimpse out of the window, half dreaming that she
might see the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with her own
golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked Peony.

Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct
hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together
with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit,
while Peony acted rather as a labourer, and brought her the snow from
far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper
understanding of the matter, too!

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet; for the brother was again at the other
side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have
rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. You can clamber on the
snow-drift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make
some ringlets for our snow-sister's head!"

"Here they are, Violet!" answered the little boy. "Take care you do
not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty!"

"Does she not look sweet?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone;
"and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the
brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how
very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense!--come in
out of the cold!'"

"Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; and then he shouted
lustily, "Mamma! mamma!! mamma!!! Look out, and see what a nice 'ittle
girl we are making."

The mother put down her work, for an instant, and looked out of the
window. But it so happened that the sun--for this was one of the
shortest days of the whole year--had sunken so nearly to the edge of
the world, that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes.
So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly
observe what was in the garden. Still, however, through all that
bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a
small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal
of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony--indeed, she
looked more at them than at the image--she saw the two children still
at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the
figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model.
Indistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother thought to
herself that never before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made,
nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it.

"They do everything better than other children," said she, very
complacently. "No wonder they make better snow-images!"

She sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as
possible; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's frock was not
yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, pretty early
in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers.
The children, likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and still
the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. She was amused
to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what
they were doing, and were carried away by it. They seemed positively
to think that the snow-child would run about and play with them.

"What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said
Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold!
Sha'n't you love her dearly, Peony?"

"O yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her and she shall sit down
close by me, and drink some of my warm milk!"

"O no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do
at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister.
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony;
we must not give her anything warm to drink!"

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were
never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the
garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully--

"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek
out of that rose-coloured cloud! and the colour does not go away! Is
not that beautiful!"

"Yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three
syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair!
It is all like gold!"

"O, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very
much a matter of course. "That colour, you know, comes from the golden
clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now.
But her lips must be made very red--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps,
Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her
children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed
that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and her lips are very red.
And she blushed a little, too!"

"O, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, sweeping
through the garden and rattling the parlour-windows. It sounded so
wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with
her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both
cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise,
although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather
as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now
happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon
all along.

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is
running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother,
putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange,
too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are!
I can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come
to life!"

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet
playmate we have!"

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth
from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving,
however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and
golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But
there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or
on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and
see everything and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw
there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling children. Ah,
but whom or what did she see besides? Why, if you will believe me,
there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with
rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the
garden with the two children! A stranger though she was, the child
seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony, and they
with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of
their little lives. The mother thought to herself that it must
certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbours, and that, seeing
Violet, and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street
to play with them. So this kind lady went to the door, intending to
invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlour; for, now that
the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already
growing very cold.

But, after opening the house-door, she stood an instant on the
threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in,
or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted
whether it were a real child, after all, or only a light wreath of the
new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the
intensely cold west-wind. There was certainly something very singular
in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the
neighbourhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure
white, and delicate rose-colour, and the golden ringlets tossing about
the forehead and cheeks. And as for her dress, which was entirely of
white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable
woman would put upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in
the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only
to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, except
a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, airily as she was
clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from
the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her
toes left hardly a print in its surface; while Violet could but just
keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag
behind.

Once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed herself
between Violet and Peony, and taking a hand of each, skipped merrily
forward, and they along with her. Almost immediately, however, Peony
pulled away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers
were tingling with cold; while Violet also released herself, though
with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better not to take
hold of hands. The white-robed damsel said not a word, but danced
about, just as merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose
to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk
and cold west-wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and
took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been friends
for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the threshold,
wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying
snow-drift, or how a snow-drift could look so very like a little girl.

She called Violet, and whispered to her.

"Violet, my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she
live near us?"

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her
mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little
snow-sister, whom we have just been making!"

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up
simply into her face, "This is our snow-image! Is it not a nice 'ittle
child?"

At this instant a flock of snow-birds 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, fluttered
eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim
her as an old acquaintance. She, on her part, was evidently as glad to
see these little birds, old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to
see her, and welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon,
they each and all tried to alight on her two palms and ten small
fingers and thumbs, crowding one another off, with an immense
fluttering of their tiny wings. One dear little bird nestled tenderly
in her bosom; another put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous,
all the while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may have
seen them when sporting with a snow-storm.

Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight: for they enjoyed
the merry time which their new playmate was having with their
small-winged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part
in it.

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth,
without any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her
mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any
further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our
little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell
you so, as well as I."

"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson
little phiz, "this is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one? But,
mamma, her hand, is oh, so very cold!"

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the
street-gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and Peony
appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down
over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsey
was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in his
wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all the
day long, and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes
brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could
not help uttering a word or two of surprise, at finding the whole
family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too. He
soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the
garden, like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds
fluttering about her head.

"Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man.
"Surely her mother must be crazy, to let her go out in such bitter
weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and
those thin slippers!"

"My dear husband," said his wife, "I know no more about the little
thing than you do. Some neighbour's child, I suppose. Our Violet and
Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a
story, "insist that she is nothing but a snow-image, which they have
been busy about in the garden, almost all the afternoon."

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where
the children's snow-image had been made. What was her surprise, on
perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much
labour!--no image at all--no piled up heap of snow--nothing whatever,
save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space!

"This is very strange!" said she.

"What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you
see how it is? This is our snow-image, which Peony and I have made,
because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony?"

"Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. "This be our 'ittle snow-sister. Is
she not beau-ti-ful? But she gave me such a cold kiss!"

"Pooh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, who, as
we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common-sensible way of
looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making live figures out of
snow. Come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak
air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlour; and you
shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as
comfortable as you can. Meanwhile, I will inquire among the
neighbours; or, if necessary, send the city-crier about the streets,
to give notice of a lost child."

So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going toward the
little white damsel, with the best intentions in the world. But Violet
and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought
him not to make her come in.

"Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself before him, "it is true
what I have been telling you! This is our little snow-girl, and she
cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. Do
not make her come into the hot room!"

"Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily
was he in earnest, "this be nothing but our 'ittle snow-child! She
will not love the hot fire!"

"Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half
vexed, half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy.
"Run into the house, this moment! It is too late to play any longer,
now. I must take care of this little girl immediately, or she will
catch her death a-cold!"

"Husband! dear husband!" said his wife, in a low voice--for she had
been looking narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than
ever--there is something very singular in all this. "You will think me
foolish--but--but--may it not be that some invisible angel has been
attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set
about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his
immortality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result
is what we call a miracle. No, no! Do not laugh at me; I see what a
foolish thought it is!"

"My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you are as
much a child as Violet and Peony."

And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her
heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and
clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent
medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound, that other people
laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity.

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from
his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him,
beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the
cold west-wind. As he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. The
little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as if to
say, "Pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading
him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the good man stumbled, and
floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again,
with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as
white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest size. Some of the
neighbours, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what
could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in
pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west-wind was driving hither and
thither! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little
stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His
wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was
wonderstruck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and
how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven
into the corner, she positively glistened like a star! It was a frosty
kind of brightness, too like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The
wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing
remarkable in the snow-child's appearance.

"Come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by
the hand, "I have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in
spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings
on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to
wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually
frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in."

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all
purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took
the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed
him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone
out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright
frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon,
she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led
her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked into his
face--their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down
their cheeks--and again entreated him not to bring their snow-image
into the house.

"Not bring her in!" exclaimed the kind-hearted man. "Why, you are
crazy, my little Violet!--quite crazy, my small Peony! She is so cold,
already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick
gloves. Would you have her freeze to death?"

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long,
earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white stranger. She
hardly knew whether it was a dream or not, but she could not help
fancying that she saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the
child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out the
image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected
to smooth the impression quite away.

"After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that the
angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and Peony as she
herself was--"after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! I
do believe she is made of snow!"

A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child, and again she
sparkled like a star.

"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over
this hospitable threshold. "No wonder she looks like snow. She is half
frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to
rights."

Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this
highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white
damsel--drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more--out of the frosty
air, and into his comfortable parlour. A Heidenberg stove, filled to
the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam
through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing the vase of water
on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell
was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall farthest
from the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlour was hung with red
curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it
felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold, wintry
twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once from Nova Zembla to
the hottest part of India, or from the North Pole into an oven. O,
this was a fine place for the little white stranger!

The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth-rug, right
in front of the hissing and fuming stove.

"Now she will be comfortable!" cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands
and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. "Make
yourself at home, my child."

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood
on the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through
her like a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully toward the
windows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the
snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the
delicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the
window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. But there
stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove!

But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss.

"Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a
woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your
little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a
strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbours, and
find out where she belongs."

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings;
for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given
way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.
Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good
Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour-door carefully
behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he
emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he
was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a
thimbled finger against the parlour window.

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face
through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for the child's
parents!"

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered
the parlour. "You would bring her in; and now our
poor--dear--beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so
that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in
this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children
might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an
explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to
the parlour by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of
the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow,
which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the
hearth-rug.

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a
pool of water, in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at him, through her
tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"

"Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to
say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you
how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to
glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the
mischief which it had done!

This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will
occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. The
remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of
people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish
affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralised in various
methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for
instance, might be that it behooves men, and especially men of
benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting
on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend
the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has
been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute
mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlour was proper
enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony--though
by no means very wholesome, even for them--involved nothing short of
annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image.

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