The Snow Man

The one that stared at me and went away, whom he called the sun, is no friend of mine either, I can feel that."

"Away! Away!" barked the Watchdog, and then he walked around three times and crept into his kennel to sleep.

The weather really did change. Early next morning a thick, damp mist lay over the whole countryside. At dawn a wind rose; it was icy cold. The frost set in hard, but when the sun rose, what a beautiful sight it was! The trees and bushes were covered with hoarfrost and looked like a forest of white coral, while every twig seemed smothered with glittering white flowers. The enormously many delicate branches that are concealed by the leaves in summer now appeared, every single one of them, and made a gleaming white lacework, so snowy white that a white radiance seemed to spring from every bough. The birch waved in the wind, as if it had life, like the rest of the trees in the summer. It was all wonderfully beautiful. And when the sun came out, how it all glittered and sparkled, as if everything had been strewn with diamond dust, and big diamonds had been sprinkled on the snowy carpet of the earth; or one could also imagine that countless little lights were gleaming, brighter even than the snow itself.

"It's wonderfully beautiful!" said a young girl, who had come out into the garden with a young man. They stopped near the Snow Man and gazed at the flashing trees. "Summer can't show us a lovelier sight!" she said, and her eyes sparkled with delight.

"And we can't have a fellow like this in the summertime, either," the young man agreed, as he pointed to the Snow Man. "He's splendid."

The young girl laughed, nodded to the Snow Man, and then danced over the snow with her friend - over snow that crackled under their feet as though they were walking on starch.

"Who were those two?" asked the Snow Man of the Watchdog. "You've been around this yard longer than I have. Do you know them?"

"Of course I know them," said the Watchdog. "She pets me, and he once threw me a meat bone.