The Snow Man

The flame fell distinctly on the white face of the Snow Man and glowed ruddy on his breast.

"I can't stand it any longer!" he cried. "How beautiful she looks when she sticks out her tongue!"

The night was very long, but it didn't seem long to the Snow Man; he stood lost in his own pleasant thoughts, and they froze until they crackled.

In the morning the windowpanes of the basement room were covered with ice. They showed the most beautiful ice flowers that any Snow Man could desire, but they hid the stove. The windowpanes wouldn't thaw, so he couldn't see the stove. It creaked, and it crackled.

It was just the sort of weather a Snow Man should most thoroughly enjoy. But he didn't enjoy it; indeed, how could he enjoy anything when he was so stove-sick?

"That's a terrible sickness for a Snow Man," said the Watchdog. "I've also suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away! Away! There's going to be a change in the weather."

And there was a change in the weather; it began to thaw! The thaw increased, and the Snow Man decreased. He never complained, and that's an infallible sign.

One morning he collapsed. And behold! where he had stood there was something like a broomstick sticking up from the ground.

It was the pole the boys had built him up around.

"Now I can understand why he had such an intense longing for the stove," said the Watchdog. "The Snow Man has had a stove rake in his body; that's what moved inside him. Now he has gotten over that, too. Away! Away!"

And soon the winter was over, too.

"Away! Away!" barked the Watchdog. But the little girls in the house sang:

Oh, woodruff, spring up, fresh and proud, round about!

And, willow tree, hang your woolen mitts out!

Come, cuckoo and lark, come and sing!

At February's close we already have spring.

Tweet-tweet, cuckoo! I am singing with you.

Come out, dear sun! Come often, skies of blue!

And nobody thought any more about the Snow Man.