The Snowball That Didn’t Melt
Jay T. Stocking
“Biff!
Flick!
Swat!
Smack!
Biff, biff!
Flick, flick!
Swat, swat!
Smack, smack!”
It was a fine day in midwinter. The sun was just warm and bright enough to make the snow pack easily. The boys in the neighbourhood were having the liveliest kind of a snowball fight. So that is why there was this—
“Biff!
Flick!
Swat!
Smack!”
And this—
“Biff, biff!
Flick, flick!
Swat, swat!
Smack, smack!”
Everything ends some time. So this snowball fight did. One side or the other won,—I have forgotten which. The boys at the little brown-shingled house, where the fight took place, became very busy making balls for the next day’s battle. You could hear the “pat—pat, pat—pat,” as they rounded and packed the snowballs in their cold, red hands.
When they became quite satisfied that they had enough on hand for a lively battle they piled the balls up in a neat pyramid just under the edge of the veranda and went off to look for something new to do.
Then the snowballs fell to talking,—if it is true that snowballs talk.
“I wonder what they are going to do with us,” said the top one. “I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to hit the nose of that rough, freckle-faced boy who hit the nose of the boy who made me.”
“I know what I’d like,” said the second. “I’d like to go right through the window of Old Grampy’s house. Wouldn’t he sputter!”
“Oh! What’s the fun in teasing a poor old man?” said another. “I’ll tell you what I’d like. I’d like to hit the minister right in the middle of the back and see what he would do.”
“Hit the minister in the back!” said a lively-looking chap down in the middle of the pile. “Be a sport! I’d like to knock the policeman’s hat off and see him chase the boy that threw me. That would be fun.”
It was, you see, a very bold and mischievous lot of balls, if one may judge from their big talk. And so it was probably well for the peace of the neighbourhood that the evening had scarcely fallen when, through a sudden change in the weather, snow, too, began to fall. All night long the snow fell, thicker and faster, thicker and faster. The wind rose and piled it in stacks. The house was banked to the windows, the veranda was heaped up high. The snowballs were buried deep,—so deep that the boys forgot them. It was spring before the thick covering of snow was melted enough so that they could see the light of day.
It was a long time after this, when there came a day which meant much for at least one of that heap of snowballs.
The sun was bright and hot; the grass was beginning to show green. The snow had all gone except in a few places on the cold side of the houses and under veranda edges. The snowballs were still piled neatly in the pyramid but they looked as if they might tumble down almost any minute. Although it was cool in their shady spot, every one of them was perspiring and several of them looked thin and pale. I fancy they had felt the heat, for all their lives they had been accustomed to a cooler climate.
As they were busy mopping their brows and sighing for cooler weather they heard a sound, between a sigh and a faint moan. They heard it again and again. It was above their heads, out on the lawn, and not far away. It seemed to be in or around a shrub or bush, with a tall slender stem and a branching top.
“What’s that?” asked several of the balls at once.
They stopped talking, and sighing, and listened. And as they did so, they could hear words very distinctly, though they were not nearly so loud as a whisper.
“Snowball, Snowball, come up here!
My head is hot, my throat feels queer:
I’m going to faint, I surely fear.
Won’t some cool snowball come up here?”
“Who are you?” asked Snowball Number One, who sat at the tiptop of the pile. “Where are you and what is your name?”
“I’m Life-of-the-Bush,
In the bush I dwell;
I know not my name,
And so I can’t tell.”
“I can’t see you,” said Number One, as he looked intently up at the branches.
“You can’t?” said the Bush,
“Then you must be blind.
I’m right up here,—
But never mind.”
The voice trailed off weakly; then they heard it again:
“I’m going to faint, I really fear.
Won’t some kind snowball come up here?”
“But you are up so high. How can one get there? We have neither a ladder nor wings and we do not know how to climb.” Number One did most of the talking; he was nearest the bush.
“I’ll tell you how,” said Life-of-the-Bush, stopping his rhyme and talking plainly and simply and sensibly. “Just roll down the slope on the lawn to the foot of this bush. Make yourself as small as small can be, creep down into the ground, and take an elevator, which is always running, and you will come directly up to me.” The talking ceased, and the snowballs began to look at each other rather uneasily.
“I can’t go,” said Number Two, who was in the second row from the top. “I always tan terribly in the sun. It’s a long way down to the foot of the bush, and I should be brown as a berry before I got half way.”
“I can’t go, either,” said Number Three, by his side. “I don’t tan, but I freckle, and freckles look dreadful on my fair complexion.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go,” said Number Four, from his place in the corner of the third row. “But I feel the heat terribly. My clothes are all sticking to me now.”
“It’s simply out of the question for me,” said a big fat snowball down near the ground. “I know I’d melt before I got there. There isn’t much left of me now.”
Number One was one of the fairest snowballs of the bunch, but he was not afraid of freckles or tan. He was also one of the smallest of the lot. He looked down to the foot of the bush. It seemed a long way. The sun was certainly burning hot. He was not at all sure that he would live long enough in that sun to reach the bush. But some one should keep Life-of-the-Bush from fainting and he would try.
He turned a quick somersault off the pile down to the ground.
At just that moment something disturbed the whole pile and every ball in it tumbled down and out into the sun.
As soon as Number One touched the ground, he began to roll over, and over, and over, as fast as ever he could. It didn’t take him more than a minute to reach the foot of the bush. He remembered what Life-of-the-Bush had said, made himself just as small as small could be, crept down into the ground close to the stem and took the elevator, which seemed to be running all the time.
It took quite a while to go up, but finally the elevator paused just long enough for him to get out. He found himself in a cool, rambling house, that seemed to be almost all long, narrow halls. They ran this way and that way and every—which—way. At one end of each hall, where the buds were opening, there were windows with green shades. Everything was very clean and sweet. Right in the middle of the house he found Life-of-the-Bush. He gave her a drink of water, which he had carried in his water-proof pocket and not only kept her from fainting but made her as lively and well and happy as ever.
Life-of-the-Bush thanked the snowball a thousand times and gave him the freedom of her beautiful house.
“Now that you are here,” she said, “perhaps you will stay a while and help me build my house a little bigger. I must build leaves, and buds and branches and bark. I need your help.”
The snowball stayed and helped. He found it very exciting work. He worked all day and all night, ran here and there, and never stopped for meals. He packed buds and unfolded them; he pushed out the leaves and built out the ends of branches; he made bark, pressed it till it was hard and coloured it grey.
Day after day he worked at his tasks as if they gave him the greatest joy in the world. But now and then Life-of-the-Bush saw him gazing out of the window, as if he were a bit homesick, to get out of doors again.
“Stay with me a little longer,” she said, “to help me build my blossoms, and then I will send you out of doors on a beautiful errand to stay as long as your heart desires.”
So Snowball stayed and helped Life-of-the-Bush build her blossoms. Basket after basket of white stuff, as white as snowflakes but ever so much smaller, he carried out to the ends of the branches. Jar after jar of perfume he carried, too, until the blossoms were quite complete.
Then one evening—it was the last of May, or early June—Life-of-the-Bush called him.
“To-morrow,” she said, “there is to be a great Garden Festival. A prize is to be given for the most original and beautiful blossom. All the flowers of the season will be here in the garden. You have been a good friend and a faithful helper. For reward, you may go to the Festival and stay as long as your heart desires.”
“But how shall I go?” queried the snowball.
“Right out through the end of one of my branches,” said Life-of-the-Bush.
“But I shall fall off,” said the snowball.
“I’ll tie you on with a stout string, so that not even the wind can blow you off.”
“But it’s hot outside. I shall melt.”
“O, no. I’ve changed you so the hottest sun cannot melt you.”
“But how can I get out through the end of the branch?” asked the snowball, who could not get it through his head that he could really get out to the end of a branch and stay there all day and not fall off or melt.
“Make yourself very small, just as small as when you came up to me and you can go out as easily as you run along these halls,” said Life-of-the-Bush.
The snowball became quite excited. The Festival was to begin very early in the morning. Besides he wanted to see, if he could, what had become of the other snowballs. So he decided that he would go out on the branch that night, while it was dark, and be there for the whole day’s fun.
So he made himself very small, ran along the hall, crept out through a tiny green door and found himself tied securely to a swaying branch. The air was cool and sweet. He didn’t melt, as he half-feared he might, and he didn’t fall off. He looked around. Yes, this was the very bush he had seen before, but it was greener now. Morning came and the great Festival. The garden was full of flowers and folks.
There were lilacs and lilies of shades manifold
There were daisies, and daffodils, yellow as gold.
There were pansies, and peonies, red, white and pink,
And every such flower of which you can think.
You ought to have heard the “Ah’s!” and the “Oh’s!”
Of all the fine people in all their fine clothes.
You ought to have seen that wonderful sight,
For no rhyme of mine can describe it half right.
People went from bush to bush and from flower to flower. They could not for the life of them tell which blossom they thought most beautiful and original.
The judges wandered about uncertainly with the ribbons in their pockets not knowing to what plant or bush to tie them.
The snowball grew very much interested, not to say excited, to see what blossom would finally win the prize.
He noticed that groups of people continually stopped before the bush on which he hung. Apparently they admired it. He soon discovered that they were looking at him and was quite embarrassed.
“Look!” he kept hearing them say. “See this snowball,—and it doesn’t melt! Why, it’s growing on the bush; it’s a blossom!” That was the first that he knew that Life-of-the-Bush had changed him from a snowball into a flower snowball. Of course he became very happy and twice as excited.
Indeed, he could hardly breathe from excitement, when the judges came over, in a group, to where he grew. They looked at him and at the bush. Apparently they had never seen blossoms of this kind before.
“I never saw such a big, round, white blossom before,” he heard one of them say, as he drew a blue ribbon from his pocket and tied it to the stem on which he hung. He knew and soon, of course, everybody knew that the “Snowball Bush” had won the prize. His heart beat so fast that he thought he was growing red in the face. Perhaps he was melting! But he wasn’t, for he heard a girl say just then, as she passed, “How white and cool it looks!”
Snowball Number One had often wondered what had happened to his friends, the other snowballs. One reason why he had been anxious to get out of the bush was to find out, if he could, what had become of them all. But the doings of the day had driven all thought of them out of his busy head.
Now, as the people began to leave the garden, and excitement grew less, he remembered and looked about him. Here was the yard in which the boys made him. There was the very place under the edge of the veranda where he had spent the winter and where they had all stood that spring morning when Life-of-the-Bush called to them. There was the place, almost under him, where he knew they had all tumbled down the moment he left them. But not a trace of a snowball could be seen.
Of course not! They had all disappeared long ago, the very day, indeed, in which they tumbled down. Before noon the hot sun had melted them, every one, and carried them away, tan and freckles and all, and no one ever heard of them again.
Number One, who ran right out into the sun, was the only snowball that didn’t melt.