“Look out the window, my lamb,” Granny called one morning early in December. Maida opened her eyes, jumped obediently out of bed and pattered across the room. There, she gave a scream of delight, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.  
“Snow! Oh goody, goody, goody! Snow at last!”
 
It looked as if the whole world had been wrapped in a blanket of the whitest, fleeciest, shiningest wool. Sidewalks, streets, crossings were all leveled to one smoothness. The fences were so that they had to twice their size. The houses wore trim, pointy caps on their gables. The high bushes in the yard hung to the very ground. The low ones had become . The trees looked as if they had been packed in cotton-wool and put away for the winter.
 
“And the lovely part of it is, it’s still snowing,” Maida exclaimed blissfully.
 
“Glory be, it’ull be a before we’re t’rough wid ut,” Granny said and shivered.
 
Maida dressed in the greatest excitement. Few children came in to make purchases that morning and the lines pouring into the schoolhouse were very shivery and much shorter than usual. At a quarter to twelve, the one-session bell rang. When the children came out of school at one, the snow was whirling down thicker and faster than in the morning. A high wind came up and piled it in the most unexpected places. Trade stopped in the shop. No mother would let her children brave so terrific a storm.
 
It snowed that night and all the next morning. The second day fewer children went to school than on the first. But at two o’clock when the sun burst through the gray sky, the children the streets. and brooms began to appear, snow-balls to fly, sleigh-bells to .
 
Rosie came dashing into the shop in the midst of this burst of excitement. “I’ve our sidewalk,” she announced . “Is anything wrong with me? Everybody’s staring at me.”
 
Maida stared too. Rosie’s was dotted with snow, her scarlet hat was white with it. Great had caught in her long black hair, had starred her soft brows—they hung from her very eyelashes. Her cheeks and lips were the color of coral and her eyes like great moons.
 
“You look in the glass and see what they’re staring at,” Maida said slyly. Rosie went to the mirror.
 
“I don’t see anything the matter.”
 
“It’s because you look so pretty, goose!” Maida exclaimed.
 
Rosie always blushed and looked ashamed if anybody to her prettiness. Now she leaped to Maida’s side and pretended to beat her.
 
“Stop that!” a voice called. Startled, the little girls looked up. Billy stood in the . “I’ve come over to make a snow-house,” he explained.
 
“Oh, Billy, what things you do think of!” Maida exclaimed. “Wait till I get Arthur and Dicky!”
 
“Couldn’t get many more in here, could we?” Billy commented when the five had assembled in the “child’s size” yard. “I don’t know that we could stow away another . Now, first of all, you’re to pile all the snow in the yard into that corner.”
 
Everybody went to work. But Billy and Arthur moved so quickly with their big shovels that Maida and Rosie and Dicky did nothing but about them. Almost before they realized it, the snow-pile reached to the top of the fence.
 
“Pack it down hard,” Billy commanded, “as hard as you can make it.”
 
Everybody to obey. For a few moments the sound of shovels beating on the snow drowned their talk.
 
“That will do for that,” Billy commanded suddenly. His little force stopped, breathless and red-cheeked. “Now I’m going to dig out the room. I guess I’ll have to do this. If you’re not careful enough, the roof will cave in. Then it’s all got to be done again.”
 
Working very slowly, he began to hollow out the structure. After the hole had grown big enough, he crawled into it. But in spite of his own warning, he must have been too energetic in his movements. Suddenly the roof came down on his head.
 
Billy was on his feet in an instant, shaking the snow off as a dog shakes off water.
 
“Why, Billy, you look like a snow-man,” Maida laughed.
 
“I feel like one,” Billy said, wiping the snow from his eyes and from under his collar. “But don’t be discouraged, my , up with it again. I’ll be more careful the next time.”
 
They went at it again with increased interest, heaping up a of snow bigger than before, beating it until it was as hard as a brick, hollowing out inside a big enough for three of them to occupy at once. But Billy gave them no time to enjoy their new .
 
“Run into the house,” was his next order, “and bring out all the water you can carry.”
 
There was a wild to see which would get to the sink first but in a few moments, an orderly file emerged from the house, Arthur with a bucket, Dicky with a basin, Rosie with the dish-pan, Maida with a dipper.
“Now I’m going to pour water over the house,” Billy explained. “You see if it freezes now it will last longer.” Very carefully, he sprayed it on the sides and roof, dashing it on the inside walls:
 
“We might as well make it look pretty while we’re about it,” Billy continued. “You children get to work and make a lot of snow-balls the size of an orange and just as round as you can turn them out.”
 
This was easy work. Before Billy could say, “ Robinson!” four pairs of eager hands had accumulated snow-balls enough for a battle. In the meantime, Billy had decorated the doorway with two tall, round pillars. He added a roof to the house and trimmed it with snow-balls, all along the edge.
 
“Now I guess we’d better have a snow-man to live in this while we’re about it,” Billy suggested briskly. “Each of you roll up an arm or a leg while I make the body.”
 
Billy placed the legs in the corner opposite the snow-house. He lifted on to them the big round body which he himself had rolled. Putting the arms on was not so easy. He worked for a long time before he found the angle at which they would stick.
 
Everybody took a hand at the head. Maida contributed some dulse for the hair, it into ribbons, which she stuck on with glue. Rosie found a broken clothes-pin for the nose. The round, smooth coals that Dicky discovered in the coal-hod made a pair of black eyes. Arthur cut two sets of teeth from orange peel and inserted them in the that was the mouth. When the head was set on the shoulders, Billy disappeared into the house for a moment. He came back carrying a suit-case. “Shut your eyes, every manjack of you,” he ordered. “You’re not to see what I do until it’s done. If I catch one of you , I’ll confine you in the snow-house for five minutes.”
 
The W.M.N.T.’s shut their eyes tight and held down the lids with fingers. But they kept their ears wide open. The mysterious work on which Billy was engaged was accompanied by the most noises.
 
“Oh, Billy, can’t I please look,” Maida begged, jiggling up and down. “I can’t stand it much longer.”
 
“In a minute,” Billy said encouragingly. The mysterious noises kept up. “Now,” Billy said suddenly.
 
Four pairs of eyes leaped open. Four pairs of lips their delight. Indeed, Maida and Rosie laughed so hard that they finally rolled in the snow.
 
Billy had put an old coat on the snow-man’s body. He had put a tall hat—Arthur called it a “stove-pipe”—on the snow-man’s head. He had put an old black pipe between the snow-man’s grinning, orange-colored teeth. Gloves hung limply from the snow-man’s arm-stumps and to one of them a was fastened. Billy had managed to give the snow-man’s head a cock to one side. Altogether he looked so spruce and that it was impossible not to like him.
 
“Mr. Chumpleigh, ladies and gentlemen,” Billy said. “Some members of the W.M.N.T., Mr. Chumpleigh.”
 
And Mr. Chumpleigh, he was until—until—
 
Billy stayed that night to dinner. They [Pg 251]had just finished eating when an exc............