Snow has been keeping us and a large portion of the United States busy shoveling and plowing. This is my attitude about it: Bah Humbug!
At the same time I know that "Snow Days" as well as concern for bitter wind chills have made many children happy even if their time out doors has required bundling up and being careful not to get frostbitten.
As a result I just had to find an appropriate story. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the perfect one about how adults just don't see things from the same way.
Literary tales can be hard to tell, but the Skinner sisters, Ada and Eleanor, in their winter anthology, The Pearl Story Book, did a good start with their abridgement of the story. At the same time Project Gutenberg has a well-illustrated version of it in The Snow Image: A Childish Miracle. I'm going to insert the illustrations by Marcus Waterman in their appropriate places in the Skinner version of the story.
I leave it up to you as to how you might further adapt the story while keeping the "childish miracle" of the story alive.
THE SNOW-IMAGE
Nathaniel Hawthorne
One afternoon of a cold winter’s day, when
the sun shone forth with chilly brightness,
after a long storm, two children asked leave
of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen
snow.
The elder child was a little girl, whom, because
she was of a tender and modest disposition,
and was thought to be very beautiful,
her parents, and other people who were familiar
with her, used to call Violet.
But her brother was known by the title of
Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his
broad and round little phiz, which made
everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet
flowers.
“Yes, Violet—yes, my little Peony,” said
their kind mother; “you may go out and play
in the new snow.”
Forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into
the very heart of a huge snow-drift, whence
Violet emerged like a snow bunting, while
little Peony floundered out with his round face
in full bloom.
Then what a merry time they had! To
look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden,
you would have thought that the dark and
pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose
but to provide a new plaything for Violet
and Peony; and that they themselves had been
created, as the snowbirds were, to take delight
only in the tempest and in the white mantle
which it spread over the earth.
At last, when they had frosted one another
all over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after
laughing heartily at little Peony’s figure, was
struck with a new idea.
“You look exactly like a snow-image,
Peony,” said she, “if your cheeks were not so
red. And that puts me in mind! Let us make
an image out of snow—an image of a little
girl—and it shall be our sister, and shall run
about and play with us all winter long. Won’t
it be nice?”
“Oh, yes!” cried Peony, as plainly as he
could speak, for he was but a little boy. “That
will be nice! And mamma shall see it.”
“Yes,” answered Violet; “mamma shall see
the new little girl. But she must not make
her come into the warm parlour, for, you
know, our little snow-sister will not love the
warmth.”
And forthwith the children began this great
business of making a snow-image that should
run about; while their mother, who was knitting
at the window and overheard some of
their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity
with which they set about it. They really
seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty
whatever in creating a live little girl
out of the snow.
Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight—those
bright little souls at their task!
Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe
how knowingly and skillfully they managed
the matter. Violet assumed the chief direction,
and told Peony what to do, while, with
her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all
the nicer parts of the snow-figure.
It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made
by the children, as to grow up under their
hands, while they were playing and prattling
about it. Their mother was quite surprised at
this, and the longer she looked, the more and
more surprised she grew.
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 her
brother was 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, “Mamma!
mamma!! mamma!!! Look out and see what
a nice ’ittle girl we are making!”
“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?”
“Oh, yes!” cried Peony. “And I will hug
her and she shall sit down close by me and
drink some of my warm milk.”
“Oh, 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 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!”
“Oh, certainly,” said Violet, 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 now her lips are very red. And she
blushed a little, too!”
“Oh, 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:
“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.
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?”
“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, 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,” declared 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 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 snowbirds
fluttering about her head.
“Pray, what little girl may this 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 today, 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 is
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 had a plain, 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.”
So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted
man was going toward the little 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.
“Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!”
cried the father, half-vexed, half-laughing.
“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 of cold.”
And so, with a most benevolent smile, this
very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child
by the hand and led her toward the
house.
She followed him, droopingly and reluctant,
for all the glow and sparkle were 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 gaze at the little
white stranger. She hardly knew whether it
was a dream or no; 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, “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 his hospitable
threshold. “No wonder she looks like snow.
She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a
good fire will put everything to rights.”
This 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
toward the window, 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 woolen 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. Without heeding
the remonstrance 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 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 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! (Abridged.)
******
May both children and adults survive this snowy, cold time and eventually see spring.
****************
This is part of a
series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the
Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to
preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate
heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays
this intent on works of the 20th century. My own library
of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided
to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.
At
the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates
projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an
audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the
publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.
This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.
(Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared
towards future storytelling to an audience.) Response has
convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain"
should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage
it.
See the sidebar for other Public
Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."
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