Snowflake (2 page)

A few moments later the storm came to an end and it began to grow light, so that Snowflake, looking eagerly about her, could see where she was.

She lay on the side of a slope overlooking the village and the church with the curious steeple shaped like an onion and below this was a school and a number of little houses with peaked roofs, many with pictures in gay colours painted beneath the eaves and balconies with carved railings running around the second story.

Here and there a yellow light showed in the upper windows and wisps of smoke began to emerge from the chimneys and rise into the still air.

Nearby there was a signpost crowned with a hat of white where some of Snowflake’s brothers and sisters had fallen upon it, and the snow came down hiding part of the sign so that all she could read was “. . . IESENBERG”.

Whatever the name of the village was, Snowflake was glad she had fallen there and not higher up on the mountain where there were only dark rocks and a few trees and it looked cold and lonely.

The wind blew the clouds away. The sky became brighter. And then a miracle began to happen.

First the very tip of the snow-capped mountain peak across the valley was touched with delicate rose. Slowly it spread to the next summit and then the next. The sky, the rocks and the trees became tinged with pink; the river winding far below reflected the colour; the snow everywhere was touched with it and soon even the air itself was filled with pinkness as though the whole world were but the mirror of a rose petal.

And Snowflake too saw that she was no longer white but bathed like everything else in this soft and beautiful colour.

Then the glow on the mountain tops turned to gold and orange and lemon and the blue shadows on the slopes melted and fled before the light that spilled down like paint from the crests until soon every peak and range within sight gleamed yellow in the morning sun. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of sleighbells. Snowflake thought it was so beautiful it made her want to cry. It was her first sunrise.

Later in the morning, Snowflake had a surprise.

Down the hill on a high wooden sled with steel runners came a little girl with flaxen pigtails, bright blue eyes and red cheeks like two rubber balls.

She was the merriest little girl and she sat bravely upright on her sled wearing a red cap with a tassel and red mittens on her fingers. Her school bag was strapped to her back, she carried her lunch in a paper box, and steered the sled cleverly with her feet, this way and that, sending up great clouds of snow as she whizzed by.

As she passed over, the steel runner cut deeply into Snowflake’s heart and hurt her cruelly so that she gave a little cry.

But the girl did not hear her. She was quickly gone and only her joyous shouts drifted back in the cold morning air, until she arrived at the school at the bottom of the hill where she stopped her sled right at the front door and went inside.

Snowflake found herself wishing that she would come back, for she was so gay and pretty, prettier even, Snowflake thought, than the sunrise.

There were so many things that Snowflake did not understand and wanted to know.

She thought how beautifully she had been greeted and made happy by the sunrise soon after she had been born. How simply some One had expressed His love for all the things He had created by painting for them such a glorious picture in the morning sky.

And what a splendid thing to do to make a little girl with yellow pigtails, blue eyes and red cheeks who rode bravely on a sled to school and laughed all the time.

But what was the purpose, and who was meant for whom?

Had Snowflake been born only to be there beneath the steel runner when it came by to speed sled and child along so that they would not be late for school?

Or had the Creator made the girl with her sweet face and silver laugh but to delight the heart of Snowflake? How could one ever know the answers to these problems?

There were so many new and exciting things going on all around that soon Snowflake forgot the questions that were troubling her.

From the barn just below the hill came a peasant wearing a stocking cap with a tassel and smoking a large pipe with a curved stem. He was leading a grey cow by a rope and had a small black and white dog with rough fur and a wise, friendly face who frisked at his heels. Around the neck of the cow was fastened a square bell that gave forth a gentle and musical “tonkle-tonkle” when she moved.

They passed close to where Snowflake was lying and the grey cow paused for a moment. The peasant cried “Heuh!”, the dog barked and made believe to snap at her hooves, the bell tonkled sweetly and Snowflake looked for an instant into her face and saw the great, tender, dreamy eyes filled with patience and kindness and framed by long, graceful lashes.

Snowflake thought: “How soft and beautiful they are.” And then she wondered: “What is beauty? I have seen the sky, the mountains, the forest and a village. I have seen the sunrise and a little girl and now the eyes of a grey cow. Each was different and yet they all made me happy. Surely they must have been created by that same unknown One. Could it be that beauty means all things that have come from His hands?”

Now that the storm was over and the day had come, everybody in the village went about his business again. But first they had to shovel a path from their doors to the road, piling up the snow on either side like miniature ranges of mountains.

Then the woodcutter carried out his saw-horse and big, bowed saw and began to cut the logs that lay in his yard into lengths for the stove. His son came to help him and with a glittering axe split some of the pieces into kindling.

Next door the carpenter went to work, planing and hammering on a window frame he was making.

In another house the tinsmith applied his heavy shears and mallet to shining sheets of metal and cut and bent them to the sizes and shapes he desired.

On the farm just above the road, the farmer’s wife came out carrying a basket of scraps on each arm to feed the chickens and the pigs. The pigs squealed and crowded to the door of their pen. The chickens shook the snow from their wings and hurried over.

The cold, clear winter’s day was filled with the sound of sawing and chopping and hammering and planing, with snuffling and grunting and crowing and clucking.

When the little girl with the red cap and mittens returned that afternoon from school two boys were at her side, each trying to see who could make her laugh the loudest. When they reached the place where Snowflake lay, one of them cried: “Let us make Frieda a snowman!”

No sooner said than done. They rolled together a huge ball for the body and a smaller one for the head. Two bits of charcoal served for the eyes and a piece of wood for the mouth.

“We will give him a long nose, just like Herr Hüschl, the teacher,” cried one of the boys, and with that he bent over, scooped up snow in each hand, and began to pack the flakes firmly.

And, alas, Snowflake was amongst them.

How it hurt when she was squeezed until she could hardly breathe. All her beautiful design of which she had been so proud was crushed. When the nose was finished the boy planted it squarely in the middle of the face of the snowman. Then they put a ruler in his hand and said it looked exactly like Herr Hüschl.

And the little girl Frieda laughed and laughed and screamed with delight and then she and the boys ran off still laughing and left Snowflake a part of the the nose of the snowman who was like Herr Hüschl, the schoolmaster.