"After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea thatthe angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and Peony asshe herself was, "after all, she does look strangely like asnow-image! I do believe she is made of snow!"A puff of the west wind blew against the snow-child, and againshe sparkled like a star.
"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest overhis hospitable threshold. "No wonder she looks like snow. She ishalf frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything torights."Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions,this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the littlewhite damsel- drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more- out ofthe frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove,filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending abright gleam through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing thevase of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm,sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on thewall furthest from the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlor washung with red curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked justas warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and thecold, wintry twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once fromNova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the North Poleinto an oven. O, this was a fine place for the little white stranger!
The 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 handsand 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 stoodon the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking throughher like a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully toward thewindows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of thesnow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all thedelicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled thewindow-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. But therestood 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 stockingsand a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give hersome warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony,amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at findingherself in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among theneighbors, and find out where she belongs."The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl andstockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle anddelicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialismof her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children,who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not lovethe warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlordoor carefully behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack overhis ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached thestreet-gate, when he was recalled by the screams of Violet andPeony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor window.
"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-strickenface through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for thechild's parents!""We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as hereentered the parlor. "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 happenin this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his childrenmight be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded anexplanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned tothe parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of thelittle white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow,which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon thehearth-rug.
"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointingto a pool of water, in front of the stove.
"Yes, father, said Violet, looking reproachfully at him, throughher tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!""Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and- I shudder tosay- shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We toldyou how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemedto glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in themischief which it had done!
This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet willoccasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. Theremarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious classof people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but achildish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized invarious methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons,for instance, might be, that it behooves men, and especially men ofbenevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, beforeacting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that theycomprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand.
What has been established as an element of good to one being may proveabsolute mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor wasproper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet andPeony- though by no means very wholesome, even for them- butinvolved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image.
