"What little girl is that," he asked, "out in such bitter weather in a
flimsy white gown and those thin slippers?"
"I don't know," the mother said. "The children say she is nothing but
a snow image that they have been making this afternoon."
As she said this, the mother glanced toward the spot where the
children's snow image had been made. There was no trace of it--no
piled-up heap of snow--nothing save the prints of little footsteps
around a vacant space!
"Nonsense!" said the father in his kind, matter-of-fact way. "This
little stranger must be brought in out of the snow. We will take her
into the parlor, and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and
milk and make her as comfortable as you can."
But Violet and Peony seized their father by the hand.
"No," they cried. "This is our little snow girl, and she needs the
cold west wind to breathe."
Their mother spoke, too. "There is something very strange about this,"
she said. "Could it be a miracle come to the children through their
faith in their play?"
The father laughed. "You are as much a child as Violet and Peony," he
said. Then he reached out his hand to draw the snow child into the
house.
As he approached the snowbirds took to flight. He followed the snow
child into a corner where she could not possibly escape.
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