The Snowman

That winter was frosty, frosty, frosty. In the middle of the yard the children rolled three big snowballs, stacked them one on top of another, and there he was: a snowman. They gave him eyes made from two bits of red roof tile and a mouth made from a piece of an old rake. And so he wouldn’t lean over, they stuck an old piece of iron inside him, something they’d found in the storeroom.

"Oh, how lovely!" said the snowman, as soon as the children had run home for supper. "The frost is crackling right through me!"

Above the fence hung an enormous red circle, staring straight at him.

"What are you gawping at?" the snowman said to it. "Think I’ll blink first? Not a chance!"

To tell the truth, he didn’t know how to blink anyway.

"Grrr-woof!" someone rasped from over by the shed.

It was Sirko, the old yard dog. He sat on his chain beside his kennel, grey and shaggy.

"The sun will teach you to run," said the dog. "It taught last year’s snowman, and the one the year before. Off he ran, and that was the end of him."

"I don’t understand a word of it," said the snowman, puzzled. "That red thing is going to teach me to run?"

Just then the red circle dived down behind the fence, and from the other side a different one floated up: round, white and calm.

"Ha, it ran away!" cried the snowman happily. "It got scared of me! And now it’s peeking out from the other side, and it’s gone all pale!"

"That’s not the sun, that’s the moon," grumbled Sirko. "I can see you don’t know a thing. Never mind, you’ll learn. And the weather’s going to change soon. My left back leg is aching, and it always knows."

The dog crawled into his kennel, turned round a few times and fell asleep. But the snowman stood there wondering what "change" meant, and how a leg could know about it.

In the morning the world had turned to silver. Frost had settled in the night, and every twig in the garden was covered in white fluff, as if someone had traced it with a fine little paintbrush. The sun flashed, and everything shone and sparkled, as though the whole garden had been sprinkled with sugar.

Two people were walking past the garden gate: a girl in a little fur hat and a young man in a long sheepskin coat.

"How beautiful!" the girl gasped. "And what a handsome snowman!"

They laughed, nodded to the snowman and went on their way, their boots crunching in the snow.

"Who were they?" the snowman asked the dog. "Do you know them?"

"Of course I do," yawned Sirko. "She used to pat me, and he used to give me bones. I don’t bite people like that."

"Are they snowmen too?"

"Oh, good grief," sighed the dog. "No, of course not. They live in the house."

The snowman wanted to ask what a "house" was, but suddenly he noticed something strange. Down low, right under the porch, a small window was glowing. Behind it something orange-gold flickered and hummed, and even from where he stood it looked warm, so very warm.

"What’s that?" whispered the snowman. "There, in the little window?"

"The stove," said Sirko, and his voice grew softer. "I lived in there when I was a puppy. Teeny-tiny, about this big. I slept on a little rug by the stove, and I was so warm my paws used to twitch in my sleep. They fed me, and patted me, and carried me about in their arms."

"Then why are you out here now?"

"I grew up." The dog scratched his ear. "And one day the little master of the house took my bone away. My very own bone! So I grabbed him by the trouser leg! It didn’t hurt, it only gave him a fright. And for that they put me out in the yard, on a chain. That’s when my voice went hoarse."

The snowman listened without taking his eyes off the little window. Something deep inside him gave a strange little twang.

"I want to go in there," he said. "To the stove. Just to stand beside it for a teeny little while."

"You can’t," barked Sirko. "You stand next to a stove, and splosh! Nothing left but puddles."

"I want to anyway," the snowman answered quietly. "I don’t know why. It’s as if that’s where I belong."

All day long the snowman gazed at the little window. He gazed at it in the evening, when the stove glowed even brighter. And he gazed at it at night, when the moon went sailing over the roof. He even dreamed (if snowmen sleep at all) that he was standing beside the stove, and it was humming, "Come closer, come closer."

And then the weather really did change. A soft wind began to blow, and the roof began to drip: drip, drip, drip. The snow in the yard turned grey and sank.

"There you are," said Sirko. "Told you so. The leg knows."

The snowman said nothing. He stood and gazed at the little window. He grew thinner and thinner, and his rake smile slipped a little to one side. The sun no longer seemed like an enemy to him: it was warming him, just like that stove. The snowman felt warm, so very warm, and he thought, "So this is what warmth is like. How lovely."

One morning there was a soft little flump, and the snowman was gone. Where he had stood there was only a wet heap of snow, two bits of roof tile and a piece of rake. And sticking up in the middle was an old iron poker, the very one the children had found in the storeroom.

"Well, I never!" said Sirko, and he looked at the poker for a long time. "Now I see why he was so set on getting to the stove. He had a poker inside him. And where does a poker belong? By the stove."

The children came running out, saw the puddle, and at first they were sad. The littlest one even sniffled.

Her big brother picked up the piece of iron, shook the snow off it and said in surprise:

"Why, it’s a poker! I’ll take it to the stove. That’s where it belongs."

But his little sister had already forgotten to cry: under the fence, the first snowdrop was peeping out of the snow. She wiped her nose on her mitten and smiled.

Sirko watched the poker being carried into the house, until the door closed behind it.

"Well, that’s that," he said quietly. "It’s all over now."

The roof dripped, the sparrows chirped, and the children ran about the yard, calling the spring. Nobody was thinking about the snowman any more. Winter was over, and with it the snowman’s story.