Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/515



THE SNOW MAN

AM creaking all over, it's so delightfully cold," said the snow man.

"This wind does blow life into one, and no mistake. How that glowing thing up there is staring at me!" It was the sun he meant; it was just about setting. "He shall not get me to wink; I can keep the bits right enough."

He had two large three-cornered bits of tile stuck in his head for eyes, and for mouth he had a piece of an old rake, which was his teeth.

He came into the world amidst the cheering of the boys, and was greeted with the tinkling of bells and cracking of whips from the passing sledges.

The sun went down and the full moon rose round and large, bright and beautiful, in the blue sky.

"There he is again from another quarter," said the snow man. He thought it was the sun that showed himself again.

"I have cured him of staring. Now he can hang there and give me light so that I can see myself. If I only knew how I could manage to move about! I should like so much to move about. If I could, I should now be sliding on the ice down yonder, as I have seen the boys doing; but I don't know how to run."

"Go! go!" barked the old yard-dog. He was somewhat hoarse; he had been so ever since he was a house-dog and lay under the stove. "The sun will soon teach you to run. I noticed that with your predecessor last year, and with his predecessors as well. Go! go! They are all gone."

"I do not understand you, comrade," said the snow man. "Will that thing up there teach me to run?" (He meant the moon.) "Well, I noticed he ran just now when I stared hard at him. Now he steals on us from another quarter."

"You don't know much," said the yard-dog; "but then you have only just been put together. What you now see is called the moon, and the one that you saw before was the sun. He will come back again to-morrow. He will soon teach you to run down into the ditch near the ramparts. We shall soon have a change in the weather. I can feel it 481