Harper's Young People, February 28, 1882 / An Illustrated Weekly

THE LITTLE FROST QUEEN.

Sparkling and light Are the snow-drifts white In the glow of the winter's morning, And the icicles gleam In the sun's bright beam, Each tree and shrub adorning. Rosy and fair In the frosty air Are the cheeks of the little maiden, And merry and gay With the happy day Is her heart with the sunshine laden. Where is she bound O'er the frosty ground? Ah, that is beyond our knowing. But wherever she goes, We may fairly suppose The sunshine will surely be going.
He is my grandfather now—Charley Otis is—and he told my brother Hal and me this story. He's a regular fine old gentleman, is my grandfather Otis. There isn't a bit of old fogy about him, and he likes to see us boys have any amount of fun. He isn't hard on a fellow either, when he gets into trouble through some of his mischief; though he looked pretty sober when Hal and I and Uncle Timothy's boys painted Squire Dexter's Chester Whites one time, and the Squire caught us at it, and thrashed us, and made father and Uncle Timothy pay ten dollars apiece to get out of having a lawsuit.
Don't have any more of that sort of fun, boys, says grandfather.
No, sir, says we; and we don't mean to, for there isn't any fun in it. Some folks in story-books are all the time preaching up how funny it is to paint pigs. It isn't. If it is, it is mean fun, and I don't like that kind. For besides making a fellow feel cheap, there's almost always something not so nice to top off with.
Boys will be boys, Susan. That's what grandfather says to mother time and again.
Well, they needn't be wild Indians, says mother. But she doesn't tell father that time. You see, my grandfather was a boy once himself, and he knows we can't keep bottled up all the time. We have to let nature caper —that's what grandfather calls it—once in a while, or we would burst, Hal and I, and go off like two rockets maybe. I hope when I grow up I'll be just the kind of a grandfather my grandfather is.