Percia V. White.
THE RAINY-DAY PLAYHOUSE.
“HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”
XII.—THE WHOLE WHITE WORLD.
In winter we played everywhere! The whole white world was a lovely playground! We had no skates, but we wore very thick-soled boots that took the place of skates very well. At least we thought so, and that was all we needed to make us contented. When the little pond was frozen over, we would take a quick run down its snowy banks and then we would skim clear across that little pond’s frozen surface just as swift as a bird would skim through the air.
Sometimes a thick frost would come in the night-time. The next morning a fine blue haze would be in the air and everything would be clothed in soft white frost-furs. As the sun rose higher and higher we would watch to see the trees and bushes grow warm in the sunshine and throw off their furs. Then we would try and catch those soft furs as they fell. But if caught they melted quickly away.
If the surface of the snow hardened enough so that we could walk on the crust without breaking through, our happiness was complete. High hills were all about us, and it seemed to us as if every shining hill would say if it could, “Come and slide!”
And O, the happy hours that we have had with our clumsy old sled! Away we would go, the wind stinging our faces until crimson roses blossomed in our cheeks, and the shining crust snapping and creaking under our sled, and the hill flying away behind us!
If a damp clinging snow came, it made lovely snowballs; and it was such fun to catch hold of the long clothes-lines and shake them and see little clumps of snow hop like rabbits from the line into the air.