“Nothing shall be waste,” said Summer. “Everything shall be green, as far as I am concerned. I like to wander out of my summer-palace all over the earth and I will carry my light and my heat as far into your ice-fields as I can. I know no greater pleasure than to conjure forth a green spot in your snow ... even though it be but for a day.”
“You are conceited, because you are in luck’s way for the moment,” replied Winter. “But you should remember that the times may change. I was the more powerful once and I may become so again. Do not forget that I am born of the eternal, unutterable cold of space.”
“And I am the child of the sun and was powerful before you,” said Summer, proudly.
Winter passed his fingers through his beard; and an avalanche came rushing down the mountain-side.
“Ugh!” said Summer and wrapped himself closer in his purple cloak.
“Would you like to see my might?” asked Winter.
He raised his arms in the air; and, then and there, the mountain on which he sat was quite transformed. A wild, blustering storm roared over it; and the snow swept down from the sky. A brook which had been leaping gaily over the slope turned suddenly to ice; and the waterfall which sang and hummed over the precipice fell silent at once and its water froze into yard-long icicles. When it ceased snowing, the mountain was white from top to foot.
“Now it’s my turn,” said Summer.
He took the rose from his girdle and flung it on the mountain whereon he sat; and forthwith the loveliest roses shot up from the ground. They nodded in the breeze from the point of every rock and filled the valleys with their fragrance and their colours. In every bush sat merry nightingales and sang; and from the flower-stalks heavy dew-drops hung and gleamed in the sun.
“Well?” said Summer.