"Come in now, boys," it said. "It is getting too warm for you to stay out."
The boys were obedient to the word and they all—a dozen of them at least—trooped back into the house where Jimmieboy was welcomed by his friend the snowman again. The snowman looked a little anxious, Jimmieboy thought, but he supposed this was because the littlest snowboy had overheated himself at his play and had come in minus two fingers and an ear. It was not this, however, that bothered him, as Jimmieboy found out in a few minutes, for the snowman simply restored the missing fingers and the ear by making a new lot for the little fellow out of a handful of snow he got in the garden. Anything so easily replaced was not worth worrying over. The real cause of his anxiety came out when the father of this happy little family of snow boys called Jimmieboy to one side.
"You must go home right away," he said. "I'm sorry, but we have got to fly just as hard as we can or we are lost."
"But——" said Jimmieboy.
"Don't ask for reasons," returned the snowman, gathering his little snowboys together and rushing off with them in tow. "I haven't time to give them. Just read that and you'll see. Farewell."
Then he made off down the garden path, and as he fled with his babies Jimmieboy picked up the thing the snowman had told him to read, and wandered back into the house, holding it in his hand. It was only a newspaper, but at the top of the first column was an announcement in huge letters:
WARM WAVE TO-NIGHT.
WISE SNOWMEN WILL MOVE NORTH AT ONCE.
When Jimmieboy saw this he knew right away why he had been deserted, but to this day he doesn't know how he knew it, because at the time this happened he had not learned how to read. At all events he discovered what the trouble was instantly, and then he decided that as he had been left by all of his new friends he would go home. He walked to the front door and opened it, and what do you suppose it opened into?