"Of course," said the snowman; "but I'd like to last as long as I can." It made the little boy very sad to hear him talk in this way. He thought he would rather not go to his grandmother's than to risk the snowman in the sun.
"We are very fond of him," he said to the king. "He's the finest snowman we've ever seen, and he looks just as if he were smiling."
"So he does," said the king, looking at the snowman again; "and since you ask it I'll tell you what I will do. I cannot keep the sun from shining, but I will ask the North Wind to freeze the snowman, and perhaps he will last anyhow."
When the snowman heard this he began to dance, and as the little boy had hold of one of his stick arms he had to dance too. Together they danced out of the Winter King's palace, down the streets, into the field, where they found the North Wind waiting for them.
The first thing he did was to blow the hat from the snowman's head.
"Archoo! archoo!" sneezed the snowman. "I know I shall catch cold."
And "archoo!" sneezed the little boy; and he sneezed so loud that he waked himself up, for—do you believe it?—he had been asleep and dreaming all the time!
One part of his dream came true, though, for when he looked out of the window, the next morning, there stood the snowman in the field frozen hard.
