And this—
“Biff, biff!
Flick, flick!
Swat, swat!
Smack, smack!”
Everything ends some time. So this snowball fight did. One side or the other won,—I have forgotten which. The boys at the little brown-shingled house, where the fight took place, became very busy making balls for the next day’s battle. You could hear the “pat—pat, pat—pat,” as they rounded and packed the snowballs in their cold, red hands.
When they became quite satisfied that they had enough on hand for a lively battle they piled the balls up in a neat pyramid just under the edge of the veranda and went off to look for something new to do.
Then the snowballs fell to talking,—if it is true that snowballs talk.
“I wonder what they are going to do with us,” said the top one. “I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to hit the nose of that rough, freckle-faced boy who hit the nose of the boy who made me.”
“I know what I’d like,” said the second. “I’d like to go right through the window of Old Grampy’s house. Wouldn’t he sputter!”
“Oh! What’s the fun in teasing a poor old man?” said another. “I’ll tell you what I’d like. I’d like to hit the minister right in the middle of the back and see what he would do.”
“Hit the minister in the back!” said a lively-looking chap down in the middle of the pile. “Be a sport! I’d like to knock the policeman’s hat off and see him chase the boy that threw me. That would be fun.”
It was, you see, a very bold and mischievous lot of balls, if one may judge from their big talk. And so it was probably well for the peace of the neighbourhood that the evening had scarcely fallen when, through a sudden change in the weather, snow, too, began to fall. All night long the snow fell, thicker and faster, thicker and faster. The wind rose and piled it in stacks. The house was banked to the windows, the veranda was heaped up high. The snowballs were buried deep,—so deep that the boys forgot them. It was spring before the thick covering of snow was melted enough so that they could see the light of day.