It was a long time after this, when there came a day which meant much for at least one of that heap of snowballs.
The sun was bright and hot; the grass was beginning to show green. The snow had all gone except in a few places on the cold side of the houses and under veranda edges. The snowballs were still piled neatly in the pyramid but they looked as if they might tumble down almost any minute. Although it was cool in their shady spot, every one of them was perspiring and several of them looked thin and pale. I fancy they had felt the heat, for all their lives they had been accustomed to a cooler climate.
As they were busy mopping their brows and sighing for cooler weather they heard a sound, between a sigh and a faint moan. They heard it again and again. It was above their heads, out on the lawn, and not far away. It seemed to be in or around a shrub or bush, with a tall slender stem and a branching top.
“What’s that?” asked several of the balls at once.
They stopped talking, and sighing, and listened. And as they did so, they could hear words very distinctly, though they were not nearly so loud as a whisper.
“Snowball, Snowball, come up here!
My head is hot, my throat feels queer:
I’m going to faint, I surely fear.
Won’t some cool snowball come up here?”
“Who are you?” asked Snowball Number One, who sat at the tiptop of the pile. “Where are you and what is your name?”
“I’m Life-of-the-Bush,
In the bush I dwell;
I know not my name,
And so I can’t tell.”
“I can’t see you,” said Number One, as he looked intently up at the branches.
“You can’t?” said the Bush,
“Then you must be blind.
I’m right up here,—
But never mind.”