The voice trailed off weakly; then they heard it again:
“I’m going to faint, I really fear.
Won’t some kind snowball come up here?”
“But you are up so high. How can one get there? We have neither a ladder nor wings and we do not know how to climb.” Number One did most of the talking; he was nearest the bush.
“I’ll tell you how,” said Life-of-the-Bush, stopping his rhyme and talking plainly and simply and sensibly. “Just roll down the slope on the lawn to the foot of this bush. Make yourself as small as small can be, creep down into the ground, and take an elevator, which is always running, and you will come directly up to me.” The talking ceased, and the snowballs began to look at each other rather uneasily.
“I can’t go,” said Number Two, who was in the second row from the top. “I always tan terribly in the sun. It’s a long way down to the foot of the bush, and I should be brown as a berry before I got half way.”
“I can’t go, either,” said Number Three, by his side. “I don’t tan, but I freckle, and freckles look dreadful on my fair complexion.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go,” said Number Four, from his place in the corner of the third row. “But I feel the heat terribly. My clothes are all sticking to me now.”
“It’s simply out of the question for me,” said a big fat snowball down near the ground. “I know I’d melt before I got there. There isn’t much left of me now.”
Number One was one of the fairest snowballs of the bunch, but he was not afraid of freckles or tan. He was also one of the smallest of the lot. He looked down to the foot of the bush. It seemed a long way. The sun was certainly burning hot. He was not at all sure that he would live long enough in that sun to reach the bush. But some one should keep Life-of-the-Bush from fainting and he would try.
He turned a quick somersault off the pile down to the ground.