"Well, of course it wasn't. Stone's better'n snow. Everybody knows that, I guess."
"No, it isn't. Not exactly. When you knock off a chunk of marble, you can't stick it on again."
"You might glue it, but I guess it would show the crack."
"Tell you what, boys," exclaimed Joe, with a new idea shining all over his face, "let's make a big snow marble down on the ice, and then let's dig it out into a man, just as the sculptors do."
There was an instant hurrah all around, and not one opposing vote; the half-finished snow man in Deacon Madderley's back yard was left to thaw down all alone, and in ten minutes more the whole crowd of young sculptors was down on the pond.
It was a warm day for winter, and the water was pouring over the dam in a hurry, but the ice was pretty firm up where the boys were, and the soft snow was in just the condition to pack nicely. At it they went, as if they had a whole marble quarry to make, and were afraid some of their marble might get away from them.
"I say, now, Joe," shouted Burr Whitcomb, as the great white pile came up to his shoulders, "who're we going to sculp out? Anybody in partikler?"
"Julius Cæsar."
"No, we can't. You never saw him, nor we didn't either."
"Yes, I did. I saw a picture of him once, with a brass helmet on his head, and a sword in his hand."