Snowflake by Paul Gallico Page A

tops of mountains and slopes of snow, forests of trees standing up straight and on the side of a hill a village with houses and barns and a church with a round steeple shaped like an onion.
    Her brothers and sisters clung to whatever they touched, rocks, branches, rooftops, fences and even the ragged eyebrows of an old man out for an early walk. But Snowflake landed gently with hardly a jar in a field on the mountainside just outside the village, and the journey was over.

    A few moments later the storm came to an end and it began to grow light, so that Snowflake, looking eagerly about her, could see where she was.
    She lay on the side of a slope overlooking the village and the church with the curious steeple shaped like an onion and below this was a school and a number of little houses with peaked roofs, many with pictures in gay colours painted beneath the eaves and balconies with carved railings running around the second story.
    Here and there a yellow light showed in the upper windows and wisps of smoke began to emerge from the chimneys and rise into the still air.
    Nearby there was a signpost crowned with a hat of white where some of Snowflake’s brothers and sisters had fallen upon it, and the snow came down hiding part of the sign so that all she could read was “. . . IESENBERG”.
    Whatever the name of the village was, Snowflake was glad she had fallen there and not higher up on the mountain where there were only dark rocks and a few trees and it looked cold and lonely.

    The wind blew the clouds away. The sky became brighter. And then a miracle began to happen.
    First the very tip of the snow-capped mountain peak across the valley was touched with delicate rose. Slowly it spread to the next summit and then the next. The sky, the rocks and the trees became tinged with pink; the river winding far below reflected the colour; the snow everywhere was touched with it and soon even the air itself was filled with pinkness as though the whole world were but the mirror of a rose petal.
    And Snowflake too saw that she was no longer white but bathed like everything else in this soft and beautiful colour.
    Then the glow on the mountain tops turned to gold and orange and lemon and the blue shadows on the slopes melted and fled before the light that spilled down like paint from the crests until soon every peak and range within sight gleamed yellow in the morning sun. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of sleighbells. Snowflake thought it was so beautiful it made her want to cry. It was her first sunrise.

    Later in the morning, Snowflake had a surprise.
    Down the hill on a high wooden sled with steel runners came a little girl with flaxen pigtails, bright blue eyes and red cheeks like two rubber balls.
    She was the merriest little girl and she sat bravely upright on her sled wearing a red cap with a tassel and red mittens on her fingers. Her school bag was strapped to her back, she carried her lunch in a paper box, and steered the sled cleverly with her feet, this way and that, sending up great clouds of snow as she whizzed by.
    As she passed over, the steel runner cut deeply into Snowflake’s heart and hurt her cruelly so that she gave a little cry.
    But the girl did not hear her. She was quickly gone and only her joyous shouts drifted back in the cold morning air, until she arrived at the school at the bottom of the hill where she stopped her sled right at the front door and went inside.
    Snowflake found herself wishing that she would come back, for she was so gay and pretty, prettier even, Snowflake thought, than the sunrise.

    There were so many things that Snowflake did not understand and wanted to know.
    She thought how beautifully she had been greeted and made happy by the sunrise soon after she had been born. How simply some One had expressed His love for all the things He had created by painting for them such a glorious picture in the morning sky.
    And what a splendid thing to do to make a little girl with