Snowflake by Paul Gallico Page B

yellow pigtails, blue eyes and red cheeks who rode bravely on a sled to school and laughed all the time.
    But what was the purpose, and who was meant for whom?
    Had Snowflake been born only to be there beneath the steel runner when it came by to speed sled and child along so that they would not be late for school?
    Or had the Creator made the girl with her sweet face and silver laugh but to delight the heart of Snowflake? How could one ever know the answers to these problems?

    There were so many new and exciting things going on all around that soon Snowflake forgot the questions that were troubling her.
    From the barn just below the hill came a peasant wearing a stocking cap with a tassel and smoking a large pipe with a curved stem. He was leading a grey cow by a rope and had a small black and white dog with rough fur and a wise, friendly face who frisked at his heels. Around the neck of the cow was fastened a square bell that gave forth a gentle and musical “tonkle-tonkle” when she moved.
    They passed close to where Snowflake was lying and the grey cow paused for a moment. The peasant cried “Heuh!”, the dog barked and made believe to snap at her hooves, the bell tonkled sweetly and Snowflake looked for an instant into her face and saw the great, tender, dreamy eyes filled with patience and kindness and framed by long, graceful lashes.
    Snowflake thought: “How soft and beautiful they are.” And then she wondered: “What is beauty? I have seen the sky, the mountains, the forest and a village. I have seen the sunrise and a little girl and now the eyes of a grey cow. Each was different and yet they all made me happy. Surely they must have been created by that same unknown One. Could it be that beauty means all things that have come from His hands?”

    Now that the storm was over and the day had come, everybody in the village went about his business again. But first they had to shovel a path from their doors to the road, piling up the snow on either side like miniature ranges of mountains.
    Then the woodcutter carried out his saw-horse and big, bowed saw and began to cut the logs that lay in his yard into lengths for the stove. His son came to help him and with a glittering axe split some of the pieces into kindling.
    Next door the carpenter went to work, planing and hammering on a window frame he was making.
    In another house the tinsmith applied his heavy shears and mallet to shining sheets of metal and cut and bent them to the sizes and shapes he desired.
    On the farm just above the road, the farmer’s wife came out carrying a basket of scraps on each arm to feed the chickens and the pigs. The pigs squealed and crowded to the door of their pen. The chickens shook the snow from their wings and hurried over.
    The cold, clear winter’s day was filled with the sound of sawing and chopping and hammering and planing, with snuffling and grunting and crowing and clucking.

    When the little girl with the red cap and mittens returned that afternoon from school two boys were at her side, each trying to see who could make her laugh the loudest. When they reached the place where Snowflake lay, one of them cried: “Let us make Frieda a snowman!”
    No sooner said than done. They rolled together a huge ball for the body and a smaller one for the head. Two bits of charcoal served for the eyes and a piece of wood for the mouth.
    “We will give him a long nose, just like Herr Hüschl, the teacher,” cried one of the boys, and with that he bent over, scooped up snow in each hand, and began to pack the flakes firmly.
    And, alas, Snowflake was amongst them.
    How it hurt when she was squeezed until she could hardly breathe. All her beautiful design of which she had been so proud was crushed. When the nose was finished the boy planted it squarely in the middle of the face of the snowman. Then they put a ruler in his hand and said it looked exactly like Herr Hüschl.
    And the little girl Frieda laughed and laughed and screamed with