Once upon a time[1] two poor Woodcutters went home through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow was upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees. The frost snapped the little twigs on their sides, as they passed. The mountain river was motionless in air, because the Ice-King kissed her. So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did not know what to do.
‘Ugh!’ snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the brushwood with his tail between his legs, ‘this is really monstrous weather. Why doesn’t the Government look to it?[2]’
‘Weet! weet! weet!’ twittered the green Linnets, ‘the old Earth is dead and she has her white shroud on.’
‘The Earth will marry soon, and this is her bridal dress,’ whispered the Doves to each other. Their little pink feet were quite frozen, but they felt that it was their duty to speak romantically.
‘Nonsense!’ growled the Wolf. ‘I tell you that it is all the fault of the Government. If you don’t believe me I shall eat you.’
The Wolf had a very practical mind, and always had a good argument.
‘Well, as for me,’ said the Woodpecker, who was a philosopher, ‘I don’t care[3] an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing is so, it is so. At present it is terribly cold.’
Terribly cold it certainly was. The little Squirrels, who lived inside the tall fir-tree, rubbed each other’s noses to get some warm. The Rabbits curled themselves up in their holes, and did not look out of doors. The only people who enjoyed it were the Owls. Their feathers were quite stiff with rime[4], but they did not mind[5]. They rolled their large yellow eyes, and cried across the forest,
‘Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! What delightful weather!’
The two Woodcutters went on. They blew lustily upon their fingers, and stamped with their huge boots upon the caked snow. Once they sank into a deep drift, and came out as white as millers. Once they slipped on the hard smooth ice where the marsh-water was frozen. Their faggots fell out of their bundles, and they picked them up and bound them together again. Once they lost their way, and they were very afraid. They knew that the Snow is cruel to those who sleep in the wood. But they retraced their steps, and went warily. At last they reached the outskirts of the forest. They saw, far down in the valley beneath them, the lights of the village in which they dwelt.
