east to warm himself, and the whip lay
across his knees. The horses ran till they smoked again. The snow
creaked, and the sparrows hopped about in the ruts, and shivered,
"Piep! when will spring come? it is very long in coming!"

"Very long," sounded from the next snow-covered hill, far over the
field. It might be the echo which was heard; or perhaps the words were
spoken by yonder wonderful old man, who sat in wind and weather high
on the heap of snow. He was quite white, attired like a peasant in a
coarse white coat of frieze; he had long white hair, and was quite
pale, with big blue eyes.

"Who is that old man yonder?" asked the sparrows.

"I know who he is," quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail, and
was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all like little
birds in the sight of Heaven, and therefore was not above speaking to
the sparrows, and giving them information. "I know who the old man is.
It is Winter, the old man of last year. He is not dead, as the
calendar says, but is guardian to little Prince Spring, who is to
come. Yes, Winter bears sway here. Ugh! the cold makes you shiver,
does it not, you little ones?"

"Yes. Did I not tell the truth?" said the smallest sparrow: "the
calendar is only an invention of man, and is not arranged according to
nature! They ought to leave these things to us, who are born cleverer
than they."

And one week passed away, and two passed away. The frozen lake lay
hard and stiff, looking like a sheet of lead, and damp icy mists lay
brooding over the land; the great black crows flew about in long rows,
but silently; and it seemed as if nature slept. Then a sunbeam glided
along over the lake, and made it shine like burnished tin. The snowy
covering on the field and on the hill did not glitter as it had done;
but the white form, Winter himself, still sat there, his gaze fixed
unswervingly upon the south. He did not notice that the snowy carpet
seemed to sink as it were into the earth, and that here and there a
little grass-green patch appeared, and that all these patches were
crowded with sparrows.

"Kee-wit! kee-wit! Is spring coming now?"

"Spring!" The cry resounded over field and meadow, and through the
black-brown woods, where the moss still glimmered in bright green upon
the tree trunks; and from the south the first two storks came flying
through the air. On the back of each sat a pretty little child--one
was a girl and the other a boy. They greeted t