cks and hens, well, they were fed, but that
was all. The old people did not care for them, and spent all their
time in watching the Vanyas and Maroosias who belonged to the other
huts.

In the winter the children in their little sheepskin coats....

"Like ours?" said Vanya and Maroosia together.

"Like yours," said old Peter.

In their little sheepskin coats, he went on, played in the crisp snow.
They pelted each other with snowballs, and shouted and laughed, and
then they rolled the snow together and made a snow woman--a regular
snow Baba Yaga, a snow witch; such an old fright!

And the old man, watching from the window, saw this, and he says to
the old woman,--

"Wife, let us go into the yard behind and make a little snow girl; and
perhaps she will come alive, and be a little daughter to us."

"Husband," says the old woman, "there's no knowing what may be. Let us
go into the yard and make a little snow girl."

So the two old people put on their big coats and their fur hats, and
went out into the yard, where nobody could see them.

And they rolled up the snow, and began to make a little snow girl.
Very, very tenderly they rolled up the snow to make her little arms
and legs. The good God helped the old people, and their little snow
girl was more beautiful than ever you could imagine. She was lovelier
than a birch tree in spring.

Well, towards evening she was finished--a little girl, all snow, with
blind white eyes, and a little mouth, with snow lips tightly closed.

"Oh, speak to us," says the old man.

"Won't you run about like the others, little white pigeon?" says the
old woman.

And she did, you know, she really did.

Suddenly, in the twilight, they saw her eyes shining blue like the sky
on a clear day. And her lips flushed and opened, and she smiled. And
there were her little white teeth. And look, she had black hair, and
it stirred in the wind.

She began dancing in the snow, like a little white spirit, tossing her
long hair, and laughing softly to herself.

Wildly she danced, like snowflakes whirled in the wind. Her eyes
shone, and her hair flew round her, and she sang, while the old people
watched and wondered, and thanked God.

This is what she sang:--

"No warm blood in me doth glow,
Water in my veins doth flow;
Yet I'll laugh and sing and play
By frosty night and frosty day--
Little daughter of the Snow.

"But whenever I do know
That you love me little,