"Come wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils.You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend.She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place.For my part, I will go around among the neighbors, and find out where she belongs."The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr.Lindsey tookhis departure, shutting the parlor-door carefully behind him.Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor window.
"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face through the window-panes."There is no need of going for the child's parents!""We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered the parlor."You would bring her in; and now our poor--dear-beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every- day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife.She could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug.
"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove.
"Yes, father," said Violet looking reproachfully at him, through her tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!""Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man."We told you how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr.Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done!
This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault.The remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom good Mr.Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized in various methods,greatly for their edification.One of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behooves men, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand.What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony,--though by no means very wholesome, even for them,--but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image.
But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr.Lindsey's stamp.They know everything,--oh, to be sure!--everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be.And, should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will not recognize it, even if it come to pass under their very noses.
"Wife," said Mr.Lindsey, after a fit of silence, "see what a quantity of snow the children have brought in on their feet! It has made quite a puddle here before the stove.Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and mop it up!"
