Snowflake Read online

  SNOWFLAKE

  A delightful story of the life of Snowflake, who was “all stars and arrows, squares and triangles of ice and light”. Through Snowflake’s special role in the pattern of creation and life, Paul Gallico has given us a simple allegory on the meaning of life, its oneness and ultimate safety.

  Books by Paul Gallico

  THE SNOW GOOSE

  THE LONELY

  JENNIE

  TRIAL BY TERROR

  THE SMALL MIRACLE

  SNOWFLAKE

  THE FOOLISH IMMORTALS

  LOVE OF SEVEN DOLLS

  LUDMILA

  THOMASINA

  THE STEADFAST MAN

  A Life of St. Patrick

  MRS ’ARRIS GOES TO PARIS

  THE HURRICANE STORY

  MRS ’ARRIS GOES TO NEW YORK

  TOO MANY GHOSTS

  CONFESSIONS OF A STORY-TELLER

  SCRUFFY

  First published in Great Britain by

  MICHAEL JOSEPH LTD

  52 Bedford Square

  London, W.C.1

  OCTOBER 1952

  © 1952 by Paul Gallico

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner.

  ISBN: 0-7181-0343-2

  For

  PAULINE

  THE Snowflake was born on a cold, winter’s day far up in the sky, many miles above the earth.

  Her birth took place in the heart of a grey cloud that swept over the land driven by icy winds.

  It all came about from one moment to the next. At first there was only the swollen cloud moving over the tops of the mountains. Then it began to snow. And where but a second before there had been nothing, now there was Snowflake and all her brothers and sisters falling from the sky.

  Falling, falling, falling! As gently as lying in a cradle rocked by the wind, drifting downward like a feather, blown this way and that, Snowflake found herself floating in a world she had never known before.

  Snowflake could not think when it was she had been born, or how. It had seemed almost like waking up from a deep sleep. An instant before she had been nowhere; now she was here, turning, gliding, sailing, falling, down, down, down.

  She thought to herself: “Here I am. But where did I come from? And what was I then? Where have I been? Whither am I going? Who made me and all my brothers and sisters all about me? And why?”

  There was no answer to these questions. For the wind in the sky blows without sound, the sky itself is still; the very earth below is hushed when the snow begins to fall.

  Looking about her, Snowflake could see hundreds upon hundreds of other flakes tumbling down as far as the eye could reach. And they were silent too.

  It was strange, Snowflake thought, to see so many of her brothers and sisters, newborn like herself, on every side, and yet to feel so alone.

  No sooner had she thought this when it seemed as though she became aware that all about her there was a kind of dear and tender love, the feeling as of some one caring, that filled her through and through with warmth and sweetness.

  And now Snowflake no longer felt lonely. Secure and happy she gave herself up to the comfort and joy that came with the knowledge that she was loved.

  Yet, she was no nearer the secret of her being, or who it was had created her, or for what purpose, and whence came this deep and comforting affection. She wished she knew so that she could return some of the love she felt flowing from Him to her and which made her feel so content and safe at this moment. Perhaps she would find out more about Him when she came to the end of her journey.

  As dawn began to come to the dark world through which Snowflake was tumbling on her long journey to the earth, the sky turned first the blue colour of steel, then grey, then pearl, and looking at herself as she tumbled over and over, fragile and airy as the wind that blew her, Snowflake knew that she was beautiful.

  She was made up of hundreds and hundreds of pure, shining crystals, like fragments of glass or spun sugar.

  She was all stars and arrows, squares and triangles of ice and light, like a church window; she was like a flower with many shining petals; she was like lace and she was like a diamond. But best of all, she was herself and unlike any of her kind. For while there were millions of flakes, each born of the same storm, yet each was different from the other.

  Snowflake felt grateful to the One who had given her such beauty and wished she knew how it came about that in an instant He was able to create them all, each one as lovely as a jewel and yet no two of them alike. How great a One must He be to devote such love and patience to perfect one and at the same time so many snowflakes.

  It had been bitterly cold high up where she had been born, blown by the freezing wind, but after she had been falling for what seemed like a long time, Snowflake felt that it was growing warmer and the air more still.

  She was no longer tossed and tumbled but instead dropped more slowly and softly. And this was a lovely feeling, a gentle, dreamy sinking, always slower and slower as though her long journey might be about to come to an end.

  Which indeed it was.

  Soon Snowflake could make out objects below her, dark tops of mountains and slopes of snow, forests of trees standing up straight and on the side of a hill a village with houses and barns and a church with a round steeple shaped like an onion.

  Her brothers and sisters clung to whatever they touched, rocks, branches, rooftops, fences and even the ragged eyebrows of an old man out for an early walk. But Snowflake landed gently with hardly a jar in a field on the mountainside just outside the village, and the journey was over.

  A few moments later the storm came to an end and it began to grow light, so that Snowflake, looking eagerly about her, could see where she was.

  She lay on the side of a slope overlooking the village and the church with the curious steeple shaped like an onion and below this was a school and a number of little houses with peaked roofs, many with pictures in gay colours painted beneath the eaves and balconies with carved railings running around the second story.

  Here and there a yellow light showed in the upper windows and wisps of smoke began to emerge from the chimneys and rise into the still air.

  Nearby there was a signpost crowned with a hat of white where some of Snowflake’s brothers and sisters had fallen upon it, and the snow came down hiding part of the sign so that all she could read was “. . . IESENBERG”.

  Whatever the name of the village was, Snowflake was glad she had fallen there and not higher up on the mountain where there were only dark rocks and a few trees and it looked cold and lonely.

  The wind blew the clouds away. The sky became brighter. And then a miracle began to happen.

  First the very tip of the snow-capped mountain peak across the valley was touched with delicate rose. Slowly it spread to the next summit and then the next. The sky, the rocks and the trees became tinged with pink; the river winding far below reflected the colour; the snow everywhere was touched with it and soon even the air itself was filled with pinkness as though the whole world were but the mirror of a rose petal.

  And Snowflake too saw that she was no longer white but bathed like everything else in this soft and beautiful colour.

  Then the glow on the mountain tops turned to gold and orange and lemon and the blue shadows on the slopes melted and fled before the light that spilled down like paint from the crests until soon every peak and range within sight gleamed yellow in the morning sun. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of sleighbells. Snowflake thought it was so beautiful it made her want to cry. It was her first sunrise.

  Later in the mor
ning, Snowflake had a surprise.

  Down the hill on a high wooden sled with steel runners came a little girl with flaxen pigtails, bright blue eyes and red cheeks like two rubber balls.

  She was the merriest little girl and she sat bravely upright on her sled wearing a red cap with a tassel and red mittens on her fingers. Her school bag was strapped to her back, she carried her lunch in a paper box, and steered the sled cleverly with her feet, this way and that, sending up great clouds of snow as she whizzed by.

  As she passed over, the steel runner cut deeply into Snowflake’s heart and hurt her cruelly so that she gave a little cry.

  But the girl did not hear her. She was quickly gone and only her joyous shouts drifted back in the cold morning air, until she arrived at the school at the bottom of the hill where she stopped her sled right at the front door and went inside.

  Snowflake found herself wishing that she would come back, for she was so gay and pretty, prettier even, Snowflake thought, than the sunrise.

  There were so many things that Snowflake did not understand and wanted to know.

  She thought how beautifully she had been greeted and made happy by the sunrise soon after she had been born. How simply some One had expressed His love for all the things He had created by painting for them such a glorious picture in the morning sky.

  And what a splendid thing to do to make a little girl with 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 granting 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 delight and then she and the boys ran off still laughing and left Snowflake a part of the the nose of the snowman who was like Herr Hüschl, the schoolmaster.

  At first, Snowflake felt very sad, for she could not think why this had happened to her.

  Always her thoughts came back to why, and what was the purpose of it all? Why had He who had taken such care in the beautiful design He had made for her high up in a cloud let her be squeezed all out of shape to be the nose of a snowman?

  Why, indeed, had He made her a snowflake instead of a little girl with blue eyes, flaxen pigtails, red mittens and lunch in a paper bag? What fun it must be to ride downhill on a sled, go to school and have friends.

  But soon Snowflake became more cheerful, for everybody who passed the snowman on the hill stopped and either smiled or laughed at the nose which was so exactly like that of the schoolmaster, even to the drop of water hanging from the end of it.

  And Snowflake felt comforted. It seemed to be good for people to laugh and be happy. Perhaps it was for this that she had been created and sent to earth. Whenever someone came by she waited eagerly for the laughter to begin.

  Then came a day that was not at all like the others had been. To begin with it was quiet and solemn. The children did not come to the school. No one did any work. Even the barnyard animals seemed to make less noise. Only the bells from the belfry of the church steeple that was shaped like an onion rang out loudly and clearly and with a new kind of authority.

  Thereupon Snowflake saw a most wonderful sight. All the people of the village appeared in the square below by the church, dressed up in their best clothes. The women wore long skirts with many petticoats beneath and had their hair done up in braids. All the men were clad in black suits with buttons of silver or horn on the coats and many of them had fine gold or silver watchchains. They wore round black hats with green bands and a gamsbart like a small brush sticking up behind.

  The children too had on their best ski suits and prettiest frocks, and all the little girls had gay ribbons and bows tied into the straw-coloured plaits of their hair.

  Everyone was washed and scrubbed and shined and primped. They all stood in little knots in the square before the church as though they were waiting for something. Snowflake wondered what it could be.

  She was soon to find out. For now occurred an even more exciting and wonderful thing.

  Down the side of the mountain, on every path and slope, as far as the eye could see, little black dots appeared. They were moving and growing larger and Snowflake saw that there were whole families on sleds, fathers, mothers and children. They were all the people who lived on the farms high up above the village and who were now coasting down to church.

  And they too were dressed in their best clo
thes, for this was Sunday. The dark suits showed up bravely against the white snow. The coloured ribbons of the girls stood out like pennants. Converging from all directions they came whizzing down the hill to land in the square, amidst laughter and greetings. When the last family had arrived, they all went inside the church, leaving the square quite empty.

  Then Snowflake heard the music of the organ and the sound of the voices of young and old lifted in song. And as she listened, she felt that her heart was deeply touched, though she did not know why.

  Afterwards, when the service was over and the people went home, the sky clouded over and it grew colder. An old gentleman in a black frock coat and carrying a big stick walked by the snowman and paused to look. He had a long nose and angry eyes. He did not laugh as the others had. It was Herr Hüschl, the schoolteacher himself.

  No, Herr Hüschl did not laugh at all. Instead he became red in the face and very angry, especially when he compared the nose of the snowman with his own and saw that they were exactly the same even to the drop of water at the end of it.

  He gave a cry of rage, raised his stick and began to beat the snowman until it was broken into pieces and lay scattered on the snow on the hillside.

  But he was not content with this. He sought out what was left of the head of the snowman that contained his long nose and with a loud shout of “So!” he ground the offending piece beneath the heel of his muddy boot until there was no longer even the smallest bit of it left to suggest the length or shape of his nose.

  Or, until there was very little left of Snowflake, either.

  “Help!” she called out. “Won’t someone help me?

  But there was no answer and she lay there, broken, dirtied, heavy-hearted and full of pain, listening to Herr Hüschl stumping off still mumbling angrily to himself. And a short while later, it began to snow again.