Snowflake Read online

  She cried: “Raindrop . . .”

  “Yes, dear Snowflake?”

  “You have been patient and good to me. I will give you your answer. Yes, I will come with you if you still want me.”

  For a time then, Snowflake and Raindrop glided along silently side by side down the blue and golden path made by the reflection of the setting sun in the sky.

  “Dear Snowflake,” Raindrop said.

  “Dear Raindrop,” Snowflake replied shyly.

  Then they united, one with the other.

  And thereafter they continued to flow with the river and were no longer two but one.

  She was Raindrop, and Raindrop was Snowflake. They were still in many ways themselves, but each was now a part of the other.

  So perfectly did they blend that it seemed as though thereafter they thought with but one mind, spoke with one voice and lived with but one soul.

  Each seemed to understand what the other wished or felt before it was even said. Each gave of his or her strength. United, they felt secure against anything that might befall them.

  Snowflake remembered all the good things that had happened to her since she was born, the cradle of the wind, the sunrise, the little girl, the release from the snow prison, the run down the hill . . . She felt she had never been as happy as she was now.

  Some time later, Snowflake cried out: “Raindrop! Where are we? What has become of our river?”

  Raindrop looked. The banks of the river past which they had been gliding for so long were no longer there. Instead they seemed to be a part of a large, smooth, blue body of water. The land on both sides was far distant and low.

  “Oh,” said Raindrop, who knew many things. “We have flowed into a lake. How splendid! Now we may rest for a while.”

  “I am glad,” Snowdrop said. “I am tired after so much running. It will be good just to remain here together quietly in the sunshine.”

  “And when it is too warm,” Raindrop said, “it will be cool and sweet at the bottom, for the lake is very deep.”

  “How happy I am to be here, dear Raindrop!”

  But already a shadow was approaching on the surface, accompanied by a strange clicking noise.

  “Oh!” Snowflake cried. “What can it be?”

  Raindrop soothed Snowflake’s fears at once. “It is only a man in a rowing boat,” he told her. “He is going to pass over us. He wants us to hold him up.”

  Snowflake asked: “Will it hurt? Once when I lived up on the mountain I was run over by a little girl with a sled, and I cried.”

  “This is different,” Raindrop promised. “You will hardly feel anything. Besides, don’t forget, there are two of us now. We are together.”

  The boat, rowed by a fisherman wearing a crumpled hat, passed over them, and Snowflake felt only a sense of sweetness and of power as she helped to hold him up, and then in the form of a little wave, slapped gently against the side of the boat.

  “Oh!” she cried, “that was fun!”

  After that, she and Raindrop held up many kinds of boats, graceful sailing dinghies that glided by without a sound, long, slender barges, noisy, roaring motorboats, and once even a large white steamboat that swept them up with its paddle wheel and whirled them over, hissing with steam and clanking loudly. But because she was with Raindrop, Snowflake was not afraid and even enjoyed the excitement.

  Thus Snowflake and Raindrop remained in the lake for many days and weeks, resting, drifting idly and learning many things about the world in which they were living.

  Sometimes they floated close to the shore amidst green lily pads crowned with yellow and white pond lilies, where the water birds rustled in the reeds and frogs and turtles sunned themselves on old logs. The voices of the frogs changed from their spring to their summer songs and the turtles stared with sleepy eyes.

  Other times they passed beautiful villas near the edge of the lake, villages, and even a small town with a railway station and a steamboat pier from which the white steamer with the paddle wheels departed.

  The steamer had a huge red flag with a white cross on it of which she was very proud. Snowflake and Raindrop became good friends with her, played with her often, and helped to hold her up. They always knew when she was coming for she would give a long tuneful blast on her whistle as she sailed up the lake.

  Many people came to live by the edge of the lake, for it was the time of summer holidays.

  They went into the water to swim and Snowflake and Raindrop laughed to see how awkward they were at it, snorting, splashing and coughing as they churned over the surface, compared with the silvery fishes who had only to think where they wished to go and with a single wave of their fins and a flip of their tails they were there.

  On the strand where the blue lake lapped against a beach of yellow sand, children waded, their skirts and trousers rolled up to their thighs, and Snowflake loved to play about their fat little legs and hear them scream with joy as the wavelets spanked against their brown skins.

  On moonlit nights, lovers came out in skiffs and allowed their oars to drift idly while they sat with their heads together and let their hands trail in the cool water. Then Snowflake and Raindrop would pass by and caress their fingers.

  At such times, Snowflake would ask: “Do you still love me as much as when you first saw me?” And Raindrop would reply:

  “But of course I do. What a silly question to ask.”

  Snowflake would smile contentedly at his answer.

  Time passed. There came a day when Raindrop said to Snowflake: “Have you noticed anything?”

  “I do believe we are moving again,” she replied.

  “Yes. We have come to the end of the lake.”

  It was true. They had left the place where they had entered far behind, so far that they could not even see it any more, so far indeed that not even a glimpse of the distant snow-capped mountains was any longer to be had.

  They were close to the banks of quite a large city with many churches, towers, stone buildings and green parks. Slowly but surely they felt themselves being swept by.

  They came to an opening in the shore where they passed beneath a bridge and thence into a kind of canal, the sides of which were lined with stone and tall gabled houses. They were moving more quickly now. Then the canal led into a broad river into which they were drawn, and soon the city was left behind.

  The long, happy rest was over. The journey had begun again.

  The river in which Snowflake and Raindrop now found themselves was a broader and more stately one than the first they had encountered after their breathless run down the mountain.

  Its pace was more slow, its bends wide and graceful, and there was time to look about to see everything as they moved along with the current.

  It was a much busier river too, and because it was both deep and wide, there were almost as many boats on it as there had been on the lake, from small canvas canoes with double paddles, worked by brown young men bare to the waist, to the long barges flying the gay pennants of the family wash from the stern, and the busy tugs and steamers with coloured flags nailed fore and aft, and black smoke rising straight up from their smokestacks.

  Snowflake was used to boats now, and she and Raindrop made it a point to pass beneath them whenever one came near so as to help to hold them up. They liked best to go beneath the barges, for there always seemed to be cheerful accordion and harmonica music coming from them, and everyone aboard appeared to be living a happy and carefree life, including the dogs and children.

  One day, not long after they had left the lake and were floating with the river through a green valley whose slopes were tiered with vines on which hung great clusters of white and purple grapes, Raindrop said:

  “Snowflake, dear, whose are all those many little voices I seem to hear all about us, and to whom you speak from time to time?”

  Snowflake smiled shyly and said gently: “I was wondering when you would notice. Those are our children, dear Raindrop.”

  Raindrop wa
s greatly pleased, but could only say: “Well . . .” and then once more, “Well, well! How many of them are there?”

  Snowflake counted them again to make certain and then said with pride: “Four.”

  “Four! That is a fine number. What are their names?”

  Snowflake thought first to get them right and in the proper order before she replied: “They are called Snowdrop, Rainflake, Snowcrystal and Raindrop-Minor.”

  Raindrop said: “Well, well, well, well.” And then added, “I think those are very nice names.”

  Raindrop did not appear to pay much attention to the children after that, though secretly he was very proud of how handsome they were and would watch out of the corner of his eye as they swirled and played about Snowflake or went for rides on tiny air bubbles on the surface of the river. Once in a while he would speak with them and try to answer their questions.

  But Snowflake seemed from then on to be busy from morning until night, keeping them clean, brushing away bits of oil or soot or dust that came flying through the air from the smokestacks of the steamers and got on to their faces, watching to see that they did not stray too far from her side, holding on to their hands when they passed beneath a boat and teaching them all she had learned about floating down a big river.

  Still there was time left to enjoy the points of interest and note the many fine and exciting things to be seen, such as cars whizzing by on the white ribbon of road that ran along the bank, railway trains on both sides of the river, gay cafés and restaurants with tables on terraces beneath coloured umbrellas and the ruins of many old castles crowning the hilltops, their bare walls standing out darkly and full of mystery against the evening sky.

  Thus one day seemed to pass like another in contentment and interest and things of even greater moment lay ahead, for in the far distance they could catch a glimpse of the towers and steeples of a city much larger than they had ever seen before, and the twin spires of a great church rising from the river haze.

  They happened to be travelling close to the left bank at that time and suddenly before they were aware of it a narrow opening appeared in it with a kind of floor of stone paving that was slanted sharply downhill for a short distance so that they were unexpectedly swept into it with a rush.

  Gone was the broad, placid river flowing between the lofty hills; gone the slow, gentle pace that allowed one to think and dream as one floated along.

  They were caught in a narrow man-made canal of smooth granite blocks. And they were dashing along faster and faster all the time.

  Raindrop looked grave. “I do not like this at all,” he said.

  “No,” Raindrop repeated, “I do not care for this in the least. Had I thought that something like this might occur I should have kept us all well out in the middle of the river.”

  Snowflake now became alarmed herself, for she had never seen Raindrop so serious or disturbed. She cried:

  “What is happening? Are we in danger?” And she quickly called to Snowdrop, Rainflake, Snowcrystal and Raindrop-Minor to come to her at once, give her their hands and stay close to her side.

  Raindrop looked even graver. The sides of the canal were steeper now so that they could no longer see much of the sky above them. And faster, always faster was the pace at which they were being swept along.

  “I do not know,” Raindrop replied, “but keep the children together and stay close to me. Whatever; we must not be separated now.”

  The next moment, the canal became roofed over, the sky vanished, and with a gurgling roar and sucking sound they plunged into the mouth of a dark tunnel.

  It was fearful to be hurled along through the pitch black, unable to see or know where they were going.

  The entrance to the tunnel fell further and further away behind them. As they gazed back in despair, first it looked like this—O, then smaller, like this—O, then smaller still, like this—O, and then, alas, only like this—o.

  And thereafter, not so much as a single gleam or ray of light entered to relieve the gloom through which they were plunging.

  Snowflake was frightened as she had never been before, but for the sake of the children she pretended she was not and asked Raindrop calmly: “Where do you think we are?”

  “Underneath the city, the huge one we saw in the distance,” he replied, “or if not, we will be soon. We may have luck and escape with nothing worse than to be drawn in a bath, or used to wash dishes. But there are hundreds of things which can happen to us.” He dropped his voice to a whisper: “If only we do not meet our greatest enemy . . .”

  Snowflake said softly:

  “Who is our greatest enemy, Raindrop? Whisper it to me. I don’t want the children to see how frightened I am.”

  “Shhh,” Raindrop replied. “Have courage. Perhaps it will never happen. Remember, I am with you.”

  But the tunnel through which they were dashing grew more chill and narrow all the time. It had many branches that opened to left or right. Fortune, good or bad they knew not which, swept them this way or that but always onwards.

  The speed increased. The space through which they were rushing became always smaller. It changed from stone to brick and then from brick to iron as they entered the mains pipe beneath the city.

  Faster, faster, faster! Some mighty power had them in its grip. Then without warning they felt themselves being snatched upwards. Sounds reached them, the clanging of bells, shouts, the breaking of glass, a thumping and a roaring . . .

  Raindrop cried: “Courage, Snowflake! It is our most bitter foe.”

  “Who is it?” Snowflake gasped.

  Raindrop then pronounced the terrible word: “Fire!”

  There was so little time left now even to be afraid.

  Above, the powerful pumps were drawing them up from the depths at blinding speed. Snowflake felt helpless and lost. The children were snatched from her though they still managed to cling to Raindrop.

  As the pipe narrowed and the pressure increased she thought she would be crushed to death. But worse was yet to follow. Caught in a grip like that of a giant she was forced into a long, flexible tube at such speed that she could barely cling to her senses. Nothing so painful or terrible had ever happened to her before. Snowflake threw one last, despairing look at Raindrop, for she was certain she could bear no more.

  Then with a great spurt and a cry of agony, she burst into the open and for an instant gazed upon an awful scene.

  There was a house in a crowded city street before her. Black smoke and yellow flames were pouring from the roof and windows. Orange tongues of fire were licking upwards.

  She heard Raindrop call to her: “Give all your strength, all your heart and soul, Snowflake! We must win!”

  Then, with the powerful stream of water shot from the brass nozzle of the hose held by the firemen, she was hurled straight for the centre of the fiery furnace.

  At once she was enveloped by flames and fearful heat while from all about her came a terrifying crackling and roaring, a splintering and tearing, a thundering and a crashing.

  Stifling black smoke filled the air. The heart of the fire glowed red and evil. Bright blades of yellow flames leaped like sword strokes to destroy all in their path. Water was turned to steam and with it the blaze hissed its defiance.

  Gasping for life, all but seared by the blast from the raging furnace, Snowflake was near to giving way to despair and defeat. Who could prevail against an enemy so savage and so strong? Another second and she felt she must shrivel, boil and turn to vapour. And yet she did not surrender.

  She recalled what Raindrop had said: “Give all your strength, all your heart and soul. We must win!”

  And in that moment she thought of the One from whom her heart and soul had come, and she cried out to him: “Help us. Remember, when I was a child you loved me . . . If you must, take me, but spare Raindrop and my children.”

  Then having done so, she bent all her will and tried with might and main to fight against the enemy.

  In that inst
ant, Snowflake and all those who were rallied beside her in the fight against the red destroyer struck at the glowing heart of the living flame and vanquished it.

  There was the sound of drenching, frothing and hissing. With a mortal shriek and emitting clouds of steam and smoke, the wounded fire made a final effort to survive. One last darting orange spear of flame was cast to try to snatch victory from defeat. It was drowned beneath the tons of water that followed upon Snowflake’s gallant and victorious assault. The fire fell back dying.

  At a window which a moment before had been all but engulfed by flames, there appeared a fireman carrying in his arms an infant, sleeping and unharmed.

  A great cheer went up from the crowds in the street below as he handed him over to a companion who carefully carried him still sleeping down the ladder to safety and his mother who awaited him there.

  This was the last that Snowflake saw, for just then her mind swam, her eyes became clouded and of the hour of her greatest triumph she could remember no more.

  When, much later, she returned to her senses, it was to find herself trickling down the side of the blackened building, all soiled and dirtied from the soot and cinders.

  She was so weak she could hardly stir and once she thought she must meet her end there on the side of the house from the heat still rising from the glowing embers beneath.

  At that instant, with a surge of joy, Snowflake saw Raindrop and the children flowing down a charred beam nearby and forgetting about herself in the happiness of finding them she felt her strength return.

  She called to them; they saw her; their paths down the side of the ruined buiding converged and soon they were united again. And in the immediate excitement of the moment, Snowflake was only just aware that Raindrop was not like the strong, gay person he had been. He appeared to be thin and tired from the ordeal through which they had passed.