S--S--S--s--s--s--s--s--s


There! _says_ JACK FROST, they've thrown a pitcherful of water on
it. _He climbs down from the chimney_.

THE CHIMNEY, _who has now grown sleepy again, says to him, in a voice
that grows fainter and fainter_: Thank you, my dear fellow:
you--real--ly (_Here one eye closes_) are--ver--y--ki--_And he
never finishes the sentence, for the other eye closes, and the nose and
mouth "go out" at the same moment._

Asleep again, I declare, says JACK FROST, _with disgust_. Well, now
for the Snow Fairies.

_He walks to the edge of the roof at one side, and blows a shrill
blast on a whistle. Almost at once snow begins to fall from the sky,
slowly at first, then more and more. Jack Frost looks up at it and nods
his head approvingly. When it is snowing very hard, in come on tip-toe,
very softly, the Snow Fairies, dressed in snowy white, with white hoods
and muffs. Some of them quietly spread snow on the boughs of the trees,
taking it out of their muffs; others hang flakes on the Chimney, in such
a way as to make eyebrows, mustache, and beard for the face. But this
doesn't show at first, because the Chimney is still asleep. Then the
Fairies, standing in front of the Chimney, so that they hide it, sing
their song, which is called_


THE SONG OF THE SNOW FAIRIES[2]