In the same street lived Joey Rodman, who was about Bobby's age. The
afternoon that Bobby made the snow man Joey kept throwing stones. Bobby
tried not to mind. There was lots of snow in the yard, and he made the
snow man unusually large. The other children helped him, but Joey kept
calling out and throwing things, and at last he knocked off the head of
the snow man just as Bobby had put in two bits of coal for the eyes.

Bobby could not stand that. He ran after Joey, and Joey dodged and
began to call him names. Joey's sister, Sadie, who cared for the six
children, heard the noise in the yard below.

"Do you think it's your yard?" she called out to Bobby. "It is just as
much Joey's yard as it is yours!"

Then Bobby's mother opened her window. "Come in, Bobby!" she said; and
when Bobby left the snow man and climbed upstairs, she said, "Son, we
mustn't quarrel with our neighbors, you know."

"But Joey threw stones--"

"Never mind," said mother. "We won't talk about that. Perhaps we'll get
to be friends with Joey after a while. And you remember about coals of
fire."

That was mother's rule. Bobby knew that text about coals of fire so
well!

"But I don't see how you could ever make coals of fire out of a snow
man, mother!" he said. And then mother laughed, and he laughed, too.