The two little ones went swiftly downstairs into the front hall. Both
had coats and caps and scarfs hung on pegs in a little dressing-room
near the big door. They knew that they should not touch the outer
garments belonging to the older children; but they got their own wraps.

"Maybe he's too big for them," murmured Margy. "But I guess he can
squeeze into the coats--into one of them, anyway."

"Course he can," said Mun Bun. "Mine's a nawful warm coat. And that
black snowman isn't much bigger than I am, Margy."

"I don't know," said his sister slowly, for she was a little wiser than
Mun Bun about most things. "Open the door."

Mun Bun could do that. This was the inside door, and they stepped into
the vestibule. Pressing his face close to the glass of one of the outer
doors, Mun Bun stared down at the "black snowman" on the step.

"He's going to sleep in the snow," said the little boy. "I guess we've
got to wake him up, Margy."

He pounded on the glass with his fat fist. He knocked several times
before the figure below even moved. Then the colored boy, who was not
more than seventeen or eighteen, turned his head and looked up over his
shoulder at the faces of the two children in the vestibule.

He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual
thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.
He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.