 1. Alice, one of your old world stories, Uncle John, such as you tell us by the winter fire till we all wonder it has grown so late. Uncle John, the story of the witch that ground to death two children in her mill, or will you have the tale of goodie cutbursts? Alice, nay now, nay, those stories are too childish, Uncle John, too childish even for little willy here, and I am older two good years than he. No, let us have a tale of elves that ride by night with jingling rains, or gnomes of the mine, or water fairies, such as you know how to spin till willy's eyes forget to wink, and good Aunt Mary, busy as she is, lays down her knitting. Uncle John, listen to me then. It was in the olden time long, long ago, and long before the great oak at our door was yet an acorn. On a mountain side lived with his wife, a cottager. They dwelt beside a glen and near a dashing brook, a pleasant spot in spring where first the wren was heard to chatter, and among the grass, flowers opened earliest. But when winter came, that little brook was fringed with other flowers, white flowers, with crystal leaf and stem, that grew in clear November nights, and later still that mountain glen was filled with drifted snows from side to side that one might walk across, while many a fathom deep below the brook sang to itself, and leaped and trotted on, unfrozen, or its pebbles, toward the veil. Alice, a mountain side you said, the Alps perhaps, or our own Alleghenes? Uncle John, not so fast, my young geographer. For then the Alps, with their broad pastures, happily were untrod of Herdsman's foot, and never human voice had sounded in the woods that overhang our Alleghenes streams. I think it was upon the slopes of the great Caucasus, or where the rivulets of Ararat seek the Armenian veils, that mountain rose so high that on its top the winter snow was never melted, and the cottagers among the summer blossoms far below saw its white peaks in August from their door. One little maiden in that cottage home dwelt with her parents, light of heart and limb, bright, restless, thoughtless, flitting here and there, like sunshine on the uneasy ocean waves, and sometimes she forgot what she was bid, as Alice does. Alice, or willy quite as oft, Uncle John, but you are older, Alice, two good years, and should be wiser. Eva was the name of this young maiden, now twelve summers old. Now you must know that in those early times, when autumn days grew pale, there came a troop of childlike forms from that cold mountaintop. With trailing garments through the air they came, or walked the ground with girded loins, and through spangles of silvery frost upon the grass, and edged the brook with glistening parapets, and built at crystal bridges, touched the pool and turned its face to glass, or rising thence they shook from their fall laps the soft light snow, and buried the great earth, as autumn winds bury the forest floor in heaps of leaves. A beautiful race were they, with baby brows and fair bright locks, and voices like the sound of steps on the crisp snow, in which they talked with man, as friend with friend. A merry sight it was when crowding round the traveller they smote him with their heaviest snowflakes, flung needles of frost in handfuls at his cheeks, and of the light wreaths of his smoking breath, wove a white fringe for his brown beard, and laughed their slender laugh to see him wink and grin, and make grim faces as he floundered on. But when the spring came on, what terror reigned among these little people of the snow. To them the sun's warm beams were shafts of fire, and the soft south wind was the wind of death. Away they flew, all with a pretty scowl upon their childish faces to the north, or scampered upward to the mountain's top, and there defied their enemy, the spring. Skipping and dancing on the frozen peaks and molding little snowballs in their palms, and rolling them to crush her flowers below, down the steep snow fields. Alice, that too must have been a merry sight to look at. Uncle John, you are right, but I must speak of graver matters now. Midwinter was the time, and Eva stood within the cottage all prepared to dare the outer cold, with ample furry robe, close belted round her waist, and boots of fur, and a broad kerchief which her mother's hand had closely drawn about her ruddy cheek. Now stay not long abroad, said the good dame, for sharp is the outer air, and mark me well, go not upon the snow beyond the spot where the great Lindenbounds the neighbouring field. The little maiden promised and went forth, and climbed the rounded snow swells firm with frost beneath her feet, and slid with balancing arms into the hollows. Once as up adrift she slowly rose, before her in the way she saw a little creature, lily-cheeked, with flowing flaxen locks, and faint blue eyes that gleamed like ice, and robe that only seemed of a more shadowy whiteness than her cheek. On a smooth bank she sat. Alice, she must have been one of your little people of the snow. Uncle John, she was so, and as Eva now drew near the tiny creature bounded from her seat, and come, she said, my pretty friend, today we will be playmates. I have watched thee long and seen how well thou luffs to walk these drifts, and scoop their fair sides into little cells, and carve them with quaint figures, huge limbed men, lions, and griffons. We will have to-day a merry ramble over these bright fields, and thou shalt see what thou hast never seen. On went the pair, until they reached the bound where the great linden stood, set deep in snow, up to the lower branches. Here we stop, said Eva, for my mother has my word that I will go no further than this tree. Then the snow maiden laughed, and what is this? This fear of the pure snow, the innocent snow that never harmed ought living. How mayst Rome for leagues be on this garden, and return in safety? Here the grim wolf never prowls, and here the eagle of our mountain crags prays not in winter. I will show the way, and bring thee safely home. Thy mother sure counsel thee thus, because thou hast no guide. By such smooth words was Eva one to break her promise, and went on with her new friend over the glistening snow and down a bank where a white shelf wrought by the eddying wind, like to a billow's crest in the great sea, curtained an opening. Look, we enter here, and straight beneath the fair or hanging fold entered the little pair that hill of snow. Walking along a passage with white walls and a white vault above where snow-stars shed a wintry twilight, Eva moved in awe and held her peace, but the snow-maiden smiled and talked and tripped along as down the way deeper they went into that mountainous drift. End of Section I, Section II of The Little People of the Snow by William Cullen Bryant. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. And now the white walls widened, and the vaults swelled upward like some vast cathedral dome, such as the Florentine, who bore the name of heaven's most potent angel, reared long since. O the unknown builder of that wondrous fane, the glory of Burgos, here a garden lay in which the little people of the snow were wont to take their pastime when their tasks upon the mountain side and in the clouds were ended. Here they taught the silent frost to mock in stem and spray, and leaf and flower, the growths of summer. Here the palm upreared its white columnar trunk and spotless sheaf of plume-like leaves. Here cedars, huge as those of Lebanon, stretched far their level boughs, yet pale and shadowless. The sturdy oak stood with the huge, gnarled roots of seeming strength, fast anchored in the glistening bank. Light sprays of myrtle, roses in their bud and bloom, drooped by the winding walks, yet all seemed wrought of stainless alabaster. Up the trees rend the lithe jessamine, with stalk and leaf, colorless as her flowers. Go softly on, said the snowmaiden. Touch not with thy hand the frail creation round thee, and beware to sweep it with thy skirts. Now look above how sumptuously these bowers are lighted up with shifting gleams that softly come and go. These are the northern lights, such as thou seeest in the midwinter nights, cold, wandering flames that float with their processions through the air, and here within our winter padduses mimic the glorious daybreak. Then she told how, when the wind in the long winter night swept the light snows into the hollow dale, she and her comrades guided to its place each wandering flake, and piled them quaintly up in shapely colonnade and listening arch, with shadowy aisles between, or bad them grow beneath their little hands, to bowery walks in gardens such as these, and o'er them all built the broad roof. But thou hast yet to see a fairer sight, she said, and led the way to where a window of palusid ice stood in the wall of snow beside their path. Look, but thou mayst not enter. Eva looked, and lo, a glorious hall from whose high vault stripes of soft light, ruddy and delicate green and tender blue, flowed downward to the floor, and far around, as if the aerial hosts at march on high by night, with beamy spears and streaming banners, to that place had brought their radiant flags to grace a festival. And in all that hall, a joyous multitude of those by whom its glistening walls were reared, whirled in a merry dance to silvery sounds, that rang from symbols of transparent ice, and ice-cups, quivering to the skillful touch of little fingers. Round and round they flew, as when in spring, about a chimney-top, a cloud of twittering swallows just returned, wheel round and round, and turn and wheel again, unwinding their swift track. So rapidly flowed the meandering stream of that fair dance beneath that dome of light. Bright eyes that looked from under lily-brows, and gauzy scarfs sparkling like snow wreaths in the early sun, shot by the window in their mazy whirl, and there stood Eva, wandering at the sight of those bright revelers and that graceful sweep of motion as they passed her. Long she gazed and listened long to the sweet sounds that thrilled the frosty air. Till now the encroaching cold recalled her to herself. Too long, too long I linger here, she said, and then she sprang into the path and with a hurried step followed it upward. Ever by her side her little guide kept pace, as on they went Eva bemoaned her fault. What must they think, the dear ones in the cottage, while so long hour after hour I stay without? I know that they will seek me far and near and weep to find me not. How could I wickedly neglect the charge they gave me? As she spoke the hot tears started to her eyes. She knelt in the mid-path. Father, forgive this sin, forgive myself, I cannot. Thus she prayed, and rose and hastened onward. When at last they reached the outer air the clear north breathed a bitter cold from which she shrank with dread. But the snow maiden bounded as she felt the cutting blast and uttered shouts of joy and skipped with boundless glee from drift to drift and danced round Eva as she labored up the mounds of snow. Oh, me, I feel my eyes grow heavy, Eva said. They swim with sleep. I cannot walk for utter weariness, and I must rest a moment on this bank, but let it not be long. As thus she spoke, in half formed words, she sank on the smooth snow with closing lids. Her guide composed the robe about her limbs, and said, A pleasant spot is this to slumber in. On such a couch oft I have slept away the winter night, and had the sweetest dreams. So Eva slept. But slept in death, for when the power of frost locks up the motions of the living frame, the victim passes to the realm of death through the dim porch of sleep. The little guide, watching beside her, saw the hues of life fade from the fair smooth brow and rounded cheek, as fades the crimson from a morning cloud, till they were white as marble, and the breath had ceased to come and go. Yet knew she not at first that this was death, but when she marked how deep the paleness was, how motionless that once lithe form of fear came over her. She strove to wake the sleeper, plucked her robe, and shouted in her ear, but all in vain. The life had passed away from those young limbs. Then the snow made and raised a wailing cry, such as a dweller in some lonely wild, sleepless through all the long December night hears when the mournful east begins to blow. But suddenly was heard the sound of steps grating on the crisp snow. The cottagers were seeking Eva. From afar they saw the twain, and hurried toward them. As they came, with gentle chidings ready on their lips, and marked that death-like sleep, and heard the tale of the snowmaiden, mortal anguish fell upon their hearts, and bitter words of grief and blame were uttered. Cruel, cruel one to tempt her daughter thus, and cruel we who suffered her to wander forth alone in this fierce cold. They lifted the dear child and bore her home, and chafed her tender limbs, and strove by all the simple arts they knew to make the chilled blood move, and when the breath back to her bosom, fruitlessly they strove. The little maid was dead. In blank despair they stood, and gazed at her who nevermore should look on them. Why die we not with her? They said, without her life is bitterness. Now came the funeral day. The simple folk of all that pastoral region gathered round to share the sorrow of the cottagers. They carved away into the mound of snow, to the glen's side, and dug a little grave in the smooth slope. And following the beer in long procession from the silent door, chanted a sad and solemn melody. Lay her away to rest within the ground. Yea, lay her down whose pure and innocent life was spotless as these snows. For she was reared in love, and past in love life's pleasant spring. And all that now our tenderest love can do, is to give burial to her lifeless limbs. They paused. A thousand slender voices round like echoes softly flung from rock and hill, took up the strain, and all the hollow air seemed mourning for the dead. For on that day the little people of the snow had come from mountain peak and cloud and icy hall to Eva's burial. As the murmur died, the funeral train renewed the solemn chant. Thou, Lord, has taken her to be with Eve, whose gentle name was given her. Even so, for so thy wisdom saw that it was best for her and us. We bring our bleeding hearts and ask the touch of healing from thy hand. As with submissive tears we render back the lovely and beloved to him who gave. They ceased. Again the paint of murmur rose. From shadowy skirts of low-hung cloud it came, and wide white fields and fir trees kept with snow, shivering to the sad sounds. They sank away to silence in the dim-seen distant woods. The little grave was closed. The funeral train departed. Winter wore away. The spring steeped with her quickening rains. The violet tufts, by fond hands planted, were the maiden slept. But after Eva's burial, never more the little people of the snow were seen by human eye, nor ever human ear heard from their lips articulate speech again. For a decree went forth to cut them off, for ever, from communion with mankind. The winter clouds along the mountainside rolled downward toward the veil, but no fair form leaned from their folds. And in the icy glens and aged woods under snow-loaded pines, where once they made their haunt, was emptiness. But ever, when the wintry days drew near around that little grave in the long night, frost wreaths were laid, and tufts of silvery rhyme in shape like blades and blossoms of the field as one would scatter flowers upon a beer. End of section two. End of The Little People of the Snow by William Cullen Bryant