Have you never seen on your window-pane of a cold winter
morning the picture of a forest of pines, or sheets of sparkling stars
and crystals? I am sure you have. Well, we do all that work on your
windows, not with artificial snow and ice such as you see here, but by
dexterous management we catch the falling flakes and mould them to our
will, sometimes doing nothing more than spangling a sheet of glass, and
again working out the most elaborate and fantastic marvels of
embroidery. But in art our productions are almost endless. We color the
tiniest blades of grass and beds of strawberry leaves until the moss
upon which they rest look like velvet with floss needlework. We polish
the chestnuts till they appear as if carved of rosewood. We strip
thistles of their prickly coat, and use the down for pillows. The
milk-weed, as it ripens its silken-winged seeds, serves us for many
beautiful purposes. We tint the pebbles of a brook till they compare
with Florentine mosaics. We wreathe and festoon every bare old bowlder
and every niche made barren by the winds. Indeed, the list of our works
would fill a volume."
Leo listened and looked, though his feet were getting numb and his
fingers nearly frozen. Many a time he had seen just such cappings to
gate-posts and projections as were here being moulded, and just such
rows of pearly drops on a gable's edge; but when, as if to specially
please him, the busy workers carved a little snow maid winding a scarf
about her curly locks, he clapped his hands in admiration, making such a
noise that each little Esquimau dropped his tool in alarm.
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