Snowflake Read Free Page B

triangles and squares all woven into one pattern that was all her own. Now she was round and as pure as the morning light, crystal clear and like a tiny silver mirror she was able to catch and give back every colour in the world about her.
    One moment she took on the emerald green of a frog sitting on a piece of moss, and the next she flashed crimson as for an instant she reflected the gill of a swift darting brook trout.
    She copied the deep purple of a crocus growing near the bank, changed to the yellow of the first buttercups, and a minute later took on the sombre brown of an old oak tree.
    Thereafter she mirrored the pale pink of the cherry blossom, then the tint of orange filched from the breast of a robin as he flew by, and the light blue of the spring sky. The grey of a rock, the black of a crow’s glossy wing, the dapple of a young calf, all were hers.
    But there was another change that had taken place as well.

    Snowflake could not stop running once she had started down the hill. She did not know that she had begun a long journey, that she must run evermore and that not until the end of her days would she ever again be still.
    All about her were her brothers and sisters who had tumbled out of the sky with her the day she was born and who too had changed from white snow to crystal clear water, and they had joined Snowflake on her voyage.
    But now it was more than merely running over the hill. It was a kind of a mad dash, a leaping over beds of smooth stones and pebbles, a flinging of oneself down, down, downwards with a sweet sense of freedom, of making music as one went, a splashing, murmuring, gurgling, rushing that lifted Snowflake’s heart and made her feel happier than she ever had been before.
    How thrilling life had become, throwing oneself over the edge of a little falls to tumble unharmed into a frothing pool below, dashing around jagged rocks or moving in stately fashion through a deep dark pool where a willow dipped its young shoots.

    What sights there were to be seen as Snowflake went rushing down the side of the mountain sometimes in bright sunshine and at others through the dark of pine forests which the sun had not yet warmed so that at times she ran between banks of snow still unmelted and saw brothers and sisters of hers that had not yet been changed and must still wait.
    To them she called back gaily: “Come . . . come . . . Do not stay there so cold and unhappy. It is spring. There is so much to be seen and so much to be done. Follow me . . . follow me away, dear brothers and sisters!”
    But there was not even time to look back to see if they were coming, so fast was she leaping and dashing over rock and rill until she came to the bottom of the mountain where flowed a broader but more placid stream winding between low green banks. Alongside it ran the railway with every so often a train passing by filled with people.
    Snowflake saw that this was the distant valley and the tiny toy railway that she used to see from high on top of the mountain where she had lived when she was a child. She felt quite grown up when she entered the dark-green, glassy waters of the stream.

    With a froth and a swirl, the mountain brook entered the valley stream and Snowflake with it, and at once she began to move off with the strong, deep, steady current of the water.
    There was yet time for Snowflake to look behind her for one last glimpse of whence she had come. High up on the green mountain she saw the houses of the village clinging to the side of the hill. She could even make out the white schoolhouse with the dark shingled roof, and the grey stone church with the steeple shaped like an onion, only now it was their turn to look tiny like the toys of children.
    To her surprise she saw that the peak of the mountain that rose high above the village was still white and covered with snow.
    And she thought how strange that so many of her brothers and sisters had been fated to remain behind while she had been chosen to