tood the whole day long on the roof and waited; perhaps she is
waiting there still.

But he wandered through the world and told stories; though they are not
so merry as the one he told about the matches.

The Snow-man

Translated from the German of Hans Andersen.

'How astonishingly cold it is! My body is cracking all over!' said the
Snow-man. 'The wind is really cutting one's very life out! And how that
fiery thing up there glares!' He meant the sun, which was just setting.
'It sha'n't make me blink, though, and I shall keep quite cool and
collected.'

Instead of eyes he had two large three-cornered pieces of slate in his
head; his mouth consisted of an old rake, so that he had teeth as well.

He was born amidst the shouts and laughter of the boys, and greeted by
the jingling bells and cracking whips of the sledges.

The sun went down, the full moon rose, large, round, clear and
beautiful, in the dark blue sky.

'There it is again on the other side!' said the Snow-man, by which he
meant the sun was appearing again. 'I have become quite accustomed to
its glaring. I hope it will hang there and shine, so that I may be
able to see myself. I wish I knew, though, how one ought to see about
changing one's position. I should very much like to move about. If I
only could, I would glide up and down the ice there, as I saw the boys
doing; but somehow or other, I don't know how to run.'

'Bow-wow!' barked the old yard-dog; he was rather hoarse and couldn't
bark very well. His hoarseness came on when he was a house-dog and used
to lie in front of the stove. 'The sun will soon teach you to run! I saw
that last winter with your predecessor, and farther back still with his
predecessors! They have all run away!'

'I don't understand you, my friend,' said the Snow-man. 'That thing up
there is to teach me to run?' He meant the moon. 'Well, it certainly did
run just now, for I saw it quite plainly over there, and now here it is
on this side.'

'You know nothing at all about it,' said the yard-dog. 'Why, you have
only just been made. The thing you see there is the moon; the other
thing you saw going down the other side was the sun. He will come up
again tomorrow morning, and will soon teach you how to run away down the
gutter. The weather is going to change; I feel it already by the pain in
my left hind-leg; the weather is certainly going to change.'

'I can't understand him,' said the Snow-man; 'but I have an idea th