getting ready to plaster it on the man's funny
face--"I said I was making his nose big so I could hit it easier with a
snowball."
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, "are you going to throw snowballs at our nice
snow man?"
"Of course!" replied Bunny. "That's what we're making him for! I'm
going to put a hat on him, too. Course a hat's easier to hit than a nose,
'specially a tall hat like the one I'm going to make. You can throw at the
hat if you want to and I'll throw at the nose."
"Oh, Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, and from her voice you might have
thought Bunny had said he was going to throw a snowball at Wango,
the pet monkey of Mr. Jed Winkler, an animal of which Bunny Brown
and his sister Sue were very fond. "Bunny, don't hurt him!"
"Pooh! You don't s'pose a snow man can feel, do you?" asked Bunny,
turning to look at his sister. He had just begun to understand why it was
that Sue did not want him to throw snowballs at the big white fellow
when he was finished.
"Well, maybe he can't feel," said Sue, for she was really too old to have
such a little child's belief. At least she felt she was too old to confess to
such a feeling. "But what's the fun of making a nice snow man and then
hitting him all over with snowballs? I'm not going to throw at his tall
hat, even if you make one. Why can't you throw balls at something else,
Bunny, like a tree or a telegraph pole?"
"'Cause I can peg at them any time," Bunny answered, with a laugh.
"It's more fun to throw snowballs at a snow man and make believe he's
real. He can't chase you then."
"Well, I'm not going to throw anything at our nice snow man," decided
Sue, digging away with her little shovel to carve out the legs.
"You don't have to," said Bunny, fairly enough. "I'll do it all, Sue."
"Well," said his sister, with a shake of her head, "you can throw at your
part of the snow man, if you like, but you can't throw at my part!"
"Which--which is your part?" asked Bunny, and he spoke as though
greatly surprised.
"The legs," answered Sue. "I wish you wouldn't throw any snowballs at
the legs, Bunny Brown."
"All right, I won't," he promised kindly. For Bunny was a year older
than his sister, and, at most times, was kind and good to her.
"You can throw at your own part as much as you like," went on Sue,
"but I'm not going to have my part spoiled."
"All right," her brother agreed again. "I'll throw at his nose and high
hat--after I make it--and I won't touch his legs."
This seemed to satisfy Sue, and for some time the children played in
the yard, where the big snow man was being made. He was as large as
Sue and Bunny could build him. First they had rolled a snowball
around the yard, and, as the snow was soft and packed well, the ball
grew larger and larger.
Then, when it was about the size Bunny thought was right, it was left at
the place where the man was to stand.
"Now we have to roll another ball," Bunny had said.
"What for?" asked Sue, who, though she had often seen snow men, had
perhaps forgotten just how they were made.
"This second ball is for his stomach," Bunny said.
"What good is a stomach?" asked Sue. "He can't eat."
"He could maybe eat icicles if he wanted to," Bunny had answered.
"Anyhow, the second snowball has to go on top of the bottom one and
make the body. Then you cut legs out of the bottom snowball. You can
cut the legs, 'cause I'm taller 'n you and I can reach up and make the
face."
Sue was digging away with her little shovel at the bottom snowball to
make the man's legs, and Bunny was just finishing the big nose when,
suddenly, a snowball came sailing into the Brown yard and fell with a
thud between Bunny and his sister.
They both started, and Bunny cried:
"Did you throw that, Sue? If you did you mustn't, for 'tisn't time to start
throwing yet!"
"Ha! Ha!" laughed a voice around the corner of the Brown home, and
down the path came running Charlie Star, one of Bunny's playmates,
followed by Helen Newton, a little girl with whom Sue was very fond
of playing. It was Charlie who had laughed.
"I threw the snowball," he said. "But I only did it to make you jump. I
wasn't trying to hit you, Bunny and Sue."
"All right," replied Bunny.
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