Down the Snow Stairs; Or, from Good-Night to Good-Morning (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ...shutting, clutching at everything they could lay hold of, such as the bits of sticks or rags that strewed the ground. There was something terrible and grotesque in the sight of those ice-children, motionless but for their keen eyes watching, and hands grabbing, clutching. Kitty now perceived that their lips moved also, and that they and not the wind uttered that shivering, "I --I --I Me--me--me " "Who are they?" she whispered. Once more Love motioned to her to speak to them; but Kitty drew back. She was as much afraid of talking to them as she had been to the child in the cobweb. It was like talking to dead children. As she shrank away the shrill, airy voices began a song her nurse used to sing as a reproach to her when she was selfish: The Discord of Self. "I said to myself as I walked by myself, And myself said again to me: 'Take heed of thyself, look after thyself, For nobody cares for thee.'" 131 They sang it together, but all in a different key and in a different measure, so that the effect produced was a shrill discord, as if rasping rattles, and wheezy whistles, and cracked stringed instruments were playing in concert, but each on its own account 132 The Way to Freeze. "Well, I must eay," cried Kitty, forgetting her fright, " if I sang those ugly words, at any rate I would sing them in time and all together." " We never do anything together," said the child nearest to her, who happened not to be quite turned into an icicle. " We always cry when others laugh, and laugh when others cry. We always take all we can and do all we can to prevent others from getting anything. That is the way to turn to ice. Every time you do this your heart gets a little colder, a little harder, a little lonelier. It's quite easy to turn to ice; you have only to...