“I don’t see anything the matter.”

“It’s because you look so pretty, goose!” Maida exclaimed.

Rosie always blushed and looked ashamed if anybody alluded to her prettiness.  Now she leaped to Maida’s side and pretended to beat her.

“Stop that!” a voice called.  Startled, the little girls looked up.  Billy stood in the doorway.  “I’ve come over to make a snow-house,” he explained.

“Oh, Billy, what things you do think of!” Maida exclaimed.  “Wait till I get Arthur and Dicky!”

“Couldn’t get many more in here, could we?” Billy commented when the five had assembled in the “child’s size” yard.  “I don’t know that we could stow away another shovel.  Now, first of all, you’re to pile all the snow in the yard into that corner.”

Everybody went to work.  But Billy and Arthur moved so quickly with their big shovels that Maida and Rosie and Dicky did nothing but hop about them.  Almost before they realized it, the snow-pile reached to the top of the fence.

“Pack it down hard,” Billy commanded, “as hard as you can make it.”

Everybody scrambled to obey.  For a few moments the sound of shovels beating on the snow drowned their talk.

“That will do for that,” Billy commanded suddenly.  His little force stopped, breathless and red-cheeked.  “Now I’m going to dig out the room.  I guess I’ll have to do this.  If you’re not careful enough, the roof will cave in.  Then it’s all got to be done again.”

Working very slowly, he began to hollow out the structure.  After the hole had grown big enough, he crawled into it.  But in spite of his own warning, he must have been too energetic in his movements.  Suddenly the roof came down on his head.

Billy was on his feet in an instant, shaking the snow off as a dog shakes off water.

“Why, Billy, you look like a snow-man,” Maida laughed.

“I feel like one,” Billy said, wiping the snow from his eyes and from under his collar.  “But don’t be discouraged, my hearties, up with it again.  I’ll be more careful the next time.”

They went at it again with increased interest, heaping up a mound of snow bigger than before, beating it until it was as hard as a brick, hollowing out inside a chamber big enough for three of them to occupy at once.  But Billy gave them no time to enjoy their new dwelling.

“Run into the house,” was his next order, “and bring out all the water you can carry.”

There was a wild scramble to see which would get to the sink first but in a few moments, an orderly file emerged from the house, Arthur with a bucket, Dicky with a basin, Rosie with the dish-pan, Maida with a dipper.

“Now I’m going to pour water over the house,” Billy explained.  “You see if it freezes now it will last longer.”  Very carefully, he sprayed it on the sides and roof, dashing it upwards on the inside walls: 

“We might as well make it look pretty while we’re about it,” Billy continued.  “You children get to work and make a lot of snow-balls the size of an orange and just as round as you can turn them out.”