to be allowed any bread or potatoes with his meals for the next year. He is disgustingly obese.â
âHe is cuddly,â she said, tipping her head to one side to survey her unfinished creation, âand good-natured. He is not cadaverous like some snowmen I have seen. He does not look as if he will blow over in the first puff of wind. He isââ
âHeadless,â he said, âas is mine. Let us get back to work and resume the name-calling afterward.â
Her poor snowman looked even more obese after she had fixed a nice round head on his shoulders. The head was too small. She tried to pack more snow about it, but it fell off in clumps about his shoulders, and she had to be content with picking out the two largest coals they had brought from the kitchen with them so that she could at least give him large, soulful eyes. She added a somewhat smaller coal nose and a fat carrot to act as his pipe and a few more small coals for coat buttons. With one forefinger she sculpted a wide and smiling mouth about the carrot.
âAt least,â she said, stepping back, âhe has a sense of humor. And at least he
has
a head.â
She looked down with a smirk at the massive one he had sculpted on the ground, complete with jug-handle ears and sausage curls.
âThe contest is not over yet,â he said. âThere was no time limit, was there? It would be somewhat premature to start jeering yet. You might feel foolish afterward.â
She saw then that he was not as ignorant of the laws of gravity as she had assumed. He spent some time on the shoulders of his snowman, scooping out a hollow to hold the head so that it would not roll off. Of course, he still had to get the head up there.
She watched smugly as he stooped to pick it up.
But she had reckoned without his superior height and the strength of those arm muscles. What would have been an impossibility for her looked like childâs play for him. He even had the strength to hold the head suspended over the torso for a few moments so that he could get it at just the right angle before lowering it into place. He selected the coals and carrot he wanted and pressed them into placeâthough he used his carrot for a nose. And then he reached into one of the pockets of his greatcoat and drew out a long, narrow knitted scarf in a hideous combination of pink and orange stripes and wrapped it about the neck of his snowman.
âThe vicarâs wife in my grandfatherâs parish presented it to me for Christmas,â he said. âGeneral opinion in the village has it that she is color-blind. I think general opinion must have the right of it. It is kinder than saying she has no taste at all, anyway.â
He stepped back and stood beside Frances. Together they contemplated their creations.
âThe scarf and the curls and the lopsided mouth save yours from looking mean and humorless,â she said generously. âNot to mention those ears. Oh, and those pockmarks are meant to be
freckles
. That is a nice touch, I must confess. I like him after all.â
âAnd I must admit to a fondness for Friar Tuck with his black coat buttons,â he said. âHe looks like a jolly old soul, though I do not know what holds his pipe in his mouth if he is smiling so broadly.â
âHis teeth.â
âAh,â he said. âGood point. We forgot to appoint a judge.â
âAnd to have a trophy awaiting the winner,â she said.
It was only then, when he turned his head to grin at her, that she realized he had one arm draped about her shoulders in a relaxed, comradely gesture. She guessed that he had only just realized it himself. The smiles froze on their faces, and Francesâs knees felt suddenly weak.
He slipped his arm free, cleared his throat, and wandered closer to the snowmen.
âI suppose,â he said, âwe might as well declare the competition a draw. Agreed? If we do not, we will get into a scrap again and
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