Jennifer Jane and the snowman Part 1

Jennifer Jane woke up on Boxing Day feeling very excited. She’d had a lovely Christmas day playing in the snow and she was hoping it was still nice and thick in her dad’s garden. Her mother had read her a bedtime story last night, all about a snowman. If there was enough snow remaining today she intended to go out in the garden and make one for herself. Going over to her bedroom window, she looked out into the garden. Good, that was all right then! The snow was still lying thickly on the ground.

After breakfast, she put on her warmest coat and the wellington boots that came right up to her knees. Then she went into the back garden with one of dad's garden trowels to build her snowman.

First of all, she rolled up a great big snowball for the body and then put a smaller snowball on top of this for his head. Then using the trowel, she carefully dug away bits of the snow to make his legs and arms. When she had done all that, her mother gave her an old hat and scarf and some small bits of coal to use as eyes and buttons, she even found a carrot to use for his nose.

Jennifer Jane did the best she could to give him a nice face, although she had to ask mum to help her a little bit when she did that! When the snowman was finished, he did look grand. She was beginning to get cold and felt quite tired, so she was glad when mother called her indoors for her meal. She’d never realised that making a snowman was such hard work.

After dinner, she sat indoors wearing her new red shoes and looked out of the window at her grand snowman standing in the middle of the lawn. Except for the bare places on the lawn where she’d rolled up the snow to make his body and head, he was surrounded by snow, as far as the eye could see.

"Mum," asked Jennifer Jane, "where does all the snow come from?"

"It just falls out of the sky, dear," replied her mother.

Jennifer Jane just sat and looked and the more she looked, the more she wondered where it could all have possibly come from. It certainly didn’t come out of the sky with a wallop yet there it was! Everybody has seen snow falling and it comes down in little flakes. There must be hundreds and hundreds of them to make it cover all the ground to such a depth! In fact, she looked and wondered for so long, that it became dark and mother finally came over and pulled the curtains.

"Come along," she laughed, "stop worrying about where snow comes from and help me get the tea."

But when the family had finished tea and even later when she’d had her night time drink, Jennifer Jane went to bed and was still wondering where all the snow could have come from.

'I must go and have another look,' she thought to herself and putting on her dressing gown and her red shoes to keep her feet warm, she slipped over to the window and peeped out. Yes, the snowman was still there, surrounded by nearly all the snow left in the garden.

"Oh, I do wish he was alive," she said to herslf, “then, perhaps he would be able to tell me where all the snow comes from."

Then a most peculiar thing happened. The snowman lifted first one foot off the ground and then the other, felt himself all over with his hands, straightened the hat on his head, then walked slowly and deliberately across the snow to Jennifer Jane's bedroom window and called up to her.

"Thank you very much for making me so nicely and bringing me to life,” he said, “is there anything I can do for you before I go to work?"

Well, to say that Jennifer Jane was surprised would be putting it mildly but she quickly recovered herself.

"Yes, please. Can you tell me where all the snow comes from?"

"I can do better than that," said the snowman, "just put on some warm clothes and I'll show you where it comes from!"