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"I served in the French war Truxtun's war, as we call it and I had a touch with the English in the privateer trade, between twelve and fifteen; and here, quite lately, I was in an encounter with the savage Arabs down on the coast of Africa; and I account them all as so much snow-balling, compared with the yard-arm and yard-arm work of this very night.
She jumped up, and went without the least noise to close the door to Estelle's room, returning from which she illogically fell to talking in a whisper. "Estelle's gone to bed. She's got a snow-balling old cold.
Then, when the truth at last fully dawned on us and we knew that snow-balling was no longer a wistful dream, but a solid certainty waiting for us outside, it was a mere brute fight for the necessary clothes, and the lacing of boots seemed a clumsy invention, and the buttoning of coats an unduly tedious form of fastening, with all that snow going to waste at our very door.
The children, just from school, were shouting at their rough play snow-balling, sledding, skating and tobogganning on that portion of the pond which had been cleared of snow.
But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent our stagnating into 'pellucid pillars' ourselves. So much, then, for our January ramble. The season of which I have now to speak was most different.
One can fancy the delight of the oppressed Puritan boys, in the days of the nineteenthlies, driven to the place of worship by the tithing-men, and cooped up on the pulpit-and gallery-stairs under charge of the constables, at hearing for once a discourse which they could understand, snow-balling spiritualized.
I joined the boys in all their sports; sliding and snow-balling with them in winter, and running and playing ball in summer. With them I was merry, frank, and self-possessed; while with the girls I was quiet, shy, and awkward. I never made friends with the girls, or felt like approaching them.
Very soon that so-called "pins-and-needles" sensation, recalling some snow-balling episodes of my boyish days, began once more to make itself felt, and I found myself commencing a sort of double-shuffle against the boards of the vehicle.
"Yes, sir," said Jacky, and trudged along, pulling his sled with one hand and carrying his icicle in the other. After this paternal effort, Maurice stood in the snow watching the crowd of children red-cheeked, shrill-voiced sliding down Winpole Hill and yelling and snow-balling each other as they pulled their sleds up to the top of the slope again.
"I think I shall never forget those forays through the woods," said Morton, "over hill and hollow, in search of nuts, or berries, or wild-grapes, or meadow-plums the fishing and swimming in summer, the snow-balling, and sledding, and skating, in winter! an innocent and happy set of urchins we were then!"
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