Once Upon a Winter Time

It was once upon wintertime, a long time ago. Sleighbells were tinkling and runners were twinkling over the sparkling snow.

It seemed a perfect day to take a ride in the sleigh.

So Joe put a fur robe in the cutter, and he hitched up his spanking bays. And Jenny put on her warm little jacket, and her mittens, each one with a flower upon it, and a scarf for her chin, and a bonnet and all — and her stout little boots.

Then away they sped, down the country roads, between towering banks of snow.

What a fine, crisp, sparkling day it was! On the boughs above them the snowbirds sang. The cutter's sleigh bells gaily rang, and the sound of them brought the bunnies to the doorway of their oak-tree home.

What fun! thought the bunnies. Let us go for a sleigh ride, too. So out they jumped, and they rode away, seated on the runners of the speeding sleigh. Soon the road curved down close beside the pond, stretching smooth as glass to the woods beyond. Joe drove up with the horses so smart and nice. And they sat and looked at the sparkling ice. Jenny and Joe agreed that it was just the sort of ice that was perfect for skating on. So out they hopped,and in a trice, their skates were fastened;

they were on the ice.

Joe was a star, and he loved to show

Jenny the way that real skaters go, swooping and sliding, and gracefully gliding over the ice. On his swift twinkling skates he did fine figure eights — or nines! Or valentines!

Jenny clapped her hands at the wonderful show. But, oh woe! Down she goes! Now Joe could not help it; he started to smile. And it grew to a chuckle after a while. That made Jenny furious. She got to her feet, and her face was as red as a freshly scrubbed beet. She spun on her heel ,and she skated ahead so fast that she never saw a sign than said : DANGER: THIN ICE.

Crunch! Crack! Went the ice, and before Joe's eyes it broke into pieces, and Jenny's cries came back to him on the wintry air. Joe couldn't reach Jenny, standing there, because her ice chunk was floating down, faster and faster, toward the town. And there falls in the river ahead - steepy, rocky rapids!. The birds and all the bunnies were all worried too. They fluttered and chattered and wondered what to do. The horse stood ready to help if they could. And now Joe had a plan that was really good! He jumped to the sleigh. At his whistle, the team raced off through the snowdrifts. Behind them, Joe made a loop in his reins like a cowboy's rope at the rodeo. He coiled the lasso; he let it fly. But just as it left his hand, oh, my!

Head over heels over toes went Joe, plunkety thud in a bank of snow! And the rope missed Jenny! Now what to do? Joe couldn't help her. He was through, until he

could dig himself out. But the birds came swooping down through the air, and picked up the rope end lying there.

While the bunnies tied one end to Joe, who

was still heels up in the bank of snow, the birds flew to Jenny on the ice. The rope dropped around her, neat and nice.

Then horses and bunnies and snowbirds all pulled Jenny back, away from the falls, up the stream and onto the pond, smooth as glass, that still stretched away to the woods beyond. Back came Jenny, and there was Joe. And they never knew how she happened to be off the ice and back under the tree. The birds and the bunnies never told. The horses just stamped their

feet with the cold, and rattled their

bells and shook the sleigh, as if they wanted to be on their way. So in hopped Jenny, and after her Joe, and off they rode toward the town below. The snowbirds sang sweetly, the horses neighed, and the bunnies hopped aboard again, for they were not afraid. And away they went, across the frosted snow, once upon a wintertime, long, long ago.