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But Dame Louisa promptly seized them, while Dame Penny held the horse, and put them into the tubs and pails of water. Then she took hold of the horse’s head, and backed him and turned around carefully, and they started off at full speed.

But it was not long before they discovered that they were pursued. They heard the hoarse voice of the Snow Man behind them calling to them to stop.

“What are you taking away my company for?” shouted the Snow Man. “Stop, stop!”

The wind was at the back of the Snow Man, and he came with tremendous velocity. It was evident that he would soon overtake the old white horse who was stiff and somewhat lame. Dame Louisa whipped him up, but the Snow Man gained on them. The icy breath of the Snow Man blew over them. “Oh!” shrieked Dame Penny, “what shall we do, what shall we do?”

“Be quiet,” said Dame Louisa with dignity. She untied her large poke-bonnet which was made of straw–she was unable to have a velvet one for winter, now her Christmas-trees were dead–and she hung it on the whip. Then she drew a match from her pocket, and set fire to the bonnet. The light fabric blazed up directly, and the Snow Man stopped short. “If you come any nearer,” shrieked Dame Louisa, “I’ll put this right in your face and–melt you!”

“Give me back my company,” shouted the Snow Man in a doubtful voice.

“You can’t have your company,” said Dame Louisa, shaking the blazing bonnet defiantly at him.

“To think of the days I’ve spent in their yards, slowly melting and suffering everything, and my not having one visit back,” grumbled the Snow Man. But he stood still; he never took a step forward after Dame Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.

It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf tied over her bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.

The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame Penny and Dame Louisa both wore their Bay State shawls over their beaver sacques, and their stone-marten tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen. As for the children, they would never have reached home alive if it had not been for the pails and tubs of water.

“Do you feel as if you were thawing?” Dame Louisa asked the children after they had left the Snow Man behind.

“Yes, ma’am,” said they.

Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful tears running down her cheeks. “I’ve been a wicked, cross old woman,” said she again and again, “and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees.”

It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came in sight of Dame Louisa’s house.

“Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?” cried the children.

They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling out in Dame Louisa’s yard.

“It looks just as the Christmas-trees used to,” said Dame Penny.

“Oh! I can’t believe it,” cried Dame Louisa, her heart beating wildly.

But when they came opposite the yard, they saw that it was true. Dame Louisa’s Christmas-trees stood there all twinkling with lights, and covered with trailing garlands of pop-corn, oranges, apples, and candy-bags; their yellow branches had turned green and the Christmas-trees were in full glory.

“Oh! what is that shining so out in Dame Penny’s yard?” cried the children, who were entirely thawed, and only needed to get home to their parents and have some warm breakfast, and Christmas-presents, to be quite themselves. “Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!” cried Dame Penny, and Dame Louisa and the children chimed in, calling, “Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!”

It was indeed the silver hen, and following her were twelve little silver chickens. She had stolen a nest in Dame Louisa’s barn and nobody had known it until she appeared on Christmas morning with her brood of silver chickens.

“Every scholar shall have one of the silver chickens for a Christmas present,” said Dame Penny.

“And each shall have one of my Christmas-trees,” said Dame Louisa.

Then all the scholars cried out with delight, the Christmas-bells in the village began to ring, the silver hen flew up on the fence and crowed, the sun shone broadly out, and it was a merry Christmas-day.