A Letter for the Snow Bear
In the village at the foot of the white mountain, the post office was Grandma’s front room. There was a counter where the sofa used to be, a brass scale for parcels, and a sign over the door that said, in gold paint, POSTED TODAY, DELIVERED TODAY.
That was the rule, and it had been the rule for a hundred years. Every letter that came through Grandma’s door went out on the day it was posted. It went out in rain, and in fog, and on the day the river froze. In the green ledger on the counter, every day had a neat tick, and not one day had a cross.
Tom was eleven, and he helped with the post now that Grandma’s knees were stiff. He sorted the letters and carried the sack, and he walked very fast whenever he was nervous. Grandma said she could tell from the kitchen how worried he was by the sound of his boots.
The sled was pulled by Nutmeg, the post goat. Nutmeg knew every path on the mountain, and Nutmeg sighed at snow. It was a long, loud sigh, like a door that needs oiling, and it came every time a flake landed on Nutmeg’s nose. At the foot of a white mountain, this was a great deal of sighing.
At five minutes to closing one winter afternoon, with the snow coming down thick and soft, the bell rang and in came Pearl, Tom’s little sister. She stood on tiptoe and pushed a letter across the counter.
“Posted today,” said Pearl.
The envelope was addressed in crayon. It said THE SNOW BEAR in purple, and underneath, in orange, TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. Pearl had put on three stamps to be safe. One was upside down.
Everybody in the village knew about the Snow Bear. He was a great white bear who lived at the very top, where nobody went. On clear evenings there was a thread of smoke up there, and the grown-ups said it was only cloud. He was a bedtime story. Tom had stopped believing in him round about the time he learned long division. Mostly stopped.
“Pearl,” said Tom, “there isn’t really a Snow Bear.”
“Yes, there is,” said Pearl. “That’s his smoke.” And she went through to the kitchen for her supper.
Grandma came round the counter, one hand on the scale, and read the address. She looked at the snow, and at the blue evening behind it, and at her own two knees.
“Well,” said Grandma. “That goes out today.”
“Grandma, it’s the top of the mountain. And there isn’t any bear.”
“The rule doesn’t say posted today, delivered today, if you believe in the address,” said Grandma. “It says posted today, delivered today. You’ve got till midnight.”
Tom looked at the green ledger and its hundred years of ticks. He looked at Grandma’s knees. Then he walked to the boot rack, very fast.
Grandma gave him the lantern, a flask of soup and her pocket watch. “Nutmeg knows the way,” she said. “Keep to the marker posts. It’s a kind snow tonight, with no wind in it. The only thing you’re racing is the clock.”
The post sack was very large and the letter was very small, and Nutmeg pulled them both up the mountain with a sigh for every flake.
The marker posts were tall and red, one every hundred steps. Tom counted them. Behind him the village got smaller, until it was only a few lit windows, and then just one. That one was Grandma’s.
Tom walked fast. He walked so fast that Nutmeg had to trot, and a trotting goat in deep snow is not a happy goat. At the twentieth post Nutmeg stopped dead and gave the longest sigh of the winter.
“Sorry,” said Tom, and slowed down.
At the fortieth post the watch said nine o’clock. Tom did not think there would be a bear at the top. He thought there would be a rock and more snow. He would leave the letter under a stone, and that would have to count.
At the fifty-third post, he smelled woodsmoke.
At the very top there was a little hut with its chimney going and a yellow light behind the curtain. By the gate stood a mailbox on a post, with the word BEAR painted across the front. The painted letters went uphill. The B was low down and the R was right up by the lid, as if whoever painted it had stood on the slope to do it.
The mailbox shone. Tom could see his lantern in it, and his own surprised face. He lifted the lid. Inside there was not a scrap of paper, not a speck of snow, not even dust. Somebody had been polishing an empty mailbox for a very long time.
Then Nutmeg, who had snow on both ears, gave a sigh so loud it rattled the gate, and the door of the hut opened.
The Snow Bear was as big as the doorway and as white as the mountain. He had a yellow duster over one shoulder and small round spectacles on the end of his nose. He looked at the lantern. He looked at the goat. He looked at the post sack, and both his ears went straight up.
“Post,” said Tom. It came out small, so he said it again. “Post for the Snow Bear.”
The bear took the letter in both paws, as if it were an egg. He read the front twice. Then he fetched a pencil and wrote on the back of an old calendar, in big careful letters: FOR ME?
“For you,” said Tom. “Posted today, delivered today.”
The bear opened it and read it twice. Tom knew what it said, because Pearl had practised it all through breakfast. Dear Snow Bear, do you have a favourite spoon? Love from Pearl.
The Snow Bear sat straight down at his table and began to write back.
He held the pen in both paws and wrote slowly, with the tip of his tongue showing. After one line he got up again. He sat Tom in the big chair by the stove, pulled off Tom’s boots, and put a bowl of porridge with jam on top into his hands. He let Nutmeg into the porch to steam. Then he went back to his letter.
Ten o’clock came, and the bear wrote. Half past ten came, and the bear turned over a page and kept going. Tom watched the watch, and then his toes, and found he did not mind.
At a quarter to eleven the bear folded seven pages into an envelope. On the front he wrote PEARL, THE POST OFFICE, BOTTOM OF THE MOUNTAIN. He carried it out to the gate and posted it in his own mailbox. Then he stood for a while and looked at the mailbox, with a letter in it at last.
Tom lifted the lid and took the letter out, because posted today is delivered today, whichever end of the mountain you are on.
Going down is always quicker. Tom rode on the sled with the letter inside his coat, and Nutmeg trotted the whole way, because a goat going home to a warm shed minds snow much less.
The clock said twenty to twelve when he came in. Grandma said she had not been worried for one minute. There were four cold cups of tea on the counter.
Tom walked up the stairs slowly, one at a time, the whole way, and put the bear’s letter on Pearl’s pillow. He was not nervous at all. Then he came down and told Grandma everything, and last of all about the shining mailbox with nothing in it.
Grandma was quiet for a moment. “That’s why we never let a letter wait,” she said. “You don’t know how long the one at the other end has been waiting already.”
She opened the ledger and wrote: One letter up. One letter down. Then she put a neat tick beside them. A hundred years, and one more day.
In the morning Tom read Pearl her letter, because it was seven pages long. It began, Dear Pearl, Yes. The spoon was wooden, with a long handle for reaching the bottom of the pot. It had a burn on it from one time. It held exactly the right amount of jam. On the last page was a drawing of the spoon, life size, with an arrow pointing to the burn.
Pearl wrote back before her porridge was cold. The next week Grandma wrote too, and so did Tom, and after that half the village found it had things to tell a bear.
So every week Nutmeg climbed the mountain with a sigh for every flake, and the mailbox at the top was never empty again. The Snow Bear still polishes it every evening. But these days, before he can start, he has to take the letters out.