Tilly Cuts the First Snow

High above a valley of red roofs there was a fat white cloud, and inside the cloud was the Snow Room, and in the Snow Room sat Tilly, who was new.

Tilly was quick, and Tilly was keen, and Tilly could not cut a straight line to save her life. When she concentrated, the tip of her tongue came out of the corner of her mouth to see how she was getting on.

Now, you may think snowflakes simply happen. They do not. Every one is cut by hand, up in the Snow Room, on the night before the first snow. The cutters take sheets of cloud pressed flat as paper. They fold them, and snip them with silver scissors, and open them out. Six points, with lace in between, and no two alike. Between cuts the scissors stand in a jar of cold water, so they won’t warm the cloud-paper. Warm cloud-paper goes floppy and comes down as drizzle. When the baskets are full, they are tipped into a great sieve as wide as a pond, and the sieve is shaken, and down it all goes.

At the front of the room stood Mrs. Crumb, who was round and strict and kind, and had cut snowflakes for a hundred winters. She could do it with her eyes shut, and often did, to rest them. Over her head the rule of the Snow Room was chalked on a slate, and she said it out loud anyway.

“Six points,” said Mrs. Crumb, “and no two alike. Baskets full by dawn.”

And from one end of the cloud to the other, the snipping began.

Far below, in a house with a blue door, a little girl called Pip was being put to bed. Every night for a week she had asked her mom if it would snow tomorrow. Every night her mom had said, “Not tomorrow, I shouldn’t think.” Tonight her mom looked out of the window for a long time and said, “Go to sleep, and we’ll see.” Which, as everybody knows, is what grown-ups say when they think it might.

Up in the cloud, Tilly wanted very much to do it right. It was her first first snow. Any snow is nice, but the first is the one people run outside for, and she wanted every flake in her basket to be worth running outside for.

She folded her first sheet. “Six points, and no two alike,” she said to herself, and cut very slowly, the way a person carries soup upstairs.

She opened it out. It was a boot.

It was a good boot, with a heel and little holes for the laces, but it was only one, and Tilly spent quite a while looking for the other. She looked under her stool. She looked in the jar of cold water. She looked in both her pockets. Then she remembered she had only cut one.

She cut slowly again, and got another boot. It was also a left one. By the time she gave up on slowly, she had nine boots, all for the left foot.

So she went and asked Mrs. Crumb how she did it.

“I don’t look, duck,” said Mrs. Crumb, snipping away with her eyes shut. “My hands know the way.”

“Six points, and no two alike,” said Tilly, and shut her eyes tight. She folded. She snipped. Her tongue came out to help. She opened it out, and it was a cat, sitting with its tail round its feet. She kept her eyes shut and kept going, and got a cat asleep, and a cat washing its ear, and a cat she was fairly sure was cross with her.

Mrs. Crumb came down the row and stopped at Tilly’s bench. “Your tongue’s out, duck,” she said, and patted her shoulder, and went on.

So Tilly held her tongue in with her other hand. That left no hand for the paper, so she pinned the paper down with her elbow.

“Thix pointh,” said Tilly, “and no two alike.”

She snipped, and opened it out, and it was a teapot, with a spout and a handle and a little knob on the lid.

By now the far edge of the cloud had gone the color of a peach, which in the Snow Room means hurry. Tilly hurried. She cut as fast as she could and got teapots, and more teapots, and then a little house with a light in its window, and then a whole row of little houses. And then her basket was full, and there was not one proper snowflake in it.

She carried it to the sieve, where the others were tipping in theirs.

“I’ll start again,” said Tilly. “I’ll be quick. I’ll be quick and slow.”

Mrs. Crumb looked into the basket. She looked at the peach-colored edge of the cloud. She looked at Tilly, whose tongue had come out to see what would happen.

“There isn’t time, duck,” said Mrs. Crumb, and she tipped the whole basket into the sieve with all the others. Four cutters took the four handles and shook, and the first snow of the year went down through the bottom of the cloud, boots and all.

* * *

Down in the valley, Pip woke because the light in her room had gone white. She ran downstairs in her nightie, pulled on her boots, opened the blue door and went out into the snow with her mitten held up. It was on the wrong hand.

A snowflake landed on it. It had a spout. It had a handle. It had a little knob on the lid.

Pip let out a whoop they heard three doors down. “MOM! IT’S SNOWING TEAPOTS!”

Her mom came out in her robe and looked at the mitten for a long time. Then she said, “Well, would you look at that,” and went back in for her own mittens.

Soon every door on the street was open, and there were children in pajamas and coats, peering at their sleeves. A boy found a cat washing its ear. A girl found a little house with a light in the window, just like her own. The twins on the corner each found a boot, and spent all morning looking for a right one, which Tilly could have told them was not there.

Up in the cloud, Mrs. Crumb knelt at the thin place in the floor where the valley shows through, and Tilly knelt beside her. The whooping and laughing came up to them small and far away, like gulls.

“A hundred winters I’ve cut snow,” said Mrs. Crumb at last. “Six points, every one. Very nice they are, too.” She watched a while longer. “Nobody ever ran out in a nightie for one of mine.”

Then she got up, dusted her knees, and went to the slate.

“New rule,” said Mrs. Crumb. “In every snowfall, one flake in a thousand is Tilly’s.” And after Six points she wrote mostly, with her sleeve ready in case anybody argued.

And that is why, every first snow since, the children of the valley are out before breakfast, looking very closely at their sleeves.

That very night, the cutters sat down to cut the second snow.

“Six points,” said Mrs. Crumb, “mostly. And no two alike.”

Tilly thought she would cut a teapot on purpose, since she was allowed now. Her tongue came out. She snipped carefully round the spout and the handle and the knob, and opened it out. It was a snowflake. Six points, lace in between, and not a teapot anywhere in it.

“Oh, bother,” said Tilly. Then she started to laugh, and took it to Mrs. Crumb, who laughed so much she had to sit down. Tilly pinned it on the wall over her bench, where it is still.

Down in the valley, Pip kept her teapot in the freezer, in a little tin behind the peas. She took it out to show everybody who came to the blue door, but only for a moment, so it wouldn’t go soft.

So up in the cloud there is one perfect snowflake that was meant to be a teapot, and down in the valley there is one perfect teapot that was meant to be a snowflake. Ask Tilly or Pip which is the better one, and each will tell you, very firmly, that hers is. The end.