The Hat That Heard Snow — Under the whispering mountain pines, Elbie packed snow into a neat little workbench and tried to sew his first hat before the moon slid behind the ridge. Read the full story →
Under the whispering mountain pines, Elbie packed snow into a neat little workbench and tried to sew his first hat before the moon slid behind the ridge. His stick fingers poked and wobbled, but he pulled the yarn tight: cranberry rows, teal zigzags, tiny round dots like frozen berries. He wanted the hat to sit proudly on his own head, not borrowed from a fence post like everyone else’s. The only trouble was the last piece, a fluffy pom-pom, which kept giving a small hush-hush sound when he squeezed it.
“Did you hear that?” asked Biscuit, the puppy, nosing the yarn with a snow-dusted snout. Elbie held the pom-pom to his carrot nose. Inside, where nobody thought to look, was a curled silver snowseed, no bigger than a pea, smelling faintly of frost and cedar. When he tucked it into the top of the hat, the seed chimed once, soft as a spoon tapping ice. Every loose flake in the air turned and drifted toward him, settling gently instead of stinging sideways.
Elbie hugged Biscuit so hard his mitten nearly popped off. From that night on, snowmen made their own hats with a soft pom-pom to hold a listening snowseed, and that is why storms know how to fall kindly around them. Next time you see a pom-pom bobbing above a snowman’s smile, see if you can spot where the hush-hush began.
