Frost
by Deidra Kelly
"I
dare say that Frost had it easy," the Fir remarked.
"You're
still bitter about him freezing you over," sighed the Pine. "I remember
that day well...the unexpected Frost and the murders..."
---
On
the fringe of the forest there lived a man who had a disagreeable
second wife and two just as disagreeable step daughters. He also had
one sweet and charming daughter form his first marriage named Martha.
While the husband was out at his job all day, the stepmother doted on
her own children and made Martha do all the sewing, cleaning and
cooking. They three jeered at the helpless girl as she labored away.
Years
passed and the three girls came to be of a marriageable age; the
stepmother knew that no one would ever want to marry her children. They
were ugly, with ugly, hateful words forever slapping Martha. No man
would ever want to marry them especially compared to Martha, who was
the loveliest girl for miles and miles, always with a smile on her face
and a song on her lips.
With
this problem before her, the step mother thought of a sinister way to
solve the problem of having Martha around...
"Martha!
Stop idling about and get over here!" the step mother shouted at Martha
from across the room. Martha politely approached her, setting her
darning aside.
"Get
your best dress ready for tomorrow and pack your belongings," she
commanded. "Tomorrow you are going to see your future husband."
"Really?
Who is he?" Martha said, exited.
"You
will see," the stepmother said, turning away so she would not catch her
cruel smile.
Martha
stayed up all night, restless, hoping that it was Fedor Ivanovitch. She
had long watched him from afar and admired him.
The
next morning came and Martha threw on a plain blue dress and gathered
her few things in a suit case, eager to escape the cruel women she
lived with.
"See
here," the stepmother said, pulling her husband aside. "You will get in
the carriage and take Martha down the north path in the wood to the Fir
tree. There is where her bridegroom will be."
"Who
is he?" the husband dared to ask his frightening wife.
"Frost,"
she replied and the husband felt his blood run cold. "He is a rich
man," she went on, "with much to offer. That is simply the end of
that/" And she flicked him away with her hand.
Wordlessly,
the husband rode with his daughter in their horse drawn carriage to the
end of the north path by the Fir tree.
"Wait
here for your husband...be sure and be kind to him," her father managed
to say before he left for home, crying the whole way.
Confused
the girl stood shivering in her thin dress by the Fir tree, looking
hopefully around her. She could hear a crackling noise in the distance
that appeared to grow louder and louder.
Frost
leapt into the Fir tree above her head; she gasped when she looked up;
a man with fair features and light blue skin and snow white hair was
staring her down.
"Are
you cold my little wife?" he shouted in a mischievous tone.
"No,
no, I am just fine," Martha replied.
Frost
climbed lower and asked again:
"Are
you cold my little wife?"
And
again she replied:
"No,
no, I am just fine."
In
truth, she was growing colder the closer Frost advanced and was growing
number and number as well.
He
leapt form the tree to stare into her face with his icy blue eyes and
asked again:
"Are
you sure you are not cold, my pretty little pigeon?"
"No...I'm
warm," Martha said in a whisper, so strained with cold was she. He felt
a great pity for this strangely polite girl and, with a wave of his
hand, all the snow around them melted away and he dressed her in warm
furs.
The
following day, Martha's stepmother commanded the husband to go gather
Martha to visit her family. The husband left with fear in his heart
that was replaced with utter shock when he saw Martha alive and well
draped in fur, sitting on blankets surrounded by bags of presents. She
gathered them up and they went happily back home.
Upon
Martha's arrival, the stepmother first of all was furious to see her
still alive. Secondly, she was angry that Frost had lavished her with
fine things. To solve this problem, she resolved to send her own two
daughters there the next day.
At
the fir tree, the girls impatiently waited, groaning about the bitter
cold. They then commenced to bicker and claw at each other about who
the bridegroom would fancy; Frost, watching them form the Fir tree
laughed and froze both of their hands.
"Are
you warm, my pretties?" Frost asked, leaping down from the Fir. The
girls scowled at him and one replied:
"Of
course we are, we are frozen solid waiting for our husband to be to
show up, the lazy fellow!"
"How
about now?" he cackled as their skin turned as blue as his until they
were frozen solid, cursing him bitterly as they died.
The
next day, the husband came and collected the dead girls and brought
them for their enraged mother to see.
"How
could this have happened?! My precious daughters...dead!" she shriek
until she as purple in the face.
"You
were the one who sent them," the husband replied when she had calmed
down.
From
then on, the husband and wife lived together in civility, for her
daughters death had humbled her soul.
As
for Martha, her dear Fedor Ivanovitch proposed to her shortly after her
short lived engagement to Frost and they lived out their lives happily.
----
"Well,
the time has come for us to die," the Fir remarked as the sun set.
"Yes,
as all things must," the Spruce agreed as the four friends listened in
silence to the sounds of the forest.
AUTHOR'S
NOTE:
I
chose this last story because I felt it was really different than the
rest; in fact, this whole story book collection is varied, with the
theme of the forest tying it together. I changed one important thing,
and a few minor things. For one, I personified Frost; in the original,
it makes it out to where it is just the frost at work, like a spirit,
but not really a man. I thought people would be able to picture Frost
better if I personified him as a man. I also cut out a lot of the
emphasis on the step mother being cruel; there was just not enough
space for me to fit it in. I barely made the 1000 mark, and that was
with some severe editing. Overall, I hope the reader takes away the
overall plot of the story and that I did not cut too much of it out.
Some might find this story a bit confusing; I certainly did at first in
the original, maybe because I had never heard a tale about Frost
before. I also cut out all the fighting between the two step sisters
because, again, I was going way over the word limit.
Coverpage
Image Information: Pines with Frost. Web Source: Milk &
Honey Farm
"Frost" by
Arthur Ransome from Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916). Web Source:
SurLaLune Fairy Tales