Jessie by Walter Aimwell

One day Ronald and Henry, Jessie's brother, took it into their heads to / build a large snow-house in the yard back of the house. It was to be / capacious enough to receive half a dozen boys at once, and so high as to / admit of their standing upright within it. There was plenty of snow all / around, and by working diligently with their shovels about an hour, they / accumulated a pretty large heap. They had beat it down hard with their / shovels, as they piled it up, so that it was quite solid. But after / working harmoniously together, all this time, some differences of / opinion at length began to arise between the two builders. Henry wanted / to pile on more snow, and make the house larger. Ronald insisted that it / was large enough, now. Henry, who was taller than Ronald, declared that / he should not be able to stand up straight in it. Ronald told him not to / be alarmed about that, for in digging out the inside, he meant to go / clean down to the ground, which would make the hut nearly two feet / higher than it appeared to be.

So Ronald carried his point, and Henry yielded somewhat reluctantly. / They worked together again for a while, though not quite so merrily as / before, smoothing and rounding off the pile into a regular shape. But / when this was completed, they again began to dispute. Not that either of / them was of a quarrelsome disposition, but there was an honest / difference of opinion between them, and, as will sometimes happen in / such cases, each was more ready to argue his own side than to listen to / the other. Henry was for throwing a quantity of water upon the heap, by / which means the outside would be turned into solid ice, as the water / froze. He proposed to do this now, and to leave the work of excavation / until another day. But Ronald thought the heap was compact and solid / enough as it was, and it would only be throwing away labor to put water / upon it. He determined to dig it out at once; and having marked a place / for the door, he forthwith began to hollow out the hut, without further / argument. Henry stood leaning upon his shovel, apparently not much / pleased with the independent spirit displayed by Ronald; but he said / little, and offered no further assistance.