Stars on a Snowy Night
The thermometer had dropped to 18 degrees below zero, but still chose to sleep in the porch as usual. In the evening, the most familiar sight to me would be stars in the sky. Though they were a mere sprinkle of twinkling dots, yet I had become so accustomed to them that their occasional absence would bring me loneliness and ennui.
It had been snowing all night, not a single star in sight. My roommate and I, each wrapped in a quilt, were seated far apart in a different corner of the porch, facing each other and chatting away.
She exclaimed pointing to something afar, “Look, Venus in rising!” I looked up and saw nothing but a lamp round the bend in a mountain path. I beamed and said pointing to a tiny lamplight on the opposite mountain, “It’s Jupiter over there!”
More and more lights came into sight as we kept pointing here and there. Lights from hurricane lamps flickering about in the pine forest created the scene of a star-studded sky. With the distinction between sky and forest obscured by snowflakes, the numerous lamp-lights now easily passed for as many stars.
Completely lost in a make-believe world, I seemed to see all the lamplights drifting from the ground. With the illusory stars hanging still overhead, I was spared the effort of tracing their positions when I woke up from my dreams in the dead of night.
Thus I found consolation even on a lonely snowy night !
Winter comes
It is cold and dry outside. The wind often blows strongly. The days are shorter and the nights are longer. Many animals go to sleep. They will sleep for a long time till the spring comes. People don’t like to go outside. They have to wear heavy coats, scarves and gloves. But children like to be outside. Because it often snows. There is snow around. There is ice on the ground. Children can throw snowballs, make the snowmen. Oh, look. What a surprise! Do you see? The river is frozen! Here come the boys, there come the girls, they are skating in the river happily.
Oh! Winter comes. It is really an interesting season. It has so much fun!