(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Dark 30 Productions presents The Snowman and the Scarecrow, adapted by Craig Dominey and Jim McCamus and told by Jim McCamus. Up in the mountains of North Carolina, up near Blowing Rock, there was a house and it had a great big yard out in front. The year that this story that I'm about to tell you happened, it snowed nearly every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was going to be a sure enough white Christmas.
Billy and Sally were real excited about that because what they did was one day they got out when it was pretty nice and they got a little ball of snow and they started rolling around out there in the yard and they kept rolling it and rolling it until it got got huge. But it wasn't just huge, it was perfectly huge and perfectly round and just glistened out there in the sunshine. Then they went and they got another ball of snow and they rolled it around out in the yard until it got good and big.
It wasn't quite as big as that bottom piece, but it was just as round and just as white. They had to get Dad to help them put that one up on top of the base. Then they got some more snow and rolled it around until it was the size of a good big pumpkin and again Dad helped them put it up on the top. They had the beginnings of a very nice snowman, but he wasn't finished yet and they knew it.
So they went in the house and they came back and put on that snowman a big silk top hat and a black swallowtail coat and a woolen scarf around his neck. Then they got some shiny black pieces of coal and they put them in for his eyes, put another kind of a row around for his teeth. Right in the middle of his face they put a fresh carrot and there he was. Beautiful snowman, but Dad thought he needed one more thing.
So he donated one of his old pipes and they put it right there clenched in his teeth and in front of the house stood the most glorious snowman ever. Now around the back of the house in the kitchen garden was a scarecrow. Now he had been a good scarecrow, scaring crows all through the spring and summer and into the fall. But that time out in the weather was beginning to show on him.
He had lost a lot of the stuffing out of his britches and most of the straw was gone and the britches just flapped around in the breeze. His coat wasn't much more than just rags and tatters. His straw hat had a hole in the back of it and it was just a sorry looking old straw hat. The scarf that was around his neck was almost non-existent and there he stood the back of the house.
One day, a little bird flew out of the woods and landed in front of the snowman and looked up at the snowman and said, Oh, Mr. Snowman, it is so cold and the wind's blowing so hard. I wonder if I might just get up in your hat and get out of the wind for just a few minutes just to get good and warm. Snowman looked down at the little bird. Oh, a bird at my hat? No way! You must understand that I am the snowman. Have you ever seen a more glorious snowman than me?
Well, little bird didn't quite know what to say but he knew he wasn't going to get warm there so he flew around the back of the house and there he saw the scarecrow. So the little bird asked the scarecrow the same thing and the scarecrow smiled and looked down at him and said, Why, little buddy, I tell you what, I'd love to have you along here with me here at Christmas time.
Why don't you just fly up here and there's a hole in the back of my hat here and you can just make your little nest up in there and just get good and warm and we'll just spend Christmas here together.
Later on, little mouse came scurrying out of the woods before the snowman and he said, Oh, oh, Mr. Snowman, it is so cold and the wind's blowing and my ears are cold and my feet are cold and even the tip of my little tail here is cold and I was wondering if just maybe perhaps I could crawl up and get in the pocket of your coat and stay there and get just a little bit warm. What? A mouse in my pocket? The snowman? No, you may not get in my pocket.
A mouse in my pocket would never do, just would never do. No, get away, little mouse, get away. Little mouse ran around the back and there saw the scarecrow, asked the scarecrow the same thing and the scarecrow looked at him and said, Well, little buddy, well, I tell you what, I got a bird in my hat. Mouse in my pocket's not going to make any difference at all. In fact, the more the merrier. Just come on in, we'll spend Christmas like that.
So, little mouse crawled up and into the scarecrow's pocket and was very warm and comfortable. A little while later, a rabbit came hopping out of the woods before the snowman looked up and said, Oh, Mr. Snowman, I've come to ask a very special favor. If I might have just a small square off the corner of your woolen scarf that I could take back into the woods and make the nest warmer for my babies because they're so cold and it's so cold in there and just a little piece. A piece of my scarf?
Why, surely you must mistake me for someone who cares because if I were to give you a piece of my scarf, I might have to give everyone and before long, I would have no scarf and as you can see, it's part of the entire snowman thing here. The scarf and the hat and the coat. No, no, no, no, no, no. I could never give you a part of my scarf now. Get away, get away. A little bunny hopped around the back and there saw the scarecrow and asked the scarecrow the same question.
The scarecrow looked at the little bunny and said, Oh, why tell you what there, feller? Says, why don't you just take this whole scarf? Not really much of it left. Can hardly even call it a scarf, but you're welcome to the whole thing. Take back there and just get them babies warm and thus they spent Christmas.
The front of the house was the snowman in all of his glory and in the back of the house, the scarecrow with the bird in the hat, the mouse in his pocket and the knowledge that the little bunnies were warm in the woods with his scarf.
A little while after Christmas, a warm spell set in and the sun came up bright and shining over the mountains one morning and it hit the snowman first and he stood there thinking, Oh, of course I should be the first one warmed because I am the snowman and the sun feels so good shining on me. Oh, this is so, what is, what, wait, wait, oh, uh, there's, huh, there must be a problem here. There's, there's water getting in my, in my eyes. Uh, little drips. Where's the water?
It doesn't appear to be raining. No, and, and, no, there's, there's more water running into my eyes and, oh, no, there's a waterfall going off my belly. I, I, what, what, and then all of a sudden, shoom, it got dark. Why, the sun could not possibly have gone, oh, I see my hat's falling down over my eyes. Hmm, wonder what it is about sunshine that makes top hats get bigger. No, and, wait a minute, I can't see and, and, oh, there's, there's more. I, I know what it is.
All this water, I know where it's coming from. It's me. I'm, I'm, I'm, and before long, the snowman was nothing but a puddle in the front yard with a pile of coal and the clothes and the pipe and the carrot. Since it was a nice warm day, Billy and Sally's mama ran them out of the house.
They had been in the house since Christmas and it was time for them to get outside and play with their outside toys, at least that's what she told them, and they came out and were playing and they noticed that the snowman was gone. They were sad, but they said, well, there'll be more snow and we'll build more snowmen, but now it's time for us to gather up all this stuff and take it back in.
And as they started into the house, Sally looked around the back and there she saw the scarecrow and she said, Billy, look, I thought the scarecrow had a scarf, but there's no scarf on that scarecrow and look, look at his coat. His, his coat is just all rags and tatters and that hat, that straw hat is so worn out, there's a big hole in the back, it looks like maybe a a bird's nest or something. And then they both had the same idea at the same instant.
They looked at each other and smiled and headed towards the scarecrow. They got to the scarecrow and they took off the old tattered coat. They took the straw hat off of his head and they took the fine silk top hat and put it on the scarecrow. They put the black swallowtail coat on the scarecrow and wrapped that woolen scarf around his neck. They stood back and looked at their handiwork and they agreed it has the finest looking scarecrow they had ever seen.
Well, just goes to show you that you ought to do good every chance you get because when you're just a puddle, it's not the stuff you had that folks remember, but the good things you've done. And that's the story of the snowman and the scarecrow.