wasting snow

I read To Kill a Mockingbird again its funny the things you remember and don't remember from reading a few years ago and maybe its because we are having a snowy winter that this caught my attention.

Chapter 8 and I'm abbreviating and paraphrasing a lot here
Atticus:  "That was Eula May,  I quote---' As it has not snowed in Maycomb County since 1885, there will be no school today.'"  Kids here in South Dakota are actually getting tired of that announcement.
Atticus finally got them to look at their breakfast plates instead of out the windows.
Jem:  "How do you make a snowman?"
Atticus: " I don't have the slightest idea,  I don't want you all to  be disappointed, but I doubt if there'll be enough snow for a snowball, even."
Jem and Scout go outside to find a 'feeble layer of soggy snow.'
Jem: "We shouldn't walk about in it, Look, every step you take's wasting it."
Scout looks back at her mushy footprints. Jem says if they wait until it snowed more they could scrape it all up for a snowman.
Scout catches a snowflake on her tongue "Jem, it's hot!"
Jem: "No it ain't, it's so cold it burns.  Now don't eat it, Scout, your wasting it.  Let it come down."
Scout: "But I want to walk in it."
Jem: "I know what, we can go walk over at Miss Maudie's."
Jem and Scout proceed to make a snowman by hauling dirt and sticks from the backyard, Scout says some politically incorrect words about a dirt snowman, then Jem covers it with snow collected in a peach basket from Miss Maudie's backyard and their own. 
Atticus comes home and complements Jem on his ingenuity and the snowman likeness to the neighbor.  Jem makes some alterations.
Later that night Miss Maudie's house burns.

Wasting snow what a concept!  The snow is so cold and dry here that it won't stick together to make a snow ball and you have to make a small snowball before you can roll it into a big snowball for a snowman. --Ann--
P.S. the reason I read the book again other than it is a wonderful book is because DD and I are going to the play and a great adventure.