Far to the North lived a mother and father who lived together and with their two daughters. The one daughter, named Emma, worked hard and never complained. The other daughter, named Charlotte, pretended to work hard, but often tricked her sister Emma into doing her work.
Charlotte’s mom was aware of her shenanigans.
One cold, snowy night in the middle of winter when the father was out on business, the mother asked Emma to go out and get firewood. She knew it would be a tough chore considering the weather, so she knew Emma was the daughter for the job.
Emma didn’t want to go outside and battle the Canadian snowstorm. But she didn’t complain, and always did as she was asked.
So, she went out into the cold Canadian night, looking for firewood. However, it had been snowing for so long that the ground was covered in a foot of snow, so she couldn’t find any firewood.
Eventually, she felt a strong gust of wind. Then, a man with a long white beard and long white robes approached her.
“What are you doing out here?”, he asked.
“Collecting wood for the fire?”, she said.
He laughed, “You’ll never find any firewood in this snow!”
“Well I will try anyways”, she replied.
The man approached her. As he did the wind picked up and bit at her face and hands, making her feel very cold.
“Are you cold?”, he asked her.
“No”, she responded.
“Then you won’t mind knitting me a scarf for the cold nights ahead then”, he said handing her knitting needles and yarn.
“No, I don’t mind”, she said. She worked hard on the scarf, even though the cold hurt her fingers and made it very difficult. When the man came back he smiled.
“You’ve done great!”, he shouted, taking the scarf from her hands.
“My name is Grandfather Frost, and I have this as a present for knitting me a scarf”, he said, revealing a great trunk of treasure lying on a sled next to a big pile of firewood.
The old man’s daughter pulled the treasure along with the firewood to the house. Her father had returned from his business.
When they asked her where she got the firewood and treasure, she said “Grandfather Frost gave it to me for my hard work in knitting him a scarf.”