winter Ice-Cream Man I had applied for and obtained the job on Friday, received a day’s training on Saturday, and now, on Sunday, as I was about to take out an ice-cream van for the first time on my own,I was horrified to see snow starting to fall. The streets and roads were swiftly blanketed. As I left home after breakfast, I shivered inwardly as well as outwardly; I was gloomy at the thought that not for this Sunday morning was the leisurely reading of Sunday papers to the accompaniment of extra cups of tea. I would have given much to have been able to call off the whole thing. But I needed the job; and I had to pay the tuition which was due the next month. Strangely enough, after the first painful day alone in the cold, snowy suburbs, I found myself doing the work quite happily in what turned out to be the coldest and snowiest weather for several years. The first day was long and lonely. I had very few customers until the late afternoon and I began to have a strong nostalgia for my own fireside as I sat in my little box on wheels and saw the houses beginning to light up at tea-time; especially when members of various families came out for ice-cream and fled back happily in the gathering darkness to their own particular oasis of warmth and light. Then, too, I had to learn to manage my tail-heavy vehicle--the ice-cream cabinet was at the back--on the icy roads and at the same time try to remember my route and stopping-places. Twice during the next two weeks I was caught in severe snowstorms; in both cases in late afternoon when dusk was falling. “The first time, fortunately, I had with me an experienced senior inspector who showed me how to get up a hill in deep snow. He skillfully drove the van to an acute angle to the pavement and used the curb for the rear wheels to push against. This sent the van several feet up the hill before it started to slide back to the curb at a higher point than our starting point. We gradually went up the hill--even if rather hard.” The second time I was caught in a snowstorm I found myself stuck in a valley from which all roads led steeply, and I finished up with the van at an angle on the wrong side of the road. Waiting for a large delivery van to slide by me so that I could try my “curb-pushing” method of hill climbing, I heard a faint tapping on the closed sliding window on the opposite side of the van--the normal serving side. I looked across from the driver's seat, but could see no one. The near-by street lamp shed little on the scene through the white screen of falling snow. The tapping came again, louder and more insistent. I went across and opened the window. A voice said firmly:“Four six-penny ices, please.”I stared in amazement. A queue extended backwards across the road, its tail lost to view in the driving snow. My customers, adults as well as children, had seen me from their houses and had come out, still in sweaters and slippers, with no extra protection against the snow. That afternoon I did more trade stuck there in the snow than when I stopped at the proper stopping places and chimed my arrival. My tutor, the previous driver, had declared several times that those who really like ice-cream would go to considerable trouble to obtain it. How right he was! One of my regular customers, who was a retired confectioner, told me of another sales factor in bad weather. He said that many people did not buy confectionery in advance. Rain or snow kept them from their usual Sunday afternoon walk or even from a tea-time trip to their nearest shop; if they were unable to fetch chocolate and sweets, ice-cream available right outside their homes was an admirable and easy substitute. What he said was true. Icy winds apart, bad weather in the form of fog, rain or snow, never did reduce sales. One aspect of retail selling was the getting of orders for regular ice-cream deliveries at a set time--usually for use as a sweet at lunch or dinner, or as an extra when viewing television. On one occasion when I had moved through a road in the morning and got a provisional order for that day from one housewife, I returned doubtfully at one o'clock in the midst of a snowstorm quite expecting her to cancel the order. To my surprise she doubled her provisional order and asked for a regular weekly visit. It was her busy morning and she was grateful for one less thing to do. Indeed, rarely were these regular orders cancelled, and in bad weather they formed a steady source of income. In the evening they solved an awkward problem, as casual selling, even though I kept to customary arrival times, needed some sort of notice to be given that I was outside with the van. I tried to keep my chimes reasonable, but I always too noisy for those who did not require ice-cream and never loud enough for those who did.