This watercolor was painted by Edith Longfellow in 1862 when she was nine years old. It depicts a winter scene, with figures engaged in winter recreation. Several figures are shown sledding on a hill, or being pulled along on sleds on a presumably snow-covered street. Another figure seems to be on the frozen surface of a pond or river and is perhaps ice fishing or on ice skates.
In 1862 there was a pond situated between the Longfellow home and their neighbor to the west. Henry sometimes took advantage of it, recording in 1845 that he “Skated on Worcester Water in the afternoon, and did it better than I thought I could.” A few days later he went again, writing “In the morning skated on Worcester Water till the ice began to crack in the sun.” Years afterward Henry noted in a January 1853 journal entry that he had “Walked with Fanny, then played with Charley and Erny on the ice. Charley is learning to skate and takes to it cleverly as he does all active sports and occupations.” In 1855 Henry documented that he spent part of January 3 in “Play with Alice on the ice.” Ernest Longfellow shared a recollection of skating on the pond in his 1922 memoir Random Memories “In winter, too, on the ice, I am afraid we made an awful racket . . . for he [Mr. Worcester] used to issue forth in great wrath and request us to leave his part of the pond.”
Sledding was also a popular winter pastime. On a cold February day in 1847 Henry “. . . dragged Charley on his new sled over snow and ice in the garden, to his great delight.” On January 19, 1849 Fanny wrote of what she saw during a short trip into Boston “So interested in all the sights by the way, the boys on their sleds & the little girls, just loose from school, sliding on the frozen sidewalks.”