LEWISTON — It's a rough world out there for a snowman. The sun beats down, there's rain in the forecast and almost no one in the neighborhood to relate to given the subpar snowfall so far this winter.

Then there are those mean big kids who'll knock down a snowman without thinking twice.

“Frostyman” stood in 2-year-old Lily Fortin's front yard, where she could see him from the living room window. She made him last week with her mother and veteran father. Lily proudly dragged her grandparents to the Sabattus Street home's window each day to show off the snowman, her grandmother Martha Fortin said.

On Monday, Fortin was working Danny's Variety, the convenience store she runs with her husband on Sabattus Street, when she heard the cashier say, “They're trying to push Frosty down!”

Fortin came out to see the snowman, which had stood more than 6 feet tall, in shambles on the ground. A boy had ran over and knocked it over while a car full of teenagers got a tank of gas, the cashier said.

Fortin asked police to look into it when they had a free moment, Fortin said, and gave them the vehicle's plate number.

Officer Jane Huffman tracked the owner down and made a call, reaching the driver's mother, who in turn called her son to tell him to get back to Danny's and fix the gravely injured snowman or else.

The boys, who hadn't been in trouble with police in the past, just thought it would be funny,” Huffman said. “I just think it's mean.”

Back at Danny's, Huffman was telling Fortin to expect the boys to return when the “kids came trailing in, heads hanging,” Huffman said.

Fortin showed them pictures of Lily and her father, Frostyman's creators. “You could tell that they felt a little bad about it,” she said.

The boys sheepishly set to work putting Frostyman back together again, “But (Lily and her father) will know something's different,” Fortin said.

The boy who knocked it over “said he'd never made a snowman before!” Fortin exclaimed. The boys didn't even realize Frosty was rolled rather than packed.

Fortin thinks the boys learned their lesson. “Especially after trying to make it and they didn't know how,” she said. “They were too old to enjoy it, I think.”