Indeed, there was such a high wall, and there were so many houses about

the mews, that North Wind seldom got into the place at all, except when

something must be done, and she had a grand cleaning out like other

housewives; while the partition at the head of Diamond's new bed only

divided it from the room occupied by a cabman who drank too much beer,

and came home chiefly to quarrel with his wife and pinch his children.

It was dreadful to Diamond to hear the scolding and the crying. But it

could not make him miserable, because he had been at the back of the

north wind.

If my reader find it hard to believe that Diamond should be so good,

he must remember that he had been to the back of the north wind. If he

never knew a boy so good, did he ever know a boy that had been to the

back of the north wind? It was not in the least strange of Diamond to

behave as he did; on the contrary, it was thoroughly sensible of him.

We shall see how he got on.

THE wind blew loud, but Diamond slept a deep sleep, and never heard

it. My own impression is that every time when Diamond slept well and

remembered nothing about it in the morning, he had been all that night

at the back of the north wind. I am almost sure that was how he woke

so refreshed, and felt so quiet and hopeful all the day. Indeed he said

this much, though not to me--that always when he woke from such a sleep

there was a something in his mind, he could not tell what--could not

tell whether it was the last far-off sounds of the river dying away in

the distance, or some of the words of the endless song his mother had

read to him on the sea-shore. Sometimes he thought it must have been

the twittering of the swallows--over the shallows, you, know; but it may

have been the chirping of the dingy sparrows picking up their breakfast

in the yard--how can I tell? I don't know what I know, I only know what

I think; and to tell the truth, I am more for the swallows than the

sparrows. When he knew he was coming awake, he would sometimes try hard

to keep hold of the words of what seemed a new song, one he had not

heard before--a song in which the words and the music somehow appeared

to be all one; but even when he thought he had got them well fixed in

his mind, ever as he came awaker--as he would say--one line faded away

out of it, and then another, and then another, till at last there was

nothing left but some lovely picture of water or grass or daisies, or

something else very common, but with all the commonness polished off it,

and the lovely soul of it, which people so seldom see, and, alas! yet

seldomer believe in, shining out. But after that he would sing the

oddest, loveliest little songs to the baby--of his own making, his

mother said; but Diamond said he did not make them; they were made

somewhere inside him, and he knew nothing about them till they were

coming out.

When he woke that first morning he got up at once, saying to himself,

“I've been ill long enough, and have given a great deal of trouble; I

must try and be of use now, and help my mother.” When he went into her

room he found her lighting the fire, and his father just getting out of

bed. They had only the one room, besides the little one, not much more

than a closet, in which Diamond slept. He began at once to set things

to rights, but the baby waking up, he took him, and nursed him till

his mother had got the breakfast ready. She was looking gloomy, and his

father was silent; and indeed except Diamond had done all he possibly

could to keep out the misery that was trying to get in at doors and

windows, he too would have grown miserable, and then they would have

been all miserable together. But to try to make others comfortable is

the only way to get right comfortable ourselves, and that comes partly

of not being able to think so much about ourselves when we are helping

other people. For our Selves will always do pretty well if we don't pay

them too much attention. Our Selves are like some little children who

will be happy enough so long as they are left to their own games, but

when we begin to interfere with them, and make them presents of too nice

playthings, or too many sweet things, they begin at once to fret and

spoil.

“Why, Diamond, child!” said his mother at last, “you're as good to your

mother as if you were a girl--nursing the baby, and toasting the bread,

and sweeping up the hearth! I declare a body would think you had been

among the fairies.”

Could Diamond have had greater praise or greater pleasure? You see

when he forgot his Self his mother took care of his Self, and loved and

praised his Self. Our own praises poison our Selves, and puff and swell

them up, till they lose all shape and beauty, and become like great

toadstools. But the praises of father or mother do our Selves good, and

comfort them and make them beautiful. They never do them any harm. If

they do any harm, it comes of our mixing some of our own praises with

them, and that turns them nasty and slimy and poisonous.

When his father had finished his breakfast, which he did rather in a

hurry, he got up and went down into the yard to get out his horse and

put him to the cab.

“Won't you come and see the cab, Diamond?” he said.

“Yes, please, father--if mother can spare me a minute,” answered

Diamond.

“Bless the child! I don't want him,” said his mother cheerfully.

But as he was following his father out of the door, she called him back.

“Diamond, just hold the baby one minute. I have something to say to your

father.”

So Diamond sat down again, took the baby in his lap, and began poking

his face into its little body, laughing and singing all the while,

so that the baby crowed like a little bantam. And what he sang was

something like this--such nonsense to those that couldn't understand it!

but not to the baby, who got all the good in the world out of it:--

baby's a-sleeping wake up baby for all the swallows are the merriest

fellows and have the yellowest children who would go sleeping and

snore like a gaby disturbing his mother and father and brother and all

a-boring their ears with his snoring snoring snoring for himself and no

other for himself in particular wake up baby sit up perpendicular hark

to the gushing hark to the rushing where the sheep are the woolliest and

the lambs the unruliest and their tails the whitest and their eyes the

brightest and baby's the bonniest and baby's the funniest and baby's the

shiniest and baby's the tiniest and baby's the merriest and baby's

the worriest of all the lambs that plague their dams and mother's

the whitest of all the dams that feed the lambs that go crop-cropping

without stop-stopping and father's the best of all the swallows that

build their nest out of the shining shallows and he has the merriest

children that's baby and Diamond and Diamond and baby and baby and

Diamond and Diamond and baby--

Here Diamond's knees went off in a wild dance which tossed the baby

about and shook the laughter out of him in immoderate peals. His mother

had been listening at the door to the last few lines of his song, and