at the back of the north wind, he was able to understand the poem pretty

well. But before saying anything about it, he read it over aloud, and

Diamond thought he understood it much better already.

“I'll tell you what I think it means,” he then said. “It means that

people may have their way for a while, if they like, but it will get

them into such troubles they'll wish they hadn't had it.”

“I know, I know!” said Diamond. “Like the poor cabman next door. He

drinks too much.”

“Just so,” returned Mr. Raymond. “But when people want to do right,

things about them will try to help them. Only they must kill the snake,

you know.”

“I was sure the snake had something to do with it,” cried Diamond

triumphantly.

A good deal more talk followed, and Mr. Raymond gave Diamond his

sixpence.

“What will you do with it?” he asked.

“Take it home to my mother,” he answered. “She has a teapot--such a

black one!--with a broken spout, and she keeps all her money in it. It

ain't much; but she saves it up to buy shoes for me. And there's baby

coming on famously, and he'll want shoes soon. And every sixpence is

something--ain't it, sir?”

“To be sure, my man. I hope you'll always make as good a use of your

money.”

“I hope so, sir,” said Diamond.

“And here's a book for you, full of pictures and stories and poems. I

wrote it myself, chiefly for the children of the hospital where I hope

Nanny is going. I don't mean I printed it, you know. I made it,” added

Mr. Raymond, wishing Diamond to understand that he was the author of the

book.

“I know what you mean. I make songs myself. They're awfully silly, but

they please baby, and that's all they're meant for.”

“Couldn't you let me hear one of them now?” said Mr. Raymond.

“No, sir, I couldn't. I forget them as soon as I've done with them.

Besides, I couldn't make a line without baby on my knee. We make them

together, you know. They're just as much baby's as mine. It's he that

pulls them out of me.”

“I suspect the child's a genius,” said the poet to himself, “and that's

what makes people think him silly.”

Now if any of my child readers want to know what a genius is--shall

I try to tell them, or shall I not? I will give them one very short

answer: it means one who understands things without any other body

telling him what they mean. God makes a few such now and then to teach

the rest of us.

“Do you like riddles?” asked Mr. Raymond, turning over the leaves of his

own book.

“I don't know what a riddle is,” said Diamond.

“It's something that means something else, and you've got to find out

what the something else is.”

Mr. Raymond liked the old-fashioned riddle best, and had written a

few--one of which he now read.

            I have only one foot, but thousands of toes;

            My one foot stands, but never goes.

            I have many arms, and they're mighty all;

            And hundreds of fingers, large and small.

            From the ends of my fingers my beauty grows.

            I breathe with my hair, and I drink with my toes.

            I grow bigger and bigger about the waist,

            And yet I am always very tight laced.

            None e'er saw me eat--I've no mouth to bite;

            Yet I eat all day in the full sunlight.

            In the summer with song I shave and quiver,

            But in winter I fast and groan and shiver.

“Do you know what that means, Diamond?” he asked, when he had finished.

“No, indeed, I don't,” answered Diamond.

“Then you can read it for yourself, and think over it, and see if you

can find out,” said Mr. Raymond, giving him the book. “And now you had

better go home to your mother. When you've found the riddle, you can

come again.”

If Diamond had had to find out the riddle in order to see Mr. Raymond

again, I doubt if he would ever have seen him.

“Oh then,” I think I hear some little reader say, “he could not have

been a genius, for a genius finds out things without being told.”

I answer, “Genius finds out truths, not tricks.” And if you do not

understand that, I am afraid you must be content to wait till you grow

older and know more.

WHEN Diamond got home he found his father at home already, sitting by

the fire and looking rather miserable, for his head ached and he felt

sick. He had been doing night work of late, and it had not agreed with

him, so he had given it up, but not in time, for he had taken some

kind of fever. The next day he was forced to keep his bed, and his wife

nursed him, and Diamond attended to the baby. If he had not been ill,

it would have been delightful to have him at home; and the first day

Diamond sang more songs than ever to the baby, and his father listened

with some pleasure. But the next he could not bear even Diamond's sweet

voice, and was very ill indeed; so Diamond took the baby into his own

room, and had no end of quiet games with him there. If he did pull

all his bedding on the floor, it did not matter, for he kept baby very

quiet, and made the bed himself again, and slept in it with baby all the

next night, and many nights after.

But long before his father got well, his mother's savings were all but

gone. She did not say a word about it in the hearing of her husband,

lest she should distress him; and one night, when she could not help

crying, she came into Diamond's room that his father might not hear

her. She thought Diamond was asleep, but he was not. When he heard her

sobbing, he was frightened, and said--

“Is father worse, mother?”

“No, Diamond,” she answered, as well as she could; “he's a good bit

better.”

“Then what are you crying for, mother?”

“Because my money is almost all gone,” she replied.

“O mammy, you make me think of a little poem baby and I learned out of

North Wind's book to-day. Don't you remember how I bothered you about

some of the words?”

“Yes, child,” said his mother heedlessly, thinking only of what she

should do after to-morrow.

Diamond began and repeated the poem, for he had a wonderful memory.

            A little bird sat on the edge of her nest;

               Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops;

            That day she had done her very best,

               And had filled every one of their little crops.

            She had filled her own just over-full,

               And hence she was feeling a little dull.

            “Oh, dear!” she sighed, as she sat with her head

               Sunk in her chest, and no neck at all,

            While her crop stuck out like a feather bed

               Turned inside out, and rather small;

            “What shall I do if things don't reform?

            I don't know where there's a single worm.

            “I've had twenty to-day, and the children five each,

               Besides a few flies, and some very fat spiders:

            No one will say I don't do as I preach--

               I'm one of the best of bird-providers;

            But where's the use?  We want a storm--

               I don't know where there's a single worm.”

            “There's five in my crop,” said a wee, wee bird,

               Which woke at the voice of his mother's pain;