At the Back of the North Wind

CHAPTER XXII. MR. RAYMOND’S RIDDLE

MR. RAYMOND took Diamond home with him, stopping at the Mews to tell his mother that he would send him back soon. Diamond ran in with the message himself, and when he reappeared he had in his hand the torn and crumpled book which North Wind had given him.

“Ah! I see,” said Mr. Raymond: “you are going to claim your sixpence now.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that so much as of another thing,” said Diamond. “There’s a rhyme in this book I can’t quite understand. I want you to tell me what it means, if you please.”

“I will if I can,” answered Mr. Raymond. “You shall read it to me when we get home, and then I shall see.”

Still with a good many blunders, Diamond did read it after a fashion. Mr. Raymond took the little book and read it over again.

Now Mr. Raymond was a poet himself, and so, although he had never been 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.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE EARLY BIRD

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;

“I know where there’s five.” And with the word

He tucked in his head, and went off again.

“The folly of childhood,” sighed his mother,

“Has always been my especial bother.”

The yellow-beaks they slept on and on—

They never had heard of the bogy To-morrow;

But the mother sat outside, making her moan—

She’ll soon have to beg, or steal, or borrow.

For she never can tell the night before,

Where she shall find one red worm more.

The fact, as I say, was, she’d had too many;

She couldn’t sleep, and she called it virtue,

Motherly foresight, affection, any

Name you may call it that will not hurt you,

So it was late ere she tucked her head in,

And she slept so late it was almost a sin.

But the little fellow who knew of five

Nor troubled his head about any more,

Woke very early, felt quite alive,

And wanted a sixth to add to his store:

He pushed his mother, the greedy elf,

Then thought he had better try for himself.

When his mother awoke and had rubbed her eyes,

Feeling less like a bird, and more like a mole,

She saw him—fancy with what surprise—

Dragging a huge worm out of a hole!

‘Twas of this same hero the proverb took form:

‘Tis the early bird that catches the worm.

“There, mother!” said Diamond, as he finished; “ain’t it funny?”

“I wish you were like that little bird, Diamond, and could catch worms for yourself,” said his mother, as she rose to go and look after her husband.

Diamond lay awake for a few minutes, thinking what he could do to catch worms. It was very little trouble to make up his mind, however, and still less to go to sleep after it.

CHAPTER XXIV. ANOTHER EARLY BIRD

HE GOT up in the morning as soon as he heard the men moving in the yard. He tucked in his little brother so that he could not tumble out of bed, and then went out, leaving the door open, so that if he should cry his mother might hear him at once. When he got into the yard he found the stable-door just opened.

“I’m the early bird, I think,” he said to himself. “I hope I shall catch the worm.”

He would not ask any one to help him, fearing his project might meet with disapproval and opposition. With great difficulty, but with the help of a broken chair he brought down from his bedroom, he managed to put the harness on Diamond. If the old horse had had the least objection to the proceeding, of course he could not have done it; but even when it came to the bridle, he opened his mouth for the bit, just as if he had been taking the apple which Diamond sometimes gave him. He fastened the cheek-strap very carefully, just in the usual hole, for fear of choking his friend, or else letting the bit get amongst his teeth. It was a job to get the saddle on; but with the chair he managed it. If old Diamond had had an education in physics to equal that of the camel, he would have knelt down to let him put it on his back, but that was more than could be expected of him, and then Diamond had to creep quite under him to get hold of the girth. The collar was almost the worst part of the business; but there Diamond could help Diamond. He held his head very low till his little master had got it over and turned it round, and then he lifted his head, and shook it on to his shoulders. The yoke was rather difficult; but when he had laid the traces over the horse’s neck, the weight was not too much for him. He got him right at last, and led him out of the stable.

By this time there were several of the men watching him, but they would not interfere, they were so anxious to see how he would get over the various difficulties. They followed him as far as the stable-door, and there stood watching him again as he put the horse between the shafts, got them up one after the other into the loops, fastened the traces, the belly-band, the breeching, and the reins.

Then he got his whip. The moment he mounted the box, the men broke into a hearty cheer of delight at his success. But they would not let him go without a general inspection of the harness; and although they found it right, for not a buckle had to be shifted, they never allowed him to do it for himself again all the time his father was ill.

The cheer brought his mother to the window, and there she saw her little boy setting out alone with the cab in the gray of morning. She tugged at the window, but it was stiff; and before she could open it, Diamond, who was in a great hurry, was out of the mews, and almost out of the street. She called “Diamond! Diamond!” but there was no answer except from Jack.

“Never fear for him, ma’am,” said Jack. “It ‘ud be only a devil as would hurt him, and there ain’t so many o’ them as some folk ‘ud have you believe. A boy o’ Diamond’s size as can ‘arness a ‘oss t’other Diamond’s size, and put him to, right as a trivet—if he do upset the keb—‘ll fall on his feet, ma’am.”

“But he won’t upset the cab, will he, Jack?”

“Not he, ma’am. Leastways he won’t go for to do it.”

“I know as much as that myself. What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s a little likely to do it as the oldest man in the stable. How’s the gov’nor to-day, ma’am?”

“A good deal better, thank you,” she answered, closing the window in some fear lest her husband should have been made anxious by the news of Diamond’s expedition. He knew pretty well, however, what his boy was capable of, and although not quite easy was less anxious than his mother. But as the evening drew on, the anxiety of both of them increased, and every sound of wheels made his father raise himself in his bed, and his mother peep out of the window.

Diamond had resolved to go straight to the cab-stand where he was best known, and never to crawl for fear of getting annoyed by idlers. Before he got across Oxford Street, however, he was hailed by a man who wanted to catch a train, and was in too great a hurry to think about the driver. Having carried him to King’s Cross in good time, and got a good fare in return, he set off again in great spirits, and reached the stand in safety. He was the first there after all.

As the men arrived they all greeted him kindly, and inquired after his father.

“Ain’t you afraid of the old ‘oss running away with you?” asked one.

“No, he wouldn’t run away with me,” answered Diamond. “He knows I’m getting the shillings for father. Or if he did he would only run home.”

“Well, you’re a plucky one, for all your girl’s looks!” said the man; “and I wish ye luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Diamond. “I’ll do what I can. I came to the old place, you see, because I knew you would let me have my turn here.”

In the course of the day one man did try to cut him out, but he was a stranger; and the shout the rest of them raised let him see it would not do, and made him so far ashamed besides, that he went away crawling.

Once, in a block, a policeman came up to him, and asked him for his number. Diamond showed him his father’s badge, saying with a smile:

“Father’s ill at home, and so I came out with the cab. There’s no fear of me. I can drive. Besides, the old horse could go alone.”

“Just as well, I daresay. You’re a pair of ‘em. But you are a rum ‘un for a cabby—ain’t you now?” said the policeman. “I don’t know as I ought to let you go.”

“I ain’t done nothing,” said Diamond. “It’s not my fault I’m no bigger. I’m big enough for my age.”

“That’s where it is,” said the man. “You ain’t fit.”

“How do you know that?” asked Diamond, with his usual smile, and turning his head like a little bird.

“Why, how are you to get out of this ruck now, when it begins to move?”

“Just you get up on the box,” said Diamond, “and I’ll show you. There, that van’s a-moving now. Jump up.”

The policeman did as Diamond told him, and was soon satisfied that the little fellow could drive.

“Well,” he said, as he got down again, “I don’t know as I should be right to interfere. Good luck to you, my little man!”

“Thank you, sir,” said Diamond, and drove away.

In a few minutes a gentleman hailed him.

“Are you the driver of this cab?” he asked.

“Yes, sir” said Diamond, showing his badge, of which, he was proud.

“You’re the youngest cabman I ever saw. How am I to know you won’t break all my bones?”

“I would rather break all my own,” said Diamond. “But if you’re afraid, never mind me; I shall soon get another fare.”

“I’ll risk it,” said the gentleman; and, opening the door himself, he jumped in.

He was going a good distance, and soon found that Diamond got him over the ground well. Now when Diamond had only to go straight ahead, and had not to mind so much what he was about, his thoughts always turned to the riddle Mr. Raymond had set him; and this gentleman looked so clever that he fancied he must be able to read it for him. He had given up all hope of finding it out for himself, and he could not plague his father about it when he was ill. He had thought of the answer himself, but fancied it could not be the right one, for to see how it all fitted required some knowledge of physiology. So, when he reached the end of his journey, he got down very quickly, and with his head just looking in at the window, said, as the gentleman gathered his gloves and newspapers:

“Please, sir, can you tell me the meaning of a riddle?”

“You must tell me the riddle first,” answered the gentleman, amused.

Diamond repeated the riddle.

“Oh! that’s easy enough,” he returned. “It’s a tree.”

“Well, it ain’t got no mouth, sure enough; but how then does it eat all day long?”

“It sucks in its food through the tiniest holes in its leaves,” he answered. “Its breath is its food. And it can’t do it except in the daylight.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” returned Diamond. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find it out myself; Mr. Raymond would have been better pleased with me.”

“But you needn’t tell him any one told you.”

Diamond gave him a stare which came from the very back of the north wind, where that kind of thing is unknown.

“That would be cheating,” he said at last.

“Ain’t you a cabby, then?”

“Cabbies don’t cheat.”

“Don’t they? I am of a different opinion.”

“I’m sure my father don’t.”

“What’s your fare, young innocent?”

“Well, I think the distance is a good deal over three miles—that’s two shillings. Only father says sixpence a mile is too little, though we can’t ask for more.”

“You’re a deep one. But I think you’re wrong. It’s over four miles—not much, but it is.”

“Then that’s half-a-crown,” said Diamond.

“Well, here’s three shillings. Will that do?”

“Thank you kindly, sir. I’ll tell my father how good you were to me—first to tell me my riddle, then to put me right about the distance, and then to give me sixpence over. It’ll help father to get well again, it will.”

“I hope it may, my man. I shouldn’t wonder if you’re as good as you look, after all.”

As Diamond returned, he drew up at a stand he had never been on before: it was time to give Diamond his bag of chopped beans and oats. The men got about him, and began to chaff him. He took it all good-humouredly, until one of them, who was an ill-conditioned fellow, began to tease old Diamond by poking him roughly in the ribs, and making general game of him. That he could not bear, and the tears came in his eyes. He undid the nose-bag, put it in the boot, and was just going to mount and drive away, when the fellow interfered, and would not let him get up. Diamond endeavoured to persuade him, and was very civil, but he would have his fun out of him, as he said. In a few minutes a group of idle boys had assembled, and Diamond found himself in a very uncomfortable position. Another cab drew up at the stand, and the driver got off and approached the assemblage.

“What’s up here?” he asked, and Diamond knew the voice. It was that of the drunken cabman.

“Do you see this young oyster? He pretends to drive a cab,” said his enemy.

“Yes, I do see him. And I sees you too. You’d better leave him alone. He ain’t no oyster. He’s a angel come down on his own business. You be off, or I’ll be nearer you than quite agreeable.”

The drunken cabman was a tall, stout man, who did not look one to take liberties with.

“Oh! if he’s a friend of yours,” said the other, drawing back.

Diamond got out the nose-bag again. Old Diamond should have his feed out now.

“Yes, he is a friend o’ mine. One o’ the best I ever had. It’s a pity he ain’t a friend o’ yourn. You’d be the better for it, but it ain’t no fault of hisn.”

When Diamond went home at night, he carried with him one pound one shilling and sixpence, besides a few coppers extra, which had followed some of the fares.

His mother had got very anxious indeed—so much so that she was almost afraid, when she did hear the sound of his cab, to go and look, lest she should be yet again disappointed, and should break down before her husband. But there was the old horse, and there was the cab all right, and there was Diamond in the box, his pale face looking triumphant as a full moon in the twilight.

When he drew up at the stable-door, Jack came out, and after a good many friendly questions and congratulations, said:

“You go in to your mother, Diamond. I’ll put up the old ‘oss. I’ll take care on him. He do deserve some small attention, he do.”

“Thank you, Jack,” said Diamond, and bounded into the house, and into the arms of his mother, who was waiting him at the top of the stair.

The poor, anxious woman led him into his own room, sat down on his bed, took him on her lap as if he had been a baby, and cried.

“How’s father?” asked Diamond, almost afraid to ask.

“Better, my child,” she answered, “but uneasy about you, my dear.”

“Didn’t you tell him I was the early bird gone out to catch the worm?”

“That was what put it in your head, was it, you monkey?” said his mother, beginning to get better.

“That or something else,” answered Diamond, so very quietly that his mother held his head back and stared in his face.

“Well! of all the children!” she said, and said no more.

“And here’s my worm,” resumed Diamond.

But to see her face as he poured the shillings and sixpences and pence into her lap! She burst out crying a second time, and ran with the money to her husband.

And how pleased he was! It did him no end of good. But while he was counting the coins, Diamond turned to baby, who was lying awake in his cradle, sucking his precious thumb, and took him up, saying:

“Baby, baby! I haven’t seen you for a whole year.”

And then he began to sing to him as usual. And what he sang was this, for he was too happy either to make a song of his own or to sing sense. It was one out of Mr. Raymond’s book.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE