DIAMOND IN HIS NEW HOME
Before the end of the month, Ruby had got a great deal thinner and old
Diamond a good deal fatter. They really began to look fit to go in
double harness. Diamond's father and mother got their things all packed
up and were ready to go into the country at the shortest notice. They
were now so peaceful, and so happy over the prospect that they believed
it worth all the trouble and worry they had gone through.
Nanny had been so happy since she left the hospital and had been living
with Diamond's family that she did not think the country would make her
any happier. Besides she would have to leave cripple Jim behind and
maybe never see him again. She had known cripple Jim much longer than
she had known Diamond and he had no one else to care about him.
Diamond had taken a great deal of time and trouble to find Jim. For Jim
had moved his home and had not heard of Nanny's illness till long after
she was taken to the hospital. He was much too shy to go and inquire
about her there. But when at length she went to live with Diamond's
family, Jim was willing enough to go and see her. It was after one of
his visits during which he and Nanny had talked things over that Diamond
found out that Nanny thought it would not be so very pleasant to go to
the country. The sun and the moon and the trees and the flowers did not
seem much to Nanny without Jim.
Diamond thought it over and that same night he went to see Mr. Raymond.
He wanted to tell him about Jim and Nanny and ask him what they could do
about it. "Jim can shine shoes very well indeed, sir," said Diamond. "If
you could take Jim into the country too, to clean your shoes and do
other odd jobs, then Nanny would like it better. She is so fond of Jim."
Mr. Raymond thought it all over and finally decided that there would be
something for Jim to do.
So on a certain day, Diamond's father took his mother and Diamond
himself and his little brother and sister and Nanny and Jim down by
train to a place called "The Mound," where Mr. Raymond was to live. He
went back to London that same night. The next day, he drove Ruby and
Diamond down with the carriage behind them, and Mr. Raymond and a lady
in the carriage. For Mr. Raymond was now married. And the moment Nanny
saw Mrs. Raymond, she recognized her as the lady who had let her wear
the beautiful ruby ring when she was ill in the hospital.
The weather was very hot at first, and the woods very shadowy, and the
wild flowers mainly gone. But there were plenty of the loveliest grass
and daisies about the house. Diamond's chief pleasure seemed to be to
lie among them and breathe the pure air. As he lay there, he dreamed
often of the country at the back of the north wind and tried to remember
the songs the river used to sing. For this was more like being at the
back of the north wind than anything he had known since he left it. But
though he did lie happily in the grass and dream of her, of North Wind
herself, he neither saw nor heard anything for some months.
Mr. Raymond's house was called "The Mound" because it stood upon a steep
little knoll that had been made on purpose. It was built for Queen
Elizabeth as a hunting tower--a place, that is, from the top of which
you could see the country for miles on all sides. From a window the
Queen was able to follow with her eyes the flying deer, and the hunters
in the chase. The mound had been cast up so as to give the house an
outlook over the neighboring heights and woods.
Diamond's father and mother lived in a little cottage a short distance
from the house. It was a real cottage with a roof of thick thatch which,
in June and July, the wind sprinkled with the red and white petals of
the rose tree climbing up the walls. But Mr. and Mrs. Raymond wanted
Diamond to be a page in their own house. So he was dressed in the little
blue suit of a page and lived at "The Mound" itself.
"Would you be afraid to sleep alone, Diamond?" asked his mistress.
"There is a little room at the top of the house--all alone. Perhaps you
would not mind sleeping there."
"I can sleep anywhere," said Diamond. "And I like best to be high up.
Should I be able to see out?"
"I will show you the place," she answered, and taking him by the hand,
she led him up and up the oval winding stair into one of the two towers
that were on the house. Near the top, they entered a tiny room with two
windows from which you could see all over the country. Diamond clapped
his hands with delight!
"You would like this room, then, Diamond?" asked his mistress.
"It is the grandest room in the house!" he answered. "I shall be near
the stars and yet not far from the tops of the trees. That is just what
I like!"
I daresay he thought also that it would be a nice place for North Wind
to call at, in passing. Below him spread a lake of green leaves with
glimpses of grass here and there at the bottom. As he looked down, he
saw a squirrel appear suddenly and as suddenly vanish among the top-most
branches.
"Aha! Mr. Squirrel!" he cried. "My nest is built higher than yours!"
"I will have a bell hung at your door which I can ring when I want you,"
said his mistress. And so Diamond became a little page in the house.
But after all, his master and mistress seemed to want to keep him out of
doors as much as possible. And his father and mother sometimes looked at
him very anxiously. Diamond thought that no one seemed to ask him to do
much. Often they gave him a story book and sent him out to sit in the
sweet air and sunshine at the foot of a big beech tree.
He did not see much of Nanny and Jim. Somehow they liked to slip off
together when their work was over. They did not understand the many
fancies that Diamond talked about, but they could understand each other
very well. They were never unkind to him but they liked better to go off
by themselves. Diamond did not mind much. He was never lonely. And then
he had a beautiful place where he went and where he saw lovely things
that no one else saw.
He called this place his nest. He went to it by going up a little rope
ladder that hung from a branch of the big beech tree. When he reached
the limb the rope hung from, he went on climbing higher and higher. Up
among the leafy branches and away at the top, out of sight, he found a
safe and comfortable seat which he called his nest.
"What do you see up there, Diamond," some one asked him once.
"I can see the first star peeping out of the sky. I don't see anything
more except a few leaves and the big sky over me. It goes swinging
about. The earth is all behind my back. There comes another star! The
wind with its kisses makes me feel as if I were in North Wind's arms."
He thought he would be quite happy if only he could remember some of the
songs the river sang to him when he was in the country at the back of
the north wind. They seemed to be murmuring in his ear most of the time.
Yet somehow they were just far enough off so that he could not catch the
words.
His little brother and baby sister often played about on the grass with
him and often he made up songs to sing to the baby. But these never
seemed to be just like the river's songs after all. One of them was
about his nest up in the beech tree and it ran like this:
What would you see if I took you up
To my little nest in the air?
You would see the sky like a clean blue cup
Turned upside downwards there.
What would you do if I took you there,
To my little nest in the tree?
My child with cries would trouble the air
To get what she could but see.
What would you get in the top of the tree,
For all your crying and grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you see--
You could only gather a leaf.
But when you had lost your greedy grief
Content to see from afar,
You would find in your hand a withering leaf,
In your heart a shining star!