At the Back of the North Wind

“No, father,” answered the boy, and rode on in majestic safety.

The summer drew near, warm and splendid. Miss Coleman was a little better in health, and sat a good deal in the garden. One day she saw Diamond peeping through the shrubbery, and called him. He talked to her so frankly that she often sent for him after that, and by degrees it came about that he had leave to run in the garden as he pleased. He never touched any of the flowers or blossoms, for he was not like some boys who cannot enjoy a thing without pulling it to pieces, and so preventing every one from enjoying it after them.

A week even makes such a long time in a child’s life, that Diamond had begun once more to feel as if North Wind were a dream of some far-off year.

One hot evening, he had been sitting with the young mistress, as they called her, in a little summer-house at the bottom of the lawn—a wonderful thing for beauty, the boy thought, for a little window in the side of it was made of coloured glass. It grew dusky, and the lady began to feel chill, and went in, leaving the boy in the summer-house. He sat there gazing out at a bed of tulips, which, although they had closed for the night, could not go quite asleep for the wind that kept waving them about. All at once he saw a great bumble-bee fly out of one of the tulips.

“There! that is something done,” said a voice—a gentle, merry, childish voice, but so tiny. “At last it was. I thought he would have had to stay there all night, poor fellow! I did.”

Diamond could not tell whether the voice was near or far away, it was so small and yet so clear. He had never seen a fairy, but he had heard of such, and he began to look all about for one. And there was the tiniest creature sliding down the stem of the tulip!

“Are you the fairy that herds the bees?” he asked, going out of the summer-house, and down on his knees on the green shore of the tulip-bed.

“I’m not a fairy,” answered the little creature.

“How do you know that?”

“It would become you better to ask how you are to know it.”

“You’ve just told me.”

“Yes. But what’s the use of knowing a thing only because you’re told it?”

“Well, how am I to know you are not a fairy? You do look very like one.”

“In the first place, fairies are much bigger than you see me.”

“Oh!” said Diamond reflectively; “I thought they were very little.”

“But they might be tremendously bigger than I am, and yet not very big. Why, I could be six times the size I am, and not be very huge. Besides, a fairy can’t grow big and little at will, though the nursery-tales do say so: they don’t know better. You stupid Diamond! have you never seen me before?”

And, as she spoke, a moan of wind bent the tulips almost to the ground, and the creature laid her hand on Diamond’s shoulder. In a moment he knew that it was North Wind.

“I am very stupid,” he said; “but I never saw you so small before, not even when you were nursing the primrose.”

“Must you see me every size that can be measured before you know me, Diamond?”

“But how could I think it was you taking care of a great stupid bumble-bee?”

“The more stupid he was the more need he had to be taken care of. What with sucking honey and trying to open the door, he was nearly dated; and when it opened in the morning to let the sun see the tulip’s heart, what would the sun have thought to find such a stupid thing lying there—with wings too?”

“But how do you have time to look after bees?”

“I don’t look after bees. I had this one to look after. It was hard work, though.”

“Hard work! Why, you could blow a chimney down, or—or a boy’s cap off,” said Diamond.

“Both are easier than to blow a tulip open. But I scarcely know the difference between hard and easy. I am always able for what I have to do. When I see my work, I just rush at it—and it is done. But I mustn’t chatter. I have got to sink a ship to-night.”

“Sink a ship! What! with men in it?”

“Yes, and women too.”

“How dreadful! I wish you wouldn’t talk so.”

“It is rather dreadful. But it is my work. I must do it.”

“I hope you won’t ask me to go with you.”

“No, I won’t ask you. But you must come for all that.”

“I won’t then.”

“Won’t you?” And North Wind grew a tall lady, and looked him in the eyes, and Diamond said—

“Please take me. You cannot be cruel.”

“No; I could not be cruel if I would. I can do nothing cruel, although I often do what looks like cruel to those who do not know what I really am doing. The people they say I drown, I only carry away to—to—to—well, the back of the North Wind—that is what they used to call it long ago, only I never saw the place.”

“How can you carry them there if you never saw it?”

“I know the way.”

“But how is it you never saw it?”

“Because it is behind me.”

“But you can look round.”

“Not far enough to see my own back. No; I always look before me. In fact, I grow quite blind and deaf when I try to see my back. I only mind my work.”

“But how does it be your work?”

“Ah, that I can’t tell you. I only know it is, because when I do it I feel all right, and when I don’t I feel all wrong. East Wind says—only one does not exactly know how much to believe of what she says, for she is very naughty sometimes—she says it is all managed by a baby; but whether she is good or naughty when she says that, I don’t know. I just stick to my work. It is all one to me to let a bee out of a tulip, or to sweep the cobwebs from the sky. You would like to go with me to-night?”

“I don’t want to see a ship sunk.”

“But suppose I had to take you?”

“Why, then, of course I must go.”

“There’s a good Diamond.—I think I had better be growing a bit. Only you must go to bed first. I can’t take you till you’re in bed. That’s the law about the children. So I had better go and do something else first.”

“Very well, North Wind,” said Diamond. “What are you going to do first, if you please?”

“I think I may tell you. Jump up on the top of the wall, there.”

“I can’t.”