DIAMOND MAKES A BEGINNING
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.
