Diamond's First Trip With the North Wind
Diamond awoke very early the next morning and thought what a curious dream he had had. But the memory of it grew brighter and brighter until it did not look altogether like a dream. In fact he began to doubt whether he had not really been abroad in the wind at night.
All that week it was hard weather. The grass showed white in the morning with the hoar frost which clung to every blade. As Diamond's shoes were not good and his mother had not saved up quite enough money to get him the new pair she so much wanted for him, she would not let him run out. But at length, she brought home his new shoes. No sooner did she find that they fitted him, than she told him he might run out into the yard and amuse himself.
The sun was going down when he flew from the door like a bird from its cage. A great fire of sunset burned over the top of the gate that led to the stables. Above the fire in the sky, lay a large lake of green light, above that a golden cloud, and over that the blue of the wintry heavens. Diamond thought that next to his own home, he had never seen any place he would like so much to live in as that sky.
As he wandered about, he came to stand by the little door which opened upon the lawn of the house next door. That made him remember how the wind had driven him to this same spot on the night of his dream. So he thought he would just go in and see if things looked at all as they did then. But not a flower was to be seen in the beds on the lawn! Even the brave old chrysanthemums and Christmas roses had passed away before the frost. What? Yes! There was one. He ran and knelt down to look at it.
It was a primrose—a tiny, tiny thing, but perfect in shape—a baby wonder. As he stooped his face to see it close, a little wind began to blow. Two or three long leaves that stood up behind the flower shook and wavered and quivered. But the primrose lay still in the green hollow, looking up at the sky and not seeming to know at all that the wind was blowing. It looked like a golden eye that the black wintry earth had opened to look at the sky with.
That very same night, after Diamond had been asleep for a little, he awoke all at once in the dark.
"Open the window, Diamond," said a voice.
Now Diamond's mother had once more pasted up North Wind's window.