“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”
But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything the Wind had told him to make and he didn’t know whether anything else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.
By-and-by—there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and that is why so many people prefer it—when he couldn’t stay any longer, he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.
“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.
But he wasn’t cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging, swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands for them, but they were so big he couldn’t put them in his mouth and so he might reach out all he pleased.
“Ho,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was before.”
But the Wind sighed a little.
“I wish everything were more so,” she said. “I ought to have a place to take the Special Baby and make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his little back. Also, I want to learn a lullaby, and this is so public.”
Then the Great Black Hush thought and thought, and remembered that away back on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, there was a tidy little place that might be just the thing. It was not up to date, because there wasn’t any date, but still he thought it might be just the thing.
“By the welkin,” he said, “I know a place that is the place. I’ll go and sweep it out.”