At the Back of the North Wind

“You have brought us all hither, Little Boy Blue,
Pray what do you want us all to do?”
“Go away!  go away!” said Little Boy Blue;
“I’m sure I don’t want you—get away—do.”
“No, no; no, no; no, yes, and no, no,”
Sang Birdie Brown, “it mustn’t be so.
“We cannot for nothing come here, and away.
Give us some work, or else we stay.”
“Oh dear! and oh dear!” with sob and with sigh,
Said Little Boy Blue, and began to cry.
But before he got far, he thought of a thing;
And up he stood, and spoke like a king.
“Why do you hustle and jostle and bother?
Off with you all!  Take me back to my mother.”
The sunset stood at the gates of the west.
“Follow me, follow me” came from Birdie Brown’s breast.
“I am going that way as fast as I can,”
Said the brook, as it sank and turned and ran.
Back to the woods fled the shadows like ghosts:
“If we stay, we shall all be missed from our posts.”
Said the wind with a voice that had changed its cheer,
“I was just going there, when you brought me here.”
“That’s where I live,” said the sack-backed squirrel,
And he turned his sack with a swing and a swirl.
Said the cock of the spire, “His father’s churchwarden.”
Said the brook running faster, “I run through his garden.”
Said the mole, “Two hundred worms—there I caught ‘em
Last year, and I’m going again next autumn.”
Said they all, “If that’s where you want us to steer for,
What in earth or in water did you bring us here for?”
“Never you mind,” said Little Boy Blue;
“That’s what I tell you.  If that you won’t do,
“I’ll get up at once, and go home without you.
I think I will; I begin to doubt you.”
He rose; and up rose the snake on its tail,
And hissed three times, half a hiss, half a wail.
Little Boy Blue he tried to go past him;
But wherever he turned, sat the snake and faced him.
“If you don’t get out of my way,” he said,
“I tell you, snake, I will break your head.”
The snake he neither would go nor come;
So he hit him hard with the stick of his drum.
The snake fell down as if he were dead,
And Little Boy Blue set his foot on his head.
And all the creatures they marched before him,
And marshalled him home with a high cockolorum.
And Birdie Brown sang Twirrrr twitter twirrrr twee—
Apples and cherries, roses and honey;
Little Boy Blue has listened to me—
All so jolly and funny.

CHAPTER XXI. SAL’S NANNY

DIAMOND managed with many blunders to read this rhyme to his mother.

“Isn’t it nice, mother?” he said.

“Yes, it’s pretty,” she answered.

“I think it means something,” returned Diamond.

“I’m sure I don’t know what,” she said.

“I wonder if it’s the same boy—yes, it must be the same—Little Boy Blue, you know. Let me see—how does that rhyme go?

Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn—

Yes, of course it is—for this one went `blowing his horn and beating his drum.’ He had a drum too.

Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn;
The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn,

He had to keep them out, you know. But he wasn’t minding his work. It goes—

Where’s the little boy that looks after the sheep?
He’s under the haystack, fast asleep.

There, you see, mother! And then, let me see—

Who’ll go and wake him?  No, not I;
For if I do, he’ll be sure to cry.

So I suppose nobody did wake him. He was a rather cross little boy, I daresay, when woke up. And when he did wake of himself, and saw the mischief the cow had done to the corn, instead of running home to his mother, he ran away into the wood and lost himself. Don’t you think that’s very likely, mother?”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” she answered.

“So you see he was naughty; for even when he lost himself he did not want to go home. Any of the creatures would have shown him the way if he had asked it—all but the snake. He followed the snake, you know, and he took him farther away. I suppose it was a young one of the same serpent that tempted Adam and Eve. Father was telling us about it last Sunday, you remember.”

“Bless the child!” said his mother to herself; and then added aloud, finding that Diamond did not go on, “Well, what next?”

“I don’t know, mother. I’m sure there’s a great deal more, but what it is I can’t say. I only know that he killed the snake. I suppose that’s what he had a drumstick for. He couldn’t do it with his horn.”

“But surely you’re not such a silly as to take it all for true, Diamond?”

“I think it must be. It looks true. That killing of the snake looks true. It’s what I’ve got to do so often.”

His mother looked uneasy. Diamond smiled full in her face, and added—

“When baby cries and won’t be happy, and when father and you talk about your troubles, I mean.”