"I can see the first star peeping out of the sky. I don't see anything more except a few leaves and the big sky over me. It goes swinging about. The earth is all behind my back. There comes another star! The wind with its kisses makes me feel as if I were in North Wind's arms." He thought he would be quite happy if only he could remember some of the songs the river sang to him when he was in the country at the back of the north wind. They seemed to be murmuring in his ear most of the time. Yet somehow they were just far enough off so that he could not catch the words. His little brother and baby sister often played about on the grass with him and often he made up songs to sing to the baby. But these never seemed to be just like the river's songs after all. One of them was about his nest up in the beech tree and it ran like this: What would you see if I took you up To my little nest in the air? You would see the sky like a clean blue cup Turned upside downwards there. What would you do if I took you there, To my little nest in the tree? My child with cries would trouble the air To get what she could but see. What would you get in the top of the tree, For all your crying and grief? Not a star would you clutch of all you see-- You could only gather a leaf. But when you had lost your greedy grief Content to see from afar, You would find in your hand a withering leaf, In your heart a shining star! CHAPTER XI ANOTHER VISIT FROM NORTH WIND One night when he reached his own room, he opened both his windows, one of which looked to the north and the other to the east, to find how the wind blew. It blew right in at the north window. Diamond was glad for he thought perhaps North Wind herself would come now. But as she always came of herself and never when he was looking for her, and, indeed, almost never when he was thinking of her, he shut the east window and went to bed. He awoke in the dim blue night. The moon had vanished from that side of the house. He thought he heard a knocking at his door. "Somebody wants me!" he said, and jumping out of bed ran to open the door. But there was no one there. He closed it again, and the noise still going on, found that another door in the room was rattling. It belonged to a closet he thought, but he had never been able to open it. The wind blowing in at the window must be shaking it. He would go and see if that was it. The door now opened quite easily. To his surprise, instead of a closet he found a long narrow room. The moon, which was sinking in the west, shone in at an open window at the other end. This room had a low ceiling and spread the whole length of the house close under the roof. It was quite empty. The yellow light of the half moon streamed over the dark floor.