“But I can see over,” said Diamond.
“Ah! to be sure. I can't.”
So saying, North Wind gave a little bound, and stood on the top of the
wall. She was just about the height a dragon-fly would be, if it stood
on end.
“You darling!” said Diamond, seeing what a lovely little toy-woman she
was.
“Don't be impertinent, Master Diamond,” said North Wind. “If there's one
thing makes me more angry than another, it is the way you humans judge
things by their size. I am quite as respectable now as I shall be six
hours after this, when I take an East Indiaman by the royals, twist her
round, and push her under. You have no right to address me in such a
fashion.”
But as she spoke, the tiny face wore the smile of a great, grand woman.
She was only having her own beautiful fun out of Diamond, and true
woman's fun never hurts.
“But look there!” she resumed. “Do you see a boat with one man in it--a
green and white boat?”
“Yes; quite well.”
“That's a poet.”
“I thought you said it was a bo-at.”
“Stupid pet! Don't you know what a poet is?”
“Why, a thing to sail on the water in.”
“Well, perhaps you're not so far wrong. Some poets do carry people over
the sea. But I have no business to talk so much. The man is a poet.”
“The boat is a boat,” said Diamond.
“Can't you spell?” asked North Wind.
“Not very well.”
“So I see. A poet is not a bo-at, as you call it. A poet is a man who is
glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too.”
“Ah! now I know. Like the man in the sweety-shop.”
“Not very. But I see it is no use. I wasn't sent to tell you, and so I
can't tell you. I must be off. Only first just look at the man.”
“He's not much of a rower” said Diamond--“paddling first with one fin
and then with the other.”
“Now look here!” said North Wind.
And she flashed like a dragon-fly across the water, whose surface
rippled and puckered as she passed. The next moment the man in the boat
glanced about him, and bent to his oars. The boat flew over the rippling
water. Man and boat and river were awake. The same instant almost, North
Wind perched again upon the river wall.
“How did you do that?” asked Diamond.
“I blew in his face,” answered North Wind. “I don't see how that could
do it,” said Diamond. “I daresay not. And therefore you will say you
don't believe it could.”
“No, no, dear North Wind. I know you too well not to believe you.”
“Well, I blew in his face, and that woke him up.”
“But what was the good of it?”
“Why! don't you see? Look at him--how he is pulling. I blew the mist out
of him.”
“How was that?”
“That is just what I cannot tell you.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes. I have to do ten thousand things without being able to tell how.”
“I don't like that,” said Diamond.
He was staring after the boat. Hearing no answer, he looked down to the
wall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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