d to work!" said old Diamond. "I wouldn't be as fat as you, not
for all you're worth. You are a disgrace! Look at the horse next you.
_He_ is something _like_ a horse--all skin and bones. He knows he has
got his master's wife and children to support and he works _like_ a
horse!"

"I might get lamed again, if I didn't go slowly and carefully," said
Ruby.

"Lame again!" snorted old Diamond. "It's my belief you lamed yourself on
purpose so you could stay in the stable and stuff yourself and grow fat!
You selfish beast!"

"I might get angry at you," said Ruby, "if I didn't know a little better
than you do how things are coming out. What do you think my master would
say if he were to come back--and he may come any day now--and find me
all worn down to a rack of bones and lamed into the bargain? Do you
think anything would make him believe that your master had used me right
and as he promised he would? And isn't it better he should live a little
hard himself and prove himself to be an honest man who does what he says
he'll do? You don't know everything, old Diamond. You would not probably
believe me if I told you that enduring bad things is often just a way
for bringing good things about. But you'll see!"

Old Diamond just snorted sleepily in reply and gave all his attention to
doubling up his knees and getting down upon the floor to go to sleep.
The racket he made gave young Diamond a start. With a shiver, he seemed
to come awake and see the stable door standing open. He trotted out of
it, back up the long stairs, and tumbled into bed. But Ruby's words kept
sounding in his head.

"Is it like what's in my book?" he said to himself sleepily,--"that
about a blessing in disguise, when things look bad but are working out
all right--like things at the back of the north wind?" He got sleepier,
however, as he tried to think and was fast asleep before he knew it. The
next morning, he sang to the baby more cheerily than ever and here is
part of the song he sung:

Where did you come from, Baby dear?
Out of everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke and it came out to hear.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought of you and so I am here.

"You never made that song, Diamond," said his mother.

"No, mother. But it's mine just the same, for