"And now, what will you do with it?" the gentleman asked him.

"Take it home to my mother," answered Diamond. "She has a tea-pot with a
broken spout and she keeps all her money in it. It isn't much but she
saves it up to buy shoes for me. And there's the baby--he'll want shoes
soon. And every six-pence is something, isn't it?"

"To be sure, my little man. And here is the book for you, full of
pictures and stories."

There were poems in it too, and Diamond at once began to puzzle out one
of them which ran like this:

I have only one foot, but thousands of toes;
My one foot stands but never goes.
I have many arms and they are mighty, all;
And hundreds of fingers large and small.
From the ends of my fingers my beauty grows,
I breathe with my hair and I drink with my toes.
In the summer, with song I shake and quiver,
But in winter, I fast and groan and shiver.

When Diamond ran home with his new book in his hand, he found his father
at home already. He was sitting by the fire and looking rather miserable
for his head ached and he looked sick. The next day, he had to stay in
bed while his wife nursed him, and Diamond took care of the baby. By the
next day, he was very ill indeed. And it was not long before their money
was all gone.

Diamond's mother could not help crying over it but she came into
Diamond's room so that the poor sick father should not hear it. Diamond
was frightened when he heard her sobbing and said, "Is father worse?"

"No, no," said his mother, "he is better. But the money is all gone and
what are we to do?"

"Don't cry," said Diamond. "We'll get along some how. Let me read to you
out of North Wind's book."

So he read a little story about the early bird that caught the nice fat
worm.

"I wish you were like that little bird, dear," said his mother, "and
could catch something to eat!"

After she was gone away, Diamond lay thinking and somehow he seemed to
hear the murmur of North Wind's river blowing through his thoughts and
telling him about something he could do. The next morning he got up as
soon as he heard the men moving in the yard. When he went down, the
stable was just opened. "I'm the early bird, I think," he said to
himself, "and I hope I'll catch the worm."

[Illustration: HE FASTENED THE CHEEK-STRAP VERY CAREFULLY]

He would not ask any one to help him because he was afraid he would be
kept from d