"Oh dear!" said
Diamond's mother, with a deep sigh, "it's a sad world!"
"Is it?" said
Diamond. "I didn't know."
"How should you
know, child? You've been too well taken care of, I trust."
"Oh yes, I
have," returned Diamond. "I'm sorry! I thought you were taken care of
too.
I thought my father took
care of you. I will ask him about it. I think he must have
forgotten."
"Dear boy!"
said his mother, "your father's the best man in the world."
"So I thought!"
returned Diamond with triumph. "I was sure of it!--Well, doesn't he take
very good care of you?"
"Yes, yes, he
does," answered his mother, bursting into tears. "But who's to take
care of him? And how is he to take care of us if he's got nothing to eat
himself?"
"Oh dear!" said
Diamond with a gasp; "hasn't he got anything to eat? Oh! I must go home to
him."
"No, no, child. He's
not come to that yet. But what's to become of us, I don't know."
"Are you very
hungry, mother? There's the basket. I thought you put something to eat in
it."
"O you darling
stupid! I didn't say I was hungry," returned his mother, smiling through
her tears.
"Then I don't
understand you at all," said Diamond. "Do tell me what's the
matter."
"There are people in
the world who have nothing to eat, Diamond."
"Then I suppose they
don't stop in it any longer. They--they--what you call--die--don't
they?"
"Yes, they do. How
would you like that?"
"I don't know. I
never tried. But I suppose they go where they get something to eat."
"Like enough they
don't want it," said his mother, petulantly.
"That's all right
then," said Diamond, thinking I daresay more than he chose to put in
words.
"Is it though? Poor
boy! how little you know about things! Mr. Coleman's lost all his money, and
your father has nothing to do, and we shall have nothing to eat by and
by."
"Are you sure,
mother?"
"Sure of
what?"
"Sure that we shall
have nothing to eat."
"No, thank Heaven!
I'm not sure of it. I hope not."
"Then I can't
understand it, mother. There's a piece of gingerbread in the basket, I
know."
"O you little bird!
You have no more sense than a sparrow that picks what it wants, and never
thinks of the winter and the frost and, the snow."
"Ah--yes--I see. But
the birds get through the winter, don't they?"
"Some of them fall
dead on the ground."
"They must die some
time. They wouldn't like to be birds always. Would you, mother?"
"What a child it
is!" thought his mother, but she said nothing.
"Oh! now I
remember," Diamond went on. "Father told me that day I went to Epping
Forest with him, that the rose-bushes, and the may-bushes, and the holly-bushes
were the bird's barns, for there were the hips, and the haws, and the
holly-berries, all ready for the winter."
"Yes; that's all
very true. So you see the birds are provided for. But there are no such barns
for you and me, Diamond."
"Ain't
there?"
"No. We've got to
work for our bread."
"Then let's go and
work," said Diamond, getting up.
"It's no use. We've
not got anything to do."
"Then let's
wait."
"Then we shall
starve."
"No. There's the
basket. Do you know, mother, I think I shall call that basket the barn."
"It's not a very big
one. And when it's empty--where are we then?"
"At auntie's
cupboard," returned Diamond promptly.
"But we can't eat
auntie's things all up and leave her to starve."
"No, no. We'll go
back to father before that. He'll have found a cupboard somewhere by that
time."
"How do you know
that?"
"I don't know it.
But I haven't got even a cupboard, and I've always had plenty to eat. I've
heard you say I had too much, sometimes."
"But I tell you
that's because I've had a cupboard for you, child."
"And when yours was
empty, auntie opened hers."
"But that can't go
on."
"How do you know? I
think there must be a big cupboard somewhere, out of which the little cupboards
are filled, you know, mother."
