CHAPTER I.THE HAY-LOFT.
I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind.

An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves.

My story is not the same as his.

I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place.

I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there.
He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by any means at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew.