Retold by Laura E.Richards All day long the little boy had worked hard, in the field and barn and shed, for his parents were poor farmers, and could not pay a workman.But at sunset there came an hour that was all his own, for his father had given it to him.Then the boy would go up to the top of a hill and look across at another hill that rose some miles away.On that far hill stood a house with windows of clear gold and diamonds.They shone so brightly that it made the boy squint at them,  but after a while the people in the house put up shutters, as it seemed, and then it looked like any common farmhouse.The boy supposed they did this because it was suppertime; and then he would go into the house and have his supper of bread and milk, and go to bed. One day the boy's father called him and said: "You have been a good boy, and have earned a holiday.Take this day for your own, and try to learn some good things." The boy thanked his father and kissed his mother.Then he put a piece of bread in his pocket, and started off to find the house with the golden windows. It was a pleasant walk.His bare feet made marks in the white dust, and when he looked back, the footprints seemed to be following him, and keeping him company.His shadow, too, kept beside him, and would dance or run with him as he pleased; so it was very cheerful.By and by he felt hungry, and he sat down by a brown stream that ran through the alder hedge by the roadside, ate his bread, and drank the clear water.Then he scattered the small pieces of bread for the birds as his mother had taught him to do, and went on his way. After a long time he came to a high green hill, and when he had climbed the hill, there was the house on the top.But it seemed that the shutters were up, for he could not see the golden windows.He came up to the house, and then he could well have wept, for the windows were of clear glass, like any others, and there was no gold anywhere about them. A woman came to the door, looked kindly at the boy, and asked him what he wanted. "I saw the golden windows from our hilltop," he said, "and I came to see them, but now they are only of clear glass." The woman shook her head and laughed. "We are poor farmers," she said, "and are not likely to have gold about our windows.But glass is better to see through." She let the boy sit down on the broad stone step at the door, and brought him a cup of milk and a cake, and asked him to take a break.Then she called her daughter, a child of his own age, nodded kindly at the two, and went back to her work. The little girl was barefooted like him, and wore a brown cotton dress, but her hair was golden like the windows he had seen, and her eyes were blue like the sky at noon.She showed the boy about the farm, and showed him her black calf with a white star on its forehead, and he told her about his own at home, which was red like a chestnut with four white feet.They became friends after they ate an apple together.However, when the boy asked her about the golden windows, the little girl nodded, and said she knew all about them; only he had mistaken the house. "You have come quite the wrong way!" she said."Come with me, and I will show you the house with the golden windows, and then you will see for yourself." They went to a knoll that rose behind the farmhouse, and the little girl told him that the golden windows could only be seen at a certain hour, about sunset. "Yes, I know that!" said the boy. When they reached the top of the knoll, the girl turned and pointed;there on a hill far away stood a house with windows of clear gold and diamond, just as he had seen them.And when they looked again, the boy saw that it was his own home. Then he told the little girl that he must go.He gave her his best pebble , the white one with the red band, that he had carried for a year in his pocket, and she gave him three horse-chestnuts, one red like satin, one spotted, and one white like milk.He promised to come again, but he did not tell her what he had learned.He went back down the hill, and the little girl stood in the sunset light and watched him away. The way home was long, and it was dark before the boy reached his house, but the lamplight and firelight shone through the windows, making them almost as bright as he had seen them from the hilltop.When he opened the door, his mother came to kiss him, and his little sister ran to throw her arms about his neck, and his father looked up and smiled from his seat by the fire. "Have you had a good day?" asked his mother. Yes, the boy had had a very good day. "And have you learned anything?" asked his father. "Yes!" said the boy."I have learned that our house has windows of gold and diamond." What can we learn from the passage?
East or west, home is best. To see the trees but not the forest. Beauty is right here waiting for you. Where there is a will, there is a way.