The Book of Nature Myths Part 21

"Oh!" said Jack; "but where's the water?"

"It has gone tumbling down the hill," answered the same voice.

"How can water go tumbling?" cried Jill. "_We_ tumbled."

"Water tumbles too," replied the voice, "especially when it is frozen."

"Oh!" said Jack.

"Oh!" said Jill.

"The stream is frozen," called the voice.

"What stream?" asked the children together.

"The stream that goes down the hill," answered the voice. "Did you not know that you were bringing water to keep the stream full?"

"No, indeed," said the children.

"The old man of the hill is only a rock, and what you thought his voice was only the water flowing around it."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Oh!" cried Jack.

"Oh!" cried Jill.

"The stream is frozen," said the voice, "and the earth has a cloak of snow and ice."

"Who are you?" asked Jill shyly.

"Do you really not know? What a strange child you are! I am the moon, of course. Very pleasant people live with me, and I have come to invite you both to go home with me. Will you come?"

The children looked up through the trees, and there was the gentle face of the moon, looking more gentle and kind than ever. "Come," said she, and they went very willingly. They have lived in the moon many years, but they never again carried a pail of water for a stream. "That is the work of the clouds and the sun," says the moon.

WHY THERE IS A MAN IN THE MOON.

"Goodman," said the goodwife, "you must go out into the forest and gather sticks for the fire. To-morrow will be Sunday, and we have no wood to burn."

"Yes, goodwife," answered the goodman, "I will go to the forest."

He did go to the forest, but he sat on a mossy rock and fished till it was dark, and so he brought home no wood. "The goodwife shall not know it," he thought. "I will go to the forest to-morrow morning and gather sticks."

When morning came, he crept softly out of the house when it was hardly light, and went to the forest. Soon he had as many sticks as he could carry, and he was starting for home when a voice called sternly, "Put those sticks down." He looked to the right, to the left, before him, behind him, and over his head. There was no one to be seen.

"Put those sticks down," said the voice again.

"Please, I do not dare to put them down," replied the goodman, trembling with fear. "They are to burn, and my wife cannot cook the dinner without them."

"You will have no dinner to-day," said the voice.

"The goodwife will not know that I did not gather them last night, and she will let me have some dinner. I am almost sure she will," the goodman replied.

"You must not gather sticks to-day," said the voice more sternly than ever. "It is Sunday. Put them down."

"Indeed, Mr. Voice, I dare not," whispered the goodman; and afar off he thought he heard his wife calling, "Goodman, where are you? There is no wood to burn."

"Will you put them down, or will you carry them forever?" cried the voice angrily.

"Truly, I cannot put them down, for I dare not go home without them,"

answered the goodman, shaking with fear from head to foot. "The goodwife would not like it."

"Then carry them forever," said the voice. "You care not for Sunday, and you shall never have another Sunday."

The goodman could not tell how it came about, but he felt himself being lifted, up, up, up, sticks and all, till he was in the moon.

"Here you shall stay," said the voice sternly. "You will not keep Sunday, and here you need not. This is the moon, and so it is always the moon's day, or Monday, and Monday it shall be with you always. Whenever any one looks up at the moon, he will say, 'See the man with the sticks on his back. He was taken to the moon because he gathered wood on Sunday.'"

"Oh dear, oh dear," cried the goodman, "what will the goodwife say?"

THE TWIN STARS.

In front of the little house was a pine-tree, and every night at the time when the children went to bed, a bright star appeared over the top of the tree and looked in at the window. The children were brother and sister. They were twins, and so they always had each other to play with.

"Now go to sleep," the mother would say when she had kissed them good-night, but it was hard to go to sleep when such a beautiful, radiant thing was s.h.i.+ning in at the window of the little house.

"What do you suppose is in the star?" asked the sister.

"I think there are daisies and honey and violets and b.u.t.terflies and bluebirds," answered the brother.

"And I think there are roses and robins and berries and humming-birds,"

said the sister.

"There must be trees and gra.s.s too, and I am sure there are pearls and diamonds."

"I can almost see them now," declared the sister. "I wish we could really see them. To-morrow let us go and find the star."

When morning came, the star was gone, but they said, "It was just behind the pine-tree, and so it must be on the blue mountain." The blue mountain was a long way off, but it looked near, and the twins thought they could walk to it in an hour. All day long they walked. They went through the lonely woods, they crossed brooks, they climbed hills, and still they could not find the radiant star that had looked in at their window. The hour had come when their mother always put them to bed and kissed them and said good-night, but now they had no mother, no good-night kiss, and no bed. They were tired and sleepy. They heard strange sounds in the forest, and they were frightened. "I am so tired,"

the sister whispered. "I am afraid a bear will come. I wish we could see the star."

The sky had grown dark, and a star could be seen here and there, but it was not their star. They went on till they could go no farther. "We will lie down on the gra.s.s," said the brother, "and cover ourselves up with leaves, and go to sleep."