Hollow Tree Nights and Days

by Albert Bigelow Paine

MR. RABBIT'S STAR STORY

JACK RABBIT TELLS OF HIS GRANDPAW'S

LONG LADDER THAT TOUCHED THE SKY

This is the story that Jack Rabbit told to the Hollow Tree people when they sat together on the edge of the world, and hung their feet over the Big Nowhere and looked at the stars.

"Well," he said, "you may remember my telling you once about the moon being a world, and how, a long time ago, my folks used to live there, and all slid off one day, when the moon tipped up on its edge, and they were not holding on."

Mr. 'Possum said that he remembered quite well, and that Mr. Rabbit's story had seemed to explain everything—at the time. Of course, he said, an explanation couldn't be expected to last forever, and if Mr. Rabbit would like to make a new one, that would be even better, they would be glad to hear it, because Mr. Rabbit's stories were always interesting, even when doubtful, and besides—

Mr. Rabbit didn't wait for Mr. 'Possum to get done. He said it was one of those conversations that could be finished any time and didn't need any audience. "Perhaps Mr. 'Possum wouldn't mind waiting," he said, until the others had told their stories and gone home. Then he went right on to tell his story, like this:

"The sky is also a world—as big a world as this is, with a wide, rounding floor that looks blue in the daytime and nearly black at night, when the sun is gone. The sky country is really kind of an up-stairs world, and the stars are small windows, or peep-holes, in the big, blue floor, for the people up there to look down through when they want to see what is going on below. Those little windows are always there, day and night, though you can't see them in the daytime, because then the sun is shining here and not up there. In the evening, when it quits shining here, it goes up there, and then, of course, all the star windows are lit up, just like a window in the Hollow Tree at night. I will tell you a story of the sky country and its star windows, which explains everything. It has come down in our family ever since my folks lived in the moon, which was a great many great-grandfathers back, and is true, accordingly."

"The moon, where we used to live, is a pretty small world, compared with the sky world—being about like a pea compared with a bread-bowl—and our people used to have such big families that if they hadn't found some place for them to go they would have got so thick that the moon wouldn't have begun to hold them.