THE FIRST MOON STORY
A STORY IN WHICH MR. 'COON TELLS MR. 'POSSUM AND MR. RABBIT SOMETHING ABOUT THE MOON
Last night when the full moon looked into the House of Many Windows the Little Lady stood looking at it for a long time.
She had been told that the moon was another world, and that the stars were worlds, too, and she was trying to think how that could be when they looked so small and close together; also if it were all true, and they were so big, why they did not get against each other when the sky itself wasn't any bigger than the world and came down to it everywhere at the edges. She asked the Story Teller about it when he came in.
The Story Teller tried to explain that the stars and moon were not so close together as they looked, and that some were a good deal further away than others, and a lot more things, all of which the Little Lady doubted, because she said she could see for herself that the sky was just a round blue ceiling, and that the moon and stars were right against it, and if any of them were further away than the others they would be over beyond the ceiling and wouldn't show. This was a good deal easier for the Story Teller to understand than the things he had been trying to tell, so he said, "Why, of course. I hadn't thought of that," and then he said he knew some stories about the moon that were a good deal truer, he guessed, than most anything else. And then he told her, first of all,
MR. 'COON'S STORY OF THE MOON.
Once upon a time, when Mr. Dog had invited the Crow and the Turtle to his house for supper, Jack Rabbit came over to the Hollow Tree to spend the evening with the 'Coon and the 'Possum, and they took a long walk. They walked and walked, till by and by they got to the edge of the world and sat down and hung their feet over and talked and looked at the full moon that was just rising.
They talked first about one thing and then another, and then they got to talking about the moon, and come to find out one thought it was this, and one thought it was that, and the third man, which was the 'Coon, said he knew it wasn't either one, for the moon had once belonged to his family and he knew all about it.
So then they agreed between them to let each one tell what he knew about the moon and how he came to know it and all about it. And Mr. 'Coon told first.
"Well," he said, "a long time ago, about sixteen great-great-grandfathers back, our family lived in a big woods in a big tree that was on top of a high mountain and touched the sky with its top limbs when the wind blew.