"Wasn't that the moon that lit up the lake along the shore?" he demanded.
"Certainly not!" she replied.
"Didn't the moon fall into the water?" he asked.
"No, indeed!" his mother cried. She was astonished at his question.
Nimble was disappointed. He had thought he had a wonderful tale to tell. And he couldn't understand yet why everything wasn't as he had supposed.
"I was sure the moon fell into the lake and blew up," he explained. "What was that terrible noise we heard if it wasn't the moon bursting into pieces?"
His mother didn't laugh. Instead she was quite solemn as she answered Nimble's last question.
"That—" she said—"that was a gun that you heard. And the light that you saw came from a lantern in a boat."
It was very hard for Nimble to believe what she told him.
"I thought I heard a piece of the moon whistle past my head," he went on.