"Astronomy?—what's that?"
"It is counting the stars, and telling how they move, and watching when they fall. I expect to catch one, some day."
"What shall you do then?"
"Hide it in my nest, to be sure, until I can plant the seeds, and raise another crop."
"Hide a star in an owl's nest! Why, the stars are worlds," laughed Minnie.
"O, that is what ignorant people say. This, that you see above your head, is a huge tree with dark leaves, and hung all over with golden oranges. When the stars seem to move, it is only the boughs that are waving; when the stars seem to fall, it is ripe fruit that drops to the earth. Let me catch one, and you'll see what a fine orange-bush I'll grow from the seed!"
"I'd sooner fly out, in the pleasant morning sunshine, and pick up strawberries, blueberries, checkerberries, all the nice things that grow in the wood," said Minnie; "but, if you can't be happy without the stars,—"
"I never can!" exclaimed the owl.
"Then I would fly up where they grow, and pick them myself from the boughs;—not sit in a dark hole, and wait for them to fall."
But the owl—who thought no one's opinion worth much, except his own—could not agree with her, and flew away.