“Shall we ever see him?” asked Diggeldy Dan.
“I’m sure I don’t know. Sometime, perhaps. And now, one and all, a merry good night, for I must hurry away to thread my spangle needles and set them in place.”
“Spangle needles,” repeated Puma. “Pray, what are they?”
“Why, what else but needles that catch the spangles,” laughed the Pretty Lady, “which reminds me that I was to tell you about them. Here, Diggeldy Dan, take your place at the head of my White-White Horse, while I explain just how spangles are made.
“You see,” she went on, as Dan skipped to obey, “spangles are really nothing more than dewdrops squeezed out very flat. As for a supply—there’s no end; but to catch them’s a trick requiring no little knack. Now it has been my happy task to gather spangles for the clouds, and for all the glittering hosts of our own Spangleland for ever and ever and ever so long. And this is the best way of all: First, I take a great armful of needles—medium sized moonbeams give the finest results—and thread them with cobwebs. Next, I plant them along the sides of my house directly under the edge of the eaves, with their heads in the ground and their sharp little noses straight up in the air. Now, during the night the dewdrops come to play on the roof and many jump off to the garden below. And, as they do, they land on the points of the moonbeams. Down they come, never minding in the least, for, if there is one thing that a dewdrop would rather be than a dewdrop, it’s a spangle. On and on they come, piling one on the other, becoming very flat, very shiny and very round, and then sliding on to the threads. So, when morning comes, I take the Spangle Bag, ‘snip’ the knots, and let the spangles tumble and tinkle into its depths. And so I always have enough to sprinkle the sunset whenever I pass.”
“Why, that must be the way the rain gets into the clouds!” cried Diggeldy Dan.
“It’s one of the ways,” smiled the Lady.
“And the reason why spangles always have a wee hole in the middle,” remarked Seal.
“How wonderfully fortunate,” added Zebra. “Otherwise, they couldn’t be sewed.”
“I don’t see why you say that,” said Kangaroo.