That made the Dream-Fairies laugh. They assured Sweet-One-Darling that the Moon was not a soda-cracker, but a beautiful round piece of silver way, way up in the sky, and that the stars were little Moons, bearing the same relationship (in point of size) to the old mother Moon that a dime does to a big silver dollar.
"And how big is the Moon?" asked Sweet-One-Darling. "Is it as big as this room?"
"Oh, very, very much bigger," said the Dream-Fairies.
"I guess it must be as big as a house," suggested Sweet-One-Darling.
"Bigger than a house," answered Gleam-o'-the-Murk.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Sweet-One-Darling, and she began to suspect that the Dream-Fairies were fooling her.
But that night the Dream-Fairies took Sweet-One-Darling with them to the Moon! You don't believe it, eh? Well, you wait until you 've heard all about it, and then, may be, you not only will believe it, but will want to go there, too.
The Dream-Fairies lifted Sweet-One-Darling carefully out of her cradle; then their wings went "whir-r-r, whir-r-r"—you 've heard a green fly buzzing against a window-pane, have n't you? That was the kind of whirring noise the Dream-Fairies' wings made, with the pleasing difference that the Dream-Fairies' wings produced a soft, soothing music. The cricket under the honeysuckle by the window heard this music and saw the Dream-Fairies carrying Sweet-One-Darling away. "Be sure to bring her back again," said the cricket, for he was a sociable little fellow and was very fond of little children.
You can depend upon it that Sweet-One-Darling had a delightful time riding through the cool night air in the arms of those Dream-Fairies; it was a good deal like being a bird, only the Dream-Fairies flew very much faster than any bird can fly. As they sped along they told Sweet-One-Darling all about the wonderful things they saw and everything was new to Sweet-One-Darling, for she had never made any journeys before except in the little basket-carriage which Good-Old-Soul, her nurse, propelled every sunny morning up and down the street. Pretty soon they came to a beautiful river, which looked as if it were molten silver; but it was n't molten silver; it was a river of moonbeams.
"We will take a sail now," said Gleam-o'-the-Murk. "This river leads straight to the Moon, and it is well worth navigating."