“I said, ‘no one,’ but have it ‘Noah’ if you like,” said Uncle Henry. “Maybe Noah named him. He was interested in animals, and Adam ought not to have the only right to name them.”
“Now let’s find the little dipper!” urged Peter, anxious for a victory over Betty’s doubts of its existence.
“When we find it,” announced Uncle Henry solemnly, “it won’t be a dipper at all; it will be another bear—a little bear. You know that Noah had two of everything in his ark.”
“I told you there wasn’t any little dipper!” shrilled Betty at Peter.
“Uncle Henry said we’d find it, though,” countered Peter, looking hopefully at the oracle.
“So we will,” laughed Uncle Henry, “the little dipper and the little bear are the same thing!”
“Come on!” urged Paul, “how do we start, Uncle Henry?”
Uncle Henry got up on his knees and drew a long straight line in the sand with his forefinger. ([1]) It went up through both stars in the middle of the great bear’s body, and a long way beyond. Over three times the distance between the two stars the line went beyond them. Uncle Henry put down a fair-sized pebble at the end.
“There,” he said, “is the tip of the little bear’s tail. Go ahead and find him; but I warn you—it’s a very long tail, and you’ll have to imagine his legs and nose.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Peter said,