“Now,” said Uncle Henry, “draw a line downward through the three stars and a little more than twice as far again and what do you see?”
“Another star,” said Paul.
“Put it in,” said Uncle Henry, “and then draw another line from the upper of the first three stars in the direction of the handle of the ‘milk dipper’ in Sagittarius, the archer. Continue this about four times the length of the line that joins the first three stars together and you will find two fairly bright stars close together. That’s right, Paul; put in the star you find about halfway down the line, too. Now draw a line from the two fairly bright stars back in the direction of the tail of the sea-horse, or Delphinus, until it almost meets the first line you drew. There you will find another fairly bright star. Now it is easy to finish the eagle’s skeleton.”
When the eagle’s skeleton was finished Peter thought it looked more like a big arrowhead than an eagle, but when Uncle Henry had drawn the outline of Aquila, the Society of Star-Gazers admitted the resemblance to the bird.
“Now where’s that sea goat?” inquired Peter.
“Follow the line of the first three stars we found in Aquila downward, and just a little way beyond where it ends in the tip of the eagle’s wing you will see two rather faint stars, close together. ([18]) They are at one corner of a ‘cocked hat’ such as you make out of newspaper when you play soldier—sort of a Napoleon’s hat. It is upside down. When you find it and put down pebbles for stars I’ll show you how the good imaginations the ancient people had turned the cocked hat into a sea goat.”
This shows how Capricornus the sea goat looked when the children and Uncle Henry had finished him. I leave it to you to decide whether or not he looks more like a cocked hat.
