“Oh, I see his feet!” exclaimed Betty delightedly.
“Put them in then,” said Uncle Henry.
Then Orion looked like this on the blackboard:
“I’ll tell you this much more,” said Uncle Henry, “and then you must finish Orion by yourselves. He has a great club, raised, ready to strike, in his right hand, and he holds a lion’s skin on his left arm, as a shield.”
“What’s he going to hit at?” inquired Peter, with his boy’s joy in battle uppermost.
“At Taurus, the wild bull,” said Uncle Henry. “You can see that Taurus is very fierce, and would enjoy nothing better than to chase the twin star boys round and round the sky. He might not really want to hurt the boys, whose names are Castor and Pollux, but Taurus’ horns are very sharp and he doesn’t know how to play gently, so it keeps Orion pretty busy getting between him and Gemini and threatening the bull with his club.”
“What’s ‘jimini,’ Uncle Hen?” said Paul. “Sounds like our swear word.”
“It is the origin of it,” said Uncle Henry. “The ancient Romans used to swear ‘by Gemini,’ and it has slowly been changed into your ‘jimini.’ Gemini is the Latin word that means ‘twins.’ We’ll find them after we finish up Orion and Taurus, and then you’ll see just how Orion keeps protecting them from the bull.”
“Hurry up, Uncle Hen!” urged Peter. “I’m dreadful excited!”