Betty added a few lines to show that Andromeda was lying on a pile of hay, instead of being chained to that hard rock the Greeks insisted upon.
“What is that fuzzy little star just to her right, about at her hip?” asked Paul.
“I’m glad you noticed that,” said Uncle Henry. “The astronomers who lived ever so long ago, long before the birth of Christ Jesus, noticed that it looked ‘fuzzy,’ just as you have, and called it ‘the little cloud.’ It is now called ‘The Great Nebula in Andromeda.’ If you looked at it through a telescope you would see that it is not one star, but a great many. Some of them, as astronomers who live now tell us, are as large as our sun.”
“Ooh, how wonderful!” said Betty softly, and the boys’ faces showed that they thought so, too.
“Some night,” promised Uncle Henry, “we’ll bring up a little telescope and look at ‘the little cloud’ again. It is a fine sight.”
“Now,” said Paul after a moment, “please can I find the ram and the little dog?”
“Certainly,” said Uncle Henry. “Just as Canis Major, the bigger dog, follows Orion and belongs to him, so Canis Minor, the littler dog, follows and belongs to the star children, the twins named Gemini.”
“Ooh!” exclaimed Betty, “just like ‘Rags’ belongs to Peter and Paul! We’ll call the little dog ‘Rags’ when Paul finds him.”