I’m going off where the shadows are dark.’
“Mr. Man scratched his head. He couldn’t make the message out. Then he said, ‘Take this message back:—
‘Seldom seen and soon forgot:
When a Moon dies her feet get cold.’
“The oldest Rabbit bowed politely and started back home. He came to the Jumping-Off Place, and then he took the long jump. He was soon at home, and went at once to the Moon’s house, and gave the message that Mr. Man had sent. This made the Moon very mad. It declared that the oldest Rabbit had carried the wrong message. Then it grabbed the shovel and struck him in the face. This made the oldest Rabbit very mad, and he jumped at the Moon and used his claws. The fight was a hard one, and you can see the marks of it to this day. All the Rabbits have their upper lips split, and the Moon still has the marks on its face where the oldest Rabbit clawed it.
“The way of it was this,” continued Mr. Rabbit, seeing that the children had hardly caught the drift of the story: “the Moon had been shining constantly for many years, and was growing weak. It wanted to take a rest, and it was afraid Mr. Man would get scared when he failed to see it at night. Since that time the Moon has been taking a rest about every two weeks. At least it used to be that way. I never bother about it now.”
XVIII.
WHY THE BEAR IS A WRESTLER.
“Well,” said Mr. Rabbit, after a pause, “what about the story? Was there any moral to it?”
“None at all,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “It was just an old-time tale.”