“Dat what dey say,” replied Drusilla, “but how dey know? Whar de string what dey medjud ’em wid? Tell me dat!”
“What about our sky?” asked Mrs. Meadows, smiling. “You would never think it was only the bottom of the spring if you didn’t know it; now would you?”
Buster John had nothing to say in reply to this. Whereupon Sweetest Susan begged Mr. Thimblefinger to please go on with his story.
“Well,” said he, “if I am to go on with it, I’ll have to tell it just as I heard it. I’ll have to put the sky just where I was told it was. When the little girl and the old man came close to the Jumping-Off Place, they saw that the sky was hanging close at hand. It may have been far, it may have been near, but to the little girl it seemed to be close enough to touch, and she wished very much for a long pole, so that she could see whether it was made of muslin or ginghams.
PRESENTLY THEY CAME TO A PRECIPICE
“Presently they came to a precipice. There was nothing beyond it and nothing below it. ‘This,’ said the old man to the little girl, ‘is the Jumping-Off Place.’
“‘Does any one jump off here?’ said the little girl.
“‘Not that I know of,’ replied the old man, ‘but if they should take a notion to, the place is all ready for them.’
“‘Where would I fall to, if I jumped off?’ the little girl asked.