“No one goes nowadays,” said the grandmother.
“They went in your great-grandmother’s time?” ventured the little boy.
“Before her time, even,” said the grandmother. “Things are greatly changed since then.”
The younger sisters had come in from swinging and were sitting on the other end of the bench. The eldest sister was walking with her betrothed in the lovely summer twilight.
“No one ever went to the sun,” said one of the sisters. “It is much too far off. I have learned it in school. And this world goes around it every day.”
“There were no schools in your great-grandmother’s time,” replied the grandmother, “and things were different then. The world did not move in those days; it rested on three great whales which were swimming in the ocean. My grandmother told me all about it.”
The little boy pondered this fact for a while. Presently he said:
“One more story, little grandmother?”
It was still light, for twilight is very long in Russia. The grandmother told the story of