His sister Mary at once closed her book, and took a chair beside Harry's couch. Poor little Harry was not like other boys. He could not play and run about as they did, for he was a cripple. All the long weary days he had to lie on a couch which was placed under the shady trees during the warm summer season. He had learned to love the flowers and trees, and the bright blue sky overhead, and his sister often told him pretty stories about them. She was just thinking of telling him one now, when he said gently:
ANCIENT STORIES OF THE SUN.
"Sister, you have told me so many stories of the flowers. I wish you would tell me something about the sky. I have been looking at it for such a long time, watching the little white clouds floating across it like boats with silver sails; and then I tried to look at the bright yellow sun, but it dazzles my eyes. Won't you tell me about it, and where it goes in the evening when we cannot see it any more? Is it always ready in the morning to give us light? Is it ever late, do you think? What would we do if it forgot to come round the edge of the earth and give us light?" he continued anxiously.
EARTH SUPPOSED TO BE FLAT.
"There is no fear of that," said his sister Mary, laughing at the idea. "But a long time ago people asked the very same question. In those days they thought the earth was flat, and surrounded by an ocean without end. The Hindoos supposed that the earth rested upon four elephants, and the four elephants stood on the back of an immense tortoise, which itself floated on the surface of an endless ocean. It was thought that the sun plunged into the ocean when it disappeared in the evening, and some people said they heard a hissing noise when the red-hot body went under the waves.
"But if the sun dropped into the water each evening, how did it happen that next morning it was seen again, as hot and bright as ever? The people could not tell why, so they said that during the night the gods made a new sun to be used the next day."
"That must have kept them busy," said Harry, laughing.
ANCIENT IDEA OF THE EARTH.