When little Luke had seated himself cozily with his back against the trunk of the old apple tree, Bob Lincoln began his story.
III. THE STORY OF THE SUMMER LAND
"Long, long ago when the world was new," said he, "the first Bob Lincoln family lived in a beautiful country in the distant north. In that country it was always summer. None of those who dwelt in that land knew what winter was.
"Ke-honk-a the Gray Goose, who spent half the year in northern Greenland, had mentioned it, but the people of the Summer Land did not understand him. They had never felt winds or seen ice or snow.
"But there came a time when Ke-honk-a said, as he flew over, 'Winter is coming, winter is coming.' But nobody understood and nobody cared. Why should they care about winter when they did not know what it was?
"Soon after this the people of the Summer Land noticed a change in the weather. One half of the year was cooler than the other half. The first time this happened they did not mind it at all. Indeed, they rather liked it. It was pleasant to have a change.
"The next year it was cooler and the next still cooler. And so it went on for some years, each winter getting colder than that which had gone before.
"One day a dull, gray cloud came up out of the north and hid the face of the sun. Out of its gray bosom there came floating to earth a whole flock of big, white snowflakes. The people of the Summer Land were amazed.
"As the great flakes came wavering lazily down through the air, they looked at them and thought that they must be some new kind of winged creatures. 'What a lot of them,' thought they, 'there must be to make that great cloud which hides the sun!'