Once upon a time, when Mr. Dog was over spending the evening with the
Hollow Tree people, he told them that Mr. Man had said the world was
round, like a ball. Of course this was after Mr. Dog got to be good
friends with the 'Possum and the 'Coon and the old black Crow, and he
often used to come over to the Hollow Tree, where they lived, for a
quiet talk and smoke, and to tell the things that Mr. Man said, and did,
and what he had on his table for dinner.
The Hollow Tree people liked to hear about Mr. Man, too; but when they
heard what he said about the world being round they thought there must
be some mistake in the way Mr. Dog had understood it. Mr. 'Coon said
that it couldn't be so, for the edge of the world was just beyond the
last trees of the big deep woods, and that he'd often sat there and hung
his feet over and watched the moon come up. Mr. 'Possum said so, too;
and Mr. Crow said that the other edge was over along the wide, blue
water, where Mr. Turtle lived, and that of course the water was flat,
as everybody could see. Anyway, it would spill out if it wasn't.
But Mr. Dog stuck to it that Mr. Man had said just what Mr. Dog had said
he said, and that, what was more, Mr. Man had said that the world turned
over every day, and that the sun and moon and stars all went round it.
And Mr. Man had said, too, that people sometimes went around the world,
and didn't turn over or fall off into the sky when they were underneath,
but kept on, and came up on the other side, right back to the very place
they started from.
Well, that made them all wonder a good deal more than ever; and Mr. Jack
Rabbit, who came in just then for the evening, said he shouldn't be a
bit surprised if it were true, for he'd often noticed how the seasons
went round and round, and he thought, now, they must travel around the
world some way, too. He said he'd composed some poetry on Spring as he
came along, and that now he understood some lines of it better than he
had at the start; for, of course, when poetry just comes to anybody, as
it does to Mr. Rabbit, it isn't expected that even the poet himself will
understand it very well at first.
Then they all wanted to hear Jack Rabbit's poem, and Mr. Rabbit said
that it really wasn't just as he wanted it yet, but that if they
wouldn't expect too much, he'd let them hear how it went, anyway.