"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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: ANCIENT IDEA OF THE EARTH.]
"The good people made up another story about the sun, so that the same
one could be saved each night. Just as it was dropping into the ocean, a
god named Vulcan, who had a great boat ready, caught it, and all night
long he paddled with the blazing sun. Next morning he was ready at
sunrise to send the sun up into the sky in the east. He threw it with
so much force that it would go very high, and when it came down on the
other side in the west, he stood ready to catch it again."
"But where does the sun really go to at night?" asked Harry curiously.
"I should like to know."