XLV. COUNTING THE STARS

ROBERT was offered a dollar by his grandfather if he would count the stars. The night was clear, and there Robert thought he might as well begin

was no moon.

at once.

He had no special interest in the stars, but a dollar had great possibilities in it for him.

The boy lay on his back on the soft, cool grass, so as to see all the sky at once. He guessed there might be a hundred stars, and that there would be a cent for each star that he counted. An hour was allowed him for the work, as it was then eight o'clock. He thought it quite sufficient. Some time was spent in deciding where to begin; but as Venus was the evening star at that time, it seemed a good one to earn his first penny upon. His mother thought so, too.

Mothers can usually be depended upon to encourage the efforts of their children, and he thought he would like to have his mother count also.

Robert was an honest boy, and he was sure that he ought to count as carefully as his father had to count bills at the bank, not missing a single one. There was a long silent time. Robert's mother had not

believed he would be so persevering. She did not speak till she heard a sigh and knew that he had stopped counting. "Have you lost count?" she asked. Yes," was the answer, "I'm all mixed up. I'm afraid I shall have to begin over again."

"Oh!" said his mother in a sympathetic tone.

"There are so many of the little ones," Robert added, "and there are no lines to go by. How did you get on?" he asked.

"I worked in another way and counted till I reached a hundred, then I think I lost count also. I began, as you did, with Venus and then looked for the other two planets, Jupiter and Mars. We do not always have three planet visitors in sight at the same time.

once.

"Then I went all over the sky for the largest stars -stars of the first magnitude they are called. There were seven of them. That is a good many to have at The last time I looked for them there were only six, and in the whole year there would be only fourteen. It was not so easy to count the stars of the second magnitude, of which there are forty in all. I found about twenty and then began back at Venus to count smaller stars."

"It will take another evening," said Robert, "to go all over the sky; I think I had better stop now."

XLVI. THE CONSTELLATIONS

It was a month or two before Robert made his second attempt to number the stars. His mother had pointed out to him, in the meantime, the stars of first magnitude — he had learned to find Vega and the bright star Sirius himself, and had had Regulus and Castor and Pollux pointed out several times.

When Arcturus came first in sight in the eastern sky he was as much interested as his mother; so, when his grandpapa said one night at tea time, "I want you to have that star dollar, Robert!" he asked to be allowed to sit up till it was dark enough for the stars to be bright.

"Will you show me how to count your way, mamma?" he asked.

"We will take a better way," was the answer. "I showed you the Great Dipper, the Seven Sisters, Orion's belt, and the Sickle. We will look for more groups of stars. Then if you have to stop, you will not need to begin at the beginning again.

"Groups that make figures in the sky are called constellations. There are a good many. The whole

THE CONSTELLATIONS

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sky is overspread with them. When I was a little girl grandpapa taught me to find them, and they seem like old friends that meet me wherever I go. I think you will like to get acquainted with them. David, the shepherd boy of Bethlehem, knew them, and perhaps Moses did in Horeb."

Robert soon became so interested in tracing constellations that he forgot all about counting, till his mother reminded him that they had found six stars in the sickle in Leo and three in the triangle; the great square in Andromeda had seven, and in Orion he found no less than thirteen; in the scorpion there were eighteen, and it took seven to shape the Great Dipper, all but one of them being second magnitude stars. Next was Draco, the dragon, with twelve, and close by the Little Dipper with seven. Cassiopeia, Boötes, Hercules, and Gemini, which he thought he saw when his mother traced them out for him, easily made up the hundred he thought he was to count at the beginning; and his mother hurried him off to bed before he had time to wonder if his grandfather would think he had earned his dollar.

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