es they are, but they would be as big as any up there. When I got my
balance I said that I could see that a pie made in that way was a
mistake, though it would improve the looks of the sky; and Minerva and
her mother both said I had gone crazy, and I had to dodge in two
directions to keep from adding several more stars that same evening.

"I made plenty of them after that. They kept me busy at it. Something
had gone wrong with their meetings, and they took it out on me. From
what they said to each other I judged that some other ladies were
holding still bigger meetings; also that those ladies were a disgrace,
and that something ought to be done to them. Then all the things they
thought about doing to those rival creatures they did to me, and I was
in the star business most of the time. I made big ones and I made little
ones, according to how mad my folks were and the aim they took. Also
groups of stars: Once Minerva cracked me with the soup-ladle, and I made
the dipper. I knew they were real stars, because every clear night when
I went out for a little peace I could see new ones, and I could
recognize which were mine.

"I don't know how many stars I made, nor what they all were now, but if
I had kept on the sky would be running over by this time. I suppose I
should have gone on, too, if something hadn't happened to Minerva. One
day she went with her mother to attend one of those meetings which those
creatures were holding over in the Burnt Deadening where there was a lot
of bare, dead trees, and Minerva and Mother Crow tried to break it up.

[Illustration: I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE MY MOTHER-IN-LAW]

"I didn't recognize my mother-in-law when she came home. She could only
see a little out of one eye and there wasn't a whole feather on her.
Minerva didn't come at all. Her funeral was next day, and then, of
course, I was a widower, though not yet entirely out of the star
business.

"Mrs. Crow gave up public life and started a boarding-house, as you may
still remember, and I was with her a good while, and almost every day
added a few stars to the firmament, as Mr. Dog calls it. Once she flung
the milk-pitcher at my head, and when it hit and broke, it seemed to add
some to the Milky Way. Several of those fancy designs up there I can
remember making. They are all pretty enough to look at now, but I did
not enjoy them much when I first saw them. I don't care to make any
more, and, besides, there are plenty already. Sometimes I se