He is a restless and a roving
creature, flitting to and fro between all points of the compass.

When King Sun crawls into his trundle bed and begins to snore, Dilly
Bal creeps forth from Somewhere, or maybe from Nowhere, which is just on
the other side, fetching with him a long broom, which he swishes about
to such purpose that the katydids hear it and are frightened. They hide
under the leaves and are heard no more that night. That is why you never
hear them crying and disputing when you chance to be awake after
midnight.

But Dilly Bal knows nothing of the katydids; he has his own duties to
perform, and his own affairs to attend to; and these, as you will
presently see, are very pressing. It is his business, as well as his
pleasure, to be the Housekeeper of the Sky, which he dusts and tidies
and puts in order. It is a part of his duty to see that the stars are
safely bestowed against the moment when old King Sun shall emerge from
his tent, and begin his march over the world. And then, in the dusk of
the evening, Dilly Bal must take each star from the bag in which he
carries it, polish it bright, and put it in its proper place.

Sometimes, as you may have observed, a star will fall while Dilly Bal is
handling it. This happens when he is nervous for fear that King Sun,
instead of going to bed in his tent, has crept back and is watching from
behind the cloud mountains. Sometimes a star falls quite by accident, as
when Lucindy or Patience drops a plate in the kitchen. You will be sure
to know Dilly Bal when you see him, for, in handling the stars and
dusting the sky, his clothes get full of yellow cobwebs, which he never
bothers himself to brush off.

But Dilly Bal's most difficult job is with the Moon. Regularly the Moon
blackens her face in a vain effort to hide from King Sun. If she used
smut or soot, Dilly Bal's task would not be so difficult; but she has
found a lake of pitch somewhere in Africa, and in this lake she smears
her face till it is so black her best friends wouldn't know her. The
pitch is such sticky stuff that it is days and days before it can be
rubbed off. The truth is, Dilly Bal never does succeed in getting all
the pitch off. At her brightest, the Moon shows signs of it. So said
Tasma Tid, and so we all firmly believed.

Yes, indeed! If this chronicle could be confined to the childhood and
youth of those children, Dilly Bal would be the hero first and last. He
was so real to all of us that we u