pecial will bring us luck." And when he turned his face up, the
sky came down close and he could see stars fixed like numbers and the
arithmetic writing of a girl going to school learning to write number
4 and number 7 and 4 and 7 over and over.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Never Kick a Slipper at the Moon

When a girl is growing up in the Rootabaga Country she learns some
things to do, some things _not_ to do.

"Never kick a slipper at the moon if it is the time for the Dancing
Slipper Moon when the slim early moon looks like the toe and the heel
of a dancer's foot," was the advice Mr. Wishes, the father of Peter
Potato Blossom Wishes, gave to his daughter.

"Why?" she asked him.

"Because your slipper will go straight up, on and on to the moon, and
fasten itself on the moon as if the moon is a foot ready for dancing,"
said Mr. Wishes.

"A long time ago there was one night when a secret word was passed
around to all the shoes standing in the bedrooms and closets.

"The whisper of the secret was: 'To-night all the shoes and the
slippers and the boots of the world are going walking without any feet
in them. To-night when those who put us on their feet in the daytime,
are sleeping in their beds, we all get up and walk and go walking
where we walk in the daytime.'

"And in the middle of the night, when the people in the beds were
sleeping, the shoes and the slippers and the boots everywhere walked
out of the bedrooms and the closets. Along the sidewalks on the
streets, up and down stairways, along hallways, the shoes and slippers
and the boots tramped and marched and stumbled.

"Some walked pussyfoot, sliding easy and soft just like people in the
daytime. Some walked clumping and clumping, coming down heavy on the
heels and slow on the toes, just like people in the daytime.

"Some turned their toes in and walked pigeon-toe, some spread their
toes out and held their heels in, just like people in the daytime.
Some ran glad and fast, some lagged slow and sorry.

"Now there was a little girl in the Village of Cream Puffs who came
home from a dance that night. And she was tired from dancing round
dances and square dances, one steps and two steps, toe dances and toe
and heel dances, dances close up and dances far apart, she was so
tired she took off only one slipper, tumbled onto her bed and went to
sleep with one slipper on.

"She woke up in the morning wh