they slept
the mist people went on making pictures. Gray pictures, blue and
sometimes a little gold but more often silver, such were the pictures
the mist people went on making while Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose
went on sleeping. And over everything and always last and highest of
all, were the stars.

They woke up. Fire the Goat took his horns out and put them on. "It's
morning now," he said.

Flim the Goose took his wings out and put them on. "It's another day
now," he said.

Then they sat looking. Away off where the sun was coming up, inching
and pushing up far across the rim curve of the Big Lake of the Booming
Rollers, along the whole line of the east sky, there were people and
animals, all black or all so gray they were near black.

There was a big horse with his mouth open, ears laid back, front legs
thrown in two curves like harvest sickles.

There was a camel with two humps, moving slow and grand like he had
all the time of all the years of all the world to go in.

There was an elephant without any head, with six short legs. There
were many cows. There was a man with a club over his shoulder and a
woman with a bundle on the back of her neck.

And they marched on. They were going nowhere, it seemed. And they were
going slow. They had plenty of time. There was nothing else to do. It
was fixed for them to do it, long ago it was fixed. And so they were
marching.

Sometimes the big horse's head sagged and dropped off and came back
again. Sometimes the humps of the camel sagged and dropped off and
came back again. And sometimes the club on the man's shoulder got
bigger and heavier and the man staggered under it and then his legs
got bigger and stronger and he steadied himself and went on. And again
sometimes the bundle on the back of the neck of the woman got bigger
and heavier and the bundle sagged and the woman staggered and her legs
got bigger and stronger and she steadied herself and went on.

This was the show, the hippodrome, the spectacular circus that passed
on the east sky before the eyes of Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose.

"Which is this, who are they and why do they come?" Flim the Goose
asked Fire the Goat.

[Illustration: Away off where the sun was coming up, there were
people and animals]

"Do you ask me because you wish me to tell you?" asked Fire the Goat.

"Indeed it is a question to which I want an honest answer."

"Has never the father or mother nor the uncle or aunt nor the