"Let me see," said sister Mary, taking out her notebook. "If you should walk four miles an hour and ten hours a day, you would be more than six thousand years old before you could finish your journey."
"But suppose," asked Harry, his eyes bright with wonder, "some one fired a big cannon at the sun. How long would it take the cannon ball to get there?"
Mary looked in her notebook again. "If a cannon ball could be shot to the sun, it would take nine years to reach it. Now what else do you want to know about the sun, little brother?"
"I should like to know how large it is. Does any one know? Is it as large as the earth?"
"Very much larger," replied Mary. "It is so large that if it were cut up into a million parts, each one of the parts would be larger than the earth.
"If a train should run at the rate of a mile a minute, it would take five years for it to go around the sun. A train going at the same rate could travel the distance around the earth in less than three weeks."
"Then the sun must be very large," said Harry. "It is larger than anything I ever heard about. Let us call it Giant Sun."
"There are stars far away in the sky that are larger than the sun," said his sister. "And there are planets like our earth which are near the sun. But I will tell you about them some other day. Now do not forget what I have told you about Giant Sun."
"Forget! How could I, sister? It is better than any fairy tale I have ever heard. Why, you have told me enough about Giant Sun to keep me thinking all day."
_From "Stories of Starland." Copyright, 1898. By permission of the publishers, Silver, Burdett & Co._
Great is the sun, and wide he goes, Through empty heavens without repose; And in the blue and glowing days More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull To keep the shady parlor cool, Yet he will find a chink or two To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic, spider clad, He through the keyhole maketh glad; And through the broken edge of tiles Into the laddered hayloft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around He bares to all the garden ground, And sheds a warm and glittering look Among the ivy's inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue, Round the bright air with footing true, To please the child, to paint the rose, The gardener of the world, he goes. --ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.