en it was yet dark. And she went to the
window and looked up in the sky and saw a Dancing Slipper Moon dancing
far and high in the deep blue sea of the moon sky.

"'Oh--what a moon--what a dancing slipper of a moon!' she cried with a
little song to herself.

"She opened the window, saying again, 'Oh! what a moon!'--and kicked
her foot with the slipper on it straight toward the moon.

"The slipper flew off and flew up and went on and on and up and up in
the moonshine.

"It never came back, that slipper. It was never seen again. When they
asked the girl about it she said, 'It slipped off my foot and went up
and up and the last I saw of it the slipper was going on straight to
the moon.'"

And these are the explanations why fathers and mothers in the
Rootabaga Country say to their girls growing up, "Never kick a slipper
at the moon if it is the time of the Dancing Slipper Moon when the
ends of the moon look like the toe and the heel of a dancer's foot."

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7. One Story--"Only the
Fire-Born Understand Blue"

_People_: Fire the Goat
Flim the Goose
Shadows

[Illustration]

Sand Flat Shadows

Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose slept out. Stub pines stood over
them. And away up next over the stub pines were stars.

It was a white sand flat they slept on. The floor of the sand flat ran
straight to the Big Lake of the Booming Rollers.

And just over the sand flat and just over the booming rollers was a
high room where the mist people were making pictures. Gray pictures,
blue and sometimes a little gold, and often silver, were the pictures.

And next just over the high room where the mist people were making
pictures, next just over were the stars.

Over everything and always last and highest of all, were the stars.

Fire the Goat took off his horns. Flim the Goose took off his wings.
"This is where we sleep," they said to each other, "here in the stub
pines on the sand flats next to the booming rollers and high over
everything and always last and highest of all, the stars."

Fire the Goat laid his horns under his head. Flim the Goose laid his
wings under his head. "This is the best place for what you want to
keep," they said to each other. Then they crossed their fingers for
luck and lay down and went to sleep and slept. And while