you
would find the country of the little black dogs. You know what sort of
creatures those are?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Griselda, rather reluctantly.

"There are a good many of them in this world, as of course you know,"
continued the cuckoo. "But up there, they are much worse than here. When
a child has made a great pet of one down here, I've heard tell the
fairies take him up there when his parents and nurses think he's
sleeping quietly in his bed, and make him work hard all night, with his
own particular little black dog on his back. And it's so dreadfully
heavy--for every time he takes it on his back down here it grows a pound
heavier up there--that by morning the child is quite worn out. I dare
say you've noticed how haggard and miserable some ill-tempered children
get to look--now you'll know the reason."

"Thank you, cuckoo," said Griselda again; "but I can't say I like this
opinion about the other side of the moon any better than the first. If
you please, I would rather not talk about it any more."

"Oh, but it's not so bad an idea after all," said the cuckoo. "Lots of
children, they say, get quite cured in the country of the little black
dogs. It's this way--for every time a child refuses to take the dog on
his back down here it grows a pound lighter up there, so at last any
sensible child learns how much better it is to have nothing to say to it
at all, and gets out of the way of it, you see. Of course, there _are_
children whom nothing would cure, I suppose. What becomes of them I
really can't say. Very likely they get crushed into pancakes by the
weight of the dogs at last, and then nothing more is ever heard of
them."

"Horrid!" said Griselda, with a shudder. "Don't let's talk about it any
more, cuckoo; tell me your _own_ opinion about what there really is on
the other side of the moon."

The cuckoo was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he stopped short in
the middle of his flight.

"Would you like to see for yourself, Griselda?" he said. "There would be
about time to do it," he added to himself, "and it would fulfil her
other wish, too."

"See the moon for myself, do you mean?" cried Griselda, clasping her
hands. "I should rather think I would. Will you really take me there,
cuckoo?"

"To the other side," said the cuckoo. "I couldn't take you to this
side."

"Why not? Not that I'd care to go to this side as much as to the other;
for, of course, we can _see_ this side from here. But I'd