? Mizar, Alcor, Saidak. They sound so
Arabian, and remind one of the "Arabian Nights." At first, some of them
will seem hard, but you will come to love these old names. I dare say
many of these star names are 4,000 years old. Shepherds and sailors
were the first astronomers. The sailors had to steer by the stars, and
the shepherds could lie on the ground and enjoy them without having to
twist their necks. They saw and named Alcor, thousands of years before
telescopes were invented, and long before there were any books to help
them. They saw the demon star, too, which I have never seen. It needs
patience to see those things; sharp eyes are nothing to be proud of,
because they are given to us. But patience is something to be eager
about, because it costs us a lot of trouble to get it.

Let's try for it. We've had a test of sight. Now let's have a test of
patience. It takes more patience than sharpness of sight to trace the
outline of the Little Dipper. It has seven stars, too, and the Pole star
is in the end of the handle. Do you see two rather bright stars about
twenty-five degrees from the Pole? I hope so, for they are the only
brightish stars anywhere near Polaris. Well, those two stars are in the
outer rim of the Little Dipper. Now, I think you can trace it all; but
to make sure you see the real thing, I will tell you the last secret.
The handle of the Big Dipper is bent _back_; the handle of the Little
Dipper is bent _in_.

Now, if you have done all this faithfully, you have worked hard enough,
and I will reward you with a story. Once upon a time there was a
princess named Callisto, and the great god Jupiter fell in love with
her. Naturally, Jupiter's wife, Juno, wasn't pleased, so she changed the
princess into a bear. But before this happened, Callisto became the
mother of a little boy named Arcas, who grew up to be a mighty hunter.
One day he saw a bear and he was going to kill it, not knowing that the
bear was really his own mother. Luckily Jupiter interfered and saved
their lives. He changed Arcas into a bear and put both bears into the
sky. Callisto is the Big Bear, and Arcas is the Little Bear. But Juno
was angry at that, and so she went to the wife of the Ocean and said,
"Please, never let these bears come to your home." So the wife of the
Ocean said, "I will never let them sink beneath the waves." And that is
why the Big and the Little Dipper never set. They always whirl around
the Pole star. And that is why