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e they? Tell me the funniest." "Some say all the unfinished work of the world is kept there," said the cuckoo. "_That's_ not funny," said Griselda. "What a messy place it must be! Why, even _my_ unfinished work makes quite a heap. I don't like that opinion at all, cuckoo. Tell me another." "I _have_ heard," said the cuckoo, "that among the places there 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 haggered 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.
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