e, for the moon had once belonged to his
family and he knew all about it.

So then they agreed between them to let each one tell what he knew about
the moon and how he came to know it and all about it. And Mr. 'Coon told
first.

"Well," he said, "a long time ago, about sixteen
great-great-grandfathers back, our family lived in a big woods in a big
tree that was on top of a high mountain and touched the sky with its top
limbs when the wind blew.

"It was a good big family, too; I don't know just how many there were,
but I know there was an old grandmother besides the father and mother
and a lot of children. They were a very noisy lot of youngsters, so the
story goes, nearly all of the same age, and used to tear around the
house and never want to do anything but play and run up and down stairs
until my sixteenth great-great-grandmother used to stop her ears and say
that those children would be the death of her, and she wished there was
a school in the neighborhood so they could be sent to it."

[Illustration: A SHINING TIN PLATE.]

"But those children never wanted to learn anything, and never thought
about even knowing their letters, until one day Father 'Coon came home
from town with a brand new shiny tin plate with the alphabet around on
the edge of it. When they saw that they all made a grab for it and
claimed it, but Father 'Coon held it up high and said that it was for
the one that first learned his letters. He said that they were to take
turns using it, a different one each time, and whoever was using it
could study his letters while he was eating. He said that when it had
been all around once he would see who knew the most letters and would
give it to him the next time, and so on, and the first one who knew all
of them should have it for his own, to keep.

"Well, the first night he gave it to a fellow named Bushy and sat down
by him and told him the letters over and over, and all the rest leaned
across the table and looked on instead of eating, all except one
fellow, named Smart, who was good at learning things by heart, and he
just listened and ate, too. He did that right along every meal till it
came his turn, and then he pretended to look very close, but all the
time he was only saying the letters over and over in his head and
laughing to himself to think how he was going to surprise everybody when
the time came to see who knew the most.

"And that's just what he did do. For when the plate had gone clear