unrolling another
paper, out of which came a big bulging glass almost as round as a boy's
eye. The edges of this had been ground down so that it would go into the
end of the small tube, and it was fastened in just as the other was,
only the slits needed to be a little longer, because the glass was
thicker. This was a one-inch eyeglass; that is, it must be an inch from
the object or image at which you are looking. He then cut in a piece of
paper a round hole about as big as a shirt button, and pasted this over
the eyeglass, and covered the end of the tube around, so that no light
could come in there except through this small opening in the paper,
which was so put on that the eye must look through the middle of the
glass. He also pasted some strips of brown paper around the other end of
the telescope, jutting over the object-glass just enough to keep it from
breaking, and to prevent any light from coming through the edges, but
not letting the paper touch this glass, as it did the eyeglass. The
object-glass wants all the light it can get.

The boys had the first look; but they could see nothing, though the
woods to which the glass was turned were yet visible.

"What's the focus of the glasses?" asked the parson.

"Thirty-six inches and one inch," was the correct answer.

The boys marked where the thirty-six inches ended, measuring from the
object-glass. They then brought the eyeglass up to within about an inch
of that, and looked through it again.

"Oh-oh-oo!" exclaimed Frank: "I see the trees so near that I can get
hold of them, but they're bottom side up!"

"Yes," said their father, "but that will make little difference when
looking at Jupiter or the moon."

They all had to wait what seemed a long time for the darkness to come,
and let the stars appear. When the parson returned from the post-office
after tea, he said it would be impossible to hold the tube in the hands
_steadily_ enough to see the planets plainly. So he found a strip of
board about a foot long and two or three inches wide, which was hollowed
out on one side. Into this hollow he fixed the tube by common tacks and
small wire. Then through the middle of this strip he bored a large
gimlet hole, and put in a long screw, and went to the workshop in the
basement to make a standard into which to screw the strip which held the
tube. He couldn't find nor make just what he wanted soon enough--the
boys said that "Jupiter had just come out clear"--and so he c