THERE is only one evening or two at most out of all the twenty-eight and a quarter days that it takes for the moon to change from full to full in which you can travel upon the moon-path. Maybe after a while, and when you get very well acquainted with the way and know just how to set about it, you can travel the moon-path almost whenever you choose. But when you are learning there is, as I said, only one or, at most, two evenings in all the twenty-eight and a quarter days in which you are able to walk out upon it. Those evenings are the second or third after the full of the moon.
I will tell you why this is so. It is because, when the moon is quite full, there is too much daylight to see the moon-path when the moon first rises. And when the moon is too far past the full, there is too much night to see what you are about. For when you are learning to walk upon the moon-path it must be neither daylight nor dark, but just betwixt and between.
So it is that the proper time comes only twice or thrice in all the twenty-eight and a quarter days that it takes the moon to change from full to full.
"Do you know," said Hans Krout to David, "that yesterday was the full of the moon'?"
"No; I didn't," said David. "But what of that?"
"Well, I will tell you," said Hans Krout; this evening will be the best time for me to show you the way to walk out upon the moon-path."
"And will you show me the way to-night'?" cried the little boy.
"I will," said Hans Krout, "if you will come to me just after sundown."
Silly little David could hardly believe his ears.
It was not until after sundown that he was able to leave the baby, for the little one cried and fretted, and fretted and cried, until David thought she would never be quiet. But at last she grew still, and fell fast asleep, with her thumb in her mouth. Then he was able to leave her. He came out into the wide air full of the brightness of the twilight that had not yet turned into dusk. There was Hans Krout waiting for him in front of the cobbler shop, shading his eyes with his hand.
"Hi! David," he said, "I have been waiting for you a long, long time."
"Well," said David, "here I am."
"Aye;" said Hans Krout, "there you are. Part of you here, part of you there. That's the way to travel the moon-path."
"I don't know what you mean," said David.
"Don't you?" said Hans Krout, as he looked silly and laughed.
He took David by the hand and led him away up the village street. The little boys and some of the little girls were chasing around and around the grassy common. The geese were cackling, and the cows were lowing, as they were turned out to grass again for the night. Everything looked strange and gray and still in the bright, shadowless twilight. The little boys and the little girls stopped their play and stood looking after Hans Krout and silly little David. Then they began halloing after them. Some of them said:
"Hans Krout, Hans Krout,
Your wits are out, your wits are out!"
And some called, "Moon-calf! Moon-calf! "after David.
David looked up into Hans Krout's face, and he looked so strange, that the little boy was almost frightened.
Thus they walked on together, hand in hand. By and by they left the village behind, and were going along the rocky shore of the sea. They went along, climbing up and down the stony path, until at last they came to a place where David had never been before. Here there was a level shelf of rock, and against the foot of the shelf the waves came in from the sea beyond, rising and falling as though the water was breathing. The light was growing more and more gray. David looked up. There was just one bright star shining in the pallid sky.
Hans Krout stood quite still, holding him by the hand, and looking out toward the purple gray of the east. Little silly David looked up now at the star, and now at Hans Krout's face, and every now and then out across the water. The sky grew darker and darker, and by and by the gray began to change to a dim blue. At first there had been a ruddy light all over the east, as though the sunshine lingered over yonder, after it had left everywhere else. Then, after awhile, that too had faded out, and had changed to blue-gray, and looked almost like a bank of clouds. Then the yellow moon came slowly up, out of nowhere. First the rim of it showed, then the half of it, then the whole of it. Then it floated up, slowly, slowly, into the soft, dark sky, like a golden bubble. Hans Krout's face shone as though the moonlight were shining upon it. "Wait a little," said he.
The moon rose higher and higher, and little David held his breath. There was the moon-path stretching across the water. "Yonder it is," said Hans Krout, "and now is your time."
"What shall I do " said the little boy.
"Step out like a soldier," said Hans Krout.
"But what shall I step upon?" said David.
"There," said Hans Krout, "don't you see that bar of light on the tip-top of that wave Step on the top of that, and then you will know what to do next."
Poor little David's head seemed to spin. The wave came closer and closer. "Now, then," said Hans Krout, "step out like a soldier--quick!"
Then David did as Hans Krout told him. He stepped out on the crest of the wave as it came up against the shelf of rock. It seemed to him he stood so for a moment upon the slippery bar of light; then he felt suddenly very much afraid. "Oh, I am falling!" he piped shrilly. Then--souse!--he was struggling and choking in the deep water that gurgled above his head. Once he came up to the top of the water. He saw a glimpse of the moon, and of Hans Krout, and then he was down again--struggling and choking. Somebody caught him by the collar--it was Hans Krout. The next moment he was dragged up on the rock like a drowning kitten. He gasped and choked and gasped again. Then he began to cry. Hans Krout seemed to be frightened at what he had done. He stood for a moment looking at David as he shivered, and. shook, and cried; then he turned and walked away back toward the village, with the poor little boy trotting behind him still crying and shivering, the salt water and the salt tears trickling down his poor little thin face.
Hans Krout did not stop at David's house to tell them how it happened. He hurried home almost as though he were running away. David's father was sitting mending his nets. He looked up as David came creeping in, wet and shivering. "Thunder and lightning!" said. David's father, taking the pipe out of his mouth, "what has happened to you, little child"
"I tried to walk on the moon-path," said little David, "and I fell through it into the water. That is all."
"Tried to walk on the moon-path!" said David's father. "What does the child mean?"
"Hans Krout took me out," said David, "and showed me the moon-path, and how to walk on it; but when I stepped on it I got frightened and slipped through into the water."
David's father sat staring at him, holding his pipe in his crooked brown fingers. "What is all this nonsense?" said he. "Hans Krout, is it?--showing you the moon-path? Well, you shall go with Hans Krout no more, for he is crazy and knows not what he does. Here, Margaret, take the child and put him to bed. Why, he is cold to the marrow! Moon-path! The crazy shoemaker will be the death of somebody yet!"
So David's mother put him to bed, and David cried himself to sleep.