Sometimes, on a clear, still night, as I gaze out and watch the stars twinkling away, I remember a wonderful adventure I once had when I was a small boy.
One night it was very warm and I was not at all sleepy. So I slipped out of bed and sat down by the window. I noticed a lovely star shining away by itself, as bright as could be. It looked just like one of those fairy stars in the old story-books, down to the pointed top and the lovely rays coming from it. Such a lovely star, and all my own!
Then all at once, in the middle of my gazing, it struck me that I had never asked a star to do anything for me. So I brought my hands together and made a tight wish. My wish was, “I wish I may go and find that star.” It was just as if the star had heard me, for it shone far brighter than before, and seemed to say in a most delightful place that I should and do as I should like to do.
What my wish was still, I could not know; but before I had time to think twice about the matter, a little door opened in the side of the star, quite near the middle, and out came a bright light that seemed to touch me a little as it passed, and make me feel warm all over; and without any waiting at all, it began to grow very much lighter all about me. The darkness went quite away—indeed, the sky looked more like one of those lovely blue fairy-tales than anything else: all round me were bright-colored clouds that seemed to sail softly along—clouds of every color: rosy red and pale faint blue, azure and orange, and indeed, of every color in the world.
As there was no way of getting to the star from that part of the world, except by one of these beautiful clouds, I got onto one directly and lay down comfortably. Such a lovely soft cloud it was! It was of a faint blue color outside, but about a quarter circular inch under my side it turned to orange color, or rather gold, I should say.
As it was now the place where the lovely warm light was coming from, I hope you will not wonder at there being no actual distance under my side from the warmer inner of the cloud, although there was three hundred and seventy-one thousand six hundred and seventy-six miles from above it, to that which lies just upon top of the earth.
I rather think it was because I was lying all the time along the inner part, touching so to speak the core of this lovely cloud, that it waited for me. I had just time before I went to sleep, to noticing the whole round of color that the light was shining on the table of the star itself; and when I awoke again, I was talking quite naturally to a ady who was watching me, sitting on the little bank of grass. She had on a crown of stars that looked like glow-worms, and was the very prettiest and kindest lady you can possibly imagine.
“How grateful I feel,” I said without saying a word about above, “for my beautiful wish.”
“But it was not your wish that did it,” replied the lady, “it was simply your wish in the first place that there was a being who could in reality, if you liked, be capable of granting it.
“If you are not capable of granting your wish yourself, and there is no other being upon the whole face of the earth that can grant it also, it is not worth while either wishing for in the first place, or thanking for in the second.
“Think of this by all means when you next give a wish,” and with that, she turned to the star she came from and went back again, and the star instantly went out.
So please don’t wish at your wishing stairs. Forexample, don’t wish on what is called the first star you see for the moon or anything of that nature, for you are only wasting your breath. Remember that.