Once upon a time, there was a cloud named Puffy, who floated about in the blue sky all day long. Puffy was a little different from the other clouds. While they played with the gentle breeze or just hung there without a thought in the world, poor Puffy wished he could color the sky and brighten everything up beneath it.
One day, while Puff was thinking and thinking about how to do it, the moon came in sight, shining clearly about him. All at once, he had a lovely idea!
“Puffy,” called out the moon, “what are you up to?”
“Won’t you lend me your golden light for a while?” asked Puffy.
“With great pleasure,” said the moon.
Then Puffy gathered all the sunlight he could, added to it a little rain from his own body, and blew his golden hair back. With this sunlight and rain he painted the following picture in the sky near the sunset.
It was a bright field covered with lovely flowers of all colors. On one side there was a blue river, and opposite it was the shining city where the king and all the people lived. In the king’s garden there were wonderful trees, and his courtiers and soldiers strolled about. Everybody was singing or doing something.
Farther away, the field stretched off to the horizon, and there everything was still.
Happy children who were looking at it opened their eyes wide and wondered what was coming next.
“Look! Look!” cried the little ones.
“Oh! how pretty!” exclaimed the grown-ups.
By-and-by the moon began to sink in the sky, and at last he said:
“Puffy, my friend, I think you have had your little game long enough. Give me back my golden light.”
“I am going to give it back at once,” said Puffy; “but, dear moon, I wish you would stay with me this night. Those little ones below are so happy that they want to see this happy picture a little longer.”
“I will stay awhile if you like, but I will not have my light wasted,” said the moon.
So Puffy stayed near the moon, and when the children became tired of looking at the golden picture in the sky and all the grown-ups were weary, the moon said:
“Now, let us start anew, and Puffy will do what he likes with his own light.”
The next moment, you may be sure, all the beautiful painting was washed away and something new was there instead. It was a great silver lake in the middle of a wide, wide country covered with beautiful gardens. In these gardens played thousands of little children, with their fathers and mothers repining at their sides.
“At last he has made a picture of the world,” shouted the children.
“Now at last he has made something funny!” shrieked all the grown people.
And indeed, on the front row of some seats in the middle of the garden were grumbling old fathers, who were absolutely out of place there.
So everybody was quite satisfied.
Afterwards came a fairy scene with a procession. Brilliantly dressed nobles, gold and silver damsels with fans repeating the motion to mimic, priests, soldiers, and archers all followed suit.
Every time something new came, the children gazed at it in wonder and whispered to each other.
“My, how big!” said one.
“I think Puff must be wonderful big too,” said another.
Old men and women, who should have known better, came out of the houses, gazed respectfully at the sky all day long, and every evening retired happily and contentedly to rest, muttering to themselves, “Today, at least, no rain fell to spoil it.”
So the world was given to Puffy and his paintings. The only thing that was wanting was, he himself was never seen at all, so everybody grumbled about and blamed one another. It may have been the king, his wife, or some old maid with a white cap, but the whole world was quite sure somebody was at fault.
There was just one little child, who knew he was to be blamed, and he was just laughing away all the same, you may be sure, and quite happy to think he was making everybody so joyful down below.
What were all those paintings? Just what you like, One after another, all day long, where he found time when alone with the moon? Well, you see, he has since been given credit for being its inventor.