Once upon a time, in a land far beyond our own, there was a lovely little star named Luna. She twinkled and sparkled every night, but not just because she was a star; she had a special secret! You see, Luna loved children and every night she would listen to their dreams and wishes. When children looked up at the sky and made a wish, Luna would close her eyes tight and make it come true.
Now Luna was very small, and often her light would be almost dashed out by large ugly shadows that chased across the sky. But Luna was bright and brave and always jumped up and struggled against the poor little fireflies and against the great round moon whenever he came up, always trying to throw her light across the way to the children who were asking their wishes—so she stood it very well. Only when she had had a very hard fight she sometimes could not rise higher than the tree-tops—even then she never would go to sleep, but just twinkled and sparkled till she was a little bit better, and then cloud and shadow would run away and leave her all alone again.
One night she did just this. The moon had been very sleepy, and Luna had had no shadows at all. So she twinkled across at a little child far away below her, and the child looked up and saw her and said:
“Little star, little star,
Where do you go at day?
Go you to sleep with the black shadow?
Or do you dance away?
Little star, little star,
Over my head so high!
Where do you go when the sun is up?
Don’t you see me cry?”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” said poor Luna, who heard every single word, and knew that the little child was crying just because the sun had come up. “No, I do not see you crying—but it is very sad that I must go away. What do you cry for, little child?”
“I cry,” said the child, “when I wake up early,
I cry because nobody is there.”
“Then why do you wake up so early?” said Luna.
“Because I cry,” said the child, and squeezed out some tears from her two eyes, and then dropped off to sleep again.