So, I’ve been wondering if there are not many boys like Billy who, also, like to know about things that are _really so_. And so, I’ve written down a good many of the things Somebody and the boy named Billy talked about after the lights were out and the fireflies came, during that wonderful summer in the north woods. Your very own, [Illustration: _Elizabeth Gordon_] [Illustration: New Year’s Day ... long ago] How the New Year knows when to come The boy named Billy had begged to be allowed to stay up to greet the New Year. He had something he wanted to ask him if he could only see him, but he presently got so sleepy that his eyes wouldn’t stay open and so off he went to bed and to sleep. But all at once there was a great tooting of whistles and ringing of bells, and a skyrocket went “_whiz_” right past his window. The boy named Billy sat up straight in bed. “Oh,” said he, rubbing his eyes, “the New Year has come and I didn’t even see him.” “Happy New Year, Billy,” said a jolly little voice. The boy named Billy rubbed his eyes to make sure--yes--he _really did believe_ that there was a roly-poly little person sitting on the edge of the clock shelf swinging his bare pink feet and smiling happily. “Why,” gasped Billy, “who are you?” “Whom did you expect?” asked the little fellow. “I’m Father Time’s youngest year, to be sure. Haven’t got my license, or my number yet; I’m waiting until this racket stops. Were you looking for me for any special reason?” “What I want to know,” said the boy named Billy, “is, how does the world know where one year ends and a new one begins?” “That’s some question, youngster,” said the jolly New Year, laughing merrily, “and it took the funny old world some time to settle it. You see the year cannot be divided evenly into months and days, because the time actually required for the earth’s journey around the sun is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. You call that the solar year, because the word ‘solar’ means concerning the sun. “The old Romans tried having the New Year come on March first, but they had no real system, and were always in trouble. So Julius Caesar, the king, told the world that it was most important to have a calendar that could be depended upon to take care of all the time, because there wasn’t any too much, anyhow. So with the help of some very wise men he took the twelve new moons of the year and built a calendar around them. This was called the Julian calendar, and every fourth year figured this way was made a ‘leap year,’ and was given an extra day, making it 366 days long. “But putting in a whole day every four years was too much, and after this calendar had been used over 1,500 years it was found that the calendar year was about ten days behind the solar year which wouldn’t do at all.