“THE EQUINE OX CROWDED INTO THE REAR DOOR” 90 BILLY MEETS NIMBUS THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR CHAPTER I IN WHICH BILLY MEETS NIMBUS Mother had been helping Billy with his geography lesson, sitting in the garden on a lovely day early in spring, and showing Billy how the earth revolves on its axis. To illustrate this difficult matter and to make it interesting, she had taken a big yellow orange to represent the Earth and had used a stick of lemon candy for the Pole. She made the Equator out of a black rubber band such as you put around fat envelopes. Then, when Billy said that he understood, Mother dug a hole in the orange and stuck the lemon stick in it and, handing it to Billy, said with a droll twinkle in her blue eyes, which always seemed to be laughing: “Would you like to eat up the Earth through the North Pole?” Now Billy had never before tasted the joys of an orange eaten through a stick of lemon candy; so when Mother, who had a trick of remembering nice things from her own childhood, showed Billy how it was done, he settled down to a blissful half hour in which he meant to devour the whole earth. It tasted so good that he rolled over on the short grass, under a lilac-bush in full bloom, and only took his lips from the North Pole long enough to tell his mother that it tasted “bully.” “Well,” said his mother, standing up and shaking out her blue dress, “I must go now. Here is your geography. Don’t forget to bring it in when you come, and don’t lose the Equator off the Earth, even if you are eating it. I don’t know what would become of us if the Equator really should get away!” Billy laughed aloud. It really was no trouble at all to understand things when Mother made them appear so funny. He lay on his back looking up into the sky, which was just the color of his mother’s blue dress. White clouds, like mountains of white feathers which must be very soft to sleep on, were over his head. A bee was buzzing lazily over the lavender blossoms of the lilacs. A soft wind was blowing. It was indeed very pleasant. What if the bee should turn into a fairy! “Why don’t you?” said Billy aloud. The bee, being puzzled, scratched his head with his left hindfoot and answered: “Why don’t I what?” “Why don’t you be one?” “I am one bee!” answered the bee, striking a match on Billy’s orange and lighting a grapevine cigarette. “Could you be a fairy?” asked Billy. “I am always beeing things--flowers and honey--so of course I could bee a fairy. How do you know that I am not one? Look at me!” Billy sat up and looked. “Well, I never!” exclaimed Billy. “A minute ago I thought you were a bee!” “I can bee anything I choose,” said the Fairy. “That’s why you thought I was a bee. Because I can bee!” “Who are you now?” asked Billy. “I am the Geography Fairy,” answered the stranger. He held out his hand and then looked at it. “It’s not raining yet,” he observed; “still----”