At the close of the feast, the bride and groom departed for their own home, which was charmingly fitted up under an elder-bush, from the berries of which they could make their own wine. "Such a convenience!" said all the family. And finally, after a last wild dance, the company separated, the lights were put out, and "the event of the season" was over.
TOTO and his companions walked homeward in high spirits. The air was crisp and tingling; the snow crackled merrily beneath their feet; and though the moon had set, the whole sky was ablaze with stars, sparkling with the keen, winter radiance which one sees only in cold weather.
"Pretty wedding, eh, Toto?" said the raccoon.
"Very pretty," said Toto; "very pretty indeed. I have enjoyed myself immensely. What good people they are, those little woodmice. See here! they made me fill all my pockets with checkerberries and nuts for the others at home, and they sent so many messages of regret and apology to Bruin that I shall not get any of them straight."
"Hello!" said the squirrel, who had been gazing up into the sky, "what's that?"
"_That!_" repeated Cracker. "That big thing with a tail, up among the stars."
His companions both stared upward in their turn, and Toto exclaimed,--
"Why, it's a comet! I never saw one before, but I know what they look like, from the pictures. It certainly _is_ a comet!"
"And _what_, if I may be so bold as to ask," said Coon, "_is_ a comet?"
"Why, it's--it's--THAT, you know!" said Toto.
"Exactly!" said Coon. "What a clear way you have of putting things, to be sure!"
"Well," cried Toto, laughing, "I'm afraid I cannot put it _very_ clearly, because I don't know just _exactly_ what comets are, myself. But they are heavenly bodies, and they come and go in the sky, with tails; and sometimes you don't see one again for a thousand years; and though you don't see them move, they are really going like lightning all the time."
Coon and Cracker looked at each other, as if they feared that their companion was losing his wits.
"Have they four legs?" asked Cracker. "And what do they live on?"
"They have no legs," replied Toto, "nothing but heads and tails; and I don't believe they live on anything, unless," he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "they get milk from the milky way."