The Moon Who Stayed Up for the Harvest

Once, in a small kingdom of wheat fields, there was one windmill, and in the windmill lived the miller and his family. The youngest of them was Tilly.

Tilly was too small to carry a sheaf of wheat. She had tried once, and the sheaf had carried her into the ditch. So at harvest time she was given the lantern instead. She walked in front on the way home and swung it much too hard, the way a knight swings a sword, shouting, “Back, dark! Back!” And the dark, to be fair to her, always went back.

Every autumn, when the wheat was ripe, the harvest moon came up to help. It rose over the Long Hill, which ran all along the edge of the kingdom, and it was enormous. It was round and orange and it filled half the sky. It had a big, kind, hard-working face. And it could talk. Its voice was so big that whenever it spoke, the sails of the windmill went round.

Night after night it hung low over the fields, so the farmers could see to cut the wheat and bring it in. And they did bring it in, every last sheaf.

That was three days ago. The moon was still there.

With a moon like that always in the sky, the nights were so bright that nobody could tell them from the days, and nobody could sleep. The roosters did not know when to crow, so they crowed all the time, until they ran out of crows. Now when a rooster opened its beak, out came “Moo,” by mistake. This upset the cows very much.

Tilly wanted the moon to go to bed. So did everybody. But you cannot tuck in a moon that fills half the sky. Whatever was done for it would have to be done from the ground.

The first to try was the King.

He was a kind king and a bossy one, and he was sure the moon would do as it was told, because the ducks always did. When he told the ducks to go to the pond, they went to the pond. (They were going there anyway.) His crown was on backwards, and had been for three days, because everybody was too tired to notice.

The King marched out and shouted up at the sky. “Moon! Your King orders you to go to bed!”

The moon heard him, but only just, the way you hear someone calling up the stairs.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said the moon, very politely, and the sails went round. “I would love to. But what if they still need me?”

The King shouted until his voice went small and squeaky. He was so busy giving orders that he never once answered the question. And the moon stayed exactly where it was.

The second to try was the court wizard. He was very old, with a very soft voice, and he knew the sleepiest lullaby in the world. He sang it up at the moon.

Two ducks and the King’s horse fell fast asleep. But a moon that size cannot hear anything that small. All it saw was a little man in a pointed hat, opening and closing his mouth.

“Hello down there!” said the moon, and the sails went round. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear a word. I’d love a rest, I really would. But what if they still need me?”

The third to try were the farmers. “If the moon can’t see anyone awake,” they said, “it will think we’ve all gone to bed, and then it will go too.” So they hung thick curtains over every window in the kingdom.

Behind the curtains it was so dark, and the farmers were so tired, that every one of them fell fast asleep.

The moon looked down at all the covered windows. “Oh, they’ve gone to bed,” it said, and the sails went round. “How lovely for them. I’d go too, of course. But what if they still need me?”

Then a rooster in every yard said “Moo,” and all the farmers woke up, and the moon was still there.

Now, you and I can see what the moon was waiting for. The King could not. But Tilly was sitting on the windmill step with her lantern in her lap, looking up at that big face, which looked tired, and a little sad. And she was thinking.

She was thinking about the night the last sheaf came in. At the harvest supper, the farmers had thanked the reapers, and the reapers had thanked the horses. Her dad had given her a slice of apple cake and said, “Thank you for the lantern, Tilly,” and she had felt about a foot taller.

And all that time the moon had been outside, holding up its light, just like her. Nobody had gone out to tell it the harvest was done. Nobody had said thank you.

Tilly jumped up so fast she nearly swung her lantern into the millpond. “Nobody told it!” she said. “It doesn’t know we’re finished!”

But the King had shouted himself squeaky, and the moon could not hear anyone else at all.

“It can see us, though,” said Tilly. “It’s been watching our lanterns all autumn.”

The moon can read, you know. It has had a thousand years of looking over people’s shoulders at night.

So Tilly went round every house in the kingdom and asked for its lantern. She even got eleven from the palace, which the King carried out himself. She took them all to the biggest stubble field and showed everybody where to set them down.

She could spell DONE by herself. For THANK YOU she asked her big sister. Each letter was as long as a lane, because a moon that size needs very big print.

Then everybody lit their lanterns at once. And there in the stubble, in little gold lights, it said:

DONE.

THANK YOU.

The moon looked down. It read the first word. It read the second. Then it read them both again, to be sure.

And the moon blushed. It went the deepest, rosiest orange anybody had ever seen.

“Oh!” said the moon, and the sails went round. “Oh, you’re very welcome! Is it really done? All of it?”

Everybody in the field nodded. A whole kingdom nodding at once is easy to see from the sky.

“Then nobody needs me tonight,” said the moon, with the biggest smile in the world. “Well. In that case...”

And the moon yawned. It was the biggest yawn there has ever been. It spun the windmill’s sails round three times, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and it blew the wizard’s hat clean off.

Then the moon began to sink, slowly, slowly, down behind the Long Hill. As it went, it took hold of the hill’s long shadow and pulled it up over itself like a blanket.

The kingdom went dark and soft and quiet at last, and everybody went home to bed. In the morning, when the sun came up, every rooster took a deep breath and crowed “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” the proper way. Then everybody rolled over and slept till lunch. Even the cows.

That afternoon, the King made Tilly Keeper of the Lantern, forever. “And you may swing it,” he said, “as hard as you like.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Tilly. “Also, your crown is on backwards.”

The King turned it round and said it had never felt better.

And every autumn after that, when the last sheaf came in, Tilly led the whole kingdom out to the stubble field to spell DONE and THANK YOU in lanterns. And she swung hers at the front, like a sword.

As for the moon, it slept later than anybody, behind the Long Hill, with its blanket of shadow pulled right up to its chin and a smile on its big orange face.

The end.