A Time for Every Purpose

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

A long time ago, when the world was young, there was a very greedy little creature named Squirrel. Squirrel spent all day gathering acorns. He stuffed them into his cheeks until they were puffed up like two furry balloons and then he took them back to his secret store house, which was inside a hollowed out tree.

He loved nothing so much as adding to his treasure house of nuts, but as soon as he fell asleep, his archenemies, the field mice, would come out and gather up all the nuts he hadn’t been able to get to during the day. Each of them would stuff a whole acorn in their mouths so they looked like they were trying to swallow a bowling ball. They hid their nuts under a fallen tree in the far meadow.

Squirrel did not like to share with the mice, and soon he came up with a plan to keep all the acorns for himself. He had heard that the Sun was a rather foolish being, and easily tricked, so one day he climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the forest and called up, “Oh Sun, most beautiful shining face – why do you have to leave the sky at night? You are so beautiful to look upon, and the Moon so ugly, that I can’t bear it when you go away – can’t you just stay in the sky all the time, smiling down on us?”

“Oh!” flared the Sun brightly, who loved to be complimented, and was in fact, very easily fooled. “Yes, the Moon is rather hideous, isn’t she? Not nearly as stylish and as radiant as I! Since it is so important to you, and to all who so adore me, I will stay right here where I am – it would be a crime to deprive you of my beauty!”

Squirrel was delighted. He and the other creatures of the day no longer had to stop working and go to sleep because of nightfall, so they just kept working and hunting and making nests and gathering food – and nobody gathered as much food as Squirrel, whose hollowed out tree was soon almost bursting with acorns.

But not everyone was so delighted. The Mice, for example, were furious! They could not go out into the bright sun, which hurt their eyes, and so they grew hungrier and hungrier and more and more cranky until they too came up with a plan.

They all put on very dark sunglasses to protect their eyes and, using sticks to help them find their way, went off in search of the Moon, who they found on the other side of the Earth.

“Dear Moon”, they cried, “have you heard what has happened? The Sun says he is more beautiful than you, and refuses to leave the sky! He says he will stay there always because the day is so much more beautiful than the night. But we know that your pale and shimmering face is much more lovely than his burning mug, and we want you to stay up too and teach him some manners!”

The Moon, who was also sometimes very vain and foolish, was furious. “Oh mice, it is good that you came, because nobody could stand to look at the Sun’s ugly face – that bright yellow look is so last year! You just stay here with me, and I will stay in the sky on this side of the world forever!”

All the mice jumped up and down, cheering, and soon they too, along with the bats, and possums and other creatures of the night were working all the time, accomplishing more than ever now that they no longer had to go to bed at Sunrise.

Soon, however, both the creatures of the day and of the night were no longer so happy. Because there was no longer any sunrise or moonrise, the animals forgot to rest at all. They just kept scurrying around, and soon they were all very tired and very grumpy. They accomplished more than their ancestors would ever have believed possible, but they were much too busy to enjoy their accomplishments. Arguments and fights started to break out and not one animal had even had a single dream in weeks! Even the Sun and the Moon were getting cross and sleepy from shining and shimmering all the time, but they were too proud to admit it.

But the creature most irritable of all was Raven, who you may remember from another story. Raven was a lazy bird, and hated to work. Like Squirrel and the mice, Raven had a weakness for nuts, which he loved to crack open with his beak and devour by the bushel. But Raven was far too lazy to gather them himself. He could fly by day or by night and so at night, Raven would steal nuts from the sleeping Squirrel and by day he would rob the mice as they dreamed in their burrows. But now that none of the animals ever slept, Raven was getting very hungry – and very very grumpy.

He decided that enough was enough. First he flew up to the Sun, who was giving himself a facial, and cried out in pretend surprise, “Oh Sun, I was just coming to visit you, but I had no idea you were so sick! Poor thing, you look terrible!”

“Moi?” exclaimed the Sun?

“Yes,” answered the raven, “just look at those terrible bags and dark circles under your eyes!” And the Sun looked down at his reflection in a fast-running stream and gasped with dismay. “Oh Sun, have you never heard of beauty rest? You must get some sleep soon or not even the best spa treatment in the world will be able to save you!”

“Oh Raven, my dear friend, please do not tell anyone how badly I look, I would simply die of shame! I must go and put cucumber slices on my eyes and take a good long nap!”

And so the Sun dipped down into a lush field of Sunflowers and closed his eyes.

Then Raven flew to the other side of the world, which took a very long time, almost twelve whole hours, and what do you think he did when he got there? That’s right, he showed the Moon her reflection in a tide pool, and she realized how wan and sad her luminous face had become.

And so the Moon thanked Raven profusely and dropped slowly down into the ocean to cover her face with a beauty-restoring seaweed wrap.

The gentle cycle of day and night were finally restored, and all the animals of the day and of the night spend some of their time working, and some of their time relaxing, snuggled up and dreaming dreams of great wonder and beauty. The Sun and the Moon are the best of friends now, and every so often the Moon will fly up into the sky during the day and the Sun will be momentarily hidden as they admire one another’s beauty. These are the times we humans know as the eclipse.

And raven? Well, he is happy as can be. He’s back to stealing nuts from the mice by day and the squirrels by night. He has all the acorns a bird could ever want and is extremely satisfied with himself!