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 Contents
Title Page
Copyright
1 - Sloane
2 - Sloane
3 - Sloane
4 - Sloane
5 - Brock
6 - Sloane
7 - Sloane
8 - Sloane
9 - Sloane
10 - Sloane
11 - Kade
12 - Sloane
13 - Sloane
14 - Sloane
15 - Sloane
16 - Sloane
17 - Sloane
18 - Valerio
19 - Sloane
20 - Sloane
21 - Sloane
22 - Sloane
23 - Brock
24 - Sloane
25 - Sloane
26 - Sloane
27 - Kade
28 - Sloane
29 - Sloane
30 - Sloane
31 - Valerio
32 - Sloane
33 - Sloane
34 - Kade
35 - Sloane
36 - Sloane
37 - Sloane
38 - Sloane
39 - Sloane
40 - Brock
41 - Sloane
42 - Sloane
43 - Valerio
44 - Sloane
45 - Sloane
46 - Sloane
47 - Kade
48 - Sloane
49 - Sloane
Epilogue
The Boys Who Loved Me
About the Author
 Three Christmas
Wishes

A Holiday Reverse Harem Romance

Krista Wolf
 Copyright © 2020 Krista Wolf

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form
without prior consent of the author.
Cover photography stock models only.

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~ Other Books by Krista Wolf ~
Quadruple Duty
Quadruple Duty II - All or Nothing
Snowed In
Unwrapping Holly
Protecting Dallas
The Arrangement
Three Alpha Romeo
What Happens in Vegas
Sharing Hannah
Unconventional
Saving Savannah
The Christmas Toy
The Wager
The Ex-Boyfriend Agreement
One Lucky Bride
Theirs To Keep
Corrupting Chastity
Stealing Candy
The Boys Who Loved Me

Chronicles of the Hallowed Order

Book one: Ghosts of Averoigne
Book two: Beyond the Gates of Evermoore
Book three: Claimed by the Pack
 One

SLOANE

CRRRRRRRASH!
The expensive coffee machine didn’t just hit the ground, it
exploded spectacularly into a thousand jagged pieces. Silver and
black plastic flew everywhere as the guts spilled out all over the
front lawn. I marveled at how very different it looked on the inside.
So much so, that in pausing to stare at it, I actually forgot my anger
for a moment.
Shit.
But only a moment.
I really liked that thing.
The innocent coffee machine had provided me thousands of
hours of caffeine-infused energy, through hundreds of delicious
beverages. It certainly didn’t deserve its fate. But it had been a gift
to both of us; unfortunately presented by my boyfriend to me. Drake
had spared no expense last Christmas in getting one that did
everything, from espresso shots to foamed milk to—
“Fuck you, Drake.”
I spat the words as I scanned the apartment for any other signs
of my now ex-boyfriend. Anything that might’ve been his was
already scattered across the front lawn, hurled violently from our
third-floor loft studio apartment. But I had to be sure.
Three whole years…
 My fists clenched as I stalked from room to room, looking for
anything he might’ve bought or given me. His clothes and toiletries
were gone, all the bedding too. I’d have to buy new sheets and
blankets — pillows as well — but anything was better than sleeping
on the linens he’d soiled with his very presence.
Or for all I knew, maybe even her presence.
“Fuck you too, you giant-toothed bimbo.”
It had been a freak thing, running across him at the very edge
of town. It was a sandwich shop I’d never even heard of, tucked into
the back end of a street I’d never even driven down. My first and
only time going there…
Funny how fate often intervenes in things like that.
Halfway through waiting in line I’d noticed him, sitting in the
corner with his back to me. Holding hands with some tall, red-lipped
blonde. Both hands. Fingers intertwined.
For a few seconds I stood there frozen, my mind conjuring up a
thousand innocent reasons why my boyfriend would be having lunch
with some long-haired blonde girl. But then he leaned in, and she
leaned in… and they kissed.
Kissed is an understatement.
I was in shock, of course. The two of them practically made out
at their little table, giggling and laughing while the customer behind
me tapped my shoulder to urge me forward in line. Only the line
didn’t matter anymore. My lunch break was over. My relationship,
even more over.
And yet…
And yet somehow I knew this girl.
Who the hell is she?
At the time, my body refused to work properly. I wanted to
storm over and make a scene. I wanted to yank my cheating
boyfriend of three years backward by his hair, until he was forced to
face me. And yet I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could barely
even move. It was all I could do to make it to the shop’s door on
two shaky legs. To spill out into the street with tears filling my eyes,
and a lump in my throat so big it felt like I might choke to death.
The blonde.
Red lips. Big teeth. Bright smile…
She saw me on the way out, too. Her eyes had met mine and
she’d stiffened instantly, before quickly looking guiltily away.
All the way home I’d wracked my brain, focusing every ounce of
my attention on trying to remember where I’d seen her before. She
didn’t work with Drake. Not that I’d seen, anyway. And it wasn’t
someone even tangentially within our circle of friends, which was
really his circle of friends, because I’d stupidly given up most of my
past life to live in his current one.
Arriving back at our apartment my pent-up anger had burst
forth all at once, exploding in volcanic fashion. I’d trashed everything
that belonged to him. Thrown it straight out the window, after
making sure there was no one else down there to be inadvertently
buried beneath an avalanche of clothes, books, golf clubs, ski
equipment, tchotchkes, and God knew what else.
I took all of it — every single thing. Every last gift and picture
frame, every shared purchase we’d ever made together, because
even keeping that stuff would only remind me of a shared life that
never happened.
Finally I took the first photo we’d ever taken together… and held
it preciously in my trembling hands. We were on the merry-go-round
at a local carnival — one of those traveling state fair things that set
itself up and took itself down over the span of a single weekend.
We’d met at the ring toss. I was still holding the stuffed unicorn he’d
won for me; the one that was upside-down and probably very
confused in the middle of our front lawn now.
My hands shook as my eyes glassed over with tears again. The
photo had always meant so much to me. The two of us looked so
happy, so excited. We had everything ahead of us...
 I could rip it in half right now, and that would be it. It could
never be retaken. I could never go back.
Do it.
My fingers tightened, creating the beginnings of a crease that
would turn into a tear. It would be so easy and cathartic, shredding
the photo. Severing that last link between a past we enjoyed so
much together, and a future I now knew would never happen.
BZZZZZT!
I stopped, letting the sound of my buzzing phone become the
photo’s stay of execution, at least for now. It was Drake again.
There were twenty-three new text-messages, of which I hadn’t read
a single one. But now he was calling me…
“Hello?”
Drake hesitated at the other end of the phone, as if he hadn’t
expected me to pick it up at all.
“Sloane?”
“Yeah asshole,” I spat acidly. “Who else would it be?”
“Sloane I’m so worried about you!” Drake cried. “You haven’t
been answering my calls, my messages, anything at all! I was
starting to think—”
“Who is she?”
For a split second I thought he was going to actually tell me.
Instead, he decided upon more lies.
“What? W—Who are you talking about?”
“The girl!” I shouted tearfully. “The blonde you were sitting with
at the sandwich shop!”
“Sandwich sho—” he paused stupidly mid-sentence, as if
something suddenly — and innocently — occurred to him. “Oh,
Sydney? She’s just a friend! A friend who—”
“A friend who you hold hands and play tonsil-hockey with?” I
demanded.
 For some reason, I was having fun. Even wounded and angry,
there was an intoxicating sense of power that came with having the
upper hand.
“I saw you, dickhead,” I chuckled, almost manically, “with my
own two eyes. I stood there for a whole minute, watching as you
made out with this red-lipped bimbo, who I somehow kn—”
HOLY SHIT!
It came to me at once, in flash of insight. The girl. Her face. Her
big-toothed, red-lipped smile — all bright and cheerful — as she
handed me back a few dollars in change.
The girl from the Christmas tree lot.
She’s been the one who sold us our tree! The one who I’d paid
with cash as Drake helped one of the lot’s workers tie the tree
securely to the roof of his Range Rover.
She’d wished us both a Merry Christmas before we drove off,
staring strangely at my boyfriend the whole time. I remember her
being all doe-eyed for him. I even remembered teasing him about it
on the way home.
“You’re being silly,” Drake had laughed dismissively. “Was she
even pretty? I barely noticed her.”
Somehow I’d let him convince me I was being foolish. I’d even
thought it was cute that someone else had an insta-crush on my
boyfriend. We decorated the tree together in the hours that
followed, drinking wine and eating snacks I’d fixed earlier. It was one
of the few good times we had together recently.
And now…
And now he’s lying through his fucking teeth.
“Sloane? SLOANE?”
In my flash of insight, I’d almost forgotten he was still on the
phone. My blood was boiling. I was done with the lies.
“Drake?”
“Yes?”
 “You know we’re through, right?”
Five long seconds of utter silence followed. Drake was
thoughtless, selfish, and stubborn too. But if there’s one thing he
wasn’t, it was stupid.
“Yeah,” he answered finally, with a dejected sigh. “I—I know.”
“Good.”
The finality of it was refreshing, even if it hurt like hell. It was
like ripping a Band-Aid off in one quick motion, rather than slow-
playing it.
“Answer one last question though?” I asked. “And be brutally
honest with me?”
Another bout of silence followed. Then: “Of course.”
“Two possibilities exist,” I went on. “One, you met that girl when
we bought the tree together. You saw she obviously liked you, and
you went back later on to start something up with her.”
I paused, trying not to let my voice crack. I took one last
shuddering breath.
“Or two… you already had something going on with her,” I
continued, “and for some twisted reason you still brought me to that
particular lot to pick out our Christmas tree.”
More silence. The other end of the phone was so dark and cold
it was pure oblivion.
“So which is it?” I prodded him. “It’s over anyway. You owe me
that much.”
For an uncomfortably long time, he didn’t have an answer. Until
finally…
“It’s the second one.”
My heart sank as my body went limp. My head dropped into my
own hands.
God, I’m so stupid!
But hey, at least he wasn’t insulting my intelligence.
 “Thanks for that at least,” I grunted miserably. “You can pick
your stuff up anytime.”
Slowly I tore the photo in half, straight down the center. I felt
nothing.
“Sloane, I—”
“From the front lawn,” I added satisfactorily, and hung up.
 Two

SLOANE

The next morning was miserable, mostly because it took forever

to get ready. Ice cubes and cucumbers brought the swelling down
around my eyes, and Visine took care of the whites.
Drake had wisely stayed away, although the stuff out on the
lawn was gone by now. I’d heard the unmistakable diesel engine of
his friend Jay’s truck sometime just after dark, right about the same
time I was uncorking my second bottle of wine. There was no knock
at the door though. No text-message or phone call, either.
And all of that was fine by me.
Glancing at the clock I could see I’d be late for work, but not by
much. Having taken the rest of yesterday off for what I was calling a
family emergency, I was confident my boss would understand. As
busy as the foundry was this time of year, the kind old man who’d
started the company “on a jar full of mercury dimes” loved me like
the daughter he never had, or so he was so fond of telling me,
anyway. His partner was a little more strict and by the book, but I
also knew he appreciated my work ethic.
I had my keys in hand and was in the process of pulling the
door shut behind me when I looked back one last time. The
apartment was all mine now. It seemed empty and alone with all
Drake’s things gone, but at least I’d done the hard part. Every last
trace of our life together had been—
Oh… hell no.
 My stomach flip-flopped as I scanned our beautiful Christmas
tree from top to bottom. We’d picked out a tall one, Drake and I.
The cathedral ceilings in our loft apartment could handle it.
Correction: Drake and his slutbag blonde girlfriend and I.
My mouth curled into a bitter frown. The tree — as beautiful as
it was — was the last thing left that would remind me of him. And
even worse, it would remind me of the bubbly little blonde girl who
sold it to me, who also happened to be screwing my boyfriend
behind my back.
FUCK. THAT.
I dropped my bag and went immediately to work, knocking the
tree on its ass. Water spilled from the tree-stand. Glass ornaments
hit the hardwood flooring beneath the falling pine tree’s branches,
exploding out of sight with dull ‘pops.’
It took every ounce of strength to drag the tree out of there,
stand and all. Pine needles flew everywhere as I pulled it through
the threshold of our apartment doorway. I kept the momentum
going, dragging it down the steps, past the other units on the
second and ground floors, and straight out through the double doors
at the end of the building’s foyer. Eventually I reached the curb,
where I kicked it into the street. It stared back at me shocked and
wounded, still covered with lights, garland, ornaments and all.
“There we go.”
I wiped my sap-covered hands on my thighs, then stomped off.
Halfway to the door I realized something, turned around, and went
back to pluck the glittery, shimmering star — my grandmother’s star
— from the top of the tree.
“Not this though,” I growled at the tree. “Nice try.”
The star was old. Vintage. My mother had gifted it to me when
my grandmother died; it had sat on the top of her Christmas tree for
most of her life. We didn’t have many traditions in our family, and
my grandmother hadn’t left very many things behind. This was
important, though. I would’ve been gutted had I forgotten about it.
 Back upstairs I went, passing one of the tenants on the second
floor. She was one of two sisters who’d never married, and who’d
lived together for most of their lives. Right now she was staring at
me like I was crazy, throwing away a fully-decorated tree a few
weeks before Christmas.
“Yeah, I know,” I snapped, trying my hardest not to. “I’m having
a weird day.”
 Three

SLOANE

Working at a foundry wasn’t your typical job, in that it required

many different skill sets. Investment casting required an artisan’s
touch, and a lot of finesse. Even the tiniest mistake could be
expounded in the molding process, creating giant gaps or cracks in
the finished piece and tons of extra work on the back end. Make the
wrong decisions and you could destroy a piece before the pouring
even began. You could even ruin the mold, causing the client to
have to start all over.
As meticulous and attention-to-detail driven the work was, you
also needed to be fast. When swinging a 1200-degree crucible of
molten bronze in your direction, there wasn’t much time to stop and
consider things. You had to think on your feet. You had to prep
everything beforehand, and then double-check your prep work. It
was the only way to survive — and succeed.
Luckily, I was good at my job. I immersed myself in the work,
whether it be something I personally enjoyed, like casting statues
and museum pieces, or something more tedious like the prototyping
of high-end steel or aluminum parts. That side of the job was more
monotonous, but it paid the bills. It also left me with wiggle room
when asking to use the machinery after hours, something my kind-
hearted boss had always allowed… until now.
“Sloane I’m very sorry,” Mr. Drumm told me in his office, just
after my shift ended. “But things are just too crazy right now. I’d let
you if I could, obviously. But you know how it is around the
holidays.”
The old man swept an arm around his spacious office, which
was covered in blinking lights and Christmas decorations. It was also
covered in photo after photo of his beloved grandchildren. He had
six kids of his own, and they’d produced almost twenty
grandchildren so far. I knew most of their names, from our many
conversations together. It was just one of the ways he was blessed.
“I’ll come after hours,” I told him quickly. “You know that.”
“Yes, but the hours have been extende—”
“I’ll come after midnight.”
He’d been letting me use the foundry for nearly two years now,
to cast the bigger pieces that my home operation wouldn’t allow.
Back in the loft, I had a lost-wax casting setup that rivaled any non-
commercial operation. But when it came to bigger sculptures… my
home kiln just wasn’t wide or deep enough.
Mr. Drumm was slack-shouldered and red-faced, obviously upset
from having to turn me down. I pressed further.
“I promise…” I pleaded. “I’ll be done with everything way before
sunup. Cleanup, too. It’ll be like I was never there.”
“You’d have to put everything back,” he said hesitantly. “Reset
every single piece of—”
“Yes,” I jumped in. “I will!”
“And you’d use your own materials?” he asked, although he
didn’t have to.
“Of course.”
“And you’ll have someone with you on the pours?” he eyed me
shrewdly.
I shrugged. “Probably. But if not, I can always handle them
myse—”
“No!” he shook his head. “No deal, then. It’s too dangerous.”
 “But—”
“You do every one of your pours with an assistant,” he wagged
a finger at me. “Or the whole thing’s off.”
I tried counting the number of times Drake came with me to
cast something for my collection. I think it was three. None of those
times did he help me do anything, however. If anything at all, he
just got in the way.
“Alright,” I lied through my teeth. I felt bad about it, but times
were desperate. “I’ll have an assistant. Every pour.”
“Okayyy,” Mr. Drumm replied skeptically. “In that case—”
Just then the door to the office opened, after a swift triple-
knock. I recognized the knock immediately because I’d heard it
hundreds of times on the door to my own office.
“Hey! How’s things?”
Mark sauntered in, wiping his mouth with the back of one hairy
forearm. Since the door to the office had been open the whole time,
I wondered how long he’d been lingering out there.
“Things are good,” replied Mr. Drumm. “Say, would you be
willing to help Sloane out with some late night—”
“No need,” I jumped in quickly. “I got it.”
“Because she—”
“It’s fine,” I said, spreading my hands slowly to indicate I had
everything under control. My eyes found Mr. Drumm’s again, holding
him in my gaze. “Trust me, I’ve got it all covered.”
“Not sure what the two of you are talking about,” said Mark,
taking another bite of his candy bar. “But hey, you know me —
always ready to help.”
“I don’t need help.”
He shrugged. “Really, I don’t mind.”
“You have his number?” Mr. Drumm asked.
 I looked at Mark, and a shiver of displeasure ran through me.
There were many reasons I didn’t like him. I kept them all to myself,
however.
“Of course,” I said. “I do, and I’ll use it if I need to.” I let my
gaze wander to Mark, while putting on my best false smile. “And I
appreciate the offer, too.”
I waved goodbye to my boss and left, wondering how much of
our conversation Mark already knew about. He was a shop steward
just as I was, only he’d been there a good two years longer than
me. I’d taken on more responsibilities than him, however. And it was
something that ticked him off.
“But I have seniority,” I’d overheard him saying once, as I
passed one of the windows that led to the break room. “And you
keep giving her the best jobs.”
“She gets a lot of the more important jobs, yes,” Mr. Burgen —
the foundry’s other partner — had replied without apology. “And
that’s because she moves fast and her work is clean.”
Mark had frowned, and I’d gotten the hell out of there before
one or both of them saw me through the glass. From that point on,
Mark had only been false-friendly around me. He’d smiled and acted
cooperative whenever the bosses were around, but the rest of the
time we worked together he was passive aggressive and somewhat
condescending.
I left the building, vowing to forget about Mark and focus on the
good news: I still had permission to use the foundry after hours. I
could get caught up with all the personal work I’d been putting off
this past week, while trying to get my head straight after Drake. I
had a show to do. I had work to finish.
And dammit, it was the holiday season! For that reason alone, I
needed to smile and be merry.
 Four

SLOANE

“You a little bit lost?” the man called down from the bucket
loader. He smiled handsomely through a layer of dark stubble. “Or
do you just like big trucks?”
I emerged from behind the fir tree, where I’d been watching
him shovel pea-gravel into a concrete holding pen for the past thirty
seconds. He killed the engine and jumped down.
“Sorry,” I said, turning six different shades of red. “I was
watching to see which direction you came from.”
“You wandered off the path, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Kinda.”
“Well there aren’t any trees down this way,” he smiled. “This is
the edge of the masonry yard.”
The man was big, at least six-foot four and built like every
lumberjack I’d ever seen in a movie, TV show, or on a roll of paper
towels. He was much better looking, however than the guy with the
handlebar mustache that dominated the toiletries aisle.
“What you wanna do is head back that way,” he pointed with
one great arm. “Stick to the fence, and when it ends turn left. The
line of Christmas trees begins there, and you can backtrack…”
He stopped mid-sentence, eyeing me over. His grin widened as
he nodded toward the bucket loader. “Hell, just jump in and I’ll drive
you down there. Wouldn’t want something this pretty getting run
over.”
With a wink he gestured toward the series of black corrugated
steps that led into the loader’s cage. Thanking him, I hopped up and
slid across the seat.
“You are looking for a Christmas tree, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted. “A tall one.”
He started the machine up again with the push of a big button,
then grunted over the noise it made. “Good. We’ve got plenty of
those.”
Our thighs touched as the machine bumped its way over the
frozen mud, heading back in the direction I’d come. I was here
because the apartment was feeling especially empty, and I suddenly
wanted a tree of my own. I’d gotten angry that my last tree — as
beautiful as it had been — was now a compacted, splintered mess
rotting away in some landfill.
And my anger was all directed at Drake.
Fuck Drake.
It had been my mantra for a whole week. Did Drake have a
Christmas tree right now? No doubt he did. So why the hell couldn’t
I have one?
Seeing the once-decorated corner of my loft so empty and
devoid of decoration had made me furious last night. So much so
that it was affecting my art.
So get a tree, bitch.
The answer had been so obvious I nearly bit off my own inner
tongue.
What the hell are you waiting for?
And so here I was, wandering the biggest Christmas tree lot I’d
ever seen in my life. Looking for a tree that would be even bigger,
better, and more badass than the one I’d dragged in anger to the
curb.
 Oh yes, and sitting next to a mountain of a man. One who was
so ruggedly handsome yet uncannily gentle, he could’ve been
plucked from any of the last ten rom-coms I’d immersed myself in.
“I’m Kade, by the way,” the man said, extending a naked hand.
“Sloane,” I smiled. I pulled my glove off and shook with him,
noticing how warm and perfect his calloused palm felt. “Nice to meet
you.”
The machine rumbled on, rolling slowly along the fence. The
lines of Christmas trees came into view again — hundreds of them,
laid out in neat rows and columns. Immediately I could see where
I’d made my wrong turn.
“Sloane, I’m going to put you on the biggest trees we have,”
said Kade. “In fact… hang on.”
He killed the engine again, then put two fingers into his mouth
and whistled. It was that loud, crazy whistle I’d always admired
people could do. I’d tried it in the past, but could never do it.
Two men came over, both wearing the same sherpa-lined work
jackets Kade had on. The Carhartt logo on the pocket was
unmistakable.
“This is Sloane,” Kade said. “She needs a tree.”
“A big tree,” I added.
My side of the loader happened to be pressed up against the
fence. Kade reached out and took me by the hand, helping me to
climb over his body and slide past him on the seat.
Halfway through, my ass brushed his crotch.
Oh my God…
I felt a flash of instant embarrassment, but also a flush of
prickly heat. Was that a knot I felt in his jeans? Or was it just the
way his zipper happened to be arranged?
“Go on,” Kade urged, nodding toward the ground below. “They’ll
take care of you.”
 Still pleasantly rattled, I hopped down the first of the corrugated
steps. Suddenly another pair of strong hands were gripping my
waist. A mocha-skinned worker with cocoa-brown eyes lifted me
easily away from the big truck, then swung me a few feet to the left.
Oh!
He deposited me effortlessly in front of what looked to be a
blond-haired, blue-eyed viking god.
“Hi Sloane,” the viking smiled. “I’m Brock. And that’s Valerio.”
His voice was warm and inviting, spoken from the depths of a
broad, beautiful chest. He had an immaculately-trimmed beard, and
a smile that forced my next few heartbeats to go off rhythm.
“Come,” he said, extending one big hand. “Let’s get you set up
with a nice tree.”
 Five

BROCK

She was absolutely gorgeous, top to bottom. Sloane had silky

brown hair — long, just the way I liked it — that danced teasingly
around a perfect, angelic face. On top of that she was curvaceous
and pretty, with caramel brown eyes and lips that were naturally
plump and beautiful.
And Kade had brought her to us like he was delivering a pizza.
“You said you wanted to go big, right?”
I turned for her reaction, and saw her smile widen into a smirk.
She wasn’t offended. She was playing the game.
“Well bigger is better,” she acknowledged.
“Uh huh,” I grinned back. “As long as you’ve got the, you know,
room for it.”
“Oh, I do.”
She was still holding my hand, and that was something. It felt
wonderful in my palm, beneath her woven cotton gloves.
“How big are we talking?” I asked.
“Well the first tree I had this year was fourteen feet.”
Valerio whistled low, just behind us. “Fourteen. Wow!”
Sloane paused to look his way, arching a well-manicured
eyebrow at him. “You boys got anything that big?”
 My eyes went wide at the double-entendre. Whoever she was,
she was definitely a fun one.
“Actually yes,” said Valerio. “But he’s taking you the wrong way.”
He reached out and snatched her other hand, pulling her in a
different direction. Caught between us for a moment, both arms
outstretched, she giggled.
“Easy… you’re going to pull me apart.”
“He’s right though,” I acknowledged, finally letting go. “I was
going to show you the scotch pines, but the only thing that big
would be a douglas fir.”
We walked swiftly down a long row of shorter trees, the breath
from our exertion showing as little puffs of white smoke. Sloane
looked just as amazing from the back as she did from the front. As a
red-blooded American male, I couldn’t help but notice it.
“What did you mean by ‘first tree this year’?” I asked.
I saw her expression change. It looked like she was deciding
something.
“Well I had a tree about a week ago,” she admitted. “But that
one got kicked to the curb.”
“Along with an ex-boyfriend?” I theorized.
Her face lit up with a smile. “Yes!” she swore excitedly. “How’d
you know?”
“It happens,” I shrugged back at her. “Believe it or not, you’re
not the first.”
“Well that’s a relief,” she declared with a laugh. “It’s good to
know I’m not the only psycho dragging a fully-decorated tree —
stand and everything — out to the curb a few weeks before
Christmas.”
Valerio laughed with her. “Wow. Ornaments, tree-stand and all?”
“Yup.”
“That’s dedication!”
 “Yeah, well my fellow tenants must think I’m a lunatic,” she
lamented.
“Not to mention your garbage men,” I pointed out. “Don’t forget
about them.”
Valerio ducked between two thick balsam pines and pulled our
customer along with him. I felt jealous I was no longer holding her
hand. Like he’d stolen her away.
“You know it’s not just about length,” I said abruptly. “You also
need to get something that’ll fit your space.”
Sloane whirled on me, batting her eyelashes as she looked back
at me slyly. “And do you have something that’ll fit my space?” she
played along.
“Pretty sure I do,” I answered. “Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
God, she was making me crazy! So cute, so funny. But best of
all, so damned sure of herself. I could totally picture her dragging a
fully-decorated Christmas tree to the curb, and maybe even kicking it
for good measure. It just seemed like something she’d do.
The next line of trees were douglas firs, and beautiful ones at
that. We’d just gotten them in yesterday. They grew taller and wider
as we continued on.
“Fourteen feet… fourteen feet…” Valerio was muttering to
himself.
“Honestly, have you got anything bigger?” Sloane asked
casually.
Her question forced the two of us to stop walking at once. Our
customer giggled.
“Seriously,” she said. “All dick jokes aside, I’m looking to go
bigger and better than the tree I had with whats-his-face. Even if it’s
just a little bit.”
“Ah, so you want to upstage him,” Valerio nodded with a smile.
“I get it.”
 “You do?”
He spread his fingers across his chest. “Of course I do! I’m a
man, aren’t I?”
“Well I guess so,” Sloane flirted back. “If I’m taking your word
for it.”
Valerio went to say something else, but I’d already pulled her
away from him. Ten steps later I stopped, grabbed her shoulders,
and spun her in the direction of a ridiculously tall, incredibly beautiful
tree.
“Whoa…!”
The word left her beautiful lips as a long, drawn-out hiss. It
reminded me comically of something out of Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Adventure.
“This is the one, right?” I asked proudly.
“Yeah…” Sloane murmured. “It just might be.”
She walked around it in a semicircle, where it leaned against
one of the long wooden tree-cradles.
“Do you actually have room for it?” I asked, a bit skeptically. “I
mean some people don’t realize how—”
“I’ve got a top floor loft apartment with sixteen-foot ceilings,”
she said, still staring at the tree. “And plenty of space for how wide
she is.”
She. She was already personifying the tree in her own mind. I
knew I had her.
“Yeah, well she’ll get even wider once she’s inside, and her
boughs open up a bit more.” I reached into the center and grabbed
the trunk. It took more than a little effort on my part to shake off
the snow and spin it around for her.
“Wow,” said Valerio. “It doesn’t even have a bad side.”
“That’s the one then,” Sloane nodded happily. There was a
twinkle of excitement in her eye that wasn’t there before. “I’ll take
her.”
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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attracting bodies. When the laborer is transferred to the moon, of
which the mass is so much less than that of the earth, the attraction
is less there than it is here, even though the corn is the same in the
two cases.

Fig. 45.—The Lessened Gravitation on the Moon.

Many odd instances could be given of the extraordinary

consequences of life on a world where all weights are reduced to a
sixth part. One occurred to me the other day when I saw a postman
going his rounds with an amazing load of Christmas presents and
parcels. I thought, how much happier must be the lot of a postman
on the moon, if such functionaries are wanted there! All the presents
of toys or more substantial donations might be the same as before,
the only alteration would be that they would not feel nearly so
heavy. A box which contains a pound of chocolate bonbons might
still contain exactly the same quantity of sweetmeat on the moon,
but the exertion of carrying it would be reduced to one-sixth. It
would only weigh as much as two or three ounces do on the earth.
Our streets provide another admirable illustration of the drawbacks
of our life here as compared with the facilities offered by life on the
moon. I feel quite confident that no perambulators can be necessary
there. I cannot indeed say that there are babies to be found on the
moon, but of this I am certain, that even if the lunar babies were as
plump and as sturdy as ours, they must still only weigh about a sixth
as much as ours do. A lunar nurse would scorn to use a
perambulator, even for a pair of twins; she might take them both out
on her arm for an airing, and even then only bear one-third of the
load that her terrestrial sister must sustain if she is carrying but a
single child.
The lightness of bodies in the moon would entirely transform
many of our most familiar games. In cricket, for instance, I don’t
think the bowling would be so much affected, but the hits on the
moon would be truly terrific. I believe an exceptionally good throw
of the cricket-ball here is about a hundred yards, but the same man,
using the same ball and applying the same force to it, would send
the ball six hundred yards on the moon. So, too, every hit would in
the lunar game carry the ball to six times the distance it does here.
Football would show a striking development in lunar play; a good
kick would not only send the ball over the cross-bar, but it would go
soaring over the houses, and perhaps drop in the next parish.
Our own bodies would, of course, participate in the general
buoyancy, so that, while muscular power remained unabated, we
should be almost able to run and jump as if we had on the famous
seven-league boots. I have seen an athlete in a circus jump over ten
horses placed side by side. The same athlete, making the same
effort, would jump over sixty horses on the moon.
A run with a pack of lunar foxhounds would indeed be a
marvellous spectacle. There need be no looking round by timid
horsemen to find open roads or easy gaps. The five-barred gate
itself would be utterly despised by a huntsman who could easily
clear a hay-rick. It would hardly be worth taking a serious jump to
clear a canal unless there was a road and a railway or so, which
could be disposed of at the same time.
To illustrate this subject of gravitation in another way, suppose
that we were to be transferred from this earth to some globe much
greater than the earth—to a globe, for instance, as large and
massive as the sun. We can then show that the weight of every
object would be increased. Indeed, everything would weigh about
twenty-seven times as much as we find it does here. To pull out your
watch would be to hoist a weight of about five or six pounds out of
your pocket. Indeed, I do not see how you could draw out your
watch, for even to raise your arm would be impossible; it would feel
heavier by far than if it were made of solid lead. It is, perhaps,
conceivable that you might stand upright for a moment, particularly
if you had a wall to lean up against; but of this I feel certain, that if
you once got down on the ground, it would be utterly out of your
power to rise again.
These illustrations will at least answer one purpose: they will
show how difficult it is for us to form any opinion as to the presence
or the absence of life on the other globes in space. We are just
adapted in every way for a residence on this particular earth of a
particular size and climate, and with atmosphere of a particular
composition. Within certain slender limits our vital powers can
become accommodated to change, but the conditions of other
worlds seem to be so utterly different from those we find here, that
it would probably be quite impossible for beings constituted as we
are to remain alive for five minutes on any other globe in space.
It is, however, quite another question as to whether there may
not be inhabitants of some kind on many of the other splendid
globes. We have through the wide extent of space inconceivable
myriads of worlds, presenting, no doubt, every variety of size and
climate, of atmosphere and soil. It seems quite preposterous to
imagine that among all these globes ours alone should be the abode
of life. The most reasonable conclusion for us to come to is that
these bodies may be endowed with life of types which are just as
appropriate to the physical conditions around them as is the life,
both animal and vegetable, on this globe to the special
circumstances in which it is placed.
 LECTURE III.
THE INNER PLANETS.

Mercury, Venus, and Mars—How to make a Drawing of our

System—The Planet Mercury—The Planet Venus—The
Transit of Venus—Venus as a World—The Planet Mars and
his Movements—The Ellipse—The Discoveries made by
Tycho and Kepler—The Discoveries made by Newton—
The Geography of Mars—The Satellites of Mars—How the
Telescope aids in Viewing Faint Objects—The Asteroids,
or Small Planets.

MERCURY, VENUS, AND MARS.

We can hardly think of either the sun or the moon as a world in

the sense in which our earth is a world, but there are some bodies
called planets which seem more like worlds, and it is about them
that we are now going to talk. Besides our Earth there are seven
planets of considerable size, and a whole host of insignificant little
ones. These planets are like ours in a good many respects. One of
them, Venus, is about the same size as this earth; but the two
others, Mercury and Mars, are very much smaller. There are also
some planets very much larger than any of these, namely, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. We shall in this lecture chiefly discuss
three bodies, namely, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, which, with the
earth, form the group of “inner” planets.
 The planets are all members of the great family dependent on
the sun. Venus and the earth may be considered the pair of twins,
alike in size and weight. Mercury and Mars are the babies of the
system. The big brothers are Jupiter and Saturn. All the planets
revolve round the sun, and derive their light and their heat from his
beams. We should like to get a little closer to some of our fellow-
planets and learn their actual geography. Unfortunately, even under
the most favorable circumstances, they are a very long way off. They
are many millions of miles distant, and are always at least a hundred
times as far as the moon. But far as the planets may be,
astronomers have been familiar with their existence for ages past. I
can give you a curious proof of this. You remember how we said the
first and the second days of the week were called after the sun and
the moon, Sun-day and Moon-day, or Monday, respectively. Let us
see about the other days. Tuesday is not quite so obvious, but
translate it into French and we have at once Mardi; this word means
nothing but Mars’ day, and our Tuesday means exactly the same.
Wednesday is also readily interpreted by the French word Mercredi,
or Mercury’s day, while Venus corresponds to Friday. Jupiter’s day is
Thursday, while Saturn’s day is naturally Saturday. The familiar
names of the days of the week are thus associated with the seven
moving celestial bodies which have been known for uncounted ages.

HOW TO MAKE A DRAWING OF OUR SYSTEM.

I want every one who reads this book to make a little drawing of
the sun and the planets. The apparatus that you will need is a pair
of compasses; any sort of compasses that will carry a bit of pencil
will do. You must also get a little scale that has inches and parts of
inches divided upon it; any carpenter’s rule will answer. The drawing
is intended to give a notion of the true sizes and positions of the fine
family of which the earth is one member. The figure I have given
(Fig. 46) is not on so large a scale as that which I ask you to use,
and which I shall here mention. Try and do the work neatly, and
then pin up your little drawings where you will be able to see them
every day until you are quite familiar with the notion of what we
mean by our solar system.

Fig. 46.—The Orbits of the Four Inner Planets.

First open the compasses one inch, and then describe a circle,
and mark a dot on this as “Mercury,” in neat letters, and also write
on the circle “88 days.” At the centre you are to show the “Sun.” This
circle gives the track followed by Mercury in its journey round the
sun in the period of 88 days. Next open your compasses to 1¾ in.,
which you must do accurately by the scale. The circle drawn with
this radius shows the relative size of the path of Venus, and to
indicate the periodic time, you should mark it, “225 days.” The next
circle you have to draw is a very interesting one. The compass is to
be opened 2½ in. this time, and the path that it makes is to be
marked “365 days.” This shows the high road along which we
ourselves journey every year, along which we are, indeed,
journeying at this moment. If you wanted to obtain from your figure
any notions of the true dimensions of the system, the path of the
earth will be the most convenient means of doing so. The earth is
93,000,000 miles from the sun, and our drawing shows its orbit as a
circle of 2½ in. radius. It follows that each inch on our little scale will
correspond to about 37,000,000 miles. As, therefore, the radius of
the orbit of Mercury has been taken to be one inch, it follows that
the distance of Mercury from the sun is about 37,000,000 miles.
We have, however, still one more circle to draw before we
complete this little sketch. The compass must now open to four
inches, and a circle which represents the orbit of Mars is then to be
drawn. We mark on this “687 days,” and the inner part of the solar
system is then fully represented. You see, this diagram shows how
our earth is in every sense a planet. It happens that one of the four
planets revolves outside the earth’s path, while there are two inside.
By marking the days on the circles which show the periods of the
planets, you perceive that the further a planet is from the sun, the
longer is the time that it takes to go round. Perhaps you will not be
surprised at this, for the length of the journey is, of course, greater
in the greater orbits; but this consideration will not entirely explain
the augmentation of the time of revolution. The further a planet is
from the sun, the more slowly does it actually move, and therefore,
for a double reason, the larger orbit will take a longer time. From
London to Brighton is a much longer journey than from London to
Greenwich, and, therefore, the journey by rail to Brighton will, of
course, be a longer one than by rail to Greenwich. But suppose that
you compared the railway journey to Greenwich with the journey,
not by rail, but by coach, to Brighton, here the comparative slowness
of the coach would form another reason besides the greater length
of the journey for making the Brighton trip a much more tedious one
than that to Greenwich. Mars may be likened to the coach which has
to go all the way to Brighton, while Mercury may be likened to the
train which flies along over the very short journey to Greenwich.
 Fig. 47.—Comparative Sizes of the Planets.

We can easily show from our little sketch that Mercury must be
moving more quickly than Mars, for the radii of the two circles are
respectively one inch and four inches, and therefore the path of
Mars must be four times as long as the orbit of Mercury. If Mars
moved as fast as Mercury, he would, of course, require only four
times as many days to complete his large path as Mercury takes for
his small path; but four times 88 is 352, and, consequently, Mars
ought to get round in 352 days if he moved as fast as Mercury does.
As a matter of fact, Mars requires nearly twice that number of days;
indeed, no less than 687, and hence we infer that the average speed
of Mars cannot be much more than half that of Mercury.

Fig. 48.—Phases of an Inferior Planet.

To appreciate duly the position of the earth with regard to its

brothers and sisters in the sun’s family it will be necessary to use
your compasses in drawing another little sketch, by which the sizes
of the four bodies themselves shall be fairly represented. Remember
that the last drawing showed nothing whatever about the sizes of
the bodies; it merely exhibited the dimensions of the paths in which
they moved. As Mercury is the smallest globe of the four, we shall
open the compasses half an inch and describe a circle to represent
it. The earth and Venus are so nearly the same size (though the
earth is a trifle the larger) that it is not necessary to attempt to
exhibit the difference between them, so we shall represent both
bodies by circles, each 1¼ inches in radius. Mars, like Mercury, is
one of the globes smaller than the earth, and the circle that
represents it will have a radius of ¾ of an inch. You should draw
these figures neatly, and by a little shading make them look like
globes. It would be better still if you were to make actual models,
taking care, of course, to give each of them the exact size. A
comparative view of the principal planets is shown in Fig. 47.

THE PLANET MERCURY.

Quicksilver is a bright and pretty metal, and, unlike every other

metal, it is a liquid under ordinary circumstances. If you spill
quicksilver, it is a difficult task to gather the liquid up again. It breaks
into little drops, and you cannot easily lift them with your fingers;
they slip away and escape your grasp. Quicksilver will run easily
through a hole so small that water would hardly pass, and it is so
heavy that an iron nail or a bunch of keys will float upon it. Now, this
heavy, bright, nimble metal is known by another name besides
quicksilver; a chemist would call it mercury, and the astronomers use
exactly the same word to denote a pretty, bright, nimble, and heavy
planet which seems to try to elude our vision. Though Mercury is so
hard to see, yet it was discovered so long ago, that all record is lost
of who the discoverer was.
You must take special pains if you want to see the planet
Mercury, for during the greater part of the year it is not to be seen
at all. Every now and then a glimpse is to be had, but you must be
on the alert to look out just after sunset, or you must be up very
early in the morning so as to see it just before sunrise. Mercury is
always found to be in attendance on the sun, so that you must
search for him near the sun; that is, low down in the west in the
evenings, or low down in the east in the mornings. To ascertain the
proper time of the year at which to look for him you must refer to
the almanac.
We have seen how Mercury revolves in a path inside that of
Venus, and it is therefore nearer to the sun. Indeed, Mercury is so
close to the sun that it is generally overpowered by his brilliance and
cannot be seen at all. Like every other planet, Mercury is lighted by
the sun’s rays, and shows phases in the telescope just as the moon
does (Fig. 48). In this figure the different apparent sizes of the
planet at different parts of its path are shown. Of course the nearer
Mercury is to the earth the larger does it seem.
If we can only see Mercury so rarely, and if even then it is a very
long way off, does it not seem strange that we can tell how heavy it
is? Even if we had a pair of scales big enough to hold a planet, what,
it may be asked, would be the use of the scales when the body to be
weighed was about a hundred millions of miles away? Of course the
weighing of a planet must be conducted in some manner totally
different from the kind of weighing that we ordinarily use.
Astronomers have, however, various methods for weighing these big
globes, even though they can never touch them. We do not, of
course, want to know how many pounds, or how many millions of
tons they contain; there is but little use in trying to express the
weight in that way. It gives no conception of a planet’s true
importance. One world must be compared with another world, and
we therefore estimate the weights of the other worlds by comparing
them with that of our own. We accordingly have to consider Mercury
placed beside the earth, and to see which of the two bodies is the
bigger and the heavier, or what is the proportion between them. It
so happens that Mercury, viewed as a world, is a very small body. It
is a good deal less in size than our earth, and it is not nearly so
massive. To show you how we found out the mass of Mercury I shall
venture on a little story. It will explain one of the strange devices
that astronomers have to use when they want to weigh a distant
body in space.
There was once, and there is still, a little comet which flits about
the sky; we shall call it after the name of its discoverer, Encke. There
are sometimes splendid comets which everybody can see—we will
talk about these afterwards—but Encke is not such a one. It is very
faint and delicate, but astronomers are interested in it, and they
always look out for it with their telescopes; indeed, they could not
see the poor little thing without them. Encke goes for long journeys
through space—so far that it becomes quite invisible, and remains
out of sight for two or three years. All this time it is tearing along at
a tremendous speed. If you were to take a ride on the comet, it
would whirl you along far more swiftly than if you were sitting on a
cannon-ball. When the comet has reached the end of its journey,
then it turns round and returns by a different road, until at last it
comes near enough to show itself. Astronomers give it all the
welcome they can, but it won’t remain; sometimes it will hardly stay
long enough for us to observe that it has come at all, and sometimes
it is so thin and worn after all its wanderings that we are hardly able
to see it. The comet never takes any rest; even during its brief visit
to us it is scampering along all the time, and then again it darts off,
gradually to sink into the depths of space, whither even our best
telescopes cannot follow it. No more is there to be seen of Encke for
another three years, when again it will come back for a while. Encke
is like the cuckoo, which only comes for a brief visit every spring,
and even then is often not heard by many who dearly love his
welcome note; but Encke is a greater stranger than the cuckoo, for
the comet never repeats his visit of a few weeks more than once in
three years; and he is then so shy that usually very few catch a
glimpse of him.
An astronomer and a mathematician were great friends, and
they used to help each other in their work. The astronomer watched
Encke’s comet, noted exactly where it was, on each night it was
visible, and then told the mathematician all he had seen. Provided
with this information the mathematician sharpens his pencil, sits
down at his desk, and begins to work long columns of figures, until
at length he discovers how to make a time table which shall set forth
the wanderings of Encke. He is able to verify the accuracy of his
table in a very unmistakable way by venturing upon prophecies. The
mathematician predicts to the astronomer the very day and the very
hour at which the comet will reappear. He even indicates the very
part of the heavens to which the telescope must be directed, in
order to greet the wanderer on his return. When the time comes the
astronomer finds that his friend has been a true prophet; there is
the comet on the expected day, and in the expected constellation.
 This happens again and again, so that the mathematician, with
his pencil and his figures, marks stage by stage the progress of
Encke through the years of his invisible voyage. At each moment he
knows where the comet is situated, though utterly unable to see it.
The joint labors of the two friends having thus discovered law
and order in the movements of the comet, you may judge of their
dismay when on one occasion Encke disappointed them. He
appeared, it is true, but then he was a little late, and he was also
not in the spot where he was expected. There was nearly being a
serious difference between the two friends. The astronomer accused
the mathematician of having made mistakes in his figures, the
mathematician retorted that the astronomer must have made some
blunder in his observations. A quarrel was imminent, when finally it
was suggested to interrogate Encke himself, and see whether he
could offer any explanation. The mathematician employed peculiar
methods that I could not explain, so I shall transform his processes
into a dialogue between himself and the offending comet.
“You are late,” said he to the comet. “You have not turned up at
the time I expected you, nor are you exactly in the right place; nor,
indeed, for that matter, are you now moving exactly as you ought to
do. In fact, you are entirely out of order, and what explanation have
you to give of this irregularity?”
You see the questioner felt quite confident that there must have
been some cause at work that he did not know of. Mathematicians
have one great privilege; they are the only people in the world who
never make any mistakes. If they knew accurately all the various
influences that were at work on the comet, they could, by working
out the figures, have found exactly where the comet would be
placed. If the comet was not there, it is inevitable that there must
have been something or other acting upon the comet, of which the
mathematician was in ignorance.
The comet, like every other transgressor, immediately began to
make excuses, and to shuffle off the blame on somebody else. “I
was,” said Encke, “going quietly on my rounds as usual. I was
following out stage by stage the track that you know so well, and I
would certainly have completed my journey and have arrived here in
good time and in the spot where you expected me had I been let
alone, but unfortunately I was not let alone. In the course of my
long travels—but at a time when you could not have seen me—I had
the misfortune to come very close to a planet, of which I dare say
you have heard—it is called Mercury. I did not want to interfere with
Mercury; I was only anxious to hurry past and keep on my journey,
but he was meddlesome, and began to pull me about, and I had a
great deal of trouble to get free from him, but at last I did shake him
off. I kept my pace as well as I could afterwards, but I could not
make up the lost time, and consequently I am here a little late. I
know I am not just where I ought to be, nor am I now moving quite
as you expect me to do; the fact is, I have not yet quite recovered
from the bad treatment I have experienced.”
The astronomer and the mathematician proceeded to test this
story. They found out what Mercury was doing; they knew where he
was at the time, and they ascertained that what the comet had said
was true, and that it had come very close indeed to the planet. The
astronomer was quite satisfied, and was proposing to turn to some
other matter, when the mathematician said:—
“Tarry a moment, my friend. It is the part of a wise man to
extract special benefit from mishaps and disasters. Let us see
whether the tribulations of poor Encke cannot be made to afford
some very valuable information. We expected to find Encke here.
Well, he is not here—he is there, a little way off. Let us measure the
distance between the place where Encke is, and the place where he
ought to have been.”
This the astronomer did. “Well,” he said, “what will this tell you?
It merely expresses the amount of delinquency on the part of
Encke.”
“No doubt,” said the mathematician, “that is so; but we must
remember that the delinquency, as you call it, was caused by
Mercury. The bigger and the heavier Mercury was, the greater would
be his power of doing mischief, the more would he have troubled
poor Encke, and the larger would be the derangement of the comet
in consequence of the unfortunate incident. We have measured how
much Encke has actually been led astray. Had Mercury been heavier
than he is, that distance would have been larger; and if Mercury had
been lighter than he is, you would not, of course, have found so
large an error in the comet.”
We may illustrate what is meant in this way. A steamer sails from
Liverpool to New York, and in favorable circumstances the voyage
across the Atlantic should be accomplished within a week. But
supposing that in the middle of the ocean a storm is encountered,
by which the ship is driven from her course. She will, of course, be
delayed, and her voyage will be lengthened. A trifling storm,
perhaps, she will not mind, but a heavy storm might delay her six
hours; a still greater storm might keep her back half a day; while
cases are not infrequent in which the delay has amounted to one
day, or two days, or even more.
The delay which the ship has experienced may be taken as a
measure of the vehemence of the storm. I am not supposing that
her machinery has broken down; of course, that sometimes happens
at sea, as do calamities of a far more tragic nature. I am merely
supposing the ship to be exposed to very heavy weather, from which
she emerges just as sound as she was when the storm began. In
such cases as this we may reasonably measure the intensity of the
storm by the number of hours’ delay to which the passengers were
subjected. “The weather we had was much worse than the weather
you had,” one traveller may say to another. “Our ship was two days
late, while you escaped with a loss of one day.”
When the comet at last returned to the earth after a cruise of
three years through space, the number of hours by which it was late
expressed the vehemence of the storm it experienced. The only
storm that the comet would have met with, at least in so far as our
present object is concerned, was the trouble that it had with
Mercury. The mass of Mercury was, therefore, involved in the delay
of the comet. In fact, the delay was a measure of the mass of the
planet. I do not attempt to describe to you all the long work through
which the mathematician had to plod before he could ascertain the
mass of Mercury. It was a very tedious and a very hard sum, but at
last his calculations arrived at the answer, and showed that Mercury
must be a light globe compared to the earth. In fact, it would take
twenty-five globes, each equal to Mercury, to weigh as much as the
earth.
I dare say you will think that this was a very long and
roundabout way of weighing. Supposing, however, we had to weigh
a mountain, or rather a body which was bigger than fifty thousand
mountains, and which was also many millions of miles away, all sorts
of expedients would have to be resorted to. I have told you one of
them. If you feel any doubts as to the accuracy with which such
weighings can be made, then I must tell you that there are many
other methods, and that these all agree in giving concordant results.

Fig. 49.—Relative Weights of Mercury and the Earth.

 We hardly know anything as to what the globe of Mercury may
be like. We can see little or nothing of the nature of its surface. We
only perceive the planet to be a ball, brightly lighted by the sun, and
we cannot satisfactorily discern permanent features thereon, as we
are able to do on some of the other planets.

THE PLANET VENUS.

You will have no difficulty in recognizing Venus, but you must

choose the right time to look out for her. In the first place, you need
never expect to see Venus very late at night. You should look for the
planet in the evening, as soon as it is dark, towards the west, or in
the morning, a little before sunrise, towards the east. I do not,
however, say that you can always see Venus, either before sunrise or
after sunset. In fact, for a large part of the year, this planet is not to
be seen at all. You should therefore consult the almanac, and unless
you find that Venus is stated to be an evening star or a morning star,
you need not trouble to search for it. I may, however, tell you that
Venus can never be an evening star and a morning star at the same
time. If you can see it this evening after sundown, there is no use in
getting up early in the morning to look out for it again. The planet
will remain for several weeks a splendid object after sunset, and
then will gradually disappear from the west, and in a couple of
months later will be the morning star in the east. Venus requires a
year and seven months to run through her changes, so that if you
find her a bright evening star to-night, you may feel sure that she
was a bright evening star a year and seven months ago, and that
she will be a bright evening star in a year and seven months to
come. Nor must you ever expect to see her right overhead; she is
always to the west or to the east.
The splendor of Venus, when at her best, will prevent you at
such times from mistaking this planet for an ordinary star. She is
then more than twenty times as bright as any star in the heavens.
The most conclusive proof of the unrivalled brightness of Venus is
found in the fact that she can be recognized in broad daylight
without a telescope. Even on the brightest June afternoons the
lovely planet is sometimes to be discerned like a morsel of white
cloud on the perfect azure of the sky.
Venus is so brilliant that perhaps you will hardly credit me when
I tell you that she has no more light of her own than has a stone or
a handful of earth, or a button. Is it possible that this is the case,
you will say, for as we see the planet so exquisitely beautiful, how
can she be merely a huge stone high up in the heavens? The fact is
that Venus shines by light not her own, but by light which falls upon
her from the sun. She is lighted up just as the moon, or just as our
own earth is lighted. Her radiance merely arises from the sunbeams
which fall upon her. It seems at first surprising that mere sunbeams
on the planet can give her the brilliancy that is sometimes so
attractive. Let me show you an illustration which will, I trust,
convince you that sunbeams will be adequate even for the glory of
Venus.
Here is a button. I hang it by a piece of fine thread, and when I
dip it into the beam from the electric lamp, look at the brilliancy with
which the mimic planet glitters. You cannot see the shape of the
button; it is too small for that; you merely see it as a brilliant gem,
radiating light all around. Therefore, we need not be surprised to
learn that the brilliancy of the evening star is borrowed from the
sun, and that if, while we are looking at the planet in the evening,
the sun were to be suddenly extinguished, the planet would also
vanish from view, though the stars would shine as before.
Thus we explain the appearance of Venus. The evening star is a
beautiful, luminous point, but it has no shape which can be
discerned with the unaided eye. When, however, the telescope is
turned towards Venus we have the delightful spectacle of a tiny
moon, which goes through its phases just as does our own satellite.
When first seen as an evening star Venus will often be like the moon
at the quarter, and then it will pass to the crescent shape. Then the
crescent becomes gradually thinner, and next will follow a brief
period of invisibility before the appearance of Venus as the morning
star. It seems at first a little strange that Venus when brightest
should not be full like the moon, which in similar circumstances is, of
course, a complete circle of light. The planet, however, has a very
marked crescent-shaped form in these circumstances. But at this
time the planet is so near us that the gain of brilliancy from the
diminution of distance more than compensates for the small part of
the illuminated side which is turned towards us.
You ought all to try to get some one to show you Venus through
a telescope. A very large instrument is not necessary, and I feel sure
you will be delighted to see the beautiful moon-shaped planet. You
will then have no difficulty in understanding how the brightness of
the planet has come from the sun. The changes in the crescent
merely depend upon the proportion of the illuminated side which is
turned towards us. Were Venus itself a sunlike body we should, of
course, see no crescent, but only a bright circle of light.
In Fig. 50 you will notice an imaginary picture of a young
astronomer surveying Venus with a telescope. I have not, as is
obvious, attempted to show the different objects in their proper
proportions. The sun is supposed to have set, so that his beams do
not reach the astronomer. Night has begun at his observatory; but
the sunbeams fall on Venus, and light her up on that side turned
towards the sun. A part of this lighted side is, of course, seen by the
telescope which the astronomer is using, and thus the planet seems
to him like a crescent of light.
 Fig. 50.—To show that Venus shines by Sunlight.

THE TRANSIT OF VENUS.

We might naturally think from Fig. 46 that Venus must pass at

every revolution directly between the earth and the sun; and
therefore it might appear that what is called the transit of Venus
across the sun ought to occur every time between the appearance of
the planet as the evening star and the next following appearance as
the morning star. No doubt on each of these occasions Venus seems
to approach the sun closely; but the orbits of Venus and the Earth
do not lie quite in the same plane, and hence the planet usually
passes just over or just under the sun, so that it is a very rare event
indeed for her to come right in front of the sun. But this does
sometimes happen. It happened, for instance, in the year 1874, and
again in the year 1882; but, alas! I cannot hold out to you the
prospect of ever seeing another such spectacle. There will be no
further occurrence of the transit of Venus until the year 2004,
though there will be another eight years later, in 2012.
 It seems rather odd that one transit of Venus should be followed
by another after an interval of eight years, and that then a period of
much more than a century should have to elapse before there will be
a repetition of a similar pair. This is in consequence of a curious
relation between the motion of Venus and the motion of the Earth,
which I must endeavor to explain with the help of a little illustration.
Let us suppose a clock with ordinary numbers round the dial, but
so arranged that the slowly moving short hand requires 365.26 days
to complete one revolution round the dial, while the more rapidly
moving long hand revolves in 224.70 days. The short hand will then
go round once in a year, and the long hand once during the
revolution of Venus. Let us suppose that both hands start together
from XII, then in 224.70 days the long hand is round to XII again,
but the short hand will have only advanced to about VII, and by the
time it reaches XII the long hand will have completed a large part of
a second circuit. It happens that the two numbers 224.70 and
365.26 are very nearly in the ratio of 8 to 13. In fact, if the numbers
had only been 224.8 and 365.3 respectively, they would be exactly in
the proportion of 8 to 13. It, therefore, follows that eight revolutions
of the short hand must occupy very nearly the same time as thirteen
revolutions of the long hand. After eight years the short hand will of
course be found again at XII; and at the same moment the long
hand will also be back at XII, after completing thirteen revolutions.
We can now understand why the transits, when they do occur,
generally arrive in pairs at an interval of eight years. Suppose that at
a certain time Venus happens to interpose itself directly between the
earth and the sun, then, when eight years have elapsed, the earth
is, of course, restored for the eighth time since the first transit to the
same place, and Venus has returned to almost the same spot for the
thirteenth time. The two bodies are practically in the same condition
as they were at first, and, therefore, Venus again intervenes, and
the planet is beheld as a black spot on the sun’s surface. We must
not push this argument too far; the relation between the two periods
of revolution, though nearly, is not exactly 8 to 13. The consequence
is that when another eight years have elapsed, the planet passes a
little above the sun or a little below the sun, and thus a third
occurrence of the transit is avoided for more than a century. The
next transit will take place at the opposite side of the path.
We were fortunate enough to be able to see the transit of Venus
in 1882 from Great Britain. Perhaps I should say a part of the transit,
for the sun had set long before the planet had finished its journey
across the disk. Venus looked like a small round black spot, stealing
in on the bright surface of the sun and gradually advancing along
the short chord that formed its track.

Fig. 51.—Venus in Transit across the Sun.

An immense deal of trouble was taken in 1882, as well as in

1874, to observe this rare occurrence. Expeditions were sent to
various places over the earth where the circumstances were
favorable. Indeed, I do not suppose that there was ever any other
celestial event about which so much interest was created. The
reason why the event attracted so much attention was not solely on
account of its beauty or its singularity; it was because the transit of
Venus affords us a valuable means of learning the distance of the
sun. When observations of the transit of Venus made at opposite
sides of the earth are brought together, we are enabled to calculate
from them the distance of Venus, and knowing that, we can find the
distance of the sun and the distances and the sizes of the planets.
This is very valuable information; but you would have to read some
rather hard books on astronomy if you wanted to understand clearly
how it is that the transit of Venus tells us all these wonderful things.
I may, however, say that the principle of the method is really the
same as that mentioned on pp. 19–25. When you remember that
not we ourselves, nor our children, and hardly our grandchildren, will
ever be able to see another transit of Venus, you will, perhaps, not
be surprised that we tried to make the most of such transits as have
occurred in our time.

VENUS AS A WORLD.

Though Venus exhibits such pretty crescents in the telescope,

yet I must say that in other respects a view of the planet is rather
disappointing. Venus is adorned by such a very bright dress of
sunbeams that we can see but little more than those sunbeams, and
we can hardly make out anything of the actual nature of the planet
itself. We can sometimes discern faint marks upon the globe, but it is
impossible even to make a conjecture of what the Venus country is
like. This is greatly to be regretted, for Venus approaches
comparatively close to the earth, and is a world so like our own in
size and other circumstances that we feel a legitimate curiosity to
learn something more about her.
But the marks on the planet, though very faint, are still
sufficiently definite to have enabled some sharp-sighted astronomers
to answer a question of much interest. They have made it plain that
in one most important respect Venus is very unlike our Earth. Our
globe, of course, rotates on its axis once each day, but Venus
requires no less than 225 days to complete each rotation. In fact,
this planet rotates in such a fashion that she always keeps the same
face to the sun. The inhabitants of Venus will therefore find that it is
perennial day on one side of this globe and everlasting night on the
other.
Venus is one of the few globes which might conceivably be the
abode of beings not very widely different from ourselves. In one
condition especially—namely, that of weight—she resembles the
earth so closely that those bodies which we actually possess would
probably be adapted, so far as strength is concerned, for a residence
on the sister planet. Our present muscles would not be unnecessarily
strong, as they would be on the moon, nor should we find them too
weak, as they would certainly prove to be were we placed on one of
the very heavy bodies of our system. Nor need the temperature of
Venus be regarded as presenting any insuperable difficulties. She is,
of course, nearer to the sun than we are, but then climate depends
on other conditions besides nearness to the sun, so that the
question as to whether Venus would be too hot for our abode could
not be readily decided. The composition of the atmosphere
surrounding the planet would be the most material point in deciding
whether terrestrial beings could live there. I think it to be in the
highest degree unlikely that the atmosphere of Venus should chance
to suit us in the requisite particulars, and therefore I think there is
not much likelihood that Venus is inhabited by any men, women, or
children resembling those on this earth.

THE PLANET MARS AND HIS MOVEMENTS.

The path of the earth lies between the orbits of the planets
Venus and Mars. It is natural for us to endeavor to learn what we
can about our neighbors. We ought to know something, at all
events, as to the people who live next door to us on each side. I
have, however, already said that we cannot observe very much upon
Venus. The case is very different with respect to Mars. He is a planet
which we are fortunately enabled to study minutely, and he is full of
interest when we examine him through a good telescope.
The right season for observing Mars must, of course, be
awaited, as he is not always visible. Such seasons recur about every
two years, and then for months together Mars will be a brilliant
object in the skies every night. Nor has Mars necessarily to be
sought in the early morn or immediately after sunset, in the manner
we have already described for Venus and Mercury. At the time Mars
is at his best he comes into the highest position at midnight, and he
can generally be seen for hours before, and be followed for hours
subsequently. You may, however, find some difficulty in recognizing
him. You probably would not at first be able to distinguish Mars from
a fixed star. No doubt this planet is a ruddy object, but some stars
are also ruddy, and this is at the best a very insecure characteristic
for identification. I cannot give you any more general directions,
except that you should get your papa to point out Mars to you the
next time it is visible. It is just conceivable that papa himself might
not know how to find Mars. If so, the sooner he gets a set of star
maps and begins to teach himself and to teach you, the better it will
be for you both.
Mars, though apparently so like a star, differs in some essential
points from any star in the sky. The stars proper are all fixed in the
constellations, and they never change their relative positions. The
groups which form the Great Bear or the Belt of Orion do not alter,
they are just the same now as they were centuries ago. But the case
is very different with a planet such as Mars. The very word planet
means a wanderer, and it is justly applied, because Mars, instead of
staying permanently in any one constellation, goes constantly
roaming from one group to the other. He is a very restless body;
sometimes he pays his respects to the heavenly Twins, and is found
near Castor and Pollux in Gemini, then he goes off and has a brief
sojourn with the Bull, but it looks as if that fierce animal got tired of
his company and hunted him off to the Lion. His quarters then
become still more critical. Sometimes it looks as if he desired to seek
for peace beneath the waters, and so he visits Aquarius, while at
other times he is found in dangerous proximity to the claws of the
Crab.
Mars cannot even make up his mind to run steadily round the
heavens in one direction; sometimes he will bolt off rapidly, then
pause for a while, and turn back again; then the original impulse will
return, and he will resume his journey in the direction he at first
intended. It is no wonder that I am not able to give you very explicit
directions as to how you may secure a sight of a truant whose
wanderings are apparently so uncertain. Yet there is a definite order
underlying all his movements. Astronomers, who make it their
business to study the movements of Mars, can follow him on his
way; they know exactly where he is now, and where he will be every
night for years and years to come. The people who make the
almanacs come to the astronomers and get hints from them as to
what Mars intends to do, so that the almanacs announce the
positions in which the planet will be found with as much regularity as
if he was in the habit of behaving with the orderly propriety of the
sun or the moon.
We must not lay all the blame on Mars for the eccentricities of
his movements. Our earth is to a very large extent responsible. What
we think to be Mars’ vagaries are often to be explained by the fact
that we ourselves on the earth are rapidly shifting about and altering
our point of view.
 Fig. 52.—How the Tree seems to move about.

I was driving down a pretty country road with a little girl three
years old beside me, when I was addressed with the little remark,
“Look at the tree going about in the field.” Now, you or I, with our
longer experience of the world around us, know that it is not the
custom of trees to take themselves up and walk about the fields. But
this was what this little girl saw, or rather what she thought she
saw; and very often what we do see is something very different from
what we think we see. We think we see Mars performing all these
extraordinary movements, as the little girl thought she saw the tree
moving about. But just as that little girl, when she grew to be a big
girl, found that what she thought was a tree walking across the field
must really have some quite different explanation, so we, too, find
that what Mars seems to do is one thing, and what Mars actually
does is quite another thing.
Let us see what the little girl noticed. She was looking at the
tree, and first she saw it on one side of the house, and then she saw
it on the opposite side (Fig. 52). If it had been a cow instead of a
tree, of course the natural supposition would have been that the cow
had walked. Our little friend may, perhaps, have thought it unusual
for a tree to walk, but still she saw the undoubted fact that the tree
had shifted to the other side of the house, and therefore, perhaps,
remembering what the cow could do, she said the tree had moved.

Fig. 53.—A Specimen of the Track of Mars.

The little girl did not stop to reflect that she herself had entirely
changed her position, and hence arose the surprising phenomenon
of a tree that could move about. You will understand this, at once,
from the two positions of the car here shown. In the first position, as
the girl looks at the tree, the dotted line shows the direction of her
glance, and the other dotted line shows how the apparent places of
the tree and the house have altered. It is her change of place that
has accomplished the transformation. Observe also that the tree
appeared to her to move in the direction opposite to that in which
she is going.
Mars generally appears to move round among the stars from
west to east. In fact, if we were viewing him from the sun he would
always seem to move in this manner. But at certain seasons our
earth is moving very fast past Mars, and this will make him appear
to move in the opposite direction. This apparent motion is
sometimes so much in excess of his real motion, that it may give us
an entirely incorrect idea of what the planet is actually doing.
Thus, notwithstanding that Mars is moving one way, he may
appear to us who dwell on the earth to be going in the opposite way.
This illusion only happens for a short time, just when we are passing
Mars, as we do every two years. The effect on the planet is to make
the path he pursues at this time something like that shown in
Fig. 53. The planet is nearest to us at the time he is moving in this
loop. He is then to be seen at his best in the telescope, so that it is
especially interesting to watch Mars through this critical part of his
career.
I want to show you how to make a little calculation which will
explain the law by which the seasons when we can see Mars best
will follow each other. The period he requires for a voyage round the
sun is not quite two years, for that would be 730 days, and Mars
only takes 687 days for his journey. It is, however, true that 1-15/17
years is very nearly the period of Mars. Hence, every 32 years Mars
will complete 17 rounds. From this we shall be able to see how long
it will take after the earth once passes Mars before they pass again.
I shall suppose there is a circular course, around which two boys
start together to run a race. One of these boys is such a good
runner that he will get quite round in 17 minutes; but the other boy
can hardly run more than half as quickly, for he will require 32
minutes to complete one circle. Here then is the question. Suppose
the two boys to start together: how long will it be before the faster
runner gains one complete circuit on the other? By the time the
good runner (A) has completed one circuit, the bad runner (B) has
only got a little more than halfway. When A has completed his
second circuit, he has, of course, run for twice 17 minutes—that is,
for 34 minutes. This is two minutes longer than the time B requires
to get round once; therefore B is only ahead by a distance which A
could cover in about one minute; but B will have advanced during
this minute a distance for which A will require another half-minute,
during which B covers a distance for which A will need a further
quarter, and so on. But all these intervals—one minute, half a
minute, a quarter of a minute, one-eighth, one-sixteenth, and so on
—added together amount to two minutes, and hence it follows that
B will not be overtaken until about two minutes after A has
completed his second round—that is, in 36 minutes altogether.
We can pass from this illustration to the case of the planet Mars
and the earth. The orbit of the earth is traversed in a year, and
therefore, after the earth has once passed Mars, which is then, as
astronomers would say, in opposition, about two years and the
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