Mince Pie

Brown Eyes and Equinoxes

"What is an equinox?" said Titania.

I pretended not to hear her and prayed fervently that the inquiry would

pass from her mind. Sometimes her questions, if ignored, are effaced by

some other thought that possesses her active brain. I rattled my paper

briskly and kept well behind it.

"Yes," I murmured husbandly, "delicious, delicious! My dear, you

certainly plan the most delightful meals." Meanwhile I was glancing

feverishly at the daily Quiz column to see if that noble cascade of

popular information might give any help. It did not.

Clear brown eyes looked across the table gravely. I could feel them

through the spring overcoat ads.

"What is an equinox?"

"I think I must have left my matches upstairs," I said, and went up to

look for them. I stayed aloft ten minutes and hoped that by that time

she would have passed on to some other topic. I did not waste my time,

however; I looked everywhere for the "Children's Book of a Million

Reasons," until I remembered it was under the dining-room table taking

the place of a missing caster.

When I slunk into the living room again I hastily suggested a game of

double Canfield, but Titania's brow was still perplexed. Looking across

at me with that direct brown gaze that would compel even a milliner to

relent, she asked:

"What is an equinox?"

I tried to pass it off flippantly.

"A kind of alarm clock," I said, "that lets the bulbs and bushes know

it's time to get up."

"No; but honestly, Bob," she said, "I want to know. It's something about

an equal day and an equal night, isn't it?"

"At the equinox," I said sternly, hoping to overawe her, "the day and

the night are of equal duration. But only for one night. On the

following day the sun, declining in perihelion, produces the customary

inequality. The usual working day is much longer than the night of

relaxation that follows it, as every toiler knows."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "but how does it work? It says something

in this article about the days getting longer in the Northern

Hemisphere, while they are getting shorter in the Southern."

"Of course," I agreed, "conditions are totally different south of Mason

and Dixon's line. But as far as we are concerned here, the sun,

revolving round the earth, casts a beneficent shadow, which is generally

regarded as the time to quit work. This shadow--"

"I thought the earth revolved round the sun," she said. "Wasn't that

what Galileo proved?"

"He was afterward discovered to be mistaken," I said. "That was what

caused all the trouble."

"What trouble?" she asked, much interested.

"Why, he and Socrates had to take hemlock or they were drowned in a butt

of malmsey, I really forget which."

"Well, after the equinox," said Titania, "do the days get longer?"

"They do," I said; "in order to permit the double-headers. And now that

daylight saving is to go into effect, equinoxes won't be necessary any

more. Very likely the pan-Russian Soviets, or President Wilson, or

somebody, will abolish them."

"June 21 is the longest day in the year, isn't it?"

"The day before pay-day is always the longest day."

"And the night the cook goes out is always the longest night," she

retorted, catching the spirit of the game.

"Some day," I threatened her, "the earth will stop rotating on its

orbit, or its axis, or whatever it is, and then we will be like the

moon, divided into two hostile hemispheres, one perpetual day and the

other eternal night."

She did not seem alarmed. "Yes, and I bet I know which one you'll

emigrate to," she said. "But how about the equinoctial gales? Why should

there be gales just then?"

I had forgot about the equinoctial gales, and this caught me unawares.

"That was an old tradition of the Phoenician mariners," I said, "but the

invention of latitude and longitude made them unnecessary. They have

fallen into disrepute. Dead reckoning killed them."

"And the precession of the equinoxes?" she asked, turning back to her

magazine.

This was a poser, but I rallied stoutly. "Well," I said, "you see, there

are two equinoxes a year, the vernal and the autumnal. They are well

known by coal dealers. The first one is when he delivers the coal and

the second is when he gets paid. Two of them a year, you see, in the

course of a million years or so, makes quite a majestic series. That is

why they call it a procession."

Titania looked at me and gradually her face broke up into a charming

aurora borealis of laughter.

"I don't believe you know any more about the old things than I do," she

said.

And the worst of it is, I think she was right.