"The Children of the Zodiac" Short Story by Rudyard Kipling Read or Listen
"It's too hard," said the Big Boy. "I don't know what
     'Zodiac' means." "I will hunt up the words for you in the
     dictionary," said the Little Girl. And when they came to the
     next story the Boy took pleasure in doing his own hunting in
     the dictionary.

    Though thou love her as thyself,
    As a self of purer clay,
    Though her parting dim the day,
    Stealing grace from all alive,
        Heartily know
        When half Gods go
    The gods arrive.>>Emerson.

Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than they are to>day,
the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children
of the Zodiac>>the Ram, the Bull, the Lion, the Twins, and the Girl;
and they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion,
the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Goat, and the Waterman. Even
when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were
immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as
they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the
Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with
prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac
listened and could not understand.

[Footnote 2: Copyrighted, 1891, by Harper & Brothers.]

A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the
Bull, crying: "My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer
shot him and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer.
Help me!" The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: "What is that
to me?" Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they
could not understand why the water ran out of people's eyes. At other
times a man and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: "We two
are newly married and we are very happy. Take these flowers." As they
threw the flowers they would make mysterious sounds to show that they
were happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why
people shouted "Ha! ha! ha!" for no cause.

This continued for thousands of years by human reckoning, till on a
day, Leo met the Girl walking across the hills and saw that she had
changed entirely since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo,
saw that he too had changed altogether. Then they decided that it
would be well never to separate again, in case even more startling
changes should occur when the one was not at hand to help the other.
Leo kissed the Girl and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat
down on a hill and the