“They made him go and hunt different animals for food, and then when he brought, them home they cooked and ate the best themselves, and just threw the fragments and bones to him as they would to a dog.  Every member of the household treated him very cruelly, except a nice little girl, the youngest daughter of the family.  She felt very sorry for him.  She would secretly take him better food, and she furnished him with a knife with which he could cut the tough pieces of meat.  She had to be very careful not to be discovered, for if found out she would have been severely punished.  So her pity had to show itself on the sly, and the few words she was able to tell him of her sympathy had to be whispered as she passed him, when nobody was looking or listening.  The poor boy up to this time had no ambition to better himself, but her kind words and deeds made him resolve that he must begin and do something for himself.  But what could he do?  Everybody seemed against him but this little girl, and she could do nothing in the way of helping him to escape from these people, who, now that he was becoming so useful to them, would not let him go.  What, really, could he do?

“Thus the days and weeks and months passed on and there seemed no chance of escape.  He had tried to run away, but had been caught and brought back and beaten.

“One night when it was not very cold he went outside of the narrow entry where he generally had to sleep and threw himself on the ground and cried in his sorrow and despair.  He seemed to be utterly unable to better himself.  As he lay there he began looking up at the great bright moon that, now so large and round, was, he thought, looking earnestly at him.  Soon he was able to see that there was a great man in the moon.  As he watched him he was glad to notice that he was not looking crossly at him, but kindly, and so he began crying to the man in the moon to come and help him to escape from the miserable life he was leading.  Sure enough, as the boy kept on crying and pleading he saw the man in the moon beginning to come down to this world.  He came to the very spot where the unhappy boy was lying, but instead of helping him he made him stand up and then he gave him a good sound thrashing, making the boy, however, strike back at him as vigorously as he could.  The beating he got very much disheartened and discouraged the boy, for it was not what he had expected.  On the following night, when he had recovered a little, he began reproaching the man in the moon.

“‘I called for you,’ he said, ’to come and help me against my enemies, and now you have come and thrashed me.’

“But these words, instead of softening the man in the moon, caused him to come down again and give the poor boy a far worse thrashing than before, but for every blow he made the boy return one as good as he had received.

“Now for the first time the boy began to notice that the more he was beaten the stronger he grew.  Still he could not understand what the man in the moon meant.  So he came again, and they had another regular set-to, and the boy had another good sound thrashing.  He asked him what was the meaning of his beating him thus.  The man in the moon now spoke to him, but his words were so much like a puzzle that at first the boy did not understand them.  This is what the man in the moon said: