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TUE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER, 



July 



\yiien au aged man of venerable aspect, 

 •whom I at onoe recognized as the man 

 in the moon, approached me and in- 

 quired my business. I explained that I 

 •was an involuntary trespasser on his 

 hospitality, and then, thinking as I was 

 there I might as well learn something 

 about the history of our satellite and its 

 inhabitants — supposing there were any 

 — I proceeded as respectfully as might 

 be to question the old fellow. 



"Yes; you are right," he exclaimed 

 in answer to my query as he placed the 

 load of fagots he was carrying on a 

 projecting mass of granite and rested 

 his back against the cone of an extinct 

 volcano. "I have seen a lot of changes 

 in my time. How old am I? Well, 1 

 don't know exactly, but it is some mil- 

 lions of years ago since my first birth- 

 day. 



"Why, bless my heart, when I was a 

 lad, this old dried up moon was as bright 

 • and fresh as your earth is now. 



"Seas sparkled in the sunlight, brooks 

 gleamed and flashed through the valleys 

 and forests clothed with verdure the 

 mountains now dead and silent. Aye, 

 these were glorious times. The birds 

 sang in the woods from early dawn to 

 nightfall, the fishes leaped and plashed 

 and leaped and plashed again in every 

 eddy and pool of our prehistoric rivers. 

 Great mammals, some uncouth and 

 some beautiful, but mostly the latter, 

 roamed at will amid the glades of our 

 mighty forests. Then, after a million 

 years or so, man came. " 



"Man?" I repeated incredulously. 



"Yes, man," he reiterated rather 

 testily. "Mp.u, of course. Do you think 

 your earth alone has been the home of 

 man? I tell you he lived and flourished 

 here while the earth was yet formless 

 and void, a vast white hot mass of semi- 

 fluid granite. At first he was weak for 

 lack of knowledge, and fought — often 

 unsuccessfully — with the wild beasts of 

 the forests for food and drink and rai- 

 ment. Then as he grew older he grew 

 ■wiser and carved for himself weapons 

 of flint and wood, just as the-earth man 

 did a million or two years afterward. 

 Our lunar men were very clever, too — 

 very clever. Not so large or so strong 

 as terrestrial man, perhaps, but quicker 

 to learn. Why, it did not take us more 

 than 200, OWO years to perfect our civili- 

 sation, " 



"And what happened then?" was my 

 next query. 



"Ah, there you have asked a question 

 hard to au>.vt:r, " quoth the old man 

 sadly. "AU I know is that one year 

 there came a bligJit over all things. It 

 was not exactly a plague. It was rather 

 a want of vitality in the atmosphere 

 that react: d with terrible effect on all 

 animate nature. Man, being the most 

 highly organized of all things living, 

 was the first to feel its baneful effects, 

 and he dwindled and pined and finally 

 perished, and the places that had been 

 wont to know him knew him no more 

 forever. 



"Then as the sunny atmosphere grew 

 more and more attenuated the mam- 

 mals first and afterward every form of 

 animal life grew cold and dead. The 

 lowest forms of plant life lingered for a 

 few thousand years longer, until the 

 last drop of water had evaporated into 

 space, in fact, and then they, too, van- 

 ished, and the moon was left as you see 

 it today, a dead world, without heat, 

 atmosphere or moisture." 



"A sad fate sure.ly, but you must 

 have become resigned, " I said soothing- 

 ly, for the old man was sighing heavily 

 and gazing fixedly into space as though 

 he saw again the lost visions of lone 

 livers he had been d?scribing. 



"No, I am not resigned," and he 

 shook his head slowly from side to side. 

 "Both myself and my sister look for- 

 ward to better times to come. " 



"Your sister?" I exclaimed wonder- 

 ingly. "I was not aware" — 



"That I had a sister?" he interrupted. 

 "Oh, yes, I have, but I forgot! Of course 

 you have never seen her. She lives on 

 the side of the moon opposite to the 

 earth, amid mountains and valleys, up- 

 on whose bold outlines no earthly eye 

 has ever gazed. It is by far the best side 

 of the mooii, too, but she is getting 

 raliher tired of living there and talks 

 about changing places with me. I ex- 

 pect you would be rather surprised down 

 below there if some fine day — or night, 

 rather — you found a woman in the moon 

 instead of a man. Ha, ha, ha!" and for- 

 getful of his recent fit of the blues the 

 old chap gave vent to a hearty guffaw. 



"We should indeed," I replied, 

 laughing in my turn, "although I fancy, 

 unless your sister's appearance differs.lu 



