used 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:

"'Would you triumph o'er the strong?
Be strong.
Would you let them no more conquer?
Conquer.'

"For a time the boy repeated them over and over. He used to say that as the
result of these meetings with the man in the moon he had grown so strong
that he was nearly able to hold his own against his antagonist. Then one
day, when the man in the moon was puffing from the encounter, the latter
said:

"'Now by hard knocks and exercise I have put you on the way of ending your
troubles. Be strong, and conquer. Farewell! I am not coming again, as you
do not need me any more.'

"Then away he flew back to his place in the moon.

"The boy seemed now to know that he was to use his strength for his own
deliverance. To test himself he began tossing up the stones that were so
numerous on the shore of the lake. First he began with quite small ones,
but soon he found that he could pick up and throw about great big ones,
that were like rocks. When he returned from this last contest with the man
in the moon it was nearly daylight.

"At first the people began ordering him about as usual. But they soon had
reason to be sorry for their cruelty and abuse, for the boy seized one
after another of them and flung them with such violence against the rocks
that their brains were dashed out and their blood ran in streams down the
sides of the rocks--where it turned into seams in the rocks which can be
seen to this day.

"One person only, of all who lived in that dwelling, did the now strong boy
leave alive, and that was, of course, the good-hearted little girl who used
to speak kind words to him and befriend him when she could.

"They grew to be very fond of each other, and were afterward married and
lived in full possession of all the things tha