ave him a
small piece of iron for a knife. "You must keep it hidden, or the men
will take it from you," she said.

He did not grow at all because he had so little food. He remained poor
little Quadjaq, and led a miserable life. He did not dare even to join
in the play of the boys, for they called him a "poor little shriveled
bag of bones," and were always imposing upon him on account of his
weakness.

When the people gathered in the singing house he used to lie in the
passage and peep over the threshold. Now and then a man would take him
by the nose and lift him into the house and make him carry out a jar
of water. It was so large and heavy that he had to take hold of it
with both hands and his teeth. Because he was so often lifted by his
nose, it grew very large, but he remained small and weak.

At last the Man in the Moon, who protects all the Eskimo orphans,
noticed how the men ill-treated Quadjaq, and came down to help him. He
harnessed his dappled dog to his sledge and drove down. When he was
near the hut he stopped the dog and called, "Quadjaq, come out."

The boy thought it was one of the men who wanted to plague him, and he
said, "I will not come out. Go away."

"Come out, Quadjaq," said the Man from the Moon, and his voice sounded
softer than the voices of the men. But still the boy hesitated, and
said, "You will cuff me."

"No, I will not hurt you. Come out," said the Moon Man.

[Illustration: HE LIFTED THE BOWLDER AS IF IT HAD BEEN A PEBBLE]

Then Quadjaq came slowly out, but when he saw who it was he was even
more frightened than if it had been one of the men standing there. The
Moon Man took him to a place where there were many large boulders and
made him lie across one as if he were to be paddled. Quadjaq was
scared but he did not dare disobey.

The Man from the Moon took a long, thin ray of moonlight and whipped
the boy softly with it.

"Do you feel stronger?" he asked.

"Yes, I feel a little stronger," said the lad.

"Then lift yon boulder," said the Man.

But Quadjaq was not able to lift it, so he was whipped again.

"Do you feel stronger now?" asked the Man.

"Yes, I feel stronger," said Quadjaq.

"Then lift the boulder."

But again he was not able to lift the stone more than a foot from the
ground, and he had to be whipped again. After the third time he was so
strong that he lifted the boulder as if it had been a pebble.

"That will do now," said the Man from the Moon. "Rays of