I know that thou wilt judge aright
Of all that makes the heart more light,
Or lends one star-gleam to the night
Of clouded Melancholy!
—J. G. Whittier.
I fancy, my good reader, that you are about as familiar with the physical appearance of this exalted personage, the far-famed Man in the Moon, as is your most obedient. That you have gazed upon him with love-kindled eyes many and many a witching summer night, I have not the shadow of a doubt—that you have often lamented the provoking imperfectness of your vision, which presents such insurmountable difficulties and obstructions in the way to your beholding clearly what manner of man he truly is, I cannot have much hesitation in believing; reasoning as I do, from my extensive knowledge of what passes in the minds of other people, and from the thoughts and feelings I have had myself in regard to the peculiar personalities of this mysterious gentleman.
Until recently I never indulged in the hope of being counted among the benefactors of my race, but, my fair countrywomen, I hope I do not presume too much, when I say that I shall hereafter merit this honor at your hands, for am I not going to speak to you of events which, wonderful as they are, have hitherto never come to the knowledge of our present generation? I cannot conscientiously make known to you the mysterious means by which I became cognizant of the following events, yet do I hold myself clear of any breach of confidence when I lay before you these wondrous facts, upon the truth of which you may rely, on my veracity as a story-teller!
Long, long ago there lived in a far country, among the mountains, which towered to heaven much in the manner of mountains now, a young maiden, who must certainly have been one of the progenitors of “The Sinless Child;” for in personal beauty, and in excellence and purity of mind, this girl was unsurpassed, perhaps unequaled in her day. A “rare and radiant maiden” was she, albeit unaccomplished and unlearned.
Kind, generous and affectionate was Rose May, having withal such a reasonable amount of spirited independence in her nature, as a child born and bred among the mountain wilds would be like to have.
It was a glorious dwelling-place, that of my heroine! Grant May, her father, was a shepherd, a rugged man of middle age, whose furrowed face bore testimony to the fact, that he had encountered and weathered many a hard storm in the course of his life. A true son of the mountains was he; for three or four generations back his fathers had lived, shepherds, in these same wild heights, and I doubt much if this son of his father could ever have breathed the warmer and gentler air of a less elevated home. Occasionally, but at long intervals, he had wandered away to the world below him, but, like the eagle, his eyry and his affections were fixed amid the towering heights, the rugged scenes and bracing air of the mountains—there was the home for which Nature and a forty years’ residence had fitted him.