The Neshoba Democrat

"Our Old Friend the Moon"

By R. Ray Baker

(This is a serial, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

Before retiring, Mina Trask stood for a long time at the east window of her room and watched a big, bright disk light up the night. She was in a romantic mood, but then she was always romantic. However, Mina was especially sentimental this night, and the fundamental cause of it was the approaching return of Sylvester Brown. She had been ready to retire, when the yellow moon peeped through the window, and it reminded her of days gone by when the same nocturnal sentinel had gazed down on her and one who was very dear to her. So she renounced the bed temporarily, for a post where she could study the celestial countenance that was formed of mountains and craters.

"How Sylvester used to admire the moon!" Mina whispered, giving vent to a deep sigh. "How poetic he used to become when influenced by its light! It was shining on us when he asked me to marry him, and it was keeping vigil when he told me he was leaving and swore he would come back to me. Now he must know all about Luna. I really believe it was the fascination of the moonlight that induced him to take up astronomy; and I only hope familiarity with the satellite has not decreased his respect for it."

It was five years ago that Sylvester left the little city of Beaver Falls for a course in college. They had kept up a regular correspondence, but not once had Sylvester returned. That was hardly to his discredit, however, for he was obliged to spend his vacations in the college town tutoring backward students whose money he needed to replenish his fast dwindling funds. He had been graduated with honors and immediately had stepped into an important position as head of a big observatory in California.

Now he was to have a genuine vacation of three weeks, and he was coming home, to see his long neglected parents—and Mina. The latter looked forward to his visit with joy, although this joy was tempered somewhat by the evident change in Sylvester, as indicated by his letters. When he went away his epistles were full of sentiment, but as time wore on they became more prosaic, and various passages in some of them had led the girl to think perhaps he had ceased to care for her. Indeed if his written words were to be taken literally, he already was a confirmed bachelor, with no ideas of becoming wedded except to his scientific researches. Nevertheless, he still possessed Mina's heart, and she was going to be glad to see him.

Realizing that her status in his regard probably was altered, Mina did not meet the train on which he came. She felt sure he would be up to see her in the evening, and she was not disappointed in that respect. But what a changed Sylvester! He wore big-rimmed glasses and there were numerous creases on his face. He was still young, but seemed doing his best to cast aside his youth and convert his once strong body into a shell of parchment. All of the sentiment appeared gone.

They sat at a window after Mina's parents had retired and she took pains to select an east window. There was Luna in all her glory, but Sylvester paid the goddess no attention whatever, simply continuing his discourse on scientific subjects. This pained Mina, and finally she could tolerate it no longer.

"See—there's our old friend, the moon!" she said suddenly, as if surprised at its presence in the sky. She clutched his arm and pointed to the object in question.

He glanced out the window, but that was all.

"Perhaps the inhabitants are looking down on us now!" she breathed, quoting his own remark of one evening five years back.

Sylvester replied with a scornful laugh.

"The moon inhabited? Ridiculous! We have telescopes that bring that old hulk only forty miles away, and we have wormed all its secrets from it. The moon is cold and lifeless. It's devoid of vegetation, being simply an old volcanic shell, without an atmosphere and consequently without living and breathing human beings. The moon ceased to interest me a long time ago. It's only a couple of hundred thousand miles away, and I'm interested in big suns whose distance is reckoned in billions.

"For instance, with the aid of Prof. Michaelson's new measuring device we have ascertained that the star Betelgeuse (or sun, which it really is) has a diameter of three hundred million miles. Betelgeuse is a member of the constellation of Orion and has long been a subject of much speculation. Think of it! Our own sun is less than a million miles in diameter, and if hollow it would contain a million bodies as large as the earth; and the earth would make forty-nine moons. No, I'm not interested in Luna any longer; I leave that for the children. How foolish I used to be."

"Yes, how foolish!" sighed Mina and wished he would get foolish once more. She still loved Sylvester, in spite of the great change that had come over him with the learning he had acquired.

Sylvester's return to Beaver Falls created quite a social stir, due to the eminence to which he had climbed in scientific realms; and Mrs. Clayton Hill, one of society's leaders who did not even know him by name when he was a resident of the city, conceived the idea of entertaining in his honor. So she invited a select crowd to a rather elaborate function at her home and, learning that Sylvester and Mina were supposed to be engaged, she felt compelled to invite the young lady in question, although the latter was not "up" in society.

Mina enjoyed herself until a middle-aged guest who was a semi-scientific crank got into conversation with Sylvester and caused the latter to neglect her. If it had not been for another young man of her former acquaintance, she would have been a wall-flower in the dancing part of the evening's programme. Still she was not angry with Sylvester.

"What is the spiral nebula theory as to the origin of the solar system?" the semi-scientific crank wanted to know. The subject being one of Sylvester's hobbies, he offered to go to his home, a few blocks away, and return with a treatise dealing with the nebula, which he had written for a magazine and brought to Beaver Falls to undergo the process of correction.

Knowledge had made Sylvester absent-minded and he had trouble in locating the manuscript. His search carried him through all the drawers of his dresser, and in the bottom one he came across a package of letters tied with blue ribbon, and a photograph. The picture was of Mina, a snapshot he had taken one summer afternoon five years ago, and she also had been the author of the letters. Somehow, he felt a touch of the old sentimentalism, and this prompted him to untie the ribbon. In a few seconds he was eagerly opening and devouring them, while moonshine streamed through the window and wreathed his head.

As Sylvester read these letters of the past a smile played about his lips and now and then a drop of moisture trickled from his eyes. He forgot his surroundings, and had no thoughts of the foolish whim that had caused him and his sweetheart to correspond through the mail even when living in the same town.

When Sylvester finished reading the letters, he replaced the blue ribbon around them, and stood for a moment gazing into the laughing eyes of the photograph. Then he leaned it against the dresser mirror and turned to see the moon peeping into the window. He smiled and sighed, replaced his hat on his head and left the house. As he did so he recollected where he had placed the manuscript, but he made no further effort to procure it.

The semi-scientific crank was waiting to hear about the spiral nebula, but Sylvester gave him slight heed. Instead he sought out Mina, who was sitting out a dance with a young man, and asked if she could excuse herself. She did so, and he led her to the veranda of the Hill home. He said, placing an arm about her and gazing up at the moon. "See, Luna is smiling at us once more. Perhaps her inhabitants are looking down on us now."