The First Days of Man. Kummer Frederic Arnold

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      "He had better look out," said the Sun, "or he will knock that one down and lose it too."

      He had no sooner spoken, than the heavy bunch of fruit fell from the limb and dashed to the rocks far below. The Ape-Man gave a long cry of anger and disappointment. Then he began poking at the third and last bunch. But this time he was more careful. After a few moments the hook at the end of the stick caught around the limb, and when the Ape-Man pulled on it, he saw that the fruit began to move toward him. He chattered with joy, at this, and pulled harder and harder, and at last the slender branch bent until the bunch of fruit was right in his hands. Then the Ape-Man dropped the stick, and sitting down on the grass ate the fruit as quickly as he could. After that he threw himself down in the grass and went to sleep.

      The Sun, who had been watching him carefully, laughed.

      "Such a little thing, to make so much fuss about," he said.

      "It may seem a little thing to you, Sun," said Mother Nature, "but it is really the biggest thing you have ever seen in your life. For the first time, you have seen the birth of a Man. He is very slow and clumsy and stupid, now, but after a while his children and his children's children are going to become so strong and cunning and powerful by means of their little brains, that they will rule the Earth, and all the other animals will be afraid of them, and bow down to them. And they will harness the Wind, and the Rivers, and the Lightning, and cause Heat and Cold to do their bidding, and they will defy the Ocean, and conquer the Air, and make even you, Sun, work for them and serve them."

      "Ha-Ha!" laughed the Sun. "Those little Ape-Men make me work for them! I don't believe it."

      "Wait and see," said Mother Nature. "I know what I am talking about, for I have seen the same thing happen, many times, in other worlds that you know nothing about. And Man will do all these things I tell you of, because God has given him a brain and taught him to think.

      "How has God taught him to think?" said the Sun. "It was the fruit, and the snake, and the Wind, and you and I who taught him."

      Mother Nature looked at the Sun and frowned.

      "Don't you know, you foolish Sun, that God made the fruit, and the snake, and the Wind, and the Earth, and you, and everything else in the Universe, and that if it were not for His laws, you wouldn't be here at all. You had better go on shining, and not make foolish remarks about things you do not understand." Then Mother Nature went away.

      The Ape-Man, asleep in the sun, woke up after a time, and feeling thirsty he went down to the stream in the valley to get a drink. But he took the stick he had used to get the fruit, with him. It was a nice stick, straight and strong, like a spear, except for the short hooked limb at the end of it, and the Ape-Man liked it, because it had helped him get something to eat.

      When he went back that night to the place in the grass where he usually slept, some of the other Ape-People crowded about him, chattering in surprise at seeing him carrying the stick, for this was something none of them had ever done before. One of the crowd tried to take the stick away from him, but he drew back and hit the other over the head with it and knocked him down. After that the others were afraid of him, and let him alone. And although the Ape-People had no language, and did not know how to speak as we do, they used different kinds of cries and grunts, when they were angry, or cold, or afraid. When anything frightened them, they uttered a cry that sounded like "Adh!", and because they said this whenever the Ape-Man with the club came among them, it grew to be a sort of name for him, and he shouted it out to terrify them, when he made his way through the woods.

      After a while, others of the apes got clubs too, and used them to fight with, but except the stones they sometimes threw, Adh's stick was the very first weapon used by Man.

      Mother Nature was satisfied with her new Man, so far as he had gone, but she knew that he would have to suffer, if he was to learn, and although she did not like to make him suffer, she had to do it.

      "You can blow all you like, Cold," she said. "I want my people to suffer. Pain is not a pleasant thing, but it is only through pain that they will ever learn."

       CHAPTER V

      THE CAVE AND THE FISH

      A cold wind blew through the valley where the Ape-Men lived, and the trees and bushes were brown and bare of fruit. The rays of the Sun, which used to come down straight and hot all day, now shone slantwise, because the Earth had been tipped over, and they seemed to have very little warmth. The days, too, were shorter, and the nights were longer, and cold. All the Ape-Men were obliged to huddle together in their beds of grass to keep warm. They did not know that Mother Nature had tipped over the Earth to make Winter and Summer, but they were very uncomfortable, and they did not like it.

      But the worst thing of all was, that there was almost nothing to eat. Always before there had been some kind of fruit, or berries, all the year round. Now they were able to find only a few nuts, and the sweet bulbs which grew at the roots of certain plants, and the smaller animals got most of these. Even the nesting birds they sometimes caught and ate had gone where it was warmer. Pretty soon there was nothing to eat at all, and the Ape-Men were starving.

      Adh, who had begun to think a little, puzzled about this for a long time, but could not understand it. Of course, if the Ape-People had stored up food, during the Summer, they would have had something to eat, when the cold weather came, but they had never thought of doing such a thing, because there had usually been enough to eat, before. Now they did not know what to do, and as they could no longer find any food in the valley, they gradually wandered off, down toward the low, hot jungle-lands from which they had come. Here they found things to eat, but they also found lions and great sabre-toothed tigers and other fierce beasts to eat them, and as they had long ago forgotten their old trick of living and sleeping and seeking safety from their enemies in the tree-tops, it was not long before they were all eaten up.

      When the Sun saw this, he was very much surprised.

      "Look, Mother Nature," he said. "Your Ape-People have all been eaten up."

      "You are wrong, Sun," replied Mother Nature. "Adh and the ape woman he has taken for his wife are still in the valley. He was the only one who had learned to think, so the others were of no use and I had to get rid of them. Before long the children of Adh and his wife will fill the valley with a race of Men, and from there they will spread all over the Earth."

      Adh did not go with the others for two reasons. The first was that they did not like him, because he made them afraid of him, and so they went away without him. The second reason was, that Adh's wife had a tiny baby boy to nurse and take care of, and it was easier, to stay where they were, than to wander off through the jungles. Now that all the others had gone, Adh managed to find enough roots and nuts to keep himself and his little family alive.

      Soon after the others had left, it began to rain, and every day the cold rain beat down on Adh and his family and drenched them. Even their grass nest under the boughs of a thick tree, was turned into a pool of mud and water, on which the sun never shone to dry it and keep it warm. Cold and Rain were making the new Ape-Man suffer, as Mother Nature had told them to do. Adh, as he wandered about the valley hunting for a little food, tried very hard to think of a way to keep himself and his family comfortable, but no new ideas came to him. Occasionally he managed to catch a young bird, which he greedily devoured, but they were very scarce and hard to find.

      "Look at the stupid creature," laughed the Sun, peeping for a moment through the heavy rain-clouds. "He hasn't sense enough to find a hole in the rocks, where he would be dry and warm."

      Mother Nature did not answer. Instead, she waited until she saw Adh СКАЧАТЬ