Part 5

But Strong Arm was quick also and a yell of warning he gave, as he threw a blazing bough upon him. But the tiger leaped over it and made his way nearer. Now the others seized burning branches and hurled them, until he must step straight upon the glowing coals to advance. And the fierce fires under his feet and the sparks and flames about him, sent the old fear through his blood and sent the tiger down the hill and through the forest snarling and howling with pain. Long they hear his roarings re-echoing through the old woods, but when darkness came on they descended and gathered more branches and leaves to continue the fire throughout the night.

VIII THE FIRST PLANTING

When the great flood, which Little Laughing Boy imagined covered the face of all the land, had subsided, and the roaring river fell back into a portion of its old channel, the survivors of the clans turned their feet toward the homes of their fathers.

There were many changes. Strange things had occurred. Hundreds of members of the various hordes had been lost in the flood; the river bed itself had been twisted into a new and alarming shape so that, on the other side of its bank, trees had been torn up and the waters had eaten into the earth and lapped the foot of the low hills; the old Hollow was filled with many tons of new black earth and many of the caves were buried beneath the soil deposited by the river.

The Hollow had been the home of the Cave People, of Little Laughing Boy, his father, Strong Arm, and his mother, Quack Quack. They had escaped during the flood with the Foolish One, a member of their own tribe, and had been joined later on by the Hairy Man, a survivor of the Hairy Folk. And they had clung together during their dangers and journeyings for mutual strength and protection.

When they had encountered Tall and Big Foot, of one of the man-eating hordes, their numbers enabled them to overcome these powerful enemies, who joined the band and fed Laughing Boy his first taste of roasted human flesh. These men also taught the Cave People the wonderful power hidden away in the flint pit, which they had discovered; how two pieces of this strange rock could call forth the protecting fire when struck sharply together, and how thin pieces of this same rock made wonderful knives with which to hack and slay the enemy. Indeed, it was the insistence of Big Foot in carrying away several pieces of this new rock that caused the others to do likewise, although it was a long time before any of them returned to the flint pit and began to use flint regularly in making weapons.

In spite of the large number of men and women and children who lost their lives in the great flood, this was a time of progress, a time when all the tribes learned many new things. The surviving Hairy Folk were thrown with members of the tribe of Cave People—and learned the use of fire. The Tree Dwellers were forced to walk upon the ground and learned new methods of fishing and hunting from the Cave People, the fashioning of rafts made of bamboo poles bound together with tough grasses and wild vines, which one could propel in the water by paddling with the hands.

The Tall People, who contributed a meagre knowledge of flint, gained the use of the bow and arrow from their old enemies, the Dart Throwers. It was a time when men learned much. Of course, many of these things were forgotten in the days of ease and plenty, until the children of the members of the tribes discovered or invented or were shown them all over again in the years that followed.

Strong Arm and Quack Quack and Laughing Boy, in company with the Foolish One and Tall and Big Foot and the Hairy Man, followed the shore of the river in order to reach the home of the Cave People. Scarcely a sound they made, as they wound their way through the heavy grasses that sprung up, with the magic of the tropics, from the rich soil left by the flood.

Of food there was now every day a greater abundance. Fruits ripened and grew luscious over night. Hundreds of fish were left in shallows by the receding flood where they could be gathered by hand. And it was impossible to avoid stumbling over the egg-filled nests of the gulls and the oo-ee-a.

Also there were unknown dangers, and Tall grew ill with a fever that made the touch of his hands like the flames of the protecting fire. And although Big Foot and Quack Quack brought him every day fresh fruit and other food, which they sometimes roasted in the coals, he drove them away. Steadily he grew worse until madness came into his eyes and his voice rose above the quiet of the night and Laughing Boy grew fearful in spite of the friendly fire. For the roars of the sick man, Tall, echoed through the woods and the forest enemies would hear and approach.

But Tall could not be restrained. A new strength that comes with the fever fed his veins, and a night came when he thrust his companions from him and disappeared, screaming into the woods. They never saw him again. For as he ran, his wild cries filled the night and the very branches of the trees seemed to waken with the tumult.

Then came the grim howl of the hyena and the soft fall of padded feet upon the earth. Down the gulley a strange voice arose. Life stirred in the bushes and the hair on the head of Laughing Boy rose in terror.

Farther and farther receded the wailings of the sick man till at last a howl re-echoed in the darkness that brought the band of tribes people huddling together in fear. For it was the cry of the sabre-toothed tiger. Came then a stillness with only the voice of Tall driving the sweat out upon their bodies.

And while the little band fed the friendly fire and gathered near its protecting flames, they waited for the end of the sick man. It came at last, one long scream of agony, when the greatest enemy of all the hordes came upon him.

Big Foot knew and Strong Arm knew and the others of the tribes knew also that the danger to themselves was over for the night, but long they crouched in the light of the flames, ears twitching, nostrils quivering, like images of bronze frozen with fear.

* * * * *

Many other adventures befell the mixed group from the different clans, on their journeyings toward the Hollow which had been the home of the Cave People. There were dangers encountered and evaded or overcome in every hour of these eventful days. But at last they reached the ridge above the edge of the Hollow. Quack Quack and Strong Arm and the Foolish One and the others climbed the hill and gazed over into what had been once a lovely valley. But much of this lay filled with the soil left by the flood. Tall grasses waved in the breeze, and many new blossoms lifted their heads. And nearly all of the old familiar caves were filled with mud and covered up.

It was all very queer. And while they proceeded with caution, as men going into a strange land, the brush before them parted and they beheld the grinning features of Big Nose and Light Foot and behind them others of the Cave People, and a fuzzy woman from among the Hairy Folk and strange people and former enemies from the other clans, all of whom had escaped the flood and wandered back toward the dwelling places of their tribes.

And Strong Arm scooped out the soil that had been washed against the opening of a high cave upon the hill and entered it to rest after his long journey. And he dug with his hands into the soft earth, for he remembered the tubers he had buried there one day when he had been hunting with the men of the tribe, for he was hungry. And lo! _many_ juicy tubers he found where he had buried only two or three. And Strong Arm and Quack Quack ate of the potatoes, while, for a Cave-man, Strong Arm pondered deeply on these things.

He thought much of _one_ tuber and how it had made _many_ tubers, and recalled the words of his father, who had spoken of the _mother_ potato. Then he felt Quack Quack at his side and forgot the matter and fell asleep.

Necessity has been the great spur to the progress of mankind, and it is probable that over and over again, in the early stages of primitive culture, the use of fire was discovered and lost and forgotten and regained before men realized the need which fire supplied. It is almost certain that the art of pottery was discovered and lost and rediscovered times without number. It is equally certain that it took primitive man many, many long, dark years to learn to plan for the periods of want and famine.

In tropical countries, where food was to be had in abundance almost the whole year around, no necessity arose for the raising of crops. Man would never have felt the need of learning to cultivate food stuffs in this environment.

Savages had only the vaguest notions of the relation of cause and effect. It was necessary for buried tubers to sprout new potatoes year after year, for the plants to multiply before their very eyes and the _necessity_ of planting food to have arisen before the relation of sowing and reaping could begin to mean anything to them. Only then did _planting_ assume any tribal significance.

Doubtless it was in some semi-tropical country that the discovery of Strong Arm first began to make an impression upon the awakening minds of the early savages. Buried sweet yams and others of the potato family which had multiplied and become many yams or potatoes, must have been a wonderful windfall when discovered by the half starved tribes, in the midst of a long season of want. The cause of their growing would then be carefully observed by the clans.

Be sure that it was necessity that forced the first early savage to sow and bury against the days of coming hunger. Man did not take naturally to work. For several hundreds of thousands of years he dwelt in tropical or semi-tropical lands, where food was usually plentiful, it was only an urgent need that forced him to sow and till the soil. Before that time he had dwelt in the continual problems of the day and had been compelled to give no real thought nor plan for the morrow.

* * * * *

Strong Arm slept in the cave with Quack Quack after their long journey back to the home of their fathers. And he dreamed a dream wherein he saw Tall, the great man from the strange tribe, alive and walking about, just as he had done before the sickness came upon him when he had wandered out into the night and met the sabre-toothed tiger.

And in his dream Strong Arm saw Tall stand before his cave and thrust many tubers in the ground where one tuber had been. And when Strong Arm awoke he told Quack Quack and his brothers and Laughing Boy of his dream in the few words he knew and in signs and pantomime.

And so much Strong Arm wondered that when he ate of the fish that had been roasting, he removed one fish from the ashes and carried it to his cave, where he buried it in the soft earth. Then he took the bones of a young boar and buried them also, for when these bones are cracked the marrow is very sweet to eat. He desired one fish to grow into a hundred fish and the bones of one wild pig to become a whole forest of bones.

And he tried to tell these things to the tribe—to say that perhaps it was the Spirit of Tall which would come in the night and make many fish out of one and a forest of bones from one young boar. The Cave People came and watched him at his labors and chattered and gesticulated and wondered.

And in the morning they gathered about to eat of the many fish which Strong Arm hoped to find in the earth in his cave, and to crack the bones and partake of the marrow. But there were only the fish and the bones which Strong Arm had planted and he sat down upon his haunches and wept bitterly. The Cave People were disappointed, and Big Foot mocked him.

Perhaps Strong Arm was one of the first experimenters. He did not give up altogether. Occasionally the thought of many little tubers grown from one big tuber, would seize hold of him, and one day he buried a yellow yam, which resembled our sweet potatoes, and turned up the ground the next day only to find that it had not become a whole dinner of sweet potatoes. He was not sure that Tall, the dead man, or the Spirit of Tall had anything to do with these things. Tall had not returned again to Strong Arm in his dreams. It was all very strange. Strong Arm did not understand. Everything was mysterious and confused.

Another time he buried several tubers. The day following he dug them up, but he forgot one or two of these and when, after some time, he jammed about in the soil again, he found a whole armful of tubers. The miracle had come back again. And Tall, or the Spirit of the dead man, had not returned to make possible the wonder. The miracle was stranger than ever.

Almost Strong Arm evolved an idea, an idea that tubers (or potatoes) planted in the earth in the sun, and left for a whole tribe of suns, might in some mysterious manner beyond his understanding become the mother of many potatoes.

* * * * *

Then the Hairy Folk descended from the ridge, upon the Cave People. They came with long spears in their hands and cries of death in their fuzzy throats, and Strong Arm and the Cave People gave them to battle. Many were killed and Big Foot roasted the body of one of the enemy upon the coals and the Cave People ate the Hairy Man with much zest and relish.

And the stomachs of the Cave People were distended with the feast and Strong Arm strutted and danced about the fire with those who had accomplished the victory. And he forgot all about the idea he had almost achieved, about the planting of potatoes and the making of more sweet yams.

So the discovery, that was only half a discovery, was lost to the tribe for many years. Doubtless if you had reminded him of it and he could have spoken to you in a language you would understand, Strong Arm would have replied that there were the Hairy Folk and the Dart Throwers to be annihilated, the children of the tribe to be protected and food to be provided and that he had ceased to think of such foolish things as the sticking of fat tubers in the ground in the hope of making them the mothers of many little potatoes, and anyway, these were strange things past all the ability of any man to understand.

IX THE FIRST POT

Sometime before the Cave People discovered the use of the bow and arrow, they had learned to make clay pots or bowls. For many years the tribe lived in the tropical lands where the bread fruit ripened nearly the whole year round, and where nuts were plentiful and tubers and sweet yams were often to be found; where there were more nests than there were trees in the forests, filled with treasures of fresh eggs; and there were fowl and fish. As much as the horde loved to eat the wild duck or the cocoanut, or even the wild honey, one and all knew that when the hot sun beat down upon bare brown skins in the heat of the day during the summer there was nothing in all the valley so sweet as a drink of water.

One could go without food for many suns, but if one day passed without fresh water for the members of the group, fevers came upon them, the strange fevers that caused them to do many foolish things.

At first no member of the tribe willingly journeyed far from the source of fresh water, for they had nothing with which to carry water from one place to another. Then they used cocoanut shells, and sometimes the shells that lay upon the banks of the great river. But these held little and were easily upset.

Then some one discovered that the hollow joints of the giant bamboo were more easy to carry and held more water, and these became the first water jugs of the clan.

Later, when it became the fashion for men and women to decorate themselves with the skins of the animals they had slain, they found that there are many uses which hides may serve.

The Cave People wore no clothes, but bound over their shoulders they bore great weights of skins and hides, of heads and tails, of bones and teeth, as a mark of their skill and bravery in the hunt. Great teeth cunningly fastened together made necklaces that spoke every day more loudly than a man’s voice of what that man had done.

But as pride grew in these emblems of prowess, little by little the people of the tribe began to use these hides for other things. They found that, with holes punched along the edges, through which a thong might be drawn, as a gathering string about a handbag, these skins made water bags that one could carry on a far journey, taking with him drink for a whole day. But it was only when the sun beat down like the flames of the fire that they thought much on these things. Then thoughts of water and the milk of the cocoanut were never long absent.

It was at the time of the year when the scorching rays of the summer sun had licked dry all the little brooks and most of the springs that Laughing Boy and Web Toe, he who could outswim the fastest fishes, planned an excursion over the hills in search of wild honey.

They were 14 years old and stood straight and brown and almost as tall as the men of the tribe, but they had not yet learned to have care for all the dangers that lurked in the unknown ways, as older men.

They were proud of the wild skins that lay hot and heavy on their shoulders and the teeth that made chains about their throats. They were never done showing the trophies they had gathered in the hunt to their young companions. And they boasted much, for they were more strong than the other boys of the clan.

Laughing Boy was proud of his water bag which, when the thong was tightly drawn and the bag was filled with water, spilled scarcely a single drop, while Web Toe beat much of the time upon his drum or tom-tom which he believed made the most beautiful music in the world. This tom-tom he had made by stretching the soft skin of some small animal over a willow branch bent and fastened in a circle.

The older members of the tribe were stretched in the cooling shade near the river bank, or sleeping the sleep that comes from much eating in the cool of the caves. But the children and the youths romped about, vyeing with each other in games of sport and in feats of strength. Among these Web Toe and Laughing Boy were easily the victors, throwing their boomerangs and their stone weapons further and with greater accuracy than any of the others.

Laughing Boy had now smeared his whole chest with the deep vermilion juice of “the Make Brave” plant and Web Toe had gouged holes in both ears, from which hung half a dozen shells and cougar teeth and they strutted about in the glory of their strength and budding manhood.

But at last they stole away from the others and softly made their way through the thicket and on up and over the hill to the high places, where the dry grass crackled and rustled beneath their scurrying feet. Laughing and chattering they ran, flinging care and caution to the winds, racing to see which would be the quicker to reach this point or that, and again speeding on to make the giant banyan trees.

Here they paused to rest and to laugh softly, and the cunning of all wood creatures came back to their straggling senses and they proceeded cautiously, chattering more softly and laughing more quietly.

Laughing Boy carried his stone weapon and his water bag, which bulged with ample fullness, while Web Foot brandished his tom-tom in one hand and his stone sling in the other. Only now he made not a sound with his beloved music box. It was a time to avoid the creatures of the forest, though all were sleepy and lazy from abundant food and the warmth of the sun.

They jabbered of the “sweet, sweet,” meaning wild honey, which they meant to take back to the tribe and with which they intended to show the other youths how much more clever and courageous they were than the other boys in the clan.

With every gay and confident step as they advanced up the small plateau the land grew more parched. Laughing Boy, who saw things that escaped the eyes of Web Toe pointed to little hollows now and then which had been dried by the sun, and when Web Toe, soon grown thirsty, sought to take his bag for a drink, Laughing Boy shook his head. “No,” he said, and pointed to the sun high overhead. He meant to save the water for the journey caveward.

Berries they ate and nuts gathered hastily on the way, and when they neared the tall cocoanut palms both boys, forgetting the dangers that might beset them, dashed their heavy weapons to the ground and rushed forward. In a few moments both were encircling the straight, tall trunks of the trees with their arms and, climbing up them in a sort of walk, their toes pressed close and almost clinging to the bark. Soon the great nuts were tumbling to the ground and the boys slid back to refresh themselves with the sweet of cocoanut milk.

But the thicket parted and an angry and suspicious black she-bear lumbered toward them with two curious, tumbling black cubs at her heels. It was no time to dispute for the possession of their weapons. It was not the time to pause for a drink of cocoanut milk, and so, with a pretense at nonchalance, as though they had seen nothing and had no concern in the two rollicking cubs, Laughing Boy and Web Toe glided toward the thicket. They knew that females of every species are eager to contest the right of all ways when accompanied by their young. And their courage lay with their stone weapons.

The black bear sniffed angrily and slowly followed the boys. Her little red eyes rolled wickedly. The two curious cubs dashed on ahead to learn what manner of beast these new animals were. And mother bruin quickened her pace.

Her heart was running over with fears for her young and she considered that particular part of the woods her own domain. A deep humming filled the ears of the boys as they broke into a run and Laughing Boy cried softly, “sweet, sweet,” for he smelled wild honey.

The cubs ran still faster for they remembered the feasts they had enjoyed when, guided by their mother, they had last visited the wood. With the old bear close behind, Laughing Boy flung himself out and upward, grasping the tough vines of the “oo-oee” in his hands and pulling himself up on a large stone slab, where he lay panting for breath.

Web Toe scrambled up a slim pine and wedged himself between two slender forked limbs. There he huddled, peering about in fear of new dangers. But he saw nothing and, presently, grown bolder he looked down at the bear which stood on hind legs gazing angrily up at him. Now and then she would run away and dash back, jolting the tree and setting the branches aquiver.

Web Toe forgot all caution and jeered down at the enemy. He pulled his tom-tom around and over his shoulder and beat it triumphantly with his fists while the black bear tried to climb the tree and failed, because it was slender of trunk.

Laughing Boy lay on the smooth boulder, flat upon his belly, making no sound. Not a muscle betrayed him. Only his eyes moved following the movements of the black bear. Apparently she had forgotten all about him.

He wanted to call out to Web Toe to be silent. Web Toe seemed to think the matter was a joke, but Laughing Boy knew better. It was true he and Web Toe were at the moment safely out of reach of the enemy’s claws, but if she remained on watch how would they get down to earth again?

All that afternoon Web Toe was compelled to cling to the fork of the pine tree. Soon he grew quiet, for he remembered that safety lies in silence. He folded his arms about a branch and made himself as flat and inconspicuous as he could.

The cubs curled themselves up at their mother’s feet and went to sleep and, at length, close to the pine tree, she also seemed to doze.