The Story of Ab: A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man

The brown, downy woman knew, on the instant, what was her husband's mood and immediate intent when he thus shouted and took into his own keeping again the stiff bow which hung a...

One day, at noon, a man burst, panting, through the wide open entrance to the Fire Valley. His coat of skin was rent and hung awry and, as all could see when he staggered down t...

Different from his former self became this young forester, Ab. He was thinking of something other than wild beasts and their pursuit. Instinctively, the course of his hunting ex...

While Ab had been occupied by home affairs trouble for him and his people had been brewing. By no means unknown to each other before the tiger hunt were Ab and Boarface. They ha...

It may be that never in what was destined to be a life of many changes was Ab happier than in this period of his lusty boyhood and early manhood, when there was so much that was...

To the right and left of the precipice the fall to the plain below was more gradual, and with exultant yells, the cave and Shell men rushed in either direction, those venturing...

Ab looked toward the forest wherein Lightfoot had fled and then looked upon that which lay at his feet. It was Oak--there were the form and features of his friend--but, somehow,...

Lightfoot, when Ab seized Oak, had fled away from the two infuriated men, as the hare runs, and had sped into the forest. She had the impetus of new fear now and ran swiftly as...

What always happens when two boys not yet fairly in their 'teens meet, at first aggressively, and then, each gradually overcoming this apprehension of the other, decide upon a c...

Even as he leaped the flames, the desperate Boarface hurled at Ab a fragment of stone, which was a thing to be wisely dodged, and the invader was fairly on his feet and in posit...

Ab and Oak, ranging far in their hunting expeditions, had, long since, formed the acquaintance of the Shell People, and had even partaken of their hospitality, though there was...

Those were happy times in the cave, where Ab, developing now into an exceedingly stalwart youth, found the long evenings about the fire far from monotonous. There was Mok, the m...

The sun shone brilliantly, birds were singing and the balsam firs gave forth their morning incense as Ab and Lightfoot issued from their cave. They had eaten heartily, and came...

Drifting away in various directions toward their homes the Cave and Shell People still kept in groups, by instinct. Social functions terminated before dark and guests going and...

It is but an act of simple gallantry and justice to assert that the cave woman had a certain unhampered swing of movement which the modern woman often lacks. Without any reflect...

It was at about this time, the time when Ab had begun to develop from boyhood into strong and aspiring youth, that his family was increased from five to six by the addition of a...

The rhinoceros of the Stone Age was a monstrous creature, an animal varying in many respects from either species of the animal of the present day, though perhaps somewhat closel...

Such were the father and mother of Ab, and such was the boy himself. His surroundings have not been indicated with all the definiteness desirable, because of the lack of certain...

It was late autumn, and a light snow covered the ground, when one day a cave man, panting for breath, came running down the river bank and paused at the cave of One-Ear. He had...

The sun rose brightly the next morning and when Ab, armed and watchful, rolled the big stone away and passed the smoldering fire and issued from the cave into the open, the scen...

It was light now and the sun shone fairly on Ab's place of refuge. As his senses brought to him full appreciation he wondered at the scene about him. He was in a glade so depres...

Among all the children of Ab--and remarkable it was for the age--the best loved was Little Mok, the eldest son. When the child, strong and joyous, was scarcely two years old, he...

Drifted beech leaves had made a soft, clean bed in a little hollow in a wood. The wood was beside a river, the trend of which was toward the east. There was an almost precipitou...

It was with scant breath, when they reached their respective caves, that the boys told the story of the dread which had invaded the marsh-land. What they reported was no light e...

There came to Ab and Lightfoot that comfort which comes with laboring for something desired. In all that the two did amid their pleasant surroundings life became a greater thing...

It was worth while listening to Old Mok when he forgot himself and talked and became earnestly reminiscent in telling of what he had seen or had heard when he was young. One day...

Attention has already been called to the fact that the family of Ab were of the aristocracy of the region, and it should be added that the interior of One-Ear's mansion correspo...

It was not alone necessary for the plans of Ab and Oak that there should be made a deep hole in the ground. It was quite as essential for their purposes that the earth removed s...

And the years passed. One still afternoon in autumn a gray, hairy man, a man approaching old age, but without weakness of arm or stiffness of joint, as yet, sat on the height ov...

Despite the hyena and baby incident, the day had been a satisfactory one for this cave family. Of course, had the woman failed to reach just when she did the hollow in which her...