Part 2

Now of course it was very hard for her mother to say all this besides roasting the flesh and tidying the cave, so she made up her mind that when her Prehistoric Husband came home, he must be told about it. And when the sun was at the top of the sky and cast no shadow, and the flesh was roasted brown and fragrant, she dressed it with pungent herbs, and raked the vegetables out of the ashes and hid the dessert in the cool wall of the cave--_that_ was a surprise--and spread the flat rock at the door of the cave and put vine-leaves in her hair and, with Vertebrata, set herself to wait.

There went by what we now know to have been noon, and another hour, and more hours, and all afternoon, and all early twilight, and still her Prehistoric Husband did not come home to dinner. Vertebrata was crying with hunger, and the flesh and the vegetables were ice-cold, and the Prehistoric Wife and Mother sat looking straight before her without smiling. And then, just as the moon was rising red over the soft breast of the distant wood, the Prehistoric Father appeared, not looking as if he had done anything.

“Is dinner ready?” he asked pleasantly.

Now this was the last straw, and the Prehistoric Wife and Mother said so, standing at the door of the cave, with Vertebrata crying in the offing.

“Troglodyte,” she said sadly (that was what she called him), “dinner has been ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready ...” and she showed him the ice-cold roasted flesh and vegetables.

“I’m _so_ sorry, dearest. I never knew,” said the Troglodyte, contritely, and did everything in the world that he could do to show her how sorry he was. He made haste to open his game-bag, and he drew out what food he had killed, and showed her a soft, cock-of-the-rock skin for a cap for her and a white ptarmigan breast to trim it with, and at last she said--because nobody can stay offended when the offender is sorry:--

“Well, dear, say no more about it. We’ll slice up the meat and it will do very well cold, and I’ll warm up the potatoes with some brown butter (or the like). But hurry and bathe or I’ll be ready first _again_.”

So he hurried and bathed in the brook, and the cave smelled savoury of the hot brown butter, and Vertebrata had a Grogan tail stuck in her hair, and presently they sat down to supper. And it was nearly eight o’clock, but they didn’t know anything about _that_.

When the serious part of supper was done, and the dessert that was a surprise had been brought and had surprised and gone, Vertebrata’s mother sat up very straight and looked before her without smiling. And she said:--

“Now, something must be done.”

“About what, Leaf Butterfly?” her husband asked.

“Vertebrata doesn’t practise enough and you don’t come home to dinner enough,” she answered, “and something must be done.”

“I did practise--wunst,” said Vertebrata.

“But you should practise once and once and once and once and once and once, and so on, and not have to be told each once,” said her mother.

“I did come home to dinner,” said the Prehistoric Husband, waving his hand at his empty platter.

“But you should come first and first and first and first and first, and so on, and not let the dinner get ice-cold,” said his wife. “Hear a thing,” said she.

She sprinkled some salt all thick on the table and took the stick on which the flesh had been roasted, and in the salt she drew a circle.

“This,” she said, “is the sky. And this place, at the top, is the top of the sky. And when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no shadow, I will have ready the dinner, hot and sweet in the pot, and dessert--for a surprise. And when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no shadow, do you come to eat it, _always_. That will be dinner.”

“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight--for in those first days even true knights were willing that women should cook and cave-tidy for them all day long and do little else. But that was long ago and we must forgive it.

Then she made a mark in the salt at the edge of the circle a little way around from the first mark.

“When the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, I will have ready berries and nuts and green stuffs and sweet syrups and other things that I shall think of--for you. And when the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, do you hurry to us, _always_. That will be supper.”

“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight.

Then she drew the stick a long way round.

“This is sleep,” she said. “This place here is waking, and breakfast. And then next the sun will be at the top of the sky again. And we will have dinner in the same fashion. And this is right for you. But what to do with the child I don’t know, unless I keep her practising from the time the sun is at the top of the sky until it is at the bottom. For if she can’t play when she grows up, what will people think?”

Now, while she said this, the Prehistoric Woman had been sitting with the stick on which the flesh had been roasted held straight up in her fingers, resting in the middle of the ring which she had made in the salt. And by now the moon was high and white in the sky. And the Man saw that the moon-shadow of the stick fell on the circle from its centre to beyond its edge. And presently he stretched out his hand and took the stick from her, and held it so and sat very still, thinking, thinking, thinking....

“Faddie,” said Vertebrata--she called him that for loving--“Faddie, will you make me a little bow and arrow and scrape ’em white?”

But her father did not hear her, and instead of answering he sprang up and began drawing on the soft earth before the cave a deep, deep circle, and he ran for the long stick that had carried his game-bag over his shoulder, and in the middle of the earth circle he set the stick.

“Watch a thing!” he cried.

Vertebrata and her mother, understanding little but trusting much, sat by his side. And together in the hot, white night the three watched the shadow of the stick travel on the dial that they had made. Of course there was no such thing as bed-time then, and Vertebrata usually sat up until she fell over asleep, when her mother carried her off to her little bed of skins; but this night she was so excited that she didn’t fall over. For the stick-shadow moved like a finger; like, indeed, a living thing that had been in the world all the time without their knowing. And they watched it while it went a long way round the circle. Then her mother said, “Nonsense, Vertebrata, you must be sleepy now whether you know it or not,” and she put her to bed, Vertebrata saying all the way that she was wide awake, just like in the daytime. And when her mother went back outside the cave, the Man looked up at her wonderfully.

“Trachystomata,” said he (which is to say “siren”), “if the sun-shadow will do the same thing as the moon-shadow, we have found a way to make Vertebrata practise enough.”

In the morning when Vertebrata came out of the cave--she woke alone and dressed alone, just like being grown-up--she found her mother and her father down on their hands and knees, studying the circle in the soft earth and the long sun-shadow of the stick. And her mother called her and she went running to her. And her mother said:--

“Now we will have breakfast, dear, and then you get your pipes and come here and practise. And when you begin, we will lay a piece of bone where the shadow stands, and when I feel the feeling of enough, I will tell you, and you will stop practising, and we will lay another piece of bone on that shadow. And after this you will always practise from one bone to another, forever.”

Vertebrata could hardly wait to have breakfast before she tried it, and then she ran and brought her pipes and sat down beside the circle. And her father did not go to his hunting, or her mother to her cooking and cave-tidying, but they both sat there with Vertebrata, hearing her pipe and watching the shadow finger move, and waiting till her mother should feel the feeling of enough.

_Now!_ Since the world began, the Hours, Minutes, and Seconds had been hanging over it, waiting patiently until people should understand about them. But nobody before had ever, ever thought about them, and Vertebrata and her mother and her father were the very first ones who had even begun to understand.

So it chanced that in the second that Vertebrata began to pipe and the bone was laid on the circle, _that_ Second (deep in the air and yet as near as time is to us) knew that it was being marked off at last on the soft circle of the earth, and so did the next Second, and the next, and the next, and the next, until sixty of them knew--and there was the first Minute, measured in the circle before the cave. And other Minutes knew what was happening, and they all came hurrying likewise, and they filled the air with exquisite, invisible presences--all to the soft sound of little Vertebrata’s piping. And she piped, and piped, on the lovely, reedy, blow-on-it instrument, and she made sweet music. And for the first time in her little life, her practising became to her not merely practising, but music-making--there, while she watched the strange Time-shadow move.

“J--o--y!” cried the Seconds, talking among themselves. “People are beginning to know about us. It is _time_ that they should.”

“Ah!” they cried again. “We can go faster than anything.”

“Think of all of our poor brothers and sisters that have gone, without anybody knowing they were here,” they mourned.

“Pipe, pipe, pipe,” went Vertebrata, and the little Seconds danced by almost as if she were making them with her piping.

The Minutes, too, said things to one another--who knows if Time is so silent as we imagine? May not all sorts of delicate conversations go on in the heart of time about which we never know anything--Second talking with Second, and Minute answering to Minute; and the grave Hours, listening to everything we say and seeing everything we do, confiding things to the Day about us and about Eternity from which they have come. I cannot tell you what they say about you--you will know that, if you try to think, and especially if you stand close to a great clock or hear it boom out in the night. And I cannot tell you what they say about Eternity. But I think that this may be one of the songs that they sing:--

SONG OF THE MINUTES

We are a garland for men, We are flung from the first gate of Time, From the touch that opened the minds of men Down to the breath of this rhyme.

We are the measure of things, The rule of their sweep and stir, But whenever a little girl pipes and sings, We will keep time for her.

We are a touching of hands From those in the murk of the earth, Through all who have garnered life in their hands And wrought it from death unto birth.

We are the measure of things, The rule of their stir and sweep, And wherever a little child weeps or sings It is his soul we keep.

At last, when sixty Minutes had danced and chorussed past, there was, of course, the first rosy Hour ever to have her coming and passing marked since earth began. And when the Hour was gone, Vertebrata’s mother felt the feeling of enough, and she said to Vertebrata:--

“That will do, dear. Now you may go and play.”

That was the first exact hour’s practising that ever any little girl did by any sort of clock.

“Ribbon-fish mine,” said the Prehistoric Man to his wife, when Vertebrata had finished, “I have been thinking additional thoughts. Why could we not use the circle in other ways?”

“What ways, besides for your coming home and for Vertebrata’s practising?” asked the Prehistoric Woman; but we must forgive her for knowing about only those two things, for she was a very Prehistoric Woman indeed.

“Little bones might be laid between the big bones,” said the Man--and by that of course he meant measuring off minutes. “By certain of them you could roast flesh and not kneel continually beside the fire. By certain of them you could boil eggs, make meet the cakes, and not be in peril of burning the beans. Also....”

He was silent for a moment, looking away over the soft breast of the wood where the sun was shining its utmost, because it has so many reasons.

“When I look at that moving finger on the circle thing,” he said slowly, “it feels as if whoever made the sun were saying things to me, but with no words. For his sun moves, and the finger on the circle thing moves with it--as if it were telling us how long to do this thing, and how long to do that thing--you and me and Vertebrata. And we must use every space between the bones--and whoever made the sun is telling us this, but with no words.”

The Prehistoric Woman looked up at her husband wonderfully.

“You are a great man, Troglodyte!” she told him.

At which he went away to hunt, feeling for the first time in his prehistoric life as if there were a big reason, somewhere out in the air, why he should get as much done as he could. And the Prehistoric Woman went at her baking and cave-tidying, but always she ran to the door of the cave to look at the circle thing, as if it bore a great message for her to make haste, a message with no words.

As for Vertebrata, she had taken her pipes and danced away where, on rocks in the landscape, the other little Prehistorics sat about, getting their practising done. She tried to tell them all about the circle thing, waving her pipes and jumping up and down to make them understand, and drawing circles and trying to play to them about it on her pipes; and at last they understood a little, like understanding a new game, and they joined her and piped on their rocks all over the green, green place. And the Seconds and Minutes and Hours, being fairly started to be measured, all came trooping on, to the sound of the children’s piping.

When the sun was at the top of the sky, Vertebrata remembered, and she stuck a stick in the ground and saw that there was almost no shadow. So she left the other children and ran very hard toward her own cave. And when she had nearly reached it, somebody overtook her, also running very hard.

“Faddie!” she called, as she called when she meant loving--and he swung her up on his shoulder and ran on with her. And they burst into the open space before the cave just as the shadow-stick pointed straight to the top of the circle thing.

There, before the door of the cave, was the flat rock, all set with hot baked meat and toothsome piles of roast vegetables and beans that were not burned. And the Prehistoric Woman, with vine-leaves in her hair, was looking straight before her and smiling. And that was the first dinner of the world that was ever served on time, and since that day, to be late for dinner is one of the things which nobody may do; and perhaps in memory of the Prehistoric Woman, when this occurs, the politest ladies may always look straight before them _without smiling_.

“Is dinner ready, Sea Anemone?” asked the Man.

“On the bone,” replied his wife, pleasantly.

“What’s for ’sert?” asked Vertebrata.

“It’s a surprise,” said her mother--which is always the proper answer to that question.

And while they sat there, the Days and Weeks and Months and Years were coming toward them, faster than anything, to be marked off on the circle thing before the door, _and to be used_. And they are coming yet, like a message--but with no words.

III

ONE FOR THE MONEY

We were burying snow. Calista Waters had told us about it, when, late in April, snow was found under a pile of wood in our yard. We wondered why we had never thought of it before when snow was plentiful. We had two long tins which had once contained ginger wafers. These were to be packed with snow, fastened tight as to covers, and laid deep in the earth at a distance which, by means of spoons and hot water, we were now fast approaching.

It was Spring-in-earnest. The sun was warm, robins were running on the grass, already faintly greened where the snow had but just melted; a clear little stream flowed down the garden path and out under the cross-walk. The Wells’s barn-doors stood open, somebody was beating a carpet, there was a hint of bonfire smoke in the air, there were little stirrings and sounds that belonged to Spring as the gasoline wood-cutter belonged to Fall.

Calista was talking.

“And then,” she said, “some hot Summer day, when they’re all sitting out on the lawn in the shade, with thin dresses and palm-leaf fans, we’ll come and dig it up, and carry ’em big plates of feathery white snow, with a spoon stuck in.”

We were silent, picturing their delight.

“Miss Messmore says,” I ventured, not without hesitation, “that snow is all bugs.”

In fact all of us had been warned without ceasing not to eat snow--but there were certain spots where it was beyond human power to resist it: Mr. Britt’s fence, for instance, on whose pickets little squares of snow rested, which, eaten off by direct application of the lips, produced a slight illusion of partaking of caramels.

Delia stopped digging. “Maybe they won’t eat it when we bring it to them in Summer?” she suggested.

“Then we will,” said Calista, promptly. Of course they would not have the heart to forbid us to eat it in, say, June.

About a foot down in the ground we set the two tins side by side in an aperture lined and packed with snow and filled in with earth. Over it we made a mound of all the snow we could find in the garden. Then we adjourned to the woodshed and sat on the sill and the sawbuck and the work-bench.

“What makes us give it away?” said Delia Dart, abruptly. “Why don’t we sell it? We’d ought to get fifteen cents a dish for it by June.”

We began a calculation, as rapid as might be. Each tin would hold at least six dishes.

“Why didn’t we bury more?” said Calista, raptly. “Why didn’t we bury a tubful?”

“It’d be an awful job to dig the hole,” I objected. “Besides, they’d miss the tub.”

The latter objection was insurmountable, so we went off to the garden to hunt pig-nuts. A tree of these delicacies grew in the midst of the potato patch, and some of the nuts were sure to have lain winter-long in the earth and to be seasoned and edible.

“Let’s all ask to go to the Rodmans’ this afternoon and tell Margaret Amelia and Betty about the snow,” Calista suggested.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to go calling.”

They regarded me pityingly.

“Can’t you come over there afterwards?” they suggested.

This, I knew, was useless. We should not start calling till late. Besides, I should be hopelessly dressed up.

“Well,” said Delia, soothingly, “_we’ll_ go anyhow. Are you going to call where there’s children?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, darkly. “We never do.”

That afternoon was one whose warm air was almost thickened by sun. The maple buds were just widening into little curly leaves; shadows were beginning to show; and everywhere was that faint ripple of running water in which Spring speaks. But then there was I, in my best dress, my best coat, my best shoes, my new hat, and gloves, faring forth to make calls.

This meant merely that there were houses where dwelt certain Grown-ups who expected me to be brought periodically to see them, an expectation persevered in, I believe, solely as a courtesy to my family. Twice a year, therefore, we set out; and the days selected were, as this one, invariably the crown and glory of all days: Days meet for cleaning out the play-house, for occupying homes scraped with a shingle in the softened soil, for assisting at bonfires, to say nothing of all that was to be done in damming up the streams of the curbs and turning aside the courses of rivers.

The first call was on Aunt Hoyt--no true aunt, of course, but “aunt” by mutual compliment. She lived in a tiny house on Conant Street, set close to the sidewalk and shaded by an enormous mulberry tree. I sought out my usual seat, a little hardwood stool to whose top was neatly tacked a square of Brussels carpeting and whose cover, on being lifted, revealed a boot-jack, a shoe-brush, and a round box of blacking. The legs were deeply notched, and I amused myself by fitting my feet in the notches and occasionally coming inadvertently back to the floor with an echoing bump.

Now and then Aunt Hoyt, who was little and wrinkled, and whose glasses had double lenses in the middle so that I could not keep my eyes from them when she spoke, would turn to address an observation at me.

“How long her hair is! Do you think it is quite healthy for her to have such long hair? I’ll warrant you don’t like to have it combed, do you, dear?”

If Aunt Hoyt had only known the depth of the boredom with which I had this inane question put to me! It was one of the wonders of my days: the utterly absurd questions that grown-up people could ask.

For example: “How do you do to-day?” What had any reasonable child to answer to that? Of course one was well. If one wasn’t, one would be kept at home. If one wasn’t, one wasn’t going to tell anyway. Or, “What’s she been doing lately?” Well! Was one likely to reply: “Burying snow. Hunting pig-nuts. Digging up pebbles from under the eaves. Making a secret play-house in the currant bushes that nobody knows about?” And unless one did thus tell one’s inmost secrets, what was there left to say? And if one kept a dignified silence, one was sulky!

“She’s a good little girl, I’m sure. Is she much help to you?” Aunt Hoyt asked that day, and patted my hair as we took leave. Dear Aunt Hoyt, I know now that she was lonesome and longed for children and, like many another, had no idea how to treat them, save by making little conversational dabs at them.

Then there was Aunt Arthur, who lived in a square brick house that always smelled cool. At her house I invariably sat on a Brussels “kick-about” in the bay window and looked at a big leather “Wonders of Earth and Sea,” with illustrations. Sometimes she let me examine a basket of shells that she herself had gathered at the beach--I used to look at her hands and at her big, flat cameo ring and marvel that they had been so near to the ocean. Once or twice, when I wriggled too outrageously, she would let me go into the large, dim parlour, with its ostrich egg hanging from the chandelier and the stuffed blackbird under an oval glass case before the high mirror, and the coral piled under the centre-table and the huge, gilt-framed landscape which she herself had painted. But this day, between the lace curtains hanging from their cornices, I caught sight of Calista and Delia racing up the hill to the Rodmans, and the entire parlour was, so to say, poisoned. In desperation I went back and asked for a drink of water--my ancient recourse when things got too bad.

Aunt Barker’s was better--there was a baby there. But that day ill-luck went before me, for he was asleep and they refused to let me look at him, because they said that woke him up. I disbelieved this, because I saw no reason in it, and nobody gave me a reason. I resolved to try it out the first time I was alone with a sleeping baby. I begged boldly to go outdoors, and Mother would have consented, but Aunt Barker said that a man was painting the lattice and that I would in every probability lean against the lattice, or brush the paint pots, or try to get a drink at the pump, which, I gathered, splashed everybody for miles around. So I sat in a patent rocker, and the only rift in a world of black cloud was that, by rocking far enough, the patent rocker could be made to give forth a wholly delectable squeak. Of course fate swiftly descended; I was bidden discontinue the squeak, and nothing remained to me.