Well do I remember that first
winter after I left home. I have
long dreams of sitting shivering
in the cold. Lop-Ear and I sit
close together, with our arms
and legs about each other, blue-faced
and with chattering teeth. It
got particularly crisp along
toward morning. In those chill
early hours we slept little,
huddling together in numb misery
and waiting for the sunrise in
order to get warm.
When we went outside there
was a crackle of frost under
foot. One morning we discovered
ice on the surface of the quiet
water in the eddy where was the
drinking-place, and there was
a great How-do-you-do about it.
Old Marrow-Bone was the oldest
member of the horde, and he had
never seen anything like it before.
I remember the worried, plaintive
look that came into his eyes
as he examined the ice. (This
plaintive look always came into
our eyes when we did not understand
a thing, or when we felt the
prod of some vague and inexpressible
desire.) Red-Eye, too, when he
investigated the ice, looked
bleak and plaintive, and stared
across the river into the northeast,
as though in some way he connected
the Fire People with this latest
happening.
But we found ice only on that
one morning, and that was the
coldest winter we experienced.
I have no memory of other winters
when it was so cold. I have often
thought that that cold winter
was a fore-runner of the countless
cold winters to come, as the
ice-sheet from farther north
crept down over the face of the
land. But we never saw that ice-sheet.
Many generations must have passed
away before the descendants of
the horde migrated south, or
remained and adapted themselves
to the changed conditions.
Life was hit or miss and happy-go-lucky
with us. Little was ever planned,
and less was executed. We ate
when we were hungry, drank when
we were thirsty, avoided our
carnivorous enemies, took shelter
in the caves at night, and for
the rest just sort of played
along through life.
We were very curious, easily
amused, and full of tricks and
pranks. There was no seriousness
about us, except when we were
in danger or were angry, in which
cases the one was quickly forgotten
and the other as quickly got
over.
We were inconsecutive, illogical,
and inconsequential. We had no
steadfastness of purpose, and
it was here that the Fire People
were ahead of us. They possessed
all these things of which we
possessed so little. Occasionally,
however, especially in the realm
of the emotions, we were capable
of long-cherished purpose. The
faithfulness of the monogamic
couples I have referred to may
be explained as a matter of habit;
but my long desire for the Swift
One cannot be so explained, any
more than can be explained the
undying enmity between me and
Red-Eye.
But it was our inconsequentiality
and stupidity that especially
distresses me when I look back
upon that life in the long ago.
Once I found a broken gourd which
happened to lie right side up
and which had been filled with
the rain. The water was sweet,
and I drank it. I even took the
gourd down to the stream and
filled it with more water, some
of which I drank and some of
which I poured over Lop-Ear.
And then I threw the gourd away.
It never entered my head to fill
the gourd with water and carry
it into my cave. Yet often I
was thirsty at night, especially
after eating wild onions and
watercress, and no one ever dared
leave the caves at night for
a drink.
Another time I found a dry;
gourd, inside of which the seeds
rattled. I had fun with it for
a while. But it was a play thing,
nothing more. And yet, it was
not long after this that the
using of gourds for storing water
became the general practice of
the horde. But I was not the
inventor. The honor was due to
old Marrow-Bone, and it is fair
to assume that it was the necessity
of his great age that brought
about the innovation.
At any rate, the first member
of the horde to use gourds was
Marrow-Bone. He kept a supply
of drinking-water in his cave,
which cave belonged to his son,
the Hairless One, who permitted
him to occupy a corner of it.
We used to see Marrow-Bone filling
his gourd at the drinking-place
and carrying it carefully up
to his cave. Imitation was strong
in the Folk, and first one, and
then another and another, procured
a gourd and used it in similar
fashion, until it was a general
practice with all of us so to
store water.
Sometimes old Marrow-Bone had
sick spells and was unable to
leave the cave. Then it was that
the Hairless One filled the gourd
for him. A little later, the
Hairless One deputed the task
to Long-Lip, his son. And after
that, even when Marrow-Bone was
well again, Long-Lip continued
carrying water for him. By and
by, except on unusual occasions,
the men never carried any water
at all, leaving the task to the
women and larger children. Lop-Ear
and I were independent. We carried
water only for ourselves, and
we often mocked the young water-carriers
when they were called away from
play to fill the gourds.
Progress was slow with us.
We played through life, even
the adults, much in the same
way that children play, and we
played as none of the other animals
played. What little we learned,
was usually in the course of
play, and was due to our curiosity
and keenness of appreciation.
For that matter, the one big
invention of the horde, during
the time I lived with it, was
the use of gourds. At first we
stored only water in the gourds--in
imitation of old Marrow-Bone.
But one day some one of the
women--I do not know which one--filled
a gourd with black-berries and
carried it to her cave. In no
time all the women were carrying
berries and nuts and roots in
the gourds. The idea, once started,
had to go on. Another evolution
of the carrying-receptacle was
due to the women. Without doubt,
some woman's gourd was too small,
or else she had forgotten her
gourd; but be that as it may,
she bent two great leaves together,
pinning the seams with twigs,
and carried home a bigger quantity
of berries than could have been
contained in the largest gourd.
So far we got, and no farther,
in the transportation of supplies
during the years I lived with
the Folk. It never entered anybody's
head to weave a basket out of
willow-withes. Sometimes the
men and women tied tough vines
about the bundles of ferns and
branches that they carried to
the caves to sleep upon. Possibly
in ten or twenty generations
we might have worked up to the
weaving of baskets. And of this,
one thing is sure: if once we
wove withes into baskets, the
next and inevitable step would
have been the weaving of cloth.
Clothes would have followed,
and with covering our nakedness
would have come modesty.
Thus was momentum gained in
the Younger World. But we were
without this momentum. We were
just getting started, and we
could not go far in a single
generation. We were without weapons,
without fire, and in the raw
beginnings of speech. The device
of writing lay so far in the
future that I am appalled when
I think of it.
Even I was once on the verge
of a great discovery. To show
you how fortuitous was development
in those days let me state that
had it not been for the gluttony
of Lop-Ear I might have brought
about the domestication of the
dog. And this was something that
the Fire People who lived to
the northeast had not yet achieved.
They were without dogs; this
I knew from observation. But
let me tell you how Lop-Ear's
gluttony possibly set back our
social development many generations.
Well to the west of our caves
was a great swamp, but to the
south lay a stretch of low, rocky
hills. These were little frequented
for two reasons. First of all,
there was no food there of the
kind we ate; and next, those
rocky hills were filled with
the lairs of carnivorous beasts.
But Lop-Ear and I strayed over
to the hills one day. We would
not have strayed had we not been
teasing a tiger. Please do not
laugh. It was old Saber-Tooth
himself. We were perfectly safe.
We chanced upon him in the forest,
early in the morning, and from
the safety of the branches overhead
we chattered down at him our
dislike and hatred. And from
branch to branch, and from tree
to tree, we followed overhead,
making an infernal row and warning
all the forest-dwellers that
old Saber-Tooth was coming.
We spoiled his hunting for
him, anyway. And we made him
good and angry. He snarled at
us and lashed his tail, and sometimes
he paused and stared up at us
quietly for a long time, as if
debating in his mind some way
by which he could get hold of
us. But we only laughed and pelted
him with twigs and the ends of
branches.
This tiger-baiting was common
sport among the folk. Sometimes
half the horde would follow from
overhead a tiger or lion that
had ventured out in the daytime.
It was our revenge; for more
than one member of the horde,
caught unexpectedly, had gone
the way of the tiger's belly
or the lion's. Also, by such
ordeals of helplessness and shame,
we taught the hunting animals
to some extent to keep out of
our territory. And then it was
funny. It was a great game.
And so Lop-Ear and I had chased
Saber-Tooth across three miles
of forest. Toward the last he
put his tail between his legs
and fled from our gibing like
a beaten cur. We did our best
to keep up with him; but when
we reached the edge of the forest
he was no more than a streak
in the distance.
I don't know what prompted
us, unless it was curiosity;
but after playing around awhile,
Lop-Ear and I ventured across
the open ground to the edge of
the rocky hills. We did not go
far. Possibly at no time were
we more than a hundred yards
from the trees. Coming around
a sharp corner of rock (we went
very carefully, because we did
not know what we might encounter),
we came upon three puppies playing
in the sun.
They did not see us, and we
watched them for some time. They
were wild dogs. In the rock-wall
was a horizontal fissure--evidently
the lair where their mother had
left them, and where they should
have remained had they been obedient.
But the growing life, that in
Lop-Ear and me had impelled us
to venture away from the forest,
had driven the puppies out of
the cave to frolic. I know how
their mother would have punished
them had she caught them.
But it was Lop-Ear and I who
caught them. He looked at me,
and then we made a dash for it.
The puppies knew no place to
run except into the lair, and
we headed them off. One rushed
between my legs. I squatted and
grabbed him. He sank his sharp
little teeth into my arm, and
I dropped him in the suddenness
of the hurt and surprise. The
next moment he had scurried inside.
Lop-Ear, struggling with the
second puppy, scowled at me and
intimated by a variety of sounds
the different kinds of a fool
and a bungler that I was. This
made me ashamed and spurred me
to valor. I grabbed the remaining
puppy by the tail. He got his
teeth into me once, and then
I got him by the nape of the
neck. Lop-Ear and I sat down,
and held the puppies up, and
looked at them, and laughed.
They were snarling and yelping
and crying. Lop-Ear started suddenly.
He thought he had heard something.
We looked at each other in fear,
realizing the danger of our position.
The one thing that made animals
raging demons was tampering with
their young. And these puppies
that made such a racket belonged
to the wild dogs. Well we knew
them, running in packs, the terror
of the grass-eating animals.
We had watched them following
the herds of cattle and bison
and dragging down the calves,
the aged, and the sick. We had
been chased by them ourselves,
more than once. I had seen one
of the Folk, a woman, run down
by them and caught just as she
reached the shelter of the woods.
Had she not been tired out by
the run, she might have made
it into a tree. She tried, and
slipped, and fell back. They
made short work of her.
We did not stare at each other
longer than a moment. Keeping
tight hold of our prizes, we
ran for the woods. Once in the
security of a tall tree, we held
up the puppies and laughed again.
You see, we had to have our laugh
out, no matter what happened.
And then began one of the hardest
tasks I ever attempted. We started
to carry the puppies to our cave.
Instead of using our hands for
climbing, most of the time they
were occupied with holding our
squirming captives. Once we tried
to walk on the ground, but were
treed by a miserable hyena, who
followed along underneath. He
was a wise hyena.
Lop-Ear got an idea. He remembered
how we tied up bundles of leaves
to carry home for beds. Breaking
off some tough vines, he tied
his puppy's legs together, and
then, with another piece of vine
passed around his neck, slung
the puppy on his back. This left
him with hands and feet free
to climb. He was jubilant, and
did not wait for me to finish
tying my puppy's legs, but started
on. There was one difficulty,
however. The puppy wouldn't stay
slung on Lop-Ear's back. It swung
around to the side and then on
in front. Its teeth were not
tied, and the next thing it did
was to sink its teeth into Lop-Ear's
soft and unprotected stomach.
He let out a scream, nearly fell,
and clutched a branch violently
with both hands to save himself.
The vine around his neck broke,
and the puppy, its four legs
still tied, dropped to the ground.
The hyena proceeded to dine.
Lop-Ear was disgusted and angry.
He abused the hyena, and then
went off alone through the trees.
I had no reason that I knew for
wanting to carry the puppy to
the cave, except that I WANTED
to; and I stayed by my task.
I made the work a great deal
easier by elaborating on Lop-Ear's
idea. Not only did I tie the
puppy's legs, but I thrust a
stick through his jaws and tied
them together securely.
At last I got the puppy home.
I imagine I had more pertinacity
than the average Folk, or else
I should not have succeeded.
They laughed at me when they
saw me lugging the puppy up to
my high little cave, but I did
not mind. Success crowned my
efforts, and there was the puppy.
He was a plaything such as none
of the Folk possessed. He learned
rapidly. When I played with him
and he bit me, I boxed his ears,
and then he did not try again
to bite for a long time.
I was quite taken up with him.
He was something new, and it
was a characteristic of the Folk
to like new things. When I saw
that he refused fruits and vegetables,
I caught birds for him and squirrels
and young rabbits. (We Folk were
meat-eaters, as well as vegetarians,
and we were adept at catching
small game.) The puppy ate the
meat and thrived. As well as
I can estimate, I must have had
him over a week. And then, coming
back to the cave one day with
a nestful of young-hatched pheasants,
I found Lop-Ear had killed the
puppy and was just beginning
to eat him. I sprang for Lop-Ear,--the
cave was small,--and we went
at it tooth and nail.
And thus, in a fight, ended
one of the earliest attempts
to domesticate the dog. We pulled
hair out in handfuls, and scratched
and bit and gouged. Then we sulked
and made up. After that we ate
the puppy. Raw? Yes. We had not
yet discovered fire. Our evolution
into cooking animals lay in the
tight-rolled scroll of the future.
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