Margaret A. McIntyre

“ A day or two after that, Thorn came into the cave with an eagle's feather in his hand. And there were long red cuts and scratches on his body.
His father looked at him with a scowl.
"Men bring meat from the hunt, not feathers," he said roughly.
The boy looked pitiful; his mother felt sorry for him. She said to herself, "He has been to see the young eagles. The mother eagle saw him. He fought her alone with his little stone ax. He will be a great hunter!"
She looked at him proudly, and put cold water on the little torn body.
"Gr-r-r," growled Strongarm, scowling. ”

“ Soon a-hunting after berries
Will be going."
Early men believed that since they themselves are alive and move, all other things that move also are alive, and have feelings and likes and dislikes as men have. The rustling leaves, the waving grass, a rolling stone, a drifting cloud, the rising moon—all are to them alive, and many of them are to be feared.
The speech of the cave and the shell men was made up of few words, and the meaning was helped out by motions of the hands and body. They knew little outside of their forest life, and probably could not count beyond three. ”

“ Flint peered through the bushes; but the tiger was not in sight, so he quickly cut meat from the rhinoceros and walked on slowly.
"The tiger may be somewhere near, sleeping. Keep a sharp look-out, boy; he is yellow with dark stripes, just the color of the dry grass, and you can walk almost onto him before you see him. No animal can hide better than he, and none can walk the forest paths with less noise from his padded feet." ”

“ As he grew busy with his bow, he heard loud talking, and looked up and saw strange men and children coming along the other bank.
"The men are coming to buy axes," he thought. "The children have come along with them."
The men jumped into the river and swam across and went to the stone yard. But the children came swimming up around the raft like wild ducks. Some of them had long hair that floated about on the water.
"Are you Thorn, the cave boy?" one of them asked him.
"Yes, who are you?"
"I am Clam, a shell mound boy." ”

“ It is too big to have been the bone of a horse or a cow. It is big enough to have belonged to an elephant. Well, no matter what it came from," he said, throwing it aside, "it is neither sand nor gravel, so it is nothing to me."
As he dug on, he threw out some rudely shaped stones.
"These are queer, too," he said, "but they will not sell for gravel." And away went the stones from his shovel.
That evening a learned man from Paris, the most beautiful city of France, was walking beside the river and looking at the sunset clouds in sky and water.
There in the pit lay the big bones. ”

“ From it we dig all the stone for our axes and spear heads."
Thorn looked and saw a big hollow in a gravel hill. The hill was made of sand and clay and pebbles and bowlders. The rain had washed some of the sand and clay away, and the stones had fallen down and now lay in piles on the ground.
"Men come from far away for our stone," the old man went on. "It is good stone for axes. They bring us shells and amber and meat and skins for our stone. Some of them take the stone to their homes and make their own axes; others buy our axes." ”

“ It is thought that what is now the North Sea was, at the time the elephants lived there, a swamp in which the animals went to drink and bathe, and in which, at times, they became mired; and that this is why so many of their bones are found along that coast.
Mammoths were very like big elephants, with tusks that turned up. There are none on earth now. Neither are there any cave tigers. And the two-horned rhinoceros has gone, and the great snowy owl.
Caverns and rock shelters in which men of the Stone Age lived have been found in many places in our own country and in other lands. ”

“ CHAPTER XI THORN MEETS THE CHILDREN OF THE SHELL MOUNDS
Every day Thorn worked for a little while at the chipping of stone axes, but he had plenty of time for play. One morning he ran to the river and jumped on his raft.
"Ha!" he said, "my other self jumped the stream with me. And now it leans over a shadow raft and reaches for a shadow pole."
He looked about him. On the grass lay the long shadows of the trees. In the clear water were the pictured banks.
"Everything has another self," he thought. ”

“ Two years later, he saw the tusks of a mammoth standing out from it. And five years after that, all the ice had melted from around it, and the big body of the mammoth lay upon the sand. There was a flowing mane on the neck, and the body was covered with reddish wool and long black hair. The people about the country there cut up the flesh as food for their dogs, and the bones and tusks were sent to the museum in St. Petersburg.
Thousands of teeth and tusks of mammoths have been brought up by the nets of fishermen in the North Sea, that washes England. ”

“ The gum turned to stone and made the amber of a later time and kept the insects within it unchanged, and there within the amber we see the insects that the cave men knew.
The animals, also, were much the same as those of our own time. It seems strange to us that at that time the reindeer and the mammoth should have lived in the same country; because the reindeer of our time lives in a cold country, and the elephant, which is like the mammoth, lives in a hot country. But before the time of the cave men, it was warm in England and France, and the mammoth went to live there then. ”

“ It was made of shells and bears' claws and a tiger's tooth and a bit of amber. He put the lion's tooth on his necklace and held it up and looked at it and said, "Men will see that and say, 'There is a brave man. There is a good hunter. He has helped to kill a lion.'"
[Illustration: Tiger's tooth and bear's claw]
The boys stood by, watching. Thorn pointed to the tiger's tooth.
"How long and sharp it is! I never saw a tiger."
"You never want to see one unless you are where he cannot see you," roared Strongarm.
"Tell us about the lion hunt, father," begged Pineknot. ”

“ Flint went up to one of them and said, "Redtop, my boy wants to make axes. Show him how."
Redtop grinned at Thorn, and threw him a smooth oval bowlder.
"That is your hammer stone," he said. "Now take a stone about the size you want your ax, and chip it this way."
Redtop sat on the ground. He held a flint bowlder and began chipping it with his hammer stone. Every time he struck the bowlder, a chip flew off. He kept on striking, first on one side and then on the other. Thorn watched with shining eyes. Redtop worked fast and easily, and after some time held up a beautiful ax. ”

“ The cave men were in the Stone Age long ago. The Eskimo are in the Stone Age now. And the American red men, though they were still in the Stone Age, were beginning to learn the use of one metal—copper.
And the people of the shell mounds—how do we know about them? In Denmark to-day you may see shell mounds. They are the old hunting and fishing villages. They are of different sizes; some are a quarter of a mile long and half as wide. They are built up of things that the hunters and fishermen threw away: oyster and mussel and periwinkle shells; bones of the wolf, the hyena, the dog ”

“ In the schoolroom, again, on a large stand might be made a model of a hilly country. A cave could be shown, shaped of two upright stones and a crosspiece, the whole covered with sods and earth; and animals and men might be made of paper or of clay.
Various scenes from the story are adapted to dramatization; for instance, the visit of the cave bear, the making of fire, work in the stone yard, or the feast of mammoth's meat. ”

“ But he did not always bring back meat to the cave, for he could not always kill an animal. But sometimes he brought home the meat of deer or bison, and then again it was that of mammoth or ox.
Burr always took the meat when Strongarm brought it home, and sometimes she cut tendons from it. A tendon is a strong white cord that fastens a muscle to a bone. There are long tendons in the backs of big animals. Burr cut these out sometimes and hung them in the sun to dry. When they were dry, she broke the thin outside skin and tore the tendon apart with her fingers. ”

“ They followed it until it was too tired to fight, and then pulled it down and killed it. They ate all the meat they wanted and went away. Then Strongarm cut meat from the bison.
On his way home he saw a nest of wild puppies in a hollow tree.
"Um," he grunted, "the little wild goat that the children play with is quiet and tame. If a wild puppy grew up with them, would it be tame? Would it help me to hunt?"
He picked up a puppy. When he got home, he dropped the little ball of soft black wool between the two boys lying on a bear skin. ”

“ As the sun rose next morning, Thorn and his grandfather and grandmother went over to the swamp. The cave people soon began to come in from all the caves round about in the hill country. They came in little crowds, laughing and talking very loud. They were happy, for there was plenty to eat and somebody to eat with. As they came up, they stood for a long time looking at the mammoth and talking about how big he was. ”

“ The people clapped their hands and said laughing, "They are good cave men; they can both fight and run away."
By this time the meat was roasted. The women pulled it from the holes with long sticks, and the people took great pieces in their hands and ate them, and then took more.
"Mammoth meat is good and juicy," one man said.
"Yes," said another, "but not so tender as horse or reindeer meat."
After eating all they wanted, Thorn and Pineknot and old Hickory's children and some of the other children went off to play. They played being grown up ”

“ And ever since then every man has tried to keep his fire burning."
"It is better for us cave folks since fire came," Burr then said, nodding to the boys. "Why, before it came, there was no cooked meat, nor were there any sweet roasted seeds or roots. But the folks tore their meat from the animal where it was killed, and stood by and ate it raw.
"Nor was there a home before fire came. My grandmother told me that, long ago, in the old days, the men and women wandered from place to place with their little children. And the women hunted and fished and fought beside the men. ”

“ Burr went on, "she used a little bone to push the thread through the skins. One day she found a little bone with a hole in it and took it home. She put her thread through the hole, wondering how it would do, and began to sew. Soon there was a crowd of women round her, pointing and saying, 'Oh, oh!' while the little bone carried the thread."
"It must be fun to sew with a needle," said Pineknot.
Thorn was nearby making bone whistles and marrow scrapers, and soon Strongarm came up dragging a little tree. He threw down his old hunting club and said, "It is broken. I will make a new one." ”

“ Red men never learned to melt iron and make tools of it as we do, though there was plenty of iron in the mountains among which many tribes lived. The red men never got beyond the Stone Age and into the Iron Age as white men did. ”

“ He kills the people and carries off the children. The women dare not go to the river for water. The men are afraid to go alone to hunt. So they want help to kill the lion. They want all the strong men and the good hunters. They have sent for you."
Strongarm quickly took his club and spear and went off with old Hickory. The men went over two hills and across a stream, and came to Hickory's cave. There other men joined them. All the men had clubs and spears and stone axes. ”

“ Strongarm sat up and looked hard at Flint. Then Flint had to strike the stones together again, to let Strongarm see the fire come out.
"Beaver Tail, an old ax maker, showed me how to do it," said Flint. "He has worked in stone all his life. For a long time he has known that fire lives in stone. He has seen sparks fly as he chipped his axes. One day in making a spear head, he struck a quartz pebble with his flint hammer stone. ”

“ A fight is good for him. He will learn to make his way."
CHAPTER IV HOW STRONGARM HUNTED A BEAR AND A LION
In those days Strongarm was busily digging a big hole away out in the forest. He cut the dirt up with his stone ax, and threw it out with a clam shell. He had worked now for days, and at last the hole was large enough. He laid branches over it, and over the branches he hung the leg of a wild goat.
That night the wild things of the woods came out to hunt for food. A cave bear came by and smelled the meat. He went to get it and fell through the branches into the hole beneath. ”

“ Then she burned the point in the fire until it was hard. She took a basket in her hand, and her baby on her back, and went out of the cave. Old Flint and the boys rolled a stone up to the door to keep out wolves and foxes. Then they all went into the woods, and Burr began looking for things to eat.
She found a root and pushed it out of the ground with her digging stick and threw it into her basket. It was the root of a wild turnip. She found other roots. They were wild carrots and celery. In the open places, tall grasses grew. They were the wild grains. ”

“ The teacher who wishes to make the most of this work will take her class to visit a museum, if a museum is available; or, if not, she will do what she can to show her class actual specimens of the things described in the story. ”

“ Thorn tied it to the little straight stick, and he had an arrow for his bow!
Flint worked on.
"We make all of our axes and spear heads and knives and scrapers of flint," he said after a while. "It chips more easily than any other stone." ”