The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young ReadersKummer, Frederic Arnold
General
The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers
Kummer, Frederic Arnold
Cave dwellers -- Juvenile literature; Prehistoric peoples -- Juvenile literature
"It may seem a little thing to you, Sun," said Mother Nature, "but
it is really the biggest thing you have ever seen in your life. For
the first time, you have seen the birth of a Man. He is very slow
and clumsy and stupid, now, but after a while his children and his
children's children are going to become so strong and cunning and
powerful by means of their little brains, that they will rule the
Earth, and all the other animals will be afraid of them, and bow down
to them. And they will harness the Wind, and the Rivers, and the
Lightning, and cause Heat and Cold to do their bidding, and they will
defy the Ocean, and conquer the Air, and make even you, Sun, work for
them and serve them."
"Ha-Ha!" laughed the Sun. "Those little Ape-Men make me work for them!
I don't believe it."
"Wait and see," said Mother Nature. "I know what I am talking about,
for I have seen the same thing happen, many times, in other worlds that
you know nothing about. And Man will do all these things I tell you of,
because God has given him a brain and taught him to think.
"How has God taught him to think?" said the Sun. "It was the fruit,
and the snake, and the Wind, and you and I who taught him."
Mother Nature looked at the Sun and frowned.
"Don't you know, you foolish Sun, that God made the fruit, and the
snake, and the Wind, and the Earth, and you, and everything else in the
Universe, and that if it were not for His laws, you wouldn't be here at
all. You had better go on shining, and not make foolish remarks about
things you do not understand." Then Mother Nature went away.
The Ape-Man, asleep in the sun, woke up after a time, and feeling
thirsty he went down to the stream in the valley to get a drink. But he
took the stick he had used to get the fruit, with him. It was a nice
stick, straight and strong, like a spear, except for the short hooked
limb at the end of it, and the Ape-Man liked it, because it had helped
him get something to eat.
When he went back that night to the place in the grass where he usually
slept, some of the other Ape-People crowded about him, chattering in
surprise at seeing him carrying the stick, for this was something none
of them had ever done before. One of the crowd tried to take the stick
away from him, but he drew back and hit the other over the head with
it and knocked him down. After that the others were afraid of him, and
let him alone. And although the Ape-People had no language, and did
not know how to speak as we do, they used different kinds of cries
and grunts, when they were angry, or cold, or afraid. When anything
frightened them, they uttered a cry that sounded like "Adh!", and
because they said this whenever the Ape-Man with the club came among
them, it grew to be a sort of name for him, and he shouted it out to
terrify them, when he made his way through the woods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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