"My little people down there," she said, "need something to keep them warm, during the Winter, and also they need something to cook their food with, and later on to help them make pottery, and smelt metals, and do all the wonderful new things I am going to teach them to do. Without Fire, they can never be anything but savages, the way they are now. So we must send them Fire." "Fire," said Cold, puffing out a great cloud of frost. "I have no Fire to give them." "Nor I," said Wind and Rain. "I have plenty of Fire, inside the Earth," said Heat. "Do you want me to burst out in a blazing volcano? I am afraid it might burn them all up." "No, Heat," said Mother Nature. "We do not need any volcanoes just now. But you have another way to give them Fire. Have you forgotten Lightning?" "I see," said Heat. "Lightning is certainly very hot. What do you want me to do?" "The trees and grass in the valley," Mother Nature replied, "are brown and dry from the Sun. Cold and Wind and Rain, I want you to send a thunder storm to the valley, and set the forest afire with a bolt of Lightning. Then, Heat, you can blaze away all you like, until I tell Rain to put you out again." [Illustration: THE FIRST FIRE The storm rolled down over the valley, and at last a great flash of Lightning struck a dry tree and set it on fire.] So Heat, dancing down the rays of the Sun, turned the water at the surface of the Ocean into vapour, like steam, and it rose high in the air and formed clouds. Then Wind drove the clouds over the valley, and Cold blew on them, and turned the vapour of the clouds back to water again, so that it fell as Rain. Now each little bit of vapour in the clouds carried with it a tiny spark of Electricity, for the Air about the Earth is always filled with Electricity, carried by tiny drops of moisture. When all the little sparks got together in the thick black clouds, they formed big sparks, and when the clouds got so full of Electricity they couldn't hold any more, these big sparks jumped from the clouds down to the Earth, in great flashes, sometimes half a mile long. You can make a little spark like that, if you walk quickly over a soft rug, on a dry winter day, and then put your knuckle to the metal radiator. It will be a real Lightning flash, although it will be only half an inch long, and the little crackling sound you hear, as the spark jumps from your knuckle to the radiator, is real thunder, but because the flash is so small, your thunder will not be very loud. So the storm rolled down over the valley, and the Lightning flashed, and the Thunder roared, and all the cave people ran into their holes and huddled together, shivering. They had seen the Lightning and heard the Thunder before, but because they did not know what they were, they thought some terrible dragon, with a roaring voice and a tongue of flame was coming to eat them up.