Лондон Джек. Before Adam

had many times, and never yet have I been awakened by it.
Always do I crash, shrieking, down through the brush and fetch
up with a bump on the ground.

Scratched and bruised and whimpering, I lay where I had
fallen. Peering up through the bushes, I could see the
Chatterer. He had set up a demoniacal chant of joy and was
keeping time to it with his teetering. I quickly hushed my
whimpering. I was no longer in the safety of the trees, and I
knew the danger I ran of bringing upon myself the hunting
animals by too audible an expression of my grief.

I remember, as my sobs died down, that I became interested
in watching the strange light-effects produced by partially
opening and closing my tear-wet eyelids. Then I began to
investigate, and found that I was not so very badly damaged by
my fall. I had lost some hair and hide, here and there; the
sharp and jagged end of a broken branch had thrust fully an
inch into my forearm; and my right hip, which had borne the
brunt of my contact with the ground, was aching intolerably.
But these, after all, were only petty hurts. No bones were
broken, and in those days the flesh of man had finer healing
qualities than it has to-day. Yet it was a severe fall, for I
limped with my injured hip for fully a week afterward.

Next, as I lay in the bushes, there came upon me a feeling
of desolation, a consciousness that I was homeless. I made up
my mind never to return to my mother and the Chatterer. I would
go far away through the terrible forest, and find some tree for
myself in which to roost. As for food, I knew where to find it.
For the last year at least I had not been beholden to my mother
for food. All she had furnished me was protection and guidance.

I crawled softly out through the bushes. Once I looked
back and saw the Chatterer still chanting and teetering. It was
not a pleasant sight. I knew pretty well how to be cautious,
and I was exceedingly careful on this my first journey in the
world.

I gave no thought as to where I was going. I had but one
purpose, and that was to go away beyond the reach of the
Chatterer. I climbed into the trees and wandered on amongst
them for hours, passing from tree to tree and never touching
the ground. But I did not go in any particular direction, nor
did I travel steadily. It was my nature, as it was the nature
of all my folk, to be inconsequential. Besides, I was a mere
child, and I stopped a great deal to play by the way.

The events that befell me on my leaving home are very
vague in my mind. My dreams do not cover them. Much has my
other-self forgotten, and particularly at this very period. Nor
have I been able to frame up the various dreams so as to bridge
the gap between my leaving the home-tree and my arrival at the
caves.

I remember that several times I came to open spaces. These
I crossed in great trepidation, descending to the ground and
running at the top of my speed. I remember that there were days
of rain and days of sunshine, so that I must have wandered
alone for quite a time. I especially dream of my misery in the
rain, and of my sufferings from hunger and how I appeased it.
One very strong impression is of hunting little lizards on the
rocky top of an open knoll. They ran under the rocks, and most
of them escaped; but occasionally I turned over a stone and
caught one. I was frightened away from this knoll by snakes.
They did not pursue me. They were merely basking on flat rocks
in the sun. But such was my inherited fear of them that I fled
as fast as if they had been after me.

Then I gnawed bitter bark from young trees. I remember
vaguely the eating of many green nuts, with soft shells and
milky kernels. And I remember most distinctly suffering from a
stomach-ache. It may have been caused by the green nuts, and
maybe by the lizards. I do not know. But I do know that I was
fortunate in not being devoured during the several hours I was
knotted up on the ground with the colic.

He could spring twenty feet horizontally from a sitting
position. He was abominably hairy. It was a matter of pride
with us to be not very hairy. But he was covered with hair all
over, on the inside of the arms as well as the outside, and
even the ears themselves. The only places on him where the hair
did not grow were the soles of his hands and feet and beneath
his eyes. He was frightfully ugly, his ferocious grinning mouth
and huge down-hanging under-lip being but in harmony with his
terrible eyes.

This was Red-Eye. And right gingerly he crept out or his
cave and descended to the ground. Ignoring me, he proceeded to
reconnoitre. He bent forward from the hips as he walked; and so
far forward did he bend, and so long were his arms, that with
every step he touched the knuckles of his hands to the ground
on either side of him. He was awkward in the semi-erect
position of walking that he assumed, and he really touched his
knuckles to the ground in order to balance himself. But oh, I
tell you he could run on all-fours! Now this was something at
which we were particularly awkward. Furthermore, it was a rare
individual among us who balanced himself with his knuckles when
walking. Such an individual was an atavism, and Red-Eye was an
even greater atavism.

That is what he was--an atavism. We were in the process of
changing our tree-life to life on the ground. For many
generations we had been going through this change, and our
bodies and carriage had likewise changed. But Red-Eye had
reverted to the more primitive tree-dwelling type. Perforce,
because he was born in our horde he stayed with us; but in
actuality he was an atavism and his place was elsewhere.

Very circumspect and very alert, he moved here and there
about the open space, peering through the vistas among the
trees and trying to catch a glimpse of the hunting animal that
all suspected had pursued me. And while he did this, taking no
notice of me, the Folk crowded at the cave-mouths and watched.

At last he evidently decided that there was no danger
lurking about. He was returning from the head of the run-way,
from where he had taken a peep down at the drinking-place. His
course brought him near, but still he did not notice me. He
proceeded casually on his way until abreast of me, and then,
without warning and with incredible swiftness, he smote me a
buffet on the head. I was knocked backward fully a dozen feet
before I fetched up against the ground, and I remember,
half-stunned, even as the blow was struck, hearing the wild
uproar of clucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the
caves. It was a great joke--at least in that day; and right
heartily the Folk appreciated it.

Thus was I received into the horde. Red-Eye paid no
further attention to me, and I was at liberty to whimper and
sob to my heart's content. Several of the women gathered
curiously about me, and I recognized them. I had encountered
them the preceding year when my mother had taken me to the
hazelnut canyons.

But they quickly left me alone, being replaced by a dozen
curious and teasing youngsters. They formed a circle around me,
pointing their fingers, making faces, and poking and pinching
me. I was frightened, and for a time I endured them, then anger
got the best of me and I sprang tooth and nail upon the most
audacious one of them--none other than Lop-Ear himself. I have
so named him because he could prick up only one of his ears.
The other ear always hung limp and without movement. Some
accident had injured the muscles and deprived him of the use of
it.

He closed with me, and we went at it for all the world
like a couple of small boys fighting. We scratched and bit,
pulled hair, clinched, and threw each other down. I remember I
succeeded in getting on him what in my college days I learned
was called a half-Nelson. This hold gave me the decided
advantage. But I did not enjoy it long. He twisted up one leg,
and with the foot (or hind-hand) made so savage an onslaught
upon my abdomen as to threaten to disembowel me. I had to
release him in order to save myself, and then we went at it
again.




Lop-Ear was a year older than I, but I was several times
angrier than he, and in the end he took to his heels. I chased
him across the open and down a run-way to the river. But he was
better acquainted with the locality and ran along the edge of
the water and up another run-way. He cut diagonally across the
open space and dashed into a wide-mouthed cave.

Before I knew it, I had plunged after him into the
darkness. The next moment I was badly frightened. I had never
been in a cave before. I began to whimper and cry out. Lop-Ear
chattered mockingly at me, and, springing upon me unseen,
tumbled me over. He did not risk a second encounter, however,
and took himself off. I was between him and the entrance, and
he did not pass me; yet he seemed to have gone away. I
listened, but could get no clew as to where he was. This
puzzled me, and when I regained the outside I sat down to
watch.

He never came out of the entrance, of that I was certain;
yet at the end of several minutes he chuckled at my elbow.
Again I ran after him, and again he ran into the cave; but this
time I stopped at the mouth. I dropped back a short distance
and watched. He did not come out, yet, as before, he chuckled
at my elbow and was chased by me a third time into the cave.

This performance was repeated several times. Then I
followed him into the cave, where I searched vainly for him. I
was curious. I could not understand how he eluded me. Always he
went into the cave, never did he come out of it, yet always did
he arrive there at my elbow and mock me. Thus did our fight
transform itself into a game of hide and seek.

All afternoon, with occasional intervals, we kept it up,
and a playful, friendly spirit arose between us. In the end, he
did not run away from me, and we sat together with our arms
around each other. A little later he disclosed the mystery of
the wide-mouthed cave. Holding me by the hand he led me inside.
It connected by a narrow crevice with another cave, and it was
through this that we regained the open air.

We were now good friends. When the other young ones
gathered around to tease, he joined with me in attacking them;
and so viciously did we behave that before long I was let
alone. Lop-Ear made me acquainted with the village. There was
little that he could tell me of conditions and customs--he had
not the necessary vocabulary; but by observing his actions I
learned much, and also he showed me places and things.




He took me up the open space, between the caves and the
river, and into the forest beyond, where, in a grassy place
among the trees, we made a meal of stringy-rooted carrots.
After that we had a good drink at the river and started up the
run-way to the caves.

It was in the run-way that we came upon Red-Eye again. The
first I knew, Lop-Ear had shrunk away to one side and was
crouching low against the bank. Naturally and involuntarily, I
imitated him. Then it was that I looked to see the cause of his
fear. It was Red-Eye, swaggering down the centre of
the run-way and scowling fiercely with his inflamed eyes.
I noticed that all the youngsters shrank away from him as we
had done, while the grown-ups regarded him with wary eyes when
he drew near, and stepped aside to give him the centre of the
path.

As twilight came on, the open space was deserted. The Folk
were seeking the safety of the caves. Lop-Ear led the way to
bed. High up the bluff we climbed, higher than all the other
caves, to a tiny crevice that could not be seen from the
ground. Into this Lop-Ear squeezed. I followed with difficulty,
so narrow was the entrance, and found myself in a small
rock-chamber. It was very low--not more than a couple of feet
in height, and possibly three feet by four in width and length.
Here, cuddled together in each other's arms, we slept out the
night.





But this attack did not last long. He quickly recovered
his common sense, and besides, our missiles were shrewd to
hurt. Vividly do I recollect the vision of one bulging eye of
his, swollen almost shut by one of the stones we had thrown.
And vividly do I retain the picture of him as he stood on the
edge of the forest whither he had finally retreated. He was
looking back at us, his writhing lips lifted clear of the very
roots of his huge fangs, his hair bristling and his tail
lashing. He gave one last snarl and slid from view among the
trees.

And then such a chattering as went up. We swarmed out of
our holes, examining the marks his claws had made on the
crumbling rock of the bluff, all of us talking at once. One of
the two Folk who had been caught in the double cave was
part-grown, half child and half youth. They had come out
proudly from their refuge, and we surrounded them in an
admiring crowd. Then the young fellow's mother broke through
and fell upon him in a tremendous rage, boxing his ears,
pulling his hair, and shrieking like a demon. She was a
strapping big woman, very hairy, and the thrashing she gave him
was a delight to the horde. We roared with laughter, holding on
to one another or rolling on the ground in our glee.

In spite of the reign of fear under which we lived, the
Folk were always great laughers. We had the sense of humor. Our
merriment was Gargantuan. It was never restrained. There was
nothing half way about it. When a thing was funny we were
convulsed with appreciation of it, and the simplest, crudest
things were funny to us. Oh, we were great laughers, I can tell
you.

The way we had treated Saber-Tooth was the way we treated
all animals that invaded the village. We kept our run-ways and
drinking-places to ourselves by making life miserable for the
animals that trespassed or strayed upon our immediate
territory. Even the fiercest hunting animals we so bedevilled
that they learned to leave our places alone. We were not
fighters like them; we were cunning and cowardly, and it was
because of our cunning and cowardice, and our inordinate
capacity for fear, that we survived in that frightfully hostile
environment of the Younger World.

Lop-Ear, I figure, was a year older than I. What his past
history was he had no way of telling me, but as I never saw
anything of his mother I believed him to be an orphan. After
all, fathers did not count in our horde. Marriage was as yet in
a rude state, and couples had a way of quarrelling and
separating. Modern man, what of his divorce institution, does
the same thing legally. But we had no laws. Custom was all we
went by, and our custom in this particular matter was rather
promiscuous .

Nevertheless, as this narrative will show later on, we
betrayed glimmering adumbrations of the monogamy that was later
to give power to, and make mighty, such tribes as embraced it.
Furthermore, even at the time I was born, there were several
faithful couples that lived in the trees in the neighborhood of
my mother. Living in the thick of the horde did not conduce to
monogamy. It was for this reason, undoubtedly, that the
faithful couples went away and lived by themselves. Through
many years these couples stayed together, though when the man
or woman died or was eaten the survivor invariably found a new
mate.

There was one thing that greatly puzzled me during the
first days of my residence in the horde. There was a nameless
and incommunicable fear that rested upon all. At first it
appeared to be connected wholly with direction. The horde
feared the northeast. It lived in perpetual apprehension of
that quarter of the compass. And every individual gazed more
frequently and with greater alarm in that direction than in any
other.

When Lop-Ear and I went toward the north-east to eat the
stringy-rooted carrots that at that season were at their best,
he became unusually timid. He was content to eat the leavings,
the big tough carrots and the little ropy ones, rather than to
venture a short distance farther on to where the carrots were
as yet untouched. When I so ventured, he scolded me and
quarrelled with me. He gave me to understand that in that
direction was some horrible danger, but just what the horrible
danger was his paucity of language would not permit him to say.

Many a good meal I got in this fashion, while he scolded
and chattered vainly at me. I could not understand. I kept very
alert, but I could see no danger. I calculated always the
distance between myself and the nearest tree, and knew that to
that haven of refuge I could out-foot the Tawny One, or old
Saber-Tooth, did one or the other suddenly appear.

One late afternoon, in the village, a great uproar arose.
The horde was animated with a single emotion, that of fear. The
bluff-side swarmed with the Folk, all gazing and pointing into
the northeast. I did not know what it was, but I scrambled all
the way up to the safety of my own high little cave before ever
I turned around to see.

And then, across the river, away into the northeast, I saw
for the first time the mystery of smoke. It was the biggest
animal I had ever seen. I thought it was a monster snake,
up-ended, rearing its head high above the trees and swaying
back and forth. And yet, somehow, I seemed to gather from the
conduct of the Folk that the smoke itself was not the danger.
They appeared to fear it as the token of something else. What
this something else was I was unable to guess. Nor could they
tell me. Yet I was soon to know, and I was to know it as a
thing more terrible than the Tawny One, than old Saber-Tooth,
than the snakes themselves, than which it seemed there could be
no things more terrible.





Broken-Tooth was another youngster who lived by himself.
His mother lived in the caves, but two more children had come
after him and he had been thrust out to shift for himself. We
had witnessed the performance during the several preceding
days, and it had given us no little glee. Broken-Tooth did not
want to go, and every time his mother left the cave he sneaked
back into it. When she returned and found him there her rages
were delightful. Half the horde made a practice of watching for
these moments. First, from within the cave, would come her
scolding and shrieking. Then we could hear sounds of the
thrashing and the yelling of Broken-Tooth. About this time the
two younger children joined in. And finally, like the eruption
of a miniature volcano, Broken-Tooth would come flying out.

At the end of several days his leaving home was
accomplished. He wailed his grief, unheeded, from the centre of
the open space, for at least half an hour, and then came to
live with Lop-Ear and me. Our cave was small, but with
squeezing there was room for three. I have no recollection of
Broken-Tooth spending more than one night with us, so the
accident must have happened right away.

It came in the middle of the day. In the morning we had
eaten our fill of the carrots, and then, made heedless by play,
we had ventured on to the big trees just beyond. I cannot
understand how Lop-Ear got over his habitual caution, but it
must have been the play. We were having a great time playing
tree tag. And such tag! We leaped ten or fifteen-foot gaps as a
matter of course. And a twenty or twenty-five foot deliberate
drop clear down to the ground was nothing to us. In fact, I am
almost afraid to say the great distances we dropped. As we grew
older and heavier we found we had to be more cautious in
dropping, but at that age our bodies were all strings and
springs and we could do anything.

Broken-Tooth displayed remarkable agility in the game. He
was "It" less frequently than any of us, and in the course of
the game he discovered one difficult "slip" that neither
Lop-Ear nor I was able to accomplish. To be truthful, we were
afraid to attempt it.

When we were "It," Broken-Tooth always ran out to the end
of a lofty branch in a certain tree. From the end of the branch
to the ground it must have been seventy feet, and nothing
intervened to break a fall. But about twenty feet lower down,
and fully fifteen feet out from the perpendicular, was the
thick branch of another tree.

As we ran out the limb, Broken-Tooth, facing us, would
begin teetering. This naturally impeded our progress; but there
was more in the teetering than that. He teetered with his back
to the jump he was to make. Just as we nearly reached him he
would let go. The teetering branch was like a spring-board. It
threw him far out, backward, as he fell. And as he fell he
turned around sidewise in the air so as to face the other
branch into which he was falling. This branch bent far down
under the impact, and sometimes there was an ominous crackling;
but it never broke, and out of the leaves was always to be seen
the face of Broken-Tooth grinning triumphantly up at us.

I was "It" the last time Broken-Tooth tried this. He had
gained the end of the branch and begun his teetering, and I was
creeping out after him, when suddenly there came a low warning
cry from Lop-Ear. I looked down and saw him in the main fork of
the tree crouching close against the trunk. Instinctively I
crouched down upon the thick limb. Broken-Tooth stopped
teetering, but the branch would not stop, and his body
continued bobbing up and down with the rustling leaves.

I heard the crackle of a dry twig, and looking down saw my
first Fire-Man. He was creeping stealthily along on the ground
and peering up into the tree. At first I thought he was a wild
animal, because he wore around his waist and over his shoulders
a ragged piece of bearskin. And then I saw his hands and feet,
and more clearly his features. He was very much like my kind,
except that he was less hairy and that his feet were less like
hands than ours. In fact, he and his people, as I was later to
know, were far less hairy than we, though we, in turn, were
equally less hairy than the Tree People.




It came to me instantly, as I looked at him. This was the
terror of the northeast, of which the mystery of smoke was a
token. Yet I was puzzled. Certainly he was nothing; of which to
be afraid. Red-Eye or any of our strong men would have been
more than a match for him. He was old, too, wizened with age,
and the hair on his face was gray. Also, he limped badly with
one leg. There was no doubt at all that we could out-run him
and out-climb him. He could never catch us, that was certain.

But he carried something in his hand that I had never seen
before. It was a bow and arrow. But at that time a bow and
arrow had no meaning for me. How was I to know that death
lurked in that bent piece of wood? But Lop-Ear knew. He had
evidently seen the Fire People before and knew something of
their ways. The Fire-Man peered up at him and circled around
the tree. And around the main trunk above the fork Lop-Ear
circled too, keeping always the trunk between himself and the
Fire-Man.

The latter abruptly reversed his circling. Lop-Ear, caught
unawares, also hastily reversed, but did not win the protection
of the trunk until after the Fire-Man had twanged the bow.

I saw the arrow leap up, miss Lop-Ear, glance against a
limb, and fall back to the ground. I danced up and down on my
lofty perch with delight. It was a game! The Fire-Man was
throwing things at Lop-Ear as we sometimes threw things at one
another.

The game continued a little longer, but Lop-Ear did not
expose himself a second time. Then the Fire-Man gave it up. I
leaned far out over my horizontal limb and chattered down at
him. I wanted to play. I wanted to have him try to hit me with
the thing. He saw me, but ignored me, turning his attention to
Broken-Tooth, who was still teetering slightly and
involuntarily on the end of the branch.

The first arrow leaped upward. Broken-Tooth yelled with
fright and pain. It had reached its mark. This put a new
complexion on the matter. I no longer cared to play, but
crouched trembling close to my limb. A second arrow and a third
soared up, missing Broken-Tooth, rustling the leaves as they
passed through, arching in their flight and returning to earth.

The Fire-Man stretched his bow again. He shifted his
position, walking away several steps, then shifted it a second
time. The bow-string twanged, the arrow leaped upward, and
Broken-Tooth, uttering a terrible scream, fell off the branch.
I saw him as he went down, turning over and over, all arms and
legs it seemed, the shaft of the arrow projecting from his
chest and appearing and disappearing with each revolution of
his body.

Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to
the earth with an audible thud and crunch, his body rebounding
slightly and settling down again. Still he lived, for he moved
and squirmed, clawing with his hands and feet. I remember the
Fire-Man running forward with a stone and hammering him on the
head...and then I remember no more.

Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream,
did I wake up screaming with fright--to find, often, my mother
or nurse, anxious and startled, by my bedside, passing soothing
hands through my hair and telling me that they were there and
that there was nothing to fear.

My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always
with the flight of Lop-Ear and myself through the forest. The
Fire-Man and Broken-Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone.
Lop-Ear and I, in a cautious panic, are fleeing through the
trees. In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh,
protruding head and shaft from either side, is an arrow of the
Fire-Man. Not only did the pull and strain of it pain me
severely, but it bothered my movements and made it impossible
for me to keep up with Lop-Ear.

At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree.
Lop-Ear went right on. I called to him--most plaintively, I
remember; and he stopped and looked back. Then he returned to
me, climbing into the fork and examining the arrow. He tried to
pull it out, but one way the flesh resisted the barbed lead,
and the other way it resisted the feathered shaft. Also, it
hurt grievously, and I stopped him.

For some time we crouched there, Lop-Ear nervous and
anxious to be gone, perpetually and apprehensively peering this
way and that, and myself whimpering softly and sobbing. Lop-Ear
was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct in remaining by me,
in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of the altruism
and comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of the
animals.

Once again Lop-Ear tried to drag the arrow through the
flesh, and I angrily stopped him. Then he bent down and began
gnawing the shaft of the arrow with his teeth. As he did so he
held the arrow firmly in both hands so that it would not play
about in the wound, and at the same time I held on to him. I
often meditate upon this scene--the two of us, half-grown cubs,
in the childhood of the race, and the one mastering his fear,
beating down his selfish impulse of flight, in order to stand
by and succor the other. And there rises up before me all that
was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias,
of life-saving crews and Red Cross nurses, of martyrs and
leaders of forlorn hopes, of Father Damien, and of the Christ
himself, and of all the men of earth, mighty of stature, whose
strength may trace back to the elemental loins of Lop-Ear and
Big-Tooth and other dim denizens of the Younger World.

When Lop-Ear had chewed off the head of the arrow, the
shaft was withdrawn easily enough. I started to go on, but this
time it was he that stopped me. My leg was bleeding profusely.
Some of the smaller veins had doubtless been ruptured. Running
out to the end of a branch, Lop-Ear gathered a handful of green
leaves. These he stuffed into the wound. They accomplished the
purpose, for the bleeding soon stopped. Then we went on
together, back to the safety of the caves.





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.