Читать книгу The First Days of Man - Frederic Arnold Kummer - Страница 6

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In the valley where the Ape-Men lived the weather began to get colder and colder, year after year, and they were having a hard time to find enough to eat. There were thousands and thousands of them, now, and there were not enough roots, and berries, and nuts, and birds' eggs to go around, so the Ape-Men were often hungry.

One morning a young ape went out to try to find something for breakfast. He had not eaten a thing since the afternoon before, and then all he had was a handful of dry shrivelled berries, and he was almost starving.

He went all through the valley, hoping to find some of the sweet golden fruit that used to be so plentiful, but he could not find any, for the other apes had picked it all.

At last, climbing over the steep rocks at the upper end of the valley, he came across a tree which bore the kind of fruit he liked so much. At first he thought it was empty, but soon, to his delight, he discovered three large and beautiful bunches far out on the end of a slender limb.

His first impulse was to climb out on the limb and gather the fruit, but when he got about halfway out, the slender limb began to crack, and looking down he saw that it hung over the edge of a high, steep cliff, and that if he fell, he would be dashed to pieces. So he got back off the limb in a hurry, and came down to the ground.

The next thing he did was very stupid, but he had not yet begun to think. He took a stone and threw it at the fruit, as he had often done before, and knocked one of the bunches down. It fell over the edge of the cliff and was dashed to bits on the rocks below, far out of his reach.

By this time the ape had tried all the things he knew, and as he could not think of anything else to do, he sat down and gazed at the fruit for a long time in silence. There were tears in his eyes, for he was very hungry, but he could think of no way to get the fruit.

Mother Nature, who was watching the efforts of her Ape-Man, pointed him out to the Sun.

"You see, Sun," she said, "now that the cold has made food so scarce, my children in the valley are getting very hungry. That poor creature down there actually has tears in his eyes."

"He may be hungry," said the Sun, "but I don't see that it has made him think, the way you said it would."

"He is doing his best," said Mother Nature. "You see, he hasn't much of a brain to think with, but what little he has is trying very hard to find a way to get that bunch of fruit for his breakfast."

The Sun laughed.

"How stupid your Ape-Man is," he said. "There is a splendid big stick lying in the grass right under the tree, with a hook at the end of it where a limb has been broken off. All the foolish creature has to do is to take the stick in his hands, pull the bunch of fruit toward him with it, and he will have his breakfast. It is very simple and easy."

"It may seem easy to you, Sun," said Mother Nature, "but it isn't easy at all to a poor creature who has never thought before in all his life. It has taken millions of years to bring this Ape-Man from the mud and slime of the Ocean, to where he is now, but all that was not so hard, as it is to make him pick up that stick and gather that bunch of fruit. If he does it, he will have had an idea for the first time in his life; he will have begun to think, and from now on he will not be an animal any longer, but a Man."

"Couldn't we help him in some way?" asked the Sun.

Mother Nature looked down at the Ape-Man sitting beneath the tree.

"Suppose you shine very brightly on the stick, Sun," she said. "It may make him notice it."

So the Sun shone very brightly on the stick, but the Ape-Man did not move, but sat gazing at the fruit.

"Wait," said Mother Nature. "I will try something else. There is a snake lying among the roots of the tree. I will make him crawl over the stick and move it a little. Then perhaps the Ape-Man will notice it."

So Mother Nature called the Wind to her, and told him to blow gently against the tree and cause some dead limbs and twigs to fall. The Wind blew, and snapped off some little twigs, and one of them fell near the snake and woke it up. Then the snake squirmed off, and in doing so he moved the stick a little, so that the Ape-Man, whose eyes were very sharp, noticed it as it glistened in the sun. He got up from where he was sitting, and went over to the stick and gazed at it stupidly for quite a while.

"Goodness, how slow he is," said the Sun. "Hasn't the creature any brains at all?"

"Not much," replied Mother Nature, "but I think he has an idea at last—just a faint little idea moving about in his brain like a shadow. See, he is going to pick up the stick."

The Sun looked, and saw the Ape-Man take the stick from the ground. He held it in his hand for several moments, looking at it. Then he looked at the bunch of fruit, and after that, he looked back at the stick again. When he had done this two or three times, he took the stick, and going to the edge of the cliff, poked awkwardly at one of the remaining bunches of fruit.

"He had better look out," said the Sun, "or he will knock that one down and lose it too."

He had no sooner spoken, than the heavy bunch of fruit fell from the limb and dashed to the rocks far below. The Ape-Man gave a long cry of anger and disappointment. Then he began poking at the third and last bunch. But this time he was more careful. After a few moments the hook at the end of the stick caught around the limb, and when the Ape-Man pulled on it, he saw that the fruit began to move toward him. He chattered with joy, at this, and pulled harder and harder, and at last the slender branch bent until the bunch of fruit was right in his hands. Then the Ape-Man dropped the stick, and sitting down on the grass ate the fruit as quickly as he could. After that he threw himself down in the grass and went to sleep.

The Sun, who had been watching him carefully, laughed.

"Such a little thing, to make so much fuss about," he said.

"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.

After a while, others of the apes got clubs too, and used them to fight with, but except the stones they sometimes threw, Adh's stick was the very first weapon used by Man.

Mother Nature was satisfied with her new Man, so far as he had gone, but she knew that he would have to suffer, if he was to learn, and although she did not like to make him suffer, she had to do it.

"You can blow all you like, Cold," she said. "I want my people to suffer. Pain is not a pleasant thing, but it is only through pain that they will ever learn."