Читать книгу The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers - Frederic Arnold Kummer - Страница 5

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THE APE THAT WALKED LIKE A MAN

When Mother Nature told the Sun that the Earth was at last ready for Man, the Sun did not quite understand her.

"What kind of creature is this Man you are always talking about?" he asked.

"Wait and see," Mother Nature replied, "and while you are waiting, just keep your eye on that funny little animal running about there in the woods—the one with the long arms and legs and tail. I'll be back after a while and tell you more about him." Then she went away.

The Sun looked down at the creature Mother Nature had pointed out to him, and saw a queer little animal, covered with hair, and looking somethink like a very small monkey. This animal liked the fruits and nuts of the trees, and spent most of his time in the tree-tops, but sometimes he would go down to the ground, and run about through the thick jungle forests on all four feet, like a squirrel. But when he wanted food, or when some of the fierce flesh-eating animals attacked him, he would quickly climb up into a tall tree.

The trees in those early forests grew very close together, and the little monkey animals found that they could swing from limb to limb with their arms, and thus travel for miles, from one tree to another, without going down to the ground at all. When they first took to living in the trees they had smooth skins like their parents the reptiles, but as thousands of years passed, hair grew out all over them, to protect them and keep them warm during the chilly rains.

For a long time the Sun watched these creatures, while Mother Nature was away, and he saw them slowly change. For one thing they grew larger and stronger all the time, and came to look more and more like the monkeys and apes we find in the jungle country even to-day. But still they were not apes, but from them, both the apes and Man, are descended.

From their habit of swinging from limb to limb, or from strong vines, like a trapeze performer in a circus, these ape-like animals got more and more in the habit of standing upright, balancing themselves on their hind feet on one limb, while they held on with their fore feet to another limb higher up. But still whenever they went down to the ground they ran about on all fours.

If these ape-like creatures had kept on living in the same sort of a place, where the food grew in high trees, and the forest beneath was filled with savage animals ready to eat them up, they would have kept right on being apes. Indeed, most of them have stayed that way, for we find their descendants living in the jungles of the tropics to-day, not very different from the way they were so many hundreds of thousands of years ago. But about that time Mother Nature stopped by to see how things on the Earth were getting along.

"What are those creatures doing that I spoke to you about?" she asked the Sun.

"Nothing, that I can see," the Sun replied, "except playing about in the tree tops, and eating nuts and fruit."

"That won't do at all," said Mother Nature. "We must get them up into the hills, where things will be different. I see some splendid big valleys over there on the mountain side, where there aren't many wild beasts to eat them, and where the trees and bushes are low, and full of nuts and fruit. It is the very place for them."

"How are you going to get them there?" asked the Sun.

"I think I will have Wind blow up a storm, and set the jungle on fire with Lightning. Then, when the fire drives them up the mountain side, some of them will surely wander into the valleys."

So the Wind blew up a great storm, and the Lightning flashed and set the jungle on fire, and all the beasts ran before the flames, afraid. Some went in one direction and some in another, but a few of the ape-like animals ran into the hills, and here they found a wide, peaceful valley, with a stream running through it, and plenty of food about for them to eat, so they took refuge there.

It was not so warm in the mountain country as it had been in the jungle below, because the higher up in the air we go, the cooler it gets, and we often see snow on the tops of high mountains, even in the middle of summer. And where it is cooler, the trees do not grow so thick and tall and close together as they do in the hot jungle. So the trees and bushes in the valley which the ape-like creatures had found were smaller, and easier to climb than the ones they had been used to, and on many of them the fruit and nuts hung so close to the ground that they could easily be picked without climbing at all. There were no savage animals in the valley, either, for the fierce flesh-eating beasts preferred to stay down in the jungle, where there was always plenty for them to eat.

The ape creatures had an easy time of it in their new home. When they saw that no enemies came to eat them up, and that there was plenty of food all about, fruit, and nuts, and sweet-tasting roots that grew underground, they began to get out of the habit of spending all their time in the trees. But they still ran about on all fours, like the other animals.

When Mother Nature came along she was very much pleased.

"They are beginning to change already," she said. "See how much larger and stronger they are. But I think I might as well take away their tails."

"Why?" said the Sun. "It seems to me their tails are very useful things. Some of the monkeys down in the jungle are beginning to use them to help themselves in climbing about in the trees."

"That is all very well for monkeys," smiled Mother Nature. "They need them, for they are going to be monkeys and live in trees all the rest of their lives. But these animals are different. They do not need to climb trees so much now, for there is plenty of food near the ground, and very few enemies about from whom they must escape."

"But," objected the Sun, "a time may come when there will not be any food near the ground, and who knows when some hungry beasts may wander into the valley and eat all your new creatures up?"

"What you say is very true, Sun," replied Mother Nature. "Those things of which you speak are very likely to happen. But I am going to take away their tails just the same, for it would never do to have them turn into monkeys, like the creatures down in the jungles. These animals are going to be different. For one thing, they must learn to walk about on their hind feet, instead of running on all fours, like the other beasts. And to teach them that, I have got to keep them out of the tree-tops. If they haven't sense enough to find some way to get food, and protect themselves from their enemies, they will surely starve, or be eaten up. But I am certain they will get along."

So the ape creatures lived happily in their wide valley, picking the fruit and nuts from the low bushes and trees, and sleeping safely in grassy beds on the ground, and because Mother Nature did not think they needed tails, she took them away, just as her great laws had taken away the feet of the snake, and the eyes of the mole, when they were no longer needed. As the years went by, and new generations of apes were born, their tails were smaller and smaller, and finally, when a very long time indeed had passed, they were born without any tails at all.

The Sun watched, for hundreds and thousands of years, and he saw that after a while the whole valley came to be full of the new creatures without tails. At first they ran about on all fours, picking food, or climbing the trees, the way they had always done, but because there were so many of them to be fed, it often happened that food on the bushes became scarce near the ground, and the ape creatures had to stand up on their hind legs in order to reach it. After a while, from standing up on their hind legs so much, they got used to it, and came to like it, and walked about that way most of the time.

The Sun saw this strange sight of an animal walking about, upright, on its hind legs, instead of running about on all fours, as all the other animals did, and because he had never seen such a sight before, it surprised him very much indeed.

"Is he a Man, Mother Nature?" he asked.

"No," Mother Nature told him. "He is not a Man yet."

"Why not?" said the Sun.

"Because he has not yet learned to think. He is just like all the other animals so far. But I am going to make him think very soon, and when he does, he will begin to be a Man."

"How are you going to make him think?" the Sun asked.

"I am going to make him hungry."

"Will that make him think?"

"Yes. If he needs food to keep himself alive, and doesn't find it right at his hand, he will have to think of a way to get it, or starve. And I don't believe he will let himself starve. You see, Sun, I have tried the same thing over and over, on a great many other worlds, and the laws that God has made always work."

Then Mother Nature sent for Cold and had a talk with him.

"Cold," she said, "I want you to get to work and cool the Earth off a little more quickly. Those animals down there are much too comfortable."

"Very well," said Cold, flapping his great frosty wings. "Just watch me make them shiver and shake."

Then Mother Nature went away, but as she went, she gave the Earth a little push, very gently, so as not to disturb things too much. And the Earth, which had been spinning around perfectly straight and upright, like a huge top, now leaned over a little, as it went swinging around the Sun.

"What did you do that for, Mother Nature?" asked the Sun.

"I did it, Sun, to make the Seasons. From now on, instead of it being warm all the time, there will be Winter and Summer on the Earth."

"How will tipping the Earth over like that make Winter and Summer?" the Sun asked.

"It is very simple. As long as the Earth swung around you in an upright position, your rays struck upon it just the same way the whole year round. Now that I have pushed it over a little, so that it no longer stands upright, don't you see that for half the year you will shine more strongly on the lower part of the Earth, which is turned toward you, and less strongly on the upper part, which I have tilted away from you. That will make Summer on the lower part of the Earth, where you are shining brightest, and Winter on the upper part, where you are shining least."

"I see," said the Sun, looking down at the Earth. "I can't reach the part that is turned away from me so well."

"Exactly. But six months from now, when the Earth has swung halfway around you, and is on the opposite side of you, the part that is now turned away from you will be turned toward you, and it will be Summer there, while the part that is having Summer now, will then be having Winter."

"It is very interesting," said the Sun, "but I still don't see what you did it for."

"I did it to help make my Man think," said Mother Nature, as she went away.