LITTLE MOK.
Among all the children of Ab--and remarkable it was for the age--the best
loved was Little Mok, the eldest son. When the child, strong and joyous,
was scarcely two years old, he fell from a ledge off the cliff where he
had climbed to play, and both his legs were broken. Strange to say he
survived the accident in that time when the law of the survival of the
fittest was almost invariable in its sternest and most purely physical
demonstration. The mother love of Lightfoot warded off the last pitiless
blow of nature, although the child, a hopeless cripple, never after
walked. The name Little Mok was naturally given him, and before long the
child had won the heart, as well as the name, of the limping old maker of
axes, spearheads and arrows.
The closer ties of family life, as we know them now, existed but in their
outlines to the cave man. The man and woman were faithful to each other
with the fidelity of the higher animals and their children were cared for
with rough tenderness in their infancy. The time of absolute dependence
was made very short, though, and children very early were required to
find some of their own food, and taught by necessity to protect
themselves. But Little Mok, unable to take up for himself the burden of
an independent existence, was not slain nor left to die of neglect as
might have been another child thus crippled in the time in which he
lived. He, once spared, grew into the wild hearts of those closest to him
and became the guarded and cherished one of the rude home of Ab and
Lightfoot, and to him was thus given the continuous love and care which
the strong-limbed boys and girls of the family lost and never missed.
It was a strange thing for the time. The child had qualities other than
the negative ones of helplessness and weakness with which to bind to him
the hearts of those around him, but the primary fact of his entire
dependence upon them was what made him the center of the little circle of
untaught, untamed cave people who lived in the Fire Valley. He may have
been the first child ever so cherished from such impulse.
From his mother the child inherited a joyous disposition which nothing
could subdue. Often on the return home from some little expedition on
which it had been practicable to take him, sitting on Lightfoot's
shoulder, or on the still stronger arm of old One-Ear, his silent,
somewhat brooding grandfather, the little brown boy made the woods ring
with shrill bird calls, or the mimicry of animals, and ever his laughter
filled the spaces in between these sounds. Other children flocked around
the merry youngster, seeking to emulate his play of voice and the
oldsters smiled as they saw and heard the joyous confusion about the tiny
reveler. The excursions to the river were Little Mok's chief delight from
his early childhood. He entered into the preparations for them with a
zest and keen enjoyment born of the presence of an adventurous spirit in
a maimed body, and when the fishing party left the Fire Camp it was
incomplete if Little Mok was not carried lightly at the van, the life and
joy of the occasion.
No one ever forgot the day when Little Mok, then about six years old,
caught his first fish. His joy and pride infected all as he exhibited his
prize and boasted of what he would catch in the river next, and when, on
the return, Old Mok saluted him as the "Great Fisherman," the elf's
elation became too great for any expression. His little chest heaved, his
eyes flashed, and then he wriggled from Lightfoot's arms into the lap of
Old Mok, snuggled down into the old man's furs and hid his face there;
and the two understood each other.
It was soon after this great event of the first fish-catching that
Red-Spot, Ab's mother, died. She had never quite adapted herself to the
new life in the Fire Valley, and after a time she began to grow old very
fast. At last a fever attacked her and the end of her patient, busy life
came. After her death One-Ear was much in Old Mok's cave, the two had so
long been friends. There with them the crippled boy was often to be
found. He was not always gay and joyous. Sometimes he lay for days on his
bed of leaves at home, in weakness and pain, silent and unlike himself.
Then when Lightfoot's care had given him back a little strength, he would
beg to be taken to Old Mok's cave. There he could sleep, he said, away
from the noise and the lights of the outside world, and finally he
claimed and was allowed a nest of his own in the warmest and darkest nook
of Old Mok's den, where he slept every night, and sometimes a good part
of the day, when one of his times of pain and weakness was upon him. Here
during many a long hour of work, experiment and argument, the wide eyes
and quick ears of Little Mok saw and heard, while Ab, Mok and One-Ear
bent over their work at arrowhead or spear point, and talked of what
might be done to improve the weapons upon which so much depended. Here,
when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half
light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and
sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer
snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell
People had a sort of story song.
Once, when Lightfoot sat by Old Mok's fire, she told them of the time
when she and Ab found themselves outside their cave, unarmed, with a bear
to be eaten through before they could get into their door, and Little Mok
surprised his mother and Old Mok by an outburst of laughter at the tale.
He had a glimmering of humor, and saw the droll side of the adventure, a
view which had not occurred to Lightfoot, nor to Ab. The little lad, of
the world, yet not in it, saw vaguely the surprises, lights and shades
and contrasts of existence, and sometimes they made him laugh. The laugh
of the cave man was not a common event, and when it came was likely to be
sober and sardonic, at least it was so when not simply an evidence of
rude health and high animal spirits. Humor is one of the latest, as it is
one of the most precious, grains shaken out of Time's hour-glass, but
Little Mok somehow caught a tiny bit of the rainbow gift, long before its
time in the world, and soon, with him, it was to disappear for centuries
to come.
One day when Little Mok was brought back from an expedition to the river,
he told Old Mok how he had sat long on the bank, too tired to fish, and
had just rested and feasted his eyes on the wood, the stream, the small
darting creatures in it, the birds, and the animals which came to drink.
Describing a herd of reindeer which had passed near him, Little Mok took
up a piece of Old Mok's red chalkstone and on the wall of the cave drew a
picture of the animal. The veteran stared in surprise. The picture was
wonderfully life-like in grasp and detail. The child owned that great
gift, the memory of sight, and his hand was cunning. Encouraged by his
success, the boy drew on, delighting Old Mok with his singular fidelity
and skill. Then came hours and days of sketching and etching in the old
man's cave. The master was delighted. He brought out from their hiding
places his choicest pieces of mammoth tusk or teeth of the river-horse
for Little Mok's etchings and carvings. And, as time passed, the young
artist excelled the old one, and became the pride and boast of his friend
and teacher. Sometimes the little lad would work far into the night, for
he could not pause when he had begun a thing until it was complete--but
then he would sleep in his warm nest until noon the next day, crawling
out to cook a bit of meat for himself at the nearest fire, or sharing Old
Mok's meal, as was more convenient.
While everything else in the Fire Valley was growing, developing and
flourishing, Little Mok's frail body had ever grown but slowly, and about
the beginning of his twelfth year there appeared a change in him. He
became permanently weak and grew more and more helpless day by day. His
cherished excursions to the river, even his little journeys on old
One-Ear's strong arm to the cliff top, from whence he could see the whole
world at once, had all to be abandoned.
When the winter snows began to whirl in the air Little Mok was lying
quietly on his bed, his great eyes looking wistfully up at Lightfoot, who
in vain taxed her limited skill and resources to tempt him to eat and
become more sturdy. She hovered over him like a distressed mother bird
over its youngling fallen from the nest, but, with all her efforts, she
could not bring back even his usual slight measure of health and strength
to the poor Little Mok. Ab came sometimes and looked sadly at the two and
then walked moodily away, a great weight on his breast. Old Mok was
always at work, and yet always ready to give Little Mok water or turn his
weary little frame on its rude bed, or spread the furs over the wasted
body, and always Lightfoot waited and hoped and feared.
And at last Little Mok died, and was buried under the stones, and the
snow fell over the lonely cairn under the fir trees outside the Fire
Valley where his grave was made.
Lightfoot was silent and sad, and could not smile nor laugh any more. She
longed for Little Mok, and did not eat or sleep. One night Ab, trying to
comfort her, said, "You will see him again."
"What do you mean?" cried Lightfoot. And Ab only answered, "You will see
him; he will come at night. Go to sleep, and you will see him."
But Lightfoot could not sleep yet and for many a night her eyes closed
only when extreme fatigue compelled sleep toward the morning.
And at last, after many days and nights, Lightfoot, when asleep, saw
Little Mok. Just as in life, she saw him, with all his familiar looks and
motions. But he did not stay long. And again and again she saw him, and
it comforted her somewhat because he smiled. There had come to her such a
heartache about him, lying out there under the snow and stones, with no
one to care for him, that the smile warmed her heavy heart and she told
Ab that she had seen Little Mok, only whispering it to him--for it was
not well, she knew, to talk about such things--and she whispered to Ab,
too, her anguish that Little Mok only came at night, and never when it
was day, but she did not complain. She only said: "I want to see him in
the daytime."
And Ab could think of nothing to say. But that made him think more and
more. He felt drawn closer to Lightfoot, his wife, no longer a young
girl, but the mother of Little Mok, who was dead, and of all his
children.
In his mind arose, vaguely obscure, yet persistent, the idea that brute
strength and vigor, keen senses and reckless bravery were not, after all,
the sole qualities that make and influence men. Old Mok, crippled and
disabled for the hunt and defense, was nevertheless a power not to be
despised, and Little Mok, the helpless child, had been still strong
enough to win and keep the love of all the stalwart and rough cave
people. Ab was sorry for Lightfoot. When in the spring the forlorn mother
held in her arms a baby girl a little brightness came into her eyes
again, and Ab, seeing this, was glad, but neither Ab nor Lightfoot ever
forgot their eldest and dearest, Little Mok.