wondered at what she saw there. His look seemed to pierce the
blackness behind the fire a hundred days' journey. "Father of my son,
what seest thou in the fire?" "I see," said Ang, "the spirits of the
things which are to be. I see, but do not understand all that I see.
I see our son's sons talking fire, the flames leaping from their
mouths like tongues; I see them crossing the Big Water in great logs
which breathe out fire and smoke. I see--but there are no words to
tell thee all that I see."
And Oma looked into the embers, and she too saw the flickering spirits
of the things to be. She saw countless fires--fires in the woods,
fires in caves, fires on altars--but those who tended the fires were
the daughters of her daughters.
In a few days the damage done by the fire was repaired. It was Oma who
discovered that water stopped the hunger of the fire, and when it grew
too fierce she beat it back with boughs dipped in the stream which ran
before their cave.
The warmth of the fire and the cooked meat made little Om grow as no
boy had ever grown in the cold season, and before the winter was over
he was running about as sturdily as a young bear. But it made trouble
for Oma. The woods were full of savage wild beasts, bears, panthers,
and wolves. Even Ang, with his strength and cunning and great stone
axe and sharp knives, was in constant danger. When he went out to
hunt, Oma always feared till he came back. What chance then would
little Om have? So she tried to keep him always in the clearing before
the cave, but the task grew harder and harder as the weather grew
warmer and Om's legs stronger and his eyes more curious.
One evening, just as the dark was shutting in, Oma was cracking some
bones to get some choice marrow for Ang's supper after he returned
from his hunting, and for a moment her back was turned to the boy.
When she looked for him he had slipped away into the darkness. The cry
of a hyena broke on the stillness of the night, savage,
blood-curdling. Then came a terrified scream from little Om. She
leaped to her feet in terror. Where? Where? Which way? The sound
seemed to come from all directions. Not knowing what she did, she
snatched a burning brand from the fire and dashed into the darkness,
leaving a trail of flame behind her.
She had gone only a few yards when she came upon the beast crouching
over little Om. Thoughtless of all danger to herself, Oma leaped at
the savage beast, whirling the burning brand about her head. The hyena
gave a snarl of surprise and fear, dropped Om, and sprang away into
the thicket, with leaps longer than any he had made in his life, for
the fear of the fire was on him.
Oma snatched her baby to her breast and hurried back to the cave,
crooning over him as she went. She brought him to the fire and
stripped off his little fur coat; that was in shreds, but the child's
skin was only slightly scratched.
As she locked him in her arms to comfort him, Ang suddenly leaped out
of the darkness, his great stone axe swinging in his hands. Terror was
in his face; sweat dropped from him like rain. "The hyena! I heard his
cry here and that of little Om!"
Oma pointed to the baby in her arms, to the torn skin at her feet, to
the smoldering branch and to the darkness which had swallowed the
great beast. "It was only a moment, but he slipped away into the
darkness; I heard the cry, the cry of the beast and the cry of the
child. I caught up a brand from the fire and ran; the fearless one ran
at the sight of it. The child is safe, see!" And Om looked at his
father through tear-dimmed eyes.
Then Ang knelt by the side of the child and its mother and prayed: "O
Thou who are greater than the greatest and mightier than the
mightiest, again Thou hast saved us by the red magic. By it Thou hast
made us, Thy children, masters of the beasts of the wood, for the
fear of the Red One is upon them all."
As the strength of the winter passed and the snow began to melt, Ang had
a visit from Wang, who lived some days' journey to the east. During the
winter the men of the North saw little of each other. Each family needed
a large hunting ground, and men had not learned to live together. The
distances between the families were so great that when the snow was deep
in the woods months passed in which the isolated families saw no human
beings outside of their own circle. But when the ice broke up and the
snow melted, the men who were on fairly friendly terms paid visits to
each other and exchanged stories of the winter's experiences.
Now Wang approached the cave of Ang with great ceremony. It was neither
good manners nor safe to approach another man's home too suddenly. One
could not be sure of a welcome, and it was always assumed that one who
came suddenly was an enemy. So Wang strolled out on an open spot by the
bank of the river which flowed by the cave of Ang, and acted as if he
did not know that there was another human being within a day's journey.
He tossed stones into the water and watched the ripples. Then he
imitated the call of the wild fowl on the river banks.
For a time Ang ignored him, going about as if he saw no one. But Oma
and Om peered out curiously from the mouth of the cave. At last Ang
wandered down to the river's edge and looked aimlessly everywhere but
where Wang stood. He too tossed many stones into the river. Finally,
apparently satisfied that all the demands of primitive etiquette had
been met, Ang turned to Wang and put his left hand over his heart and
raised his right to the sky. Wang did the same; they were of one blood
and children of the Great Father.
Both dropped their weapons where they stood and went to meet each
other unarmed. Ang and Wang had played together as boys, hunted
together as young men, and taken wives from the same family, but each
spring, after the winter's separation, they met with the same
elaborate ceremony, because it was the man custom.
When the men were seated, Oma and Om came out and sat near by. "A long
winter," said Ang. "A long winter," answered Wang. "Much cold," said
Ang. "Much cold," answered Wang. "The woman and the boy?" asked Wang.
"The woman is well, and the child grows like a bear's cub," replied Ang.
Wang turned and looked at Oma and Om and gave a grunt of surprise. "Why,
they are as fat and sleek as if it was the time of fruits and nuts
instead of the end of the great cold, when even the bear is so thin that
he casts no shadow. Has the eagle carried thee to the Southland on its
wings? Have you found food that cold does not harden? Has Odin fed you?
My woman sits all day at the going in of the cave. She looks old like
the moss-bearded oak. She notices nothing, but talks ever about the
little one whom the Black Robber took; she cares not for the child that
is left, who cries for food like a young kid whose mother the wolves
have eaten. And my strength has not come again. My traps and snares take
nothing, and my arrow is slower than the flying deer."
At this Oma leaped to her feet and brought a piece of dried venison
from the cave and a cake made from a flour of pounded nuts and seeds
and put them before the hungry man. He ate ravenously, like a famished
wolf, in silence, but questioning with eager eye, "How? Why? What?"
And Ang answered the unspoken question: "It was cold, so cold that the
blood in one's body ran slow and became like ice in the stream. The
meat became like stone. The supply of nuts failed. The woman grew
weak. The huntsman from the north took the child by the throat. His
breath came hard. I said, 'He will be taken as the others have been
taken, and the mother will not stay without the child, and I shall be
alone,' and I cried to the Great One, to Odin, the All-Father: 'We are
cold, give us heat; we are hungry, give us food.' I heard no answer;
there was no voice; but the prayer was heard. I sat by the going in of
the cave, making knives of flint, not thinking to use them, but hoping
to forget and cover up the hoarse crying of the child with the noise
of the flints. So I smote two stones together, and the chips fell into
the dry moss at my feet. There was a buzzing noise like that of a bee
in a flower; a little white cloud rose from the moss, then spots of
light like star-flies at night. Red tongues reached out and ate up the
moss and the dry sticks. I saw that the Red One was hungry, and I gave
him more moss and dry wood to eat. He grew big and bright, and his
breath was warm like that of summer, and Oma brought out the child,
and he drove away the barking sickness from the child's throat. Then
we knew that Odin had heard us."
And Ang told Wang how they had learned to cook the venison; how they
had learned to feed the Red One and keep him from wandering. He told
how the fear of him was on all the beasts of the woods, so that not
even the most savage and the most hungry dared stand before him; and
the smallest child was safe within the circle of light.
Then they took the wondering Wang and showed him the sacred fire, gift
of the Keeper of Secrets; they cooked venison over the coals so that
he might taste it. And when Wang started for home Oma gave him a
shoulder of smoked deer's meat and cakes made of acorn meal.
And now a strange thing happened. Pity stirred the heart of Ang. Odin
had helped him in the time of his troubles; why should he not help Wang?
He turned to Oma. "The hunting is good; the stream is full of fish; the
Red One can warm more than three. I will go and bring Wang and his woman
and his child. They can live in the cave which we thought should be
Om's. It is the will of the All-Father that men should live together."
And the men went together and brought Wang's wife and child, and they
made a screen and bark door for the new cave home. Oma taught Suta,
wife of Wang, the mysteries of the fire, and Ang and Wang became the
first neighbors, and that also was one of the gifts of the Revealer,
through the Spirit of the Fire.
As time went on, the story of Ang, the fire-man, spread through all
the north country, and often men came as Wang had done, many day's
journey, through trackless forest, to see the wonderful fire in front
of the cave of Ang. But Ang told to no one but Wang the secret of how
to call the Fire Spirit. To men who were friendly he gave live coals
to carry away in bowls hollowed out of soapstone. Men who were the
enemies of Ang did not dare come near his cave for fear of the red
knives which guarded it.
By and by men began to say to each other, as they went to hunt or sat
about the carefully tended fire, that Ang, the fire-man, must be loved
by Odin, and they came to Ang and said: "Tell us of the Great One,"
and Ang was troubled because he had not heard his voice or seen him.
As he hunted in the stillness of the forest, he pondered: "Why had no
one ever seen the Great Spirit? Or was the sky his face and the sun
and moon his eyes? Why had no one heard his voice? Or was the thunder
his voice? If so, no one understood his language." The more he
thought, the more troubled he became. For days at a time he rarely
spoke and went about as one in a dream, and Oma said to Wang and to
others who came, "The spell of Odin is on him," and they began to look
on Ang with awe and wonder.
One night as Ang was far from home and slept in a cave on a hill-side,
he dreamed that his shadow self left his body and journeyed to a far
country, and there he saw his father and his father's father and the
men of long ago. They all sat about a great fire and beckoned to him
to join their circle. There was a silence like that before the storm,
and each one in the circle looked steadfastly into the fire, which
burned on and on, though no one fed its flames.
As Ang continued to look into the flames, it seemed as if something
was lifted from his eyes and he saw what no one had seen before. The
earth was the body of Odin. His life was the life of all. He had not
one voice like man, but many. He spoke in the thunder, in the voice of
the storm, but also in the song of the birds and in the words of one's
best beloved.
Ang awoke just as the sun was driving the mists from the valley
beneath him, and these words came to his lips as if they were a
message from the dream-world which he had just left: "The wise son of
the All-Father sees him everywhere and hears his voice always." For
the first time in his life Ang saw the beauty of the world at his
feet, and the song of the birds which filled the vibrant air awoke a
new joy of melody and harmony in his soul.
As Oma and Om came out to meet him, he looked at them with newly
opened eyes. How beautiful was the ruddy brown sheen of Oma's hair and
the light in her eyes as she welcomed him! And little Om's eyes
sparkled like dewdrops in the light of early morning, and his laughter
was like the splashing of a brook over its pebbles.
When Ang told Oma of his dream, she answered: "The men were right. The
spell of the Keeper of Secrets was on thee. Thou art a man apart.
Henceforth thou shalt tell men the will of the One who hides himself."
And so Ang became one of the voices of Odin. From far and near men in
trouble and men in doubt came to him, and he spoke words of comfort
and wisdom. And every year before the cold kept men apart they
gathered at the home of Ang. They built a great stone altar, and each
man threw a log upon the fire which Ang had kindled. And they brought
the choicest from their hunting and had a great feast, but they always
gave the best to Ang, and he put it in the fire, saying, "The best we
have is Thine and we are Thine." And when they had feasted and were
satisfied, Ang talked to them of the All-Father, and each year his
words were wiser and more winning.
Before the men departed each took a brand from the fire and marched
about the altar chanting:
Spirit red, Spirit red,
Thine hunger has been fed.
Spirit hot, Spirit hot,
Forget us not, forget us not
As the year grows old
Keep us from the cold!
In the darkness of the night
Be our shining light,
Spirit white, Spirit white!
--_From "Around the Fire", by Hanford M. Burr.
Courtesy of Association Press._
THE BOYHOOD OF A PAINTER
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there took place,
first in Italy and afterwards in the other countries of Europe, a
great change known in history as the Renaissance. The long word
simply means "rebirth", and the name was given to this period
because then all the interest in art and literature and music and
beauty of every kind, which had seemed for centuries to be dead,
came to life again. Painters and poets and musicians began to fill
the world with their songs and their pictures. You are going to
read now the story of one of the most famous of the painters of
the fifteenth century in Italy.
Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, was the son of a lawyer in the
beautiful city of Florence. Even as a tiny child he began to show what
profession he was likely to follow, for as soon as he could crawl, he
would scramble away when his mother was not looking, to a place in the
garden where after a shower there was always a pile of mud. He would
sit happily on the ground pinching the mud into some sort of shape,
and the older he grew the more the shape became like that of some
object that he knew. When his mother missed him and came in search of
him, the baby would scream in disgust, and the only way to quiet him
was to play on the lute, an instrument very much like our mandolin.
Ser Piero, Leonardo's father, was very proud of his astonishing little
son, and resolved that he must have the very best teachers that could
be found. So the boy was still very young when his lessons began.
Lessons were no trouble to him, for he quite took away the breath of
all his teachers by his amazing quickness, no matter whether the work
was arithmetic, or languages, or music. Whatever he heard once he
understood and remembered.
Whatever lessons he might be doing, however, Leonardo spent his spare
time in drawing and in modelling figures in clay. His father decided
that this was the talent which the boy ought specially to make use of.
So he took his son to his friend the sculptor Verocchio. When they
reached the studio, Leonardo was given some clay and told to model
anything he liked. He sat down on the floor, and soon finished a tiny
statuette which was so lifelike that it might have been the work of
the sculptor himself. Verocchio was delighted, and declared that he
must have this boy as a pupil at once.
As Leonardo grew older, he began to outstrip his master in the art of
painting, though not in that of sculpture. At one time, it is said,
Verocchio was working on a picture of the baptism of Jesus by John, in
which an angel was represented as standing at one side. He entrusted
the painting of this angel to his pupil. When the master came to look
at the finished figure, he stood gazing in astonished silence. He was
too true an artist not to feel that he and Leonardo had changed
places, and that the boy's painting of the angel was worth all the
rest of the picture. The story goes that Verocchio was so impressed by
the feeling that he could only do badly what Leonardo could do
perfectly that he never painted again.
One of the most interesting tales of the artist's boyhood tells of his
painting of a shield. His father, Ser Piero, had gone to his country
house outside of Florence. One evening a farmer of the neighborhood was
brought to him as he sat in the garden, asking that he might speak with
Ser Piero. He knew the farmer well, for they had often gone fishing
together. "Well, what now, Francisco?" he asked, as the farmer came up
bowing and bearing in his hands a wooden shield. Francisco explained
that he had cut down a fig tree near his house, as it was too old to
bear fruit, and that he had cut out of its wood the shield he was
carrying. He had brought it to Ser Piero, hoping that the master would
have the goodness to get it painted with some design, for he wished to
hang it up in his kitchen as a remembrance of the old tree.
So when Ser Piero next went to Florence he took the shield to his son,
not telling him to whom it belonged, but merely asking him to paint
something on it. Leonardo, examining the piece of wood, found that it
was rough and ill made, and that it would need much finishing before it
would be possible to paint on it. So he held it before the fire till the
fibres were softened and the crookedness straightened out, and then he
planed and polished it. When it was all ready, he began to think about
what the picture on it should be. A look of mischief came into his eyes.
"I know!" he said to himself. "A shield ought to have on it some
frightful thing, so that the very sight of it may make the enemies of
its wearer tremble. The person who sees this shield shall be as
frightened as if he beheld the head of Medusa; only instead of being
turned to stone, he will most likely run away." You see, he did not
know that the shield was to adorn the home of a simple farmer.
Smiling to himself, Leonardo went out into the fields and hunted about
until he had collected a large number of strange creatures, hedgehogs,
lizards, locusts, snakes, and many others. These he carried home and
locked up in the room he used for a workshop, where no one was allowed
to enter but himself. Using the ugly things as models, he began to
paint on the shield a monster formed out of all the creatures, with
eyes and legs everywhere. It was a long time before he succeeded in
making anything frightful enough to suit him. Again and again he
erased his work and did it over, trying to combine his creatures
differently. But at last something so terrible stared him in the face
that he almost felt frightened himself.
"The monster is ready," he said with a laugh; "but I must find a
background fitting for him."
So he painted as a background a black and narrow cavern, at whose mouth
stood the shapeless creature he had made, all eyes, all legs, all savage
jaws. Flames poured from it on every side, and a cloud of vapor rose
upwards from its many nostrils. After days of hard work, Leonardo at
last went to his father and told him he had finished the shield, which
he hoped would please its owner. Ser Piero came at once, and was led
into the partly darkened studio, where in just the right light the
shield stood on an easel. But no sooner was the father within the room
than he turned to fly, so terrible was the object that met his gaze.
"It will do, I see," said Leonardo. "I wanted to make something so
dreadful that everyone would shiver with fear at the sight of it. Take
it away with you now; but I had better wrap it up, or you will
frighten people out of their wits as you go along."
Ser Piero took the shield and went away without telling his son
anything about old Francisco. But he was quite sure that the farmer
would not like the picture, and that it was not at all suitable to
hang in a farmhouse kitchen; and more than that, he felt it was far
too wonderful a painting to fall into the hands of a peasant and never
be famous. So in order to save the old man's feelings, he went to a
shop and bought a shield of the same size as the first one, which had
on it a device of a heart pierced by an arrow; and the next time he
went to the country he sent for Francisco to come and get it.
"Oh, your Excellency, how beautiful!" cried the old man in delight, as
he received his shield after his long waiting.
"I thought you would be pleased," answered Ser Piero, thinking to
himself how frightened rather than pleased the farmer would have been
with Leonardo's monster.
--_Adapted from "The Strange Story Book", by Andrew Lang._
QUESTIONS
This selection consists of three parts. Where does each part end?
Write an appropriate title for each part.
CIVIL DEATH
All should begin reading at the same moment. Can you after one
minute give a good account of the meaning of _civil death_?
According to law a person may be alive and enjoying good health and
still under certain conditions be dead to all his civil rights. In
some states, as New York, this is true of one sentenced to the state
prison for life; all his civil rights are taken from him and to the
world he is as dead. In all states, absence for a specified time
without any knowledge of the whereabouts of the individual renders him
legally dead to his civil rights; this period is in most states seven
years. Supposing A, living in Wisconsin, should leave his home and
family and go to Alaska. If at the end of seven years no word had been
received from him, the law assumes him to be dead; his estate can be
settled by probate, provided the family consents, and his wife may
legally marry again. Should he afterwards return he could not compel
the court to restore his estate or family; these are legally
forfeited, beyond all redress.
--_From "The World Book".
Courtesy of W. F. Quarrie & Co._
OTELNE, THE INDIAN OF THE GREAT NORTH WOODS
In the "movies" you have surely seen pictures of the Far
North--Alaska or northern Canada, or even the northern United
States--with the brave, rough men who live about mining or lumber
camps or trading posts. In many of the pictures, you remember,
there have been Indians. Here is an account of the life of those
Indians when they are away from the trading posts.
At the end of this story you will find an outline partly made out.
After you have read the story through, compare it with the
outline, and fill in the topics left blank under _a_, _b_, _c_,
etc. You may add more sub-topics if you think you need them.
When white men first came to America, they thought it was a country
called India of which they had often heard. So they called the people
they found here Indians. They also called them red men, because they
were about the color of a copper cent that has been carried a while.
These red men did not have many tools and other things to make it easy
to work and to live. They had no horses, cows, pigs, sheep or
chickens, so they had to catch wild animals for food. They had no guns
nor rifles, but made spears and bows and arrows with which to kill
their game. They had no iron. Their arrow points and spear heads were
of sharpened stone, as was a heavy tool they made something like our
hatchet. It was a very dull, poor hatchet. They had no cloth to make
clothes. Instead, they used the skins of wild animals they caught or
shot with their bows and arrows. Instead of houses they had tents or
wigwams made of skins. The Indians thought the white men's things were
wonderful, and they were much pleased to trade furs and game for
blankets, guns, powder, and bullets. The Indians like bright, pretty
things, so they were very fond of trading for beads to make necklaces
and ornaments for their suits.