“Where is she?” I asked.
“My wife?” he said. “Oh, she’s gone out somewhere through the caves with
the kid. You didn’t meet our kid as you came along, did you? No? Well,
he’s the greatest boy you even saw. He was only two this nineteenth of
August. And you should hear him say ‘Pop’ and ‘Mom’ just as if he was
grown up. He is really, I think, about the brightest boy I’ve ever
known--I mean quite apart from being his father, and speaking of him as
if he were anyone else’s boy. You didn’t meet them?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t.”
“Oh, well,” the Cave-man went on, “there are lots of ways and passages
through. I guess they went in another direction. The wife generally
likes to take a stroll round in the morning and see some of the
neighbours. But, say,” he interrupted, “I guess I’m forgetting my
manners. Let me get you a drink of cave-water. Here, take it in this
stone mug! There you are, say when! Where do we get it? Oh, we find it
in parts of the cave where it filters through the soil above. Alcoholic?
Oh, yes, about fifteen per cent, I think. Some say it soaks all through
the soil of this State. Sit down and be comfortable, and, say if you
hear the woman coming just slip your mug behind that stone out of sight.
Do you mind? Now, try one of these elm-root cigars. Oh, pick a good
one--there are lots of them!”
We seated ourselves in some comfort on the soft sand, our backs against
the boulders, sipping cave-water and smoking elm-root cigars. It seemed
altogether as if one were back in civilization, talking to a genial
host.
“Yes,” said the Cave-man, and he spoke, as it were, in a large and
patronizing way. “I generally let my wife trot about as she likes in
the daytime. She and the other women nowadays are getting up all these
different movements, and the way I look at it is that if it amuses
her to run around and talk and attend meetings, why let her do it. Of
course,” he continued, assuming a look of great firmness, “if I liked to
put my foot down--”
“Exactly, exactly,” I said. “It’s the same way with us!”
“Is it now!” he questioned with interest. “I had imagined that it was
all different Outside. You’re from the Outside, aren’t you? I guessed
you must be from the skins you wear.”
“Have you never been Outside?” I asked.
“No fear!” said the Cave-man. “Not for mine! Down here in the caves,
clean underground and mostly in the dark, it’s all right. It’s nice and
safe.” He gave a sort of shudder. “Gee! You fellows out there must
have your nerve to go walking around like that on the outside rim of
everything, where the stars might fall on you or a thousand things
happen to you. But then you Outside Men have got a natural elemental
fearlessness about you that we Cave-men have lost. I tell you, I was
pretty scared when I looked up and saw you standing there.”
“Had you never seen any Outside Men?” I asked.
“Why, yes,” he answered, “but never close. The most I’ve done is to
go out to the edges of the cave sometimes and look out and see them,
Outside Men and Women, in the distance. But of course, in one way or
another, we Cave-men know all about them. And the thing we envy most
in you Outside Men is the way you treat your women! By gee! You take no
nonsense from them--you fellows are the real primordial, primitive men.
We’ve lost it somehow.”
“Why, my dear fellow--” I began.
But the Cave-man, who had sat suddenly upright, interrupted.
“Quick! quick!” he said. “Hide that infernal mug! She’s coming. Don’t
you hear!”
As he spoke I caught the sound of a woman’s voice somewhere in the outer
passages of the cave.
“Now, Willie,” she was saying, speaking evidently to the Cave-child,
“you come right along back with me, and if I ever catch you getting in
such a mess as that again I’ll never take you anywhere, so there!”
Her voice had grown louder. She entered the cave as she spoke--a
big-boned woman in a suit of skins leading by the hand a pathetic little
mite in a rabbit-skin, with blue eyes and a slobbered face.
But as I was sitting the Cave-woman evidently couldn’t see me; for she
turned at once to speak to her husband, unconscious of my presence.
“Well, of all the idle creatures!” she exclaimed. “Loafing here in the
sand”--she gave a sniff--“and smoking--”
“My dear,” began the Cave-man.
“Don’t you my-dear me!” she answered. “Look at this place! Nothing
tidied up yet and the day half through! Did you put the alligator on to
boil?”
“I was just going to say--” began the Cave-man.
“_Going_ to say! Yes, I don’t doubt you were going to say. You’d go on
saying all day if I’d let you. What I’m asking you is, is the alligator
on to boil for dinner or is it not--My gracious!” She broke off all of
a sudden, as she caught sight of me. “Why didn’t you say there was
company? Land sakes! And you sit there and never say there was a
gentleman here!”
She had hustled across the cave and was busily arranging her hair with a
pool of water as a mirror.
“Gracious!” she said, “I’m a perfect fright! You must excuse me,” she
added, looking round toward me, “for being in this state. I’d just
slipped on this old fur blouse and run around to a neighbour’s and I’d
no idea that he was going to bring in company. Just like him! I’m afraid
we’ve nothing but a plain alligator stew to offer you, but I’m sure if
you’ll stay to dinner--”
She was hustling about already, good primitive housewife that she was,
making the stone-plates rattle on the mud table.
“Why, really--” I began. But I was interrupted by a sudden exclamation
from both the Cave-man and the Cave-woman together:
“Willie! where’s Willie!”
“Gracious!” cried the woman. “He’s wandered out alone--oh, hurry, look
for him! Something might get him! He may have fallen in the water! Oh,
hurry!”
They were off in a moment, shouting into the dark passages of the outer
cave: “Willie! Willie!” There was agonized anxiety in their voices.
And then in a moment, as it seemed, they were back again, with Willie in
their arms, blubbering, his rabbit-skin all wet.
“Goodness gracious!” said the Cave-woman. “He’d fallen right in, the
poor little man. Hurry, dear, and get something dry to wrap him in!
Goodness, what a fright! Quick, darling, give me something to rub him
with.”
Anxiously the Cave-parents moved about beside the child, all quarrel
vanished.
“But surely,” I said, as they calmed down a little, “just there where
Willie fell in, beside the passage that I came through, there is only
three inches of water.”
“So there is,” they said, both together, “but just suppose it had been
three feet!”
Later on, when Willie was restored, they both renewed their invitation
to me to stay to dinner.
“Didn’t you say,” said the Cave-man, “that you wanted to make some notes
on the difference between Cave-people and the people of your world of
to-day?”
“I thank you,” I answered, “I have already all the notes I want!”