Why would the grass-eating animals go from place to place during
the summer? What do you think the Cave-men would do when the herds
went away?
At what season of the year are nuts fit to gather? Is there any
place near by where you have a right to go nutting?
What animals eat nuts? What animals store nuts? Do you think the
Cave-men would gather many nuts?
_The Nutting Season_
Summer passed as summers had passed before. When the bison went to the
higher lands, the Cave-men followed them. When they started toward
their winter pastures, the Cave-men came home.
[Illustration: "_All the women and children went nutting._"]
It was the nutting season when they returned. All the beech, walnut,
and butternut trees were heavily laden that year. The ground
underneath their branches was nearly covered with nuts. Slender hazel
bushes bent under their heavy loads.
Wild hogs and bears had begun to harvest the nuts before the Cave-men
returned. Each day they went to the trees and ate the nuts that had
fallen. When Eagle-eye saw what they were doing, she said, "Bring your
bags and baskets and come. If we do not look out the hogs will get the
best of the nuts this year."
Then all the women and children went nutting. They gathered the nuts
that lay upon the ground and put them in their baskets. Some climbed
trees and shook the branches until they got a shower of nuts; others
took their digging sticks and beat the heavily laden branches.
The children had a feast that day. They sat down under the trees and
cracked all the nuts they could eat. They gathered handfuls and helped
their mothers fill baskets and skin bags. They climbed the trees and
they laughed and played all day long.
When the women first came to the trees, they heard the wild hogs in
the distance. Once a big hog came up and tried to eat the nuts out of
a basket. But Eagle-eye chased him with a big stick and drove him away
from the spot.
When Eagle-eye was coming back from the chase, she saw other trees
heavily laden. She called to the women, and they came to the spot and
forgot all about the nuts they had gathered.
[Illustration: _The wild hogs were having a feast._]
It was Chew-chew who first thought of the pile of nuts they had left
on the ground. It was she who ran to the trees and found the wild hogs
having a feast.
Chew-chew struck one of the hogs with her digging stick. He was
munching the nuts she had gathered. He turned away and she struck
another; then the first hog came back.
Chew-chew soon found that unless she had help the hogs would eat all
the nuts, for as fast as she drove one hog away another one came back.
Chew-chew screamed for help and the women came with their
digging-sticks.
The women drove the hogs away, but they returned again and again. And
so the women learned to keep a close watch while they were gathering
nuts. But in spite of all their trouble, they had a good time that
day.
It was not until they were starting home that they found that a
serious thing had happened. They did not know all about it then, and
some of them never knew.
It was all about Fleetfoot. When Eagle-eye looked for him, he was
nowhere to be seen. At first she thought he was with Chew-chew, but
Chew-chew had not seen him since morn.
Fleetfoot had played near his mother nearly all day. He had cracked
nuts; he had climbed trees; he had mimicked the squirrels; he had
scattered burrs in the rabbits' paths, and he had done all sorts of
things.
But now Fleetfoot was lost, and everybody began to hunt for him.
Eagle-eye found the stones he had left only a short time before. She
found his tracks and followed them until they crossed the boundary of
the hunting ground. There she lost all trace of him. She called, but
the "caw-caw" of a crow was the only answer.
The men heard her call, and came to join in the search. But in spite
of all they could do, they did not find the child.
And so the Cave-men thought they would never see Fleetfoot again. They
thought he had lost his way in the forest and had been killed by a
cave-bear. For a few days they mourned for the child, then they spoke
no more of him.
#THINGS TO DO#
_Tell a story of what happened one time when you went nutting._
_Name all the nuts you can that grow on trees. Name those that grow
on bushes. Where do peanuts grow?_
_Dramatize this story._
_Draw a picture of the part you like the best._