"Yes," said the other man.
"Nonsense," said the woman. She went back to the cave and the young man
put the end of his spear into the fire and tried to scrape the side of
the pot with the flint head, but the flint was cold and it cracked. He
pulled it back and was looking angrily at it when she came out again
and sat on the ground. She had an armful of roots which she began to
scrape with a sharp stone. "The spearhead is made of the wrong sort
of stone," she said, without looking up. "That is why it broke in the
fire."
"It's made of the _right_ kind!" the young man shouted. "All spearheads
are made of that kind! They always have been and they always will be!
How did _you_ know it broke in the fire? You weren't looking."
"I heard it make the sound it makes when the fire breaks it."
The young man glowered and pushed his under lip out. "This kind of
stone was put in the cave for us to make knives and spears. And it
makes a very sharp edge when you know how to form it."
"No sharper than this knife," she said, holding up the stone in her
hand. "This doesn't break so easily."
The young man took it and examined it carefully. "How do you strike
it to make it this shape?" he said, and then, grudgingly, "It is very
smooth--a very good shape."
"You don't strike it," she said, taking it back and going on scraping
the roots. "You rub it on another stone--first on the kind that has the
bright sparkles in it, and then under water on the flat gray kind. It's
much better than your knives and the fire doesn't break it so easily."
* * * * *
She finished with the roots and put them in the pot with the meat.
"Where do you find such big roots?" the young man asked his brother.
"Over there," the brother said, pointing to a patch of earth nearby.
"_She_ finds them there."
"I don't find them," she said. "I put them there in the first place."
"You mean you store them in the earth?" the young man said.
"No. I put the tops in the ground--the blue and yellow flowers--and
next warm season I dig and there are the new roots. You have to put
water on the earth when it gets dry. Also you have to pull up all the
small plants that grow there among them. It's very hard work."
"More magic," said the young man.
"It's not magic!" she said. "You are stupid. Haven't you noticed that
when you leave an acorn on the ground, it breaks open and a finger goes
down into the earth? And then, after the next rains, it makes little
leaves--and if you leave it alone, it grows and in time becomes a young
tree?"
"Everyone knows that," the young man said disdainfully.
"Well, this is the same."
"Yes, but what makes the roots so big? I never saw any like these."
"That's because I only take the flowers from the plants that have the
biggest roots. And if any of the new roots are little, I throw away the
flowers from them. Far away."
"What do you do with the little roots?"
"Eat them."
"I don't understand. If you eat the little roots, why don't you get
little roots?"
"You are being foolish again!" the young woman said. "A tall man has
tall sons."
"_If_ he eats the meat of a tall animal," said the young man.
"That has nothing to do with it."
"My friend's father, who lives near the river, always eats the fat of
the game they kill, and _he_ is fat. So you see!"
"That has nothing to do with it," she said, and went into the cave.
The young man walked up and down angrily. "Why does she talk that way?
Is she one of our sisters? I don't remember her."
"No," said the other. "She was with the people we fought with three
seasons ago. She is my new mate and she is very good at magic, only I
advise you not to pay any attention to what she says."
The other picked up the scraping-stone she had left and looked at
it with grudging envy. "The very tall man who killed the aurochs by
himself has a son," he said, "and the son is short."