THE COMING OF FIRE
When Strongarm came back from the hunt, he found the cave cold and dark
and wet. A stream of water was running down through the smoke-hole.
It had put out the fire. The ashes, too, were wet; and there were no
coals from which to start the fire again.
He looked at the black fire-place.
"Now I must walk all the way to old Hickory's for fire," he grumbled;
"and it is growing dark."
Tired and hungry, he left the cave.
He had not gone far when a dead branch fell across his path. He jumped
back.
"The people who live in the trees did that--some of those shadow
people," he said to himself. "They tried to kill me. The man who
lives in the wind is angry, too. Hear him roar!
"I do not like shadow people," he thought as he walked on. "They live
in trees and wind and rivers and fire and stones and everything, but
you cannot see them. They will hurt you if you make them angry. I am
afraid of them. I wish I had a torch to scare them off. All the other
shadow people are afraid of the fire man."
Then to keep up his heart he sang in a loud gruff voice:
"O why did the water put out the fire?
O why did the water put out the fire?"
Strongarm gave a loud call as he came up to Hickory's cave. The old
man came to the door and asked what the trouble was.
"Trouble enough," growled Strongarm. "My fire is out. I came for
coals."
Old Hickory gave a great roaring laugh. His wife laughed, too, as she
pushed the children aside and raked out coals. These she put into a
hollow branch that Strongarm handed her.
"They will keep alive in there," he said, "even if it rains."
Then with a good pine torch and his branch full of coals, he hurried
home.
When Burr came back to the cave, she, too, found the fire out. There
was a deer on the floor, so she knew that Strongarm had come from the
hunt.
"The man has gone to old Hickory's for fire," she told her father.
"Um," said Flint, "he might have rested his legs. I can get fire from
stones."
"From stones!" cried Burr, her face white.
The old man quietly pulled two stones from his bag. One was flint, the
other was quartz. He took dry leaves from his bag and rubbed them very
fine between his hands and laid them on a rock. Over the leaves he
held the two stones and began to strike one with the other.
Burr and the boys watched with scared faces.
"The fire man--will he not be angry?" she asked.
Flint said nothing. He was striking the stones together. A spark
came! then another and another! He kept on striking very fast until
the sparks came like a flame and caught the dry leaves. He put on more
leaves and little sticks, and soon there was a good fire blazing on the
floor.
[Illustration: The sparks came like a flame and caught the dry leaves]
"From stones!" Burr kept thinking, as she shook her head and watched it
out of the corner of her eye.
When Strongarm came with the coals, the cave was already warm and light
and full of the smell of good things cooking. He looked at the fire
and wondered where it had come from, but said nothing.
Near the fire his wife had a basket lined with clay. In it were the
seeds of the wild grains and acorns, with hot coals. She shook the
basket around and around until the seeds were roasted. Then from the
ashes she pulled the roots she had put there to roast.
After Strongarm had eaten, he lay down by the fire. Nodding toward it
he said, "Where did you get it?"
Flint then told him that he had brought it out of stones. Strongarm
sat up and looked hard at Flint. Then Flint had to strike the stones
together again, to let Strongarm see the fire come out.
"Beaver Tail, an old ax maker, showed me how to do it," said Flint.
"He has worked in stone all his life. For a long time he has known
that fire lives in stone. He has seen sparks fly as he chipped his
axes. One day in making a spear head, he struck a quartz pebble with
his flint hammer stone. A big spark came! He struck again and again,
and the sparks came fast and caught the dry grass at his feet!"
"Um," grunted Strongarm, wondering. He thought for a long time; then
he looked at Flint and said, "Fire lives in wood, too! My ax handles
grow warm as I rub them."
The boys listened in wonder to their grandfather's strange story of the
making of fire.
[Illustration: The boys listened in wonder]
After a time Thorn said, "We have always had fire in the cave. All the
cave folks have it. They did not bring it from stones. Where did they
get it?"
"Once, in the old days," Strongarm said, and turned to the boy, "a man
saw fire come out of the sky and begin to eat up the woods! He could
feel the fire from where he stood. It made him warm, and he liked it.
But he was afraid to take any, for he thought the fire man might be
angry. But at last he did take some. He kept it, and grew to like it
more and more. With it burning beside him, the night was not so dark,
and he was not afraid; for the hungry wolf and tiger turned away--teeth
and claws could not fight fire!
"The other men saw that it was good to have fire; so, in time, they
took some of it. And ever since then every man has tried to keep his
fire burning."
"It is better for us cave folks since fire came," Burr then said,
nodding to the boys. "Why, before it came, there was no cooked meat,
nor were there any sweet roasted seeds or roots. But the folks tore
their meat from the animal where it was killed, and stood by and ate it
raw.
"Nor was there a home before fire came. My grandmother told me that,
long ago, in the old days, the men and women wandered from place to
place with their little children. And the women hunted and fished and
fought beside the men. And at night the people curled themselves round
as the wild dogs do, and slept on the ground; and the rain wet them,
and the cold winds made them shiver.
"But after fire came, all this was changed. For the fire would go out
unless there was some one to keep it. So a man told his wife that she
might stay and keep the fire, and said that he would hunt for both.
"The woman then took a place that she liked, near a stream, and built a
shelter of branches and made her fire there and kept it. And the man
brought meat to her, and she cooked it. And before very long all the
people were living in that way. And so ever since that time, the man
has been the hunter, and the woman has kept the fire and brought water
from the stream and gathered seeds of the ripe grasses."
[Illustration: Shelter of branches]
"And always since then, too, the family place has been about the fire.
We sit beside it and warm ourselves and work and talk and rest; and
that is home."
"True, true," grunted old Flint; and Strongarm nodded his head.
[Illustration: Acorns]