After we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved back in our flight
and got breakfast in the blueberry swamp. It was the same swamp to
which I had made my first journeys in the world, years before,
accompanied by my mother. I had seen little of her in the intervening
time. Usually, when she visited the horde at the caves, I was away in
the forest. I had once or twice caught glimpses of the Chatterer in the
open space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at him and
angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I had
left my family severely alone. I was not much interested in it, and
anyway I was doing very well by myself.
After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of partly hatched
quail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I wandered circumspectly into the
woods toward the river. Here was where stood my old home-tree, out of
which I had been thrown by the Chatterer. It was still occupied. There
had been increase in the family. Clinging tight to my mother was a
little baby. Also, there was a girl, partly grown, who cautiously
regarded us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently my
sister, or half-sister, rather.
My mother recognized me, but she warned me away when I started to climb
into the tree. Lop-Ear, who was more cautious by far than I, beat a
retreat, nor could I persuade him to return. Later in the day, however,
my sister came down to the ground, and there and in neighboring trees
we romped and played all afternoon. And then came trouble. She was my
sister, but that did not prevent her from treating me abominably, for
she had inherited all the viciousness of the Chatterer. She turned upon
me suddenly, in a petty rage, and scratched me, tore my hair, and sank
her sharp little teeth deep into my forearm. I lost my temper. I did
not injure her, but it was undoubtedly the soundest spanking she had
received up to that time.
How she yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had been away all day
and who was only then returning, heard the noise and rushed for the
spot. My mother also rushed, but he got there first. Lop-Ear and I did
not wait his coming. We were off and away, and the Chatterer gave us
the chase of our lives through the trees.
After the chase was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out our laugh, we
discovered that twilight was falling. Here was night with all its
terrors upon us, and to return to the caves was out of the question.
Red-Eye made that impossible. We took refuge in a tree that stood apart
from other trees, and high up in a fork we passed the night. It was a
miserable night. For the first few hours it rained heavily, then it
turned cold and a chill wind blew upon us. Soaked through, with
shivering bodies and chattering teeth, we huddled in each other’s arms.
We missed the snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed with the heat of
our bodies.
Morning found us wretched and resolved. We would not spend another such
night. Remembering the tree-shelters of our elders, we set to work to
make one for ourselves. We built the framework of a rough nest, and on
higher forks overhead even got in several ridge-poles for the roof.
Then the sun came out, and under its benign influence we forgot the
hardships of the night and went off in search of breakfast. After that,
to show the inconsequentiality of life in those days, we fell to
playing. It must have taken us all of a month, working intermittently,
to make our tree-house; and then, when it was completed, we never used
it again.
But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing, after breakfast,
on the second day away from the caves, Lop-Ear led me a chase through
the trees and down to the river. We came out upon it where a large
slough entered from the blueberry swamp. The mouth of this slough was
wide, while the slough itself was practically without a current. In the
dead water, just inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks.
Some of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets and of being
stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and dry and without
branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up and down or
rolled over when we put our weight upon them.
Here and there between the trunks were water-cracks, and through them
we could see schools of small fish, like minnows, darting back and
forth. Lop-Ear and I became fishermen at once. Lying flat on the logs,
keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till the minnows came close, we would
make swift passes with our hands. Our prizes we ate on the spot,
wriggling and moist. We did not notice the lack of salt.
The mouth of the slough became our favorite playground. Here we spent
many hours each day, catching fish and playing on the logs, and here,
one day, we learned our first lessons in navigation. The log on which
Lop-Ear was lying got adrift. He was curled up on his side, asleep. A
light fan of air slowly drifted the log away from the shore, and when I
noticed his predicament the distance was already too great for him to
leap.
At first the episode seemed merely funny to me. But when one of the
vagrant impulses of fear, common in that age of perpetual insecurity,
moved within me, I was struck with my own loneliness. I was made
suddenly aware of Lop-Ear’s remoteness out there on that alien element
a few feet away. I called loudly to him a warning cry. He awoke
frightened, and shifted his weight rashly on the log. It turned over,
sousing him under. Three times again it soused him under as he tried to
climb out upon it. Then he succeeded, crouching upon it and chattering
with fear.
I could do nothing. Nor could he. Swimming was something of which we
knew nothing. We were already too far removed from the lower life-forms
to have the instinct for swimming, and we had not yet become
sufficiently man-like to undertake it as the working out of a problem.
I roamed disconsolately up and down the bank, keeping as close to him
in his involuntary travels as I could, while he wailed and cried till
it was a wonder that he did not bring down upon us every hunting animal
within a mile.
The hours passed. The sun climbed overhead and began its descent to the
west. The light wind died down and left Lop-Ear on his log floating
around a hundred feet away. And then, somehow, I know not how, Lop-Ear
made the great discovery. He began paddling with his hands. At first
his progress was slow and erratic. Then he straightened out and began
laboriously to paddle nearer and nearer. I could not understand. I sat
down and watched and waited until he gained the shore.
But he had learned something, which was more than I had done. Later in
the afternoon, he deliberately launched out from shore on the log.
Still later he persuaded me to join him, and I, too, learned the trick
of paddling. For the next several days we could not tear ourselves away
from the slough. So absorbed were we in our new game that we almost
neglected to eat. We even roosted in a nearby tree at night. And we
forgot that Red-Eye existed.
We were always trying new logs, and we learned that the smaller the log
the faster we could make it go. Also, we learned that the smaller the
log the more liable it was to roll over and give us a ducking. Still
another thing about small logs we learned. One day we paddled our
individual logs alongside each other. And then, quite by accident, in
the course of play, we discovered that when each, with one hand and
foot, held on to the other’s log, the logs were steadied and did not
turn over. Lying side by side in this position, our outside hands and
feet were left free for paddling. Our final discovery was that this
arrangement enabled us to use still smaller logs and thereby gain
greater speed. And there our discoveries ended. We had invented the
most primitive catamaran, and we did not have sense enough to know it.
It never entered our heads to lash the logs together with tough vines
or stringy roots. We were content to hold the logs together with our
hands and feet.
It was not until we got over our first enthusiasm for navigation and
had begun to return to our tree-shelter to sleep at night, that we
found the Swift One. I saw her first, gathering young acorns from the
branches of a large oak near our tree. She was very timid. At first,
she kept very still; but when she saw that she was discovered she
dropped to the ground and dashed wildly away. We caught occasional
glimpses of her from day to day, and came to look for her when we
travelled back and forth between our tree and the mouth of the slough.
And then, one day, she did not run away. She waited our coming, and
made soft peace-sounds. We could not get very near, however. When we
seemed to approach too close, she darted suddenly away and from a safe
distance uttered the soft sounds again. This continued for some days.
It took a long while to get acquainted with her, but finally it was
accomplished and she joined us sometimes in our play.
I liked her from the first. She was of most pleasing appearance. She
was very mild. Her eyes were the mildest I had ever seen. In this she
was quite unlike the rest of the girls and women of the Folk, who were
born viragos. She never made harsh, angry cries, and it seemed to be
her nature to flee away from trouble rather than to remain and fight.
The mildness I have mentioned seemed to emanate from her whole being.
Her bodily as well as facial appearance was the cause of this. Her eyes
were larger than most of her kind, and they were not so deep-set, while
the lashes were longer and more regular. Nor was her nose so thick and
squat. It had quite a bridge, and the nostrils opened downward. Her
incisors were not large, nor was her upper lip long and down-hanging,
nor her lower lip protruding. She was not very hairy, except on the
outsides of arms and legs and across the shoulders; and while she was
thin-hipped, her calves were not twisted and gnarly.
I have often wondered, looking back upon her from the twentieth century
through the medium of my dreams, and it has always occurred to me that
possibly she may have been related to the Fire People. Her father, or
mother, might well have come from that higher stock. While such things
were not common, still they did occur, and I have seen the proof of
them with my own eyes, even to the extent of members of the horde
turning renegade and going to live with the Tree People.
All of which is neither here nor there. The Swift One was radically
different from any of the females of the horde, and I had a liking for
her from the first. Her mildness and gentleness attracted me. She was
never rough, and she never fought. She always ran away, and right here
may be noted the significance of the naming of her. She was a better
climber than Lop-Ear or I. When we played tag we could never catch her
except by accident, while she could catch us at will. She was
remarkably swift in all her movements, and she had a genius for judging
distances that was equalled only by her daring. Excessively timid in
all other matters, she was without fear when it came to climbing or
running through the trees, and Lop-Ear and I were awkward and lumbering
and cowardly in comparison.
She was an orphan. We never saw her with any one, and there was no
telling how long she had lived alone in the world. She must have
learned early in her helpless childhood that safety lay only in flight.
She was very wise and very discreet. It became a sort of game with
Lop-Ear and me to try to find where she lived. It was certain that she
had a tree-shelter somewhere, and not very far away; but trail her as
we would, we could never find it. She was willing enough to join with
us at play in the day-time, but the secret of her abiding-place she
guarded jealously.