The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone | Page 3

his
ax ready, his heart thumping and his eyes big. When he saw that the
bear was not coming back, he dropped his ax with a gruff laugh. Then
Burr and the boys came creeping out of their holes. And they all
laughed and talked at once, telling how scared they had been.
The growls of the bear still sounded through the woods, so the boys ran
to the door to see him.
"There he goes!" cried Pineknot with wide eyes, pointing.
"How big he is!" cried Thorn; "I shall make his picture."
Thorn ran back into the cave and quickly threw a pineknot on the fire.
It blazed up and made all the cave light. He broke a piece of limestone
from the wall and picked up a sharp stone from the floor. Then he sat
down by the fire to make his picture of the bear. After a while he held
up the piece of limestone with the picture scratched on it.
[Illustration: Then he sat down by the fire to make his picture of the
bear]
"O mother," said Pineknot, laughing hard, "see Thorn's picture of the
bear. It shows his big body and his long head and his little ears."
"That is the very bear that made us run," said Burr, laughing.
All this time Strongarm had been making a picture of wild horses. He
now held up the picture, scratched on a piece of deer antler.
"See, this horse has his ears up," he said. "He heard me coming. Here I
am with my spear."
Burr and the boys crowded round and said, "Oh!"
While Strongarm and the boys were making pictures, the baby had
been tumbling about on the floor. She crept around or pulled herself to
her feet by holding to the rough places in the wall. After a while she
grew sleepy; then her mother took her in her arms and sang this song:

"Little child! Little sweet one! Little girl! Though a baby, Soon
a-hunting after berries Will be going. Little girl! Little sweet one! Little
child!"
The baby went to sleep, and Burr laid her on a bear skin on the floor.
Soon afterwards Pineknot fell asleep on another skin, and in a little
while Thorn lay beside him. Then Burr put ashes over the coals, while
Strongarm threw burning logs before the door. Soon all was quiet in the
cave. The cave folks had gone to sleep.
[Illustration: Ram horns]
CHAPTER II
THE NEEDLE, THE CLUB, AND THE BOW
Nearly every day Strongarm went out to hunt. But he did not always
bring back meat to the cave, for he could not always kill an animal. But
sometimes he brought home the meat of deer or bison, and then again it
was that of mammoth or ox.
Burr always took the meat when Strongarm brought it home, and
sometimes she cut tendons from it. A tendon is a strong white cord that
fastens a muscle to a bone. There are long tendons in the backs of big
animals. Burr cut these out sometimes and hung them in the sun to dry.
When they were dry, she broke the thin outside skin and tore the tendon
apart with her fingers. It came to pieces in many little threads. Burr
took some of the little threads and twisted them together and made a
good strong thread for sewing.
One day she sat before the door of her cave sewing together skins of
wild oxen.
[Illustration: Sewing together skins of wild oxen]
"What is the big skin for, mother?" asked Pineknot, who ran up.
"To lay on sticks above our door," said Burr. "Then, even when it rains,

we can sit outside."
"Oh, that will be fine!" said the boy.
Burr went on with her sewing. She made holes along the edge of the
skins with a sharp stone. Then she threaded her needle. She put it
through a hole in each of the skins and pulled it tight. She worked on in
this way and sewed the skins together.
"Where did you get the needle, mother?" Pineknot asked next, looking
at it closely.
"I made it," said Burr. "When your father brings birds or deer from the
hunt, I sometimes take a little bone from the leg of a deer or the wing
of a bird. This I put in the cave to dry. When it is dry, I rub it smooth
with sandstone. Then I must have a hole in one end to carry the thread.
I take a sharp stone and turn it round and round on the little bone,
pressing down. It is not hard work. In that way I make a smooth hole in
my needle."
[Illustration: A little bone]
[Illustration: Bone needle]
"But when my mother sewed," Burr