The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone | Page 8

tied on Burr's. Then all set to work with sandstone pebbles and
rubbed them smooth. Strongarm's was soon done. He threw his old ax

away, stuck his new one in the string around his waist, and went off to
hunt.
Burr took her digging stick from beside her door and hacked a point on
it with her new ax. Then she burned the point in the fire until it was
hard. She took a basket in her hand, and her baby on her back, and went
out of the cave. Old Flint and the boys rolled a stone up to the door to
keep out wolves and foxes. Then they all went into the woods, and Burr
began looking for things to eat.
She found a root and pushed it out of the ground with her digging stick
and threw it into her basket. It was the root of a wild turnip. She found
other roots. They were wild carrots and celery. In the open places, tall
grasses grew. They were the wild grains. These she bent over and beat
with a stick until the ripe seeds fell into her basket. Under the oak trees
she gathered acorns.
[Illustration: Woven basket]
Little wild pigs were there eating the acorns, and the boys ran one
down and brought it, squealing, to their mother. Burr laughed and said,
"You are little men. You will soon hunt for yourselves."
It began to rain, and they all sat under a tree until the rain had passed.
[Illustration: Little wild pigs were eating the acorns]
CHAPTER VI
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