The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone | Page 9

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]
CHAPTER VII
THE CAVE TIGER
One morning not long after the lion hunt, Thorn and his grandfather

started off to the stone yard. They soon came to the deep forest where
they could not see far ahead of them, because the beeches and