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The Story of Ab

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They went strolling off through the beech glades, the strong, hairy,
heavy-jawed man, the muscular but more lightly built woman and the child,
perched firmly and chattering blithely upon her shoulder as they walked,
or, rather, half trotted along the river side and toward the cave. They
were light of foot and light of thought, but there was ever that almost
unconscious alertness appertaining to their time. Their flexible ears
twitched, and turned, now forward now backward, to catch the slightest
sound. Their nostrils were open for dangerous scents, or for the scent of
that which might give them food, either animal or vegetable, and as for
the eyes, well, they were the sharpest existent within the history of the
human race. They were keen of vision at long distance and close at hand,
and ever were they in motion, swiftly turned sidewise this way and that,
peering far ahead or looking backward to note what enemies of the wood
might be upon the trail. So, swiftly along the glade and ever alert, went
the father and mother of Ab, carrying the strong child with them.

There came no new alarm, and soon the cave was reached, though on the way
there was a momentary deviation from the path, to gather up the nuts and
berries the woman had found in the afternoon while the babe was lying
sleeping. The fruitage was held in a great leaf, a pliant thing pulled
together at the edges, tied stoutly with a strand of tough grass, and
making a handy pouch containing a quart or two of the food, which was the
woman's contribution to the evening meal. As for the father, he had more
to offer, as was evident when the cave was reached.

The man and woman crept through the narrow entrance and stood erect in a
recess in the rocks twenty feet square, at least, and perhaps fifteen
feet in height. Looking upward one could see a gleam of light from the
outer world. The orifice through which the light came was the chimney,
dug downward with much travail from the level of the land above. Directly
underneath the opening was the fireplace, for men had learned thoroughly
the use of fire, and had even some fancies as to getting rid of smoke.
There were smoldering embers upon the hearth, embers of the hardest of
wood, the wood which would preserve a fire for the greatest length of
time, for the cave man had neither flint and steel nor matches, and when
a fire expired it was a matter of some difficulty to secure a flame
again. On this occasion there was no trouble. The embers were beaten up
easily into glowing coals and twigs and dry dead limbs cast upon them
made soon a roaring flame. As the cave was lighted the proprietor pointed
laughingly to the abundance of meat he had secured. It was food of the
finest sort and in such quantity that even this stalwart being's strength
must have been exceptionally tested in bringing the burden to the cave.
It was something in quality for an epicure of the day and there was
enough of it to make the cave man's family easy for a week, at least. It
was a hind quarter of a wild horse.




CHAPTER III.


A FAMILY DINNER.

Despite the hyena and baby incident, the day had been a satisfactory one
for this cave family. Of course, had the woman failed to reach just when
she did the hollow in which her babe was left there would have come a
tragedy in the extinction of a young and promising cave child, and the
two would have been mourning, as even wild beasts mourn for their lost
young. But there was little reversion to past possibilities in the minds
of the cave people. The couple were not worrying over what might have
been. The mother had found food of one sort in abundance, and the
father's fortune had been royal. He had tossed a rock from a precipice a
hundred feet in height down into a passing herd of the little wild
horses, and great luck had followed, for one of them had been killed, and
so this was a holiday in the cave. The man and wife were at ease and had
each an appetite.

The nuts gathered by the woman were tossed in a heap among the ashes and
live coals were raked upon them, and the popping which followed showed
how well they were being roasted. A sturdy twig, two yards in length and
sharpened at the end, was utilized by the man in cooking the strips of
meat cut from the haunch of the wild horse and very savory were the odors
that filled the cave. There was the faint perfume of the crackling nuts
and there was the fragrant beneficence of the broiling meat. There are no
definite records upon the subject; the chef of to-day can give you no
information on the point, but there is reason to believe that a steak
from the wild horse of the time was something admirable. There is a sort
of maxim current in this age, in civilized rural communities, to the
effect that those quadrupeds are good to eat which "chew the cud or part
the hoof." The horse of to-day is a creature with but one toe to each
leg--we all know that--but the horse of the cave man's time had only
lately parted with the split hoof, and so was fairly edible, even
according to the modern standard.

The father and mother of Ab were not more than two years past their
honeymoon. They, in their way, were glad that their union had been so
blest and that a lusty man-child was rolling about and crowing and cooing
upon the earthen floor of the cave. They lived from hand to mouth, and
from day to day, and this day had been a good one. They were there
together, man, woman and child. They had warmth and food. The entrance to
the cave was barred so that no monster of the period might enter. They
could eat and sleep with a certainty of the perfect digestion which
followed such a life as theirs and with a certainty of all peace for the
moment. Even the child mumbled heartily, though not yet very strongly, at
the delicious meat of the little horse, and, the meal ended, the two lay
down upon a mass of leaves which made their bed, and the child lay
snuggled and warm within reach of them. The aristocracy of the time had
gone to sleep.

There was silence in the cave, but, outside, the world was not so still.
The night was not always one of silence in the cave man's time. The hours
of darkness were those when the creature which walked upon two legs was
no longer gliding through the forest with ready club or spear, and when
those creatures which used four legs instead of two, especially the
defenseless, felt more at ease than in the daytime. The grass-eating
animals emerged from the forest into the plateaus and upon the low plains
along the river side and the flesh-eaters began again their hunting. It
was a time of wild life, and of wild death, for out of the abundance much
was taken; there were nightly tragedies, and the beasts of prey were as
glutted as the urus or the elk which fed on the sweet grasses. It was but
a matter of difference in diet and in the manner of doing away with one
life which must be sacrificed to support another. There was liveliness at
night with the queer thing, man, out of the way, and brutes and beasts of
many sorts, taking their chances together, were happier with him absent.
They could not understand him, and liked him not, though the great-clawed
and sharp-toothed ones had a vast desire to eat him. He was a disturbing
element in the community of the plain and forest.

And, while all this play of life and death went on outside, the three
people, the man, woman and child, in the cave slept as soundly as sleep
the drunken or the just. They were full-fed and warm and safe. No beast
of a size greater than that of a lank wolf or sinewy wildcat could enter
the cave through the narrow entrance between the heaped-up rocks, and of
these, as of any other dangerous beast, there was none which would face
what barred even the narrow passage, for it was fire. Just at the
entrance the all-night fire of knots and hardest wood smoked, flamed and
smoldered and flickered, and then flamed again, and held the passageway
securely. No animal that ever lived, save man, has ever dared the touch
of fire. It was the cave man's guardian.




CHAPTER IV.


AB AND OAK.

Such were the father and mother of Ab, and such was the boy himself. His
surroundings have not been indicated with all the definiteness desirable,
because of the lack of certain data, but, in a general way, the degree of
his birth, the manner of his rearing and the natural aspects of his
estate have been described. That the young man had a promising future
could not admit of doubt. He was the first-born of an important family of
a great race and his inheritance had no boundaries. Just where the
possessions of the Ab family began or where they terminated no bird nor
beast nor human being could tell. The estates of the family extended from
the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean and there were no dividing lines.
Of course, something depended upon the existence or non-existence of a
stronger cave family somewhere else, but that mattered not. And the babe
grew into a sturdy youth, just as grow the boys of today, and had his
friendships and adventures. He did not attend the public schools--the
school system was what might reasonably be termed inefficient in his
time--nor did he attend a private school, for the private schools were
weak, as well, but he did attend the great school of Nature from the
moment he opened his eyes in the morning until he closed them at night.
Of his schoolboy days and his friendships and his various affairs, this
is the immediate story.

The father and mother of Ab as has, it is hoped, been made apparent, were
strong people, intelligent up to the grade of the time and worthy of
regard in many ways. The two could fairly hold their own, not only
against the wild beasts, but against any other cave pair, should the
emergency arise. They had names, of course. The name of Ab's father was
One-Ear, the sequence of an incident occurring when he was very young, an
accidental and too intimate acquaintance with a species of wildcat which
infested the region and from which the babe had been rescued none too
soon. The name of Ab's mother was Red-Spot, and she had been so called
because of a not unsightly but conspicuous birthmark appearing on her
left shoulder. As to ancestry, Ab's father could distinctly remember his
own grandfather as the old gentleman had appeared just previous to his
consumption by a monstrous bear, and Red-Spot had some vague remembrance
of her own grandmother.

As for Ab's own name, it came from no personal mark or peculiarity or as
the result of any particular incident of his babyhood. It was merely a
convenient adaptation by his parents of a childish expression of his own,
a labial attempt to say something. His mother had mimicked his babyish
prattlings, the father had laughed over the mimicry, and, almost
unconsciously, they referred to their baby afterward as "Ab," until it
grew into a name which should be his for life. There was no formal early
naming of a child in those days; the name eventually made itself, and
that was all there was to it. There was, for instance, a child living not
many miles away, destined to be a future playmate and ally of Ab, who,
though of nearly the same age, had not yet been named at all. His title,
when he finally attained it, was merely Oak. This was not because he was
straight as an oak, or because he had an acorn birthmark, but because
adjoining the cave where he was born stood a great oak with spreading
limbs, from one of which was dangled a rude cradle, into which the babe
was tied, and where he would be safe from all attacks during the absence
of his parents on such occasions as they did not wish the burden of
carrying him about. "Rock-a-by-baby upon the tree-top" was often a
reality in the time of the cave men.

Ab was fortunate in being born at a reasonably comfortable stage of the
world's history. He had a decent prospect as to clothing and shelter, and
there was abundance of food for those brave enough or ingenious enough to
win it. The climate was not enervating. There were cold times for the
people of the epoch and, in their seasons, harsh and chilling winds swept
over bare and chilling glaciers, though a semi-tropical landscape was all
about. So suddenly had come the change from frigid cold to moderate
warmth, that the vast fields of ice once moving southward were not thawed
to their utmost depths even when rank vegetation and a teeming life had
sprung up in the now European area, and so it came that, in some places,
cold, white monuments and glittering plateaus still showed themselves
amid the forest and fed the tumbling streams which made the rivers
rushing to the ocean. There were days of bitter cold in winter and sultry
heat in summer.

It may fairly be borne in mind of this child Ab that he was somewhat
different from the child of to-day, and nearer the quadruped in his
manner of swift development. The puppy though delinquent in the matter of
opening it's eyes, waddles clumsily upon its legs very early in its
career. Ab, of course, had his eyes open from the beginning, and if the
babe of to-day were to stand upright as soon as Ab did, his mother would
be the proudest creature going and his father, at the club, would be
acting intolerable. It must be admitted, though, that neither One-Ear nor
Red-Spot manifested an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm over the
precociousness of their first-born. He was not, for the time, remarkable,
and parents of the day were less prone than now to spoiling children.
Ab's layette had been of beech leaves, his bed had been of beech leaves,
and a beech twig, supple and stinging, had already been applied to him
when he misbehaved himself. As he grew older his acquaintance with it
would be more familiar. Strict disciplinarians in their way, though
affectionate enough after their own fashion, were the parents of
the time.

The existence of this good family of the day continued without dire
misadventure. Ab at nine years of age was a fine boy. There could be no
question about that. He was as strong as a young gibbon, and, it must be
admitted, in certain characteristics would have conveyed to the learned
observer of to-day a suggestion of that same animal. His eyes were bright
and keen and his mouth and nose were worth looking at. His nose was
broad, with nostrils aggressively prominent, and as for his mouth, it was
what would be called to-day excessively generous in its proportions for a
boy of his size. But it did not lack expression. His lips could quiver at
times, or become firmly set, and there was very much of what might, even
then, be called "manliness" in the general bearing of the sturdy little
cave child. He had never cried much when a babe--cave children were not
much addicted to crying, save when very hungry--and he had grown to his
present stature, which was not very great, with a healthfulness and
general manner of buoyancy all the time. He was as rugged a child of his
age as could be found between the shore that lay long leagues westward of
what is now the western point of Ireland and anywhere into middle Europe.
He had begun to have feelings and hopes and ambitions, too. He had found
what his surroundings meant. He had at least done one thing well. He had
made well-received advances toward a friend; and a friend is a great
thing for a boy, when he is another boy of about the same age. This
friendship was not quite commonplace.

Ab, who could climb like a young monkey, laid most casually the
foundation for this companionship which was to affect his future life. He
had scrambled, one day, up a tree standing near the cave, and, climbing
out along a limb near its top, had found a comfortable resting-place, and
there upon the swaying bough was "teetering" comfortably, when something
in another tree, further up the river, caught his sharp eye. It was a
dark mass,--it might have been anything caught in a treetop,--but the odd
part of it was that it was "teetering" just as he was. Ab watched the
object for a long time curiously, and finally decided that it must be
another boy, or perhaps a girl, who was swaying in the distant tree.
There came to him a vigorous thought. He resolved to become better
acquainted; he resolved dimly, for this was the first time that any idea
of further affiliation with anyone had come into his youthful mind. Of
course, it must not be understood that he had been in absolute retirement
throughout his young but not uneventful life. Other cave men and women,
sometimes accompanied by their children, had visited the cave of One-Ear
and Red-Spot and Ab had become somewhat acquainted with other human
beings and with what were then the usages of the best hungry society. He
had never, though, become really familiar with anyone save his father and
mother and the children which his mother had borne after him, a boy and a
girl. This particular afternoon a sudden boyish yearning came upon him.
He wanted to know who the youth might be who was swinging in the distant
tree. He was a resolute young cub, and to determine was to act.

It was rare, particularly in the wooded districts of the country of the
cave men, for a boy of nine to go a mile from home alone. There was
danger lurking in every rod and rood, and, naturally, such a boy would
not be versed in all woodcraft, nor have the necessary strength of arm
for a long arboreal journey, swinging himself along beneath the
intermingling branches of close-standing trees. So this departure was,
for Ab, a venture something out of the common. But he was strong for his
age, and traversed rapidly a considerable distance through the treetops
in the direction of what he saw. Once or twice, though, there came
exigencies of leaping and grasping aloft to which he felt himself
unequal, and then, plucky boy as he was, he slid down the bole of the
tree and, looking about cautiously, made a dash across some little glade
and climbed again. He had traversed little more than half the distance
toward the object he sought when his sharp ears caught the sound of
rustling leaves ahead of him. He slipped behind the trunk of the tree
into whose top he was clambering and then, reaching out his head, peered
forward warily. As he thus ensconced himself, the sound he had heard
ceased suddenly. It was odd. The boy was perplexed and somewhat anxious.
He could but peer and peer and remain absolutely quiet. At last his
searching watchfulness was rewarded. He saw a brown protuberance on the
side of a great tree, above where the branches began, not twoscore yards
distant from him, and that brown protuberance moved slightly. It was
evident that the protuberance was watching him as he was watching it. He
realized what it meant. There was another boy there! He was not
particularly afraid of another boy and at once came out of hiding. The
other boy came calmly into view as well. They sat there, looking at each
other, each at ease upon a great branch, each with an arm sustaining
himself, each with his little brown legs dangling carelessly, and each
gazing upon the other with bright eyes evincing alike watchfulness and
curiosity and some suspicion. So they sat, perched easily, these
excellent young, monkeyish boys of the time, each waiting for the other
to begin the conversation, just as two boys wait when they thus meet
today. Their talk would not perhaps be intelligible to any professor of
languages in all the present world, but it was a language, however
limited its vocabulary, which sufficed for the needs of the men and women
and children of the cave time. It was Ab who first broke the silence:

"Who are you?" he said.

"I am Oak," responded the other boy. "Who are you?"

"Me? Oh, I am Ab."

"Where do you come from?"

"From the cave by the beeches; and where do you come from?"

"I come from the cave where the river turns, and I am not afraid of you."

"I am not afraid of you, either," said Ab.

"Let us climb down and get upon that big rock and throw stones at things
in the water," said Oak.

"All right," said Ab.

And the two slid, one after the other, down the great tree trunks and ran
rapidly to the base of a huge rock overtopping the river, and with sides
almost perpendicular, but with crevices and projections which enabled the
expert youngsters to ascend it with ease. There was a little plateau upon
its top a few yards in area and, once established there, the boys were
safe from prowling beasts. And this was the manner of the first meeting
of two who were destined to grow to manhood together, to be good
companions and have full young lives, howbeit somewhat exciting at times,
and to affect each other for joy and sorrow, and good and bad, and all
that makes the quality of being.




CHAPTER V.


A GREAT ENTERPRISE.

What always happens when two boys not yet fairly in their 'teens meet, at
first aggressively, and then, each gradually overcoming this apprehension
of the other, decide upon a close acquaintance and long comradeship?
Their talk is firmly optimistic and they constitute much of the world. As
for Ab and Oak, when there had come to them an ease in conversation,
there dawned gradually upon each the idea that, next to himself, the
other was probably the most important personage in the world, fitting
companion and confederate of a boy who in an incredibly short space of
time was going to become a man and do things on a tremendous scale.
Seated upon the rock, a point of ease and vantage, they talked long of
what two boys might do, and so earnest did they become in considering
their possible great exploits that Ab demanded of Oak that he go with him
to his home. This was a serious matter. It was a no slight thing for a
boy of that day, allowed a playground within certain limits adjacent to
his cave home, to venture far away; but this in Oak's life was a great
occasion. It was the first time he had ever met and talked with a boy of
his age, and he became suddenly reckless, assenting promptly to Ab's
proposal. They ran along the forest paths together toward Ab's cave,
clucking in their queer language and utilizing in that short journey most
of the brief vocabulary of the day in anticipatory account of what they
were going to do.

Ab's father and mother rather approved of Oak. They even went so far as
to consent that Ab might pay a return visit upon the succeeding day,
though it was stipulated that the father--and this was a demand the
mother made--should accompany the boy upon most of the journey. One-Ear
knew Oak's father very well. Oak's father, Stripe-Face, was a man of
standing in the widely-scattered community. Stripe-Face was so called
because in a casual, and, on his part, altogether uninvited encounter
with a cave bear when he was a young man, a sweep of the claws of his
adversary had plowed furrows down one cheek, leaving scars thereafter
which were livid streaks. One-Ear and Stripe-Face were good friends.
Sometimes they hunted together; they had fought together, and it was
nothing out of the way, and but natural, that Ab and Oak should become
companions. So it came that One-Ear went across the forest with his boy
the next day and visited the cave of Stripe-Face, and that the two young
cubs went out together buoyant and in conquering mood, while the grown
men planned something for their own advantage. Certainly the boys matched
well. A finer pair of youngsters of eight or nine years of age could
hardly be imagined than these two who sallied forth that afternoon. They
send very fine boys nowadays to our great high schools in the United
States, and to Rugby and Eaton and Harrow in England, but never went
forth a finer pair to learn things. No smattering of letters or lore of
any printed sort had these rugged youths, but their eyes were piercing as
those of the eagle, the grip of their hands was strong, their pace was
swift when they ran upon the ground and their course almost as rapid when
they swung along the treetops. They were self-possessed and ready and
alert and prepared to pass an examination for admission to any university
of the time; that is, to any of Nature's universities, where
matriculation depended upon prompt conception of existing dangers and the
ways of avoiding them, and of all adroitness in attainments which gave
food and shelter and safety. Eh! but they were a gallant pair, these two
young gentlemen who burst forth, owning the world entirely and feeling a
serene confidence in their ability, united, to maintain their rights. And
their ambitions soon took a definite turn. They decided that they must
kill a horse!

The wild horse of the time, already referred to as esteemed for his
edible qualities, was, in the opinion of the cave people, but of moderate
value otherwise. He was abundant, ranging in herds of hundreds along the
pampas of the great Thames valley, and furnished forth abundant food for
man as well as the wild beasts, when they could capture him. His skin,
though, was not counted of much worth. Its short hair afforded little
warmth in cloak or breech-clout, and the tanned pelt became hard and
uncomfortable when it dried after a wetting. Still, there were various
uses for this horse's hide. It made fine strings and thongs, and the
beast's flesh, as has been said, was a staple of the larder. The first
great resolve of Ab and Oak, these two gallant soldiers of fortune, was
that, alone and unaided, they would circumvent and slay one of these wild
horses, thereby astonishing their respective families, at the same time
gaining the means for filling the stomachs of those families to
repletion, and altogether covering themselves with glory.

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