From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age / A Story of the Missing Link, Showing the First Steps in Industry, Commerce, Government, Religion and the Arts; With an Account of the Great Expedition From Cocoanut Hill and the Wars in Alligator Swamp

by Austin Bierbower

“I’m hungry,” said Sosee, after a long pause. “Never did I sit so long at a meal, and not eat anything.”

“If this meal of the brute goes on much longer,” said Koree, “we will both starve, or else be eaten.”

Just then, to the inexpressible relief of the tired, hungry and bored lovers, the animal showed signs of satiety. He quit eating, looked around with an air of satisfaction, stretched himself, and made a start, as if about to leave the place. Their gratification, however, was short. He walked around a few steps, and then, to their dismay, lay down under the tree on which Koree was perched, and disposed himself for an afternoon nap.

Koree looked at Sosee, and was silent.

Sosee returned the look, but was too disgusted and empty for utterance.

“If that beast sleeps as long as he eats,” she said, “we will get neither supper nor slumber to night.”

“We will, however,” returned Koree, “be safe; for neither ape nor snake will attack us with such a watch at our door. So one danger wards off another.”

They were now reconciling themselves to spend the balance of the day, and perhaps the night, in this situation, and also to add to their weariness, hunger and disgust, the additional discomforts of sleeplessness and danger. For as Sosee had never slept on a tree (the Ammi having come to the ground before her birth), it was feared that, although her feet were still prehensile, and served her well in climbing, they might fail her from lack of practice when it came to holding to a limb when asleep. Koree determined not to sleep under these circumstances, both because he could not trust himself on a tree when asleep, and because he wanted to watch Sosee in order to rescue her from the mammoth in case she should fall. Love up a tree was thus faithful to the last.

While they were making their preparations for a continued disappointment, however, an accident, which at first seemed disastrous, came happily to their relief. Koree, in restlessly changing his position, fell off the tree, and came down with a thump on the back of the mammoth.