The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

When Mother Nature came along she was very much pleased.

"They are beginning to change already," she said. "See how much larger and stronger they are. But I think I might as well take away their tails."

"Why?" said the Sun. "It seems to me their tails are very useful things. Some of the monkeys down in the jungle are beginning to use them to help themselves in climbing about in the trees."

"That is all very well for monkeys," smiled Mother Nature. "They need them, for they are going to be monkeys and live in trees all the rest of their lives. But these animals are different. They do not need to climb trees so much now, for there is plenty of food near the ground, and very few enemies about from whom they must escape."

"But," objected the Sun, "a time may come when there will not be any food near the ground, and who knows when some hungry beasts may wander into the valley and eat all your new creatures up?"

"What you say is very true, Sun," replied Mother Nature. "Those things of which you speak are very likely to happen. But I am going to take away their tails just the same, for it would never do to have them turn into monkeys, like the creatures down in the jungles. These animals are going to be different. For one thing, they must learn to walk about on their hind feet, instead of running on all fours, like the other beasts. And to teach them that, I have got to keep them out of the tree-tops. If they haven't sense enough to find some way to get food, and protect themselves from their enemies, they will surely starve, or be eaten up. But I am certain they will get along."

So the ape creatures lived happily in their wide valley, picking the fruit and nuts from the low bushes and trees, and sleeping safely in grassy beds on the ground, and because Mother Nature did not think they needed tails, she took them away, just as her great laws had taken away the feet of the snake, and the eyes of the mole, when they were no longer needed. As the years went by, and new generations of apes were born, their tails were smaller and smaller, and finally, when a very long time indeed had passed, they were born without any tails at all.

The Sun watched, for hundreds and thousands of years, and he saw that after a while the whole valley came to be full of the new creatures without tails. At first they ran about on all fours, picking food, or climbing the trees, the way they had always done, but because there were so many of them to be fed, it often happened that food on the bushes became scarce near the ground, and the ape creatures had to stand up on their hind legs in order to reach it. After a while, from standing up on their hind legs so much, they got used to it, and came to like it, and walked about that way most of the time.