The next thing he did was very stupid, but he had not yet begun to think. He took a stone and threw it at the fruit, as he had often done before, and knocked one of the bunches down. It fell over the edge of the cliff and was dashed to bits on the rocks below, far out of his reach.
By this time the ape had tried all the things he knew, and as he could not think of anything else to do, he sat down and gazed at the fruit for a long time in silence. There were tears in his eyes, for he was very hungry, but he could think of no way to get the fruit.
Mother Nature, who was watching the efforts of her Ape-Man, pointed him out to the Sun.
"You see, Sun," she said, "now that the cold has made food so scarce, my children in the valley are getting very hungry. That poor creature down there actually has tears in his eyes."
"He may be hungry," said the Sun, "but I don't see that it has made him think, the way you said it would."
"He is doing his best," said Mother Nature. "You see, he hasn't much of a brain to think with, but what little he has is trying very hard to find a way to get that bunch of fruit for his breakfast."
The Sun laughed.
"How stupid your Ape-Man is," he said. "There is a splendid big stick lying in the grass right under the tree, with a hook at the end of it where a limb has been broken off. All the foolish creature has to do is to take the stick in his hands, pull the bunch of fruit toward him with it, and he will have his breakfast. It is very simple and easy."
"It may seem easy to you, Sun," said Mother Nature, "but it isn't easy at all to a poor creature who has never thought before in all his life. It has taken millions of years to bring this Ape-Man from the mud and slime of the Ocean, to where he is now, but all that was not so hard, as it is to make him pick up that stick and gather that bunch of fruit. If he does it, he will have had an idea for the first time in his life; he will have begun to think, and from now on he will not be an animal any longer, but a Man."