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

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

"Couldn't we help him in some way?" asked the Sun.

Mother Nature looked down at the Ape-Man sitting beneath the tree.

"Suppose you shine very brightly on the stick, Sun," she said. "It may make him notice it."

So the Sun shone very brightly on the stick, but the Ape-Man did not move, but sat gazing at the fruit.

"Wait," said Mother Nature. "I will try something else. There is a snake lying among the roots of the tree. I will make him crawl over the stick and move it a little. Then perhaps the Ape-Man will notice it."

So Mother Nature called the Wind to her, and told him to blow gently against the tree and cause some dead limbs and twigs to fall. The Wind blew, and snapped off some little twigs, and one of them fell near the snake and woke it up. Then the snake squirmed off, and in doing so he moved the stick a little, so that the Ape-Man, whose eyes were very sharp, noticed it as it glistened in the sun. He got up from where he was sitting, and went over to the stick and gazed at it stupidly for quite a while.

"Goodness, how slow he is," said the Sun. "Hasn't the creature any brains at all?"

"Not much," replied Mother Nature, "but I think he has an idea at last—just a faint little idea moving about in his brain like a shadow. See, he is going to pick up the stick."

The Sun looked, and saw the Ape-Man take the stick from the ground. He held it in his hand for several moments, looking at it. Then he looked at the bunch of fruit, and after that, he looked back at the stick again. When he had done this two or three times, he took the stick, and going to the edge of the cliff, poked awkwardly at one of the remaining bunches of fruit.