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

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

"It may seem a little thing to you, Sun," said Mother Nature, "but it is really the biggest thing you have ever seen in your life. For the first time, you have seen the birth of a Man. He is very slow and clumsy and stupid, now, but after a while his children and his children's children are going to become so strong and cunning and powerful by means of their little brains, that they will rule the Earth, and all the other animals will be afraid of them, and bow down to them. And they will harness the Wind, and the Rivers, and the Lightning, and cause Heat and Cold to do their bidding, and they will defy the Ocean, and conquer the Air, and make even you, Sun, work for them and serve them."

"Ha-Ha!" laughed the Sun. "Those little Ape-Men make me work for them! I don't believe it."

"Wait and see," said Mother Nature. "I know what I am talking about, for I have seen the same thing happen, many times, in other worlds that you know nothing about. And Man will do all these things I tell you of, because God has given him a brain and taught him to think.

"How has God taught him to think?" said the Sun. "It was the fruit, and the snake, and the Wind, and you and I who taught him."

Mother Nature looked at the Sun and frowned.

"Don't you know, you foolish Sun, that God made the fruit, and the snake, and the Wind, and the Earth, and you, and everything else in the Universe, and that if it were not for His laws, you wouldn't be here at all. You had better go on shining, and not make foolish remarks about things you do not understand." Then Mother Nature went away.

The Ape-Man, asleep in the sun, woke up after a time, and feeling thirsty he went down to the stream in the valley to get a drink. But he took the stick he had used to get the fruit, with him. It was a nice stick, straight and strong, like a spear, except for the short hooked limb at the end of it, and the Ape-Man liked it, because it had helped him get something to eat.

When he went back that night to the place in the grass where he usually slept, some of the other Ape-People crowded about him, chattering in surprise at seeing him carrying the stick, for this was something none of them had ever done before. One of the crowd tried to take the stick away from him, but he drew back and hit the other over the head with it and knocked him down. After that the others were afraid of him, and let him alone. And although the Ape-People had no language, and did not know how to speak as we do, they used different kinds of cries and grunts, when they were angry, or cold, or afraid. When anything frightened them, they uttered a cry that sounded like "Adh!", and because they said this whenever the Ape-Man with the club came among them, it grew to be a sort of name for him, and he shouted it out to terrify them, when he made his way through the woods.

After a while, others of the apes got clubs too, and used them to fight with, but except the stones they sometimes threw, Adh's stick was the very first weapon used by Man.

Mother Nature was satisfied with her new Man, so far as he had gone, but she knew that he would have to suffer, if he was to learn, and although she did not like to make him suffer, she had to do it.