“What if the terebra and the tabula were lost?” asked Flavia.
“They would make others.”
“If I rubbed my hands together long enough, would they be on fire?” asked the child. She did not yet see how fire could be made just by rubbing bits of wood together. In fact, it was so much easier to keep the fire when it was once made that this was hardly ever done. It was only done regularly once a year, at the beginning of the month sacred to Mars. Then all the altar fires were put out and the priest kindled the sacred fire in this way afresh.
The girls all laughed, and Marcia answered,
“No, dear, it is only certain kinds of wood that will do that. I suppose the gods taught our people long ago which they were. The hearth god lives in the fire, you know. I always think it is like a living thing that will die without care. Father says that the fire keeps away the wicked fever spirits.”
“What’s fever?” asked Yaya, on the other side. “Did you ever have it?”
“No, never; but Father did once, when he was [pg 99]working on the road across the marsh, before I was born. It makes all your bones ache as if they were broken, and you cannot keep still because the spirits shake you all over. You grow hot and grow cold, and have bad dreams, and talk nonsense. Father woke up one day when he had the fever, and said that there were great rats coming to carry off my brother Marcs, who was a baby then, and he tried to get up and kill the rats, when there were none there. And when he was well he never remembered seeing the rats at all.”
Although the children did not know it, a blazing fire and wool clothing help to keep away the malarial fever of a wet wilderness. The people believed that their gods taught them to keep up a fire, to wear clean wool garments and to drink pure water, and it is certain that they were wise in doing all these things religiously, as they did. When they found a good spring on their journey they filled their water bottles and left a little gift there for the god of the waters. They kept near pure running water when they could, and away from standing water, even if they had to go a long way round to do it. In the sudden damps and chills of the lowlands through which they traveled the tunics and mantles of pure wool kept them from taking cold, and there [pg 100]was very little sickness on the journey. They kept to their own habits of eating, and the children were not allowed to experiment with strange and possibly unripe fruits.
It was a long time, however, before they came in sight of any place that could be thought of as a home. Most of the country they saw was not inhabited except by a stray hut dweller here and there, getting a miserable living as he could,—simply because the land was not fit to live in. They crossed a rolling plain, where the marshes were full of unpleasant looking water, and the air at night was full of singing, stinging insects that drove the cattle frantic. It was not quite so bad near the fires. The insects seemed to dislike the smoke, or perhaps their wings could not carry them through the strong currents of air that the flames made around them. As soon as possible they moved up toward the higher land, and here at last they came in sight of the river of the yellow waters, the great river that ran down to the sea. Beyond that they could not go without meeting strange people and the worship of strange and cruel gods.
Every night the beehive covers were taken off the baskets, and the fires were kindled, and in a round hut that was like a big basket lid, a bed of coals was made ready for the next day’s [pg 101]journey. It was the duty of the ten little girls, the guardians of the fire, to take care of this, and they spent a great deal of time around the miniature temple of the fire god. One or another was always there.