A Son of the Ages: The Reincarnations and Adventures of Scar, the Link / A Story of Man From the Beginning

by Stanley Waterloo

There is nothing more to tell of the marrying of Limp and Little Toes. He was with me less. I was sometimes most lonesome without him.

Raging like a bull aurochs was Big Bow when he learned that Little Toes was lost to him, and that the wonderful skin was lost as well, and deep were his threats of vengeance upon Limp; but I—I, Scar, the Strong—told him that I would slay him if evil came to Limp through him; and he did not dare to hurt him. Not always do the lake people fight for their friends—we were but rude; but I had for Limp a liking which was my own, and I am sometimes hard of mood. And soon there were other necklaces of shell and pebbles, and amulets and anklets of coloured shells worn by the young women. Very strenuous are lovers.

Never before, as I have said, had the wild people lived so peacefully nor learned so many things to make the living easier. Fine was the climate, for even in winter the snows were not too deep nor the cold too biting, and there were game and fish, and the fruits and nuts and soft roots of the forest were there in plenty. We were soon to have them all the more because of the things, as I have said, that we learned.

Many times had the sun risen since Limp and Little Toes began living in the hut that Limp builded. And one thing, greatest of all, we found, because now we feared the winters less.

I have told of old Ox, and of old Feather, his wife, who were friends of Limp, and who lived alone in a hut above the village, and of how the woman winnowed and pounded her seeds in an open wide earthy space near the hut, surrounded on all sides by rocks, and never entered save by her and Ox, or by the birds of the air. Much she laboured there, being so patient in her gathering of seeds; and it often chanced that when gusts of wind came in her winnowing by tossing up the grain in her hands, some of the seeds would be carried away, and scattered over the little field, and after that the birds would come to eat them. Many a bird did old Ox get there with his arrows; for though his eyes were growing dim, because of age, he still shot very well, for he had been a master bowman in his day. But it is not of the birds he killed that I am going to tell, but of another matter concerning the scattered seeds, and what came at first through no man’s thought or doing, but all by accident, and later because of the wisdom of old Feather.

All through the autumn Feather had winnowed the great store of seeds she had gathered, and there was an abundance in the skin bags in the hut for the winter—both to make into the water cakes, and to trade for meat or fish. But likewise there remained many seeds missed by the birds, scattered over the little bare field, which, though amid the rocks, had a soil which was quite deep, the washings from the heights above. Then came winter and the snow, and the field was hidden.

And then followed the spring, and the rains and the warm sun, and Feather saw what was curious to her, yet what, as she thought upon it, pleased her mightily. Thoughtful and far-sighted was old Feather. What she saw was a green carpet on a little portion of the field near the hut, and, looking at it closely, she saw that it was made up of shoots and spears of the millet and the barley, for in her years she had learned discernment, and knew them well, even as they grew in greenness. Then came to her a great idea. She and old Ox would not trample upon the green space, but would let the plants grow and ripen their seeds there. “So I shall have more seeds for the winter,” thought she, “and shall not have to go afar for a part of them, at least.” And so they guarded the patch of barley and millet, and it grew lustily, and the seeds ripened, and from the fruitful patch old Feather garnered in the autumn quite a store of seeds, to add to that which she gleaned in long journeyings across the plain, and between the rocks where a little soil might be, or in the forest openings. Long and deeply did Feather ponder over this thing when the winter came again, and she and Ox, well fed, huddled and talked or slept in their skins beside the fire in the clod-covered hut. Seeds she had in abundance, and from her store she filled two bags—one of barley, and one of millet—picking these seeds carefully one by one from the others with which they were mixed. To old Ox she told of the strange thing she was going to do, and he promised to aid her, for well had he learned, through the long years, of the shrewdness and wisdom of the faithful woman he had taken in his lusty youth.

To Limp and me, as well as to old Ox, her husband, Feather told her plan, because she knew that we cared for her, and would not deride her; and, as for me, I became almost as earnest and curious as she herself over the outcome of what she was to do. Why should not something come of that? Plants grew from the seed—we all knew that—and why should we not put the seeds where we wanted the plants to grow? But only old Feather had thought of that.

And the spring came again, and the warm rains, and carefully old Feather scattered her seeds all over the little field, with its scant covering of short grasses here and there. The barley she scattered on half of the field, and the millet on the other. I was there when she did it, and even scattered some of the seed myself, for the field was not so very little, after all. Nearly a score of yards across, it must have been. And, after the seed was sown, we sat down beside the hut to talk. Then to the feast spread for them suddenly the keen-eyed birds, the pigeons, and even some of the pheasants and many smaller things. Old Feather ran yelling, and waved a skin at them, and they flew away, only to return when she came from the field, for the seeds showed everywhere but too plainly, and were too inviting. Then happened something because of what was observed of Feather, but did for good far more than she intended. The seeds must be hidden! She found a little fallen tree, a great branch to which still clung the dried leaves, and, I aiding her, we dragged it all over the field, by its trunk, the ragged points and ends of the limbs tearing up the earth, not deeply, but enough, and so hiding all the seeds beneath the ground. Then the birds came no more, though old Ox was watchful and ever ready with his bow.

And as soon as the sun smote down and warmed the earth, though the snows still came at times, there came sprouts from the soil all over the little field, and then it became all a vivid green, and later there was sent up a broad waving mass of the green plants, which yellowed as the autumn came, and the seeds formed, and Feather, the wonderful old woman, had, all together, and close beside her hut, such store of seed as would have taken many weary leagues of search to gather and long carrying in all weather. The birds came again as the grain ripened; but the field was guarded by old Ox and me, and great sport we had in the shooting. A wonderfully good bait for the birds which were best to eat was the grain field of old Feather. And all the grain there was she gathered and put into the skin bags. It was good to see old Ox then. Somehow very close together were these two old creatures, and he was proud.