The Silent Readers: Sixth Reader

by William Dodge Lewis; Ethel Maltby Gehres; Albert Lindsay Rowland

The Fire Spirit

As Ang watched the fire, it hungrily ate up the dry moss, and lapped the dry sticks. He brought more and fed them to the reaching flames. The northern darkness had shut in the rest of the world, light lingered at the door of the cave of Ang, and the warm breath of the fire brought back the heat of summer in the midst of winter. Joy filled the heart of Ang, and he called to the mother and the child: "Oma, Om, come! The Great One has heard. Come, come, come quickly."

The bark door opened, and the mother came out holding the child to her breast. A cry of wonder broke from her as she saw the fire, but wonder gave way to the mother instinct. The All-Father had heard. Here were warmth and light. The gray huntsman should not have her child. She crouched by the fire, holding the babe in her arms so that she sheltered it from the encircling cold while the glowing fire warmed and healed it. With gratitude and awe she watched the color come back to the child's face, and then she looked with eager questioning at the face of Ang, as it shone with a light brighter than that of the fire.

Finally he spoke: "I sat at the going in of the cave. Fear gripped me; the cold smote me. I said, Odin has forgotten. It may be that he has gone to the Southland because the cold was stronger than he. I heard the barking of the child. The dread of the great robber was on me. I tried to forget. I smote the flints together. Star-flies seemed to leap from the stone, and the fire was born in the heart of the moss."

Then Ang stood by the mother and the child and placed his left hand on the head of the mother and raised his right hand to the sky to which the leaping flames pointed and said: "Great Father, now I know that none is greater than Thou; not even the giants of the North. Thy shining arrows have driven the huntsman back. And I know that Thine eyes see farther than the eagle floating in the sky, for thou hast seen us alone in the great woods, and Thine ear is quicker to hear than that of the mother listening for the cry of her first-born, for thou hast heard the cry that did not rise to our lips. Henceforth the fire shall be the sign of Thee. As the flames leap up the sky, so shall our thoughts leap to Thee, Our Father."

All through the long cold winter Ang and Oma fed the fire, and Om grew well and strong again. They very soon found that the fire, though it gave so freely the life-giving light and heat, had to be treated with great care. It was a good servant but a poor master. One day little Om toddled too close and burned his hand on a live coal. On another day the wind blew the sparks from the fire into the dry rushes which screened the entrance to the cave, and in a moment the cave was filled with flames and smoke, and Oma had to cover her head and that of Om with skins, and dash out into the open. All the bedding of dry leaves was burned up, and some of the skins were badly scorched. The wooden handles of many of Ang's spears and arrows and knives were burned also. It took many days of hard work to replace what the fire had eaten. So they came to fear as well as to love it.

But Ang and Oma learned one thing from the fire which burned out their cave that was worth more than a thousand fires could destroy. Part of a deer, which Ang had killed, hung inside of the cave. It had been very hard to get, and it was almost the first thing which Ang thought of after the fire had burned down. If that had been destroyed, they might starve before he could kill another one. He dashed into the cave to see if anything was left, the fear of hunger already gripping his vitals. A strange new odor filled his nostrils and doubled his hunger—the smell of roasted venison. The deer still hung from the side of the cave. The hair had been burned off and the skin hung in rolls, but the flesh was there, brown, hot, dripping red.

At Ang's call Oma hurried in. It needed but one whiff of the fragrant air to convince her that the touch of fire had made of the cold frozen meat food more delicious than the fruits of summer. She snatched a long stone knife from her belt and cut strips of venison steak from the smoking mass and gave to Ang and Om.