The Silent Readers: Sixth Reader

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

Then Ang knelt by the side of the child and its mother and prayed: "O Thou who are greater than the greatest and mightier than the mightiest, again Thou hast saved us by the red magic. By it Thou hast made us, Thy children, masters of the beasts of the wood, for the fear of the Red One is upon them all."

As the strength of the winter passed and the snow began to melt, Ang had a visit from Wang, who lived some days' journey to the east. During the winter the men of the North saw little of each other. Each family needed a large hunting ground, and men had not learned to live together. The distances between the families were so great that when the snow was deep in the woods months passed in which the isolated families saw no human beings outside of their own circle. But when the ice broke up and the snow melted, the men who were on fairly friendly terms paid visits to each other and exchanged stories of the winter's experiences.

Now Wang approached the cave of Ang with great ceremony. It was neither good manners nor safe to approach another man's home too suddenly. One could not be sure of a welcome, and it was always assumed that one who came suddenly was an enemy. So Wang strolled out on an open spot by the bank of the river which flowed by the cave of Ang, and acted as if he did not know that there was another human being within a day's journey. He tossed stones into the water and watched the ripples. Then he imitated the call of the wild fowl on the river banks.

For a time Ang ignored him, going about as if he saw no one. But Oma and Om peered out curiously from the mouth of the cave. At last Ang wandered down to the river's edge and looked aimlessly everywhere but where Wang stood. He too tossed many stones into the river. Finally, apparently satisfied that all the demands of primitive etiquette had been met, Ang turned to Wang and put his left hand over his heart and raised his right to the sky. Wang did the same; they were of one blood and children of the Great Father.

Both dropped their weapons where they stood and went to meet each other unarmed. Ang and Wang had played together as boys, hunted together as young men, and taken wives from the same family, but each spring, after the winter's separation, they met with the same elaborate ceremony, because it was the man custom.

When the men were seated, Oma and Om came out and sat near by. "A long winter," said Ang. "A long winter," answered Wang. "Much cold," said Ang. "Much cold," answered Wang. "The woman and the boy?" asked Wang. "The woman is well, and the child grows like a bear's cub," replied Ang.

Wang turned and looked at Oma and Om and gave a grunt of surprise. "Why, they are as fat and sleek as if it was the time of fruits and nuts instead of the end of the great cold, when even the bear is so thin that he casts no shadow. Has the eagle carried thee to the Southland on its wings? Have you found food that cold does not harden? Has Odin fed you? My woman sits all day at the going in of the cave. She looks old like the moss-bearded oak. She notices nothing, but talks ever about the little one whom the Black Robber took; she cares not for the child that is left, who cries for food like a young kid whose mother the wolves have eaten. And my strength has not come again. My traps and snares take nothing, and my arrow is slower than the flying deer."

At this Oma leaped to her feet and brought a piece of dried venison from the cave and a cake made from a flour of pounded nuts and seeds and put them before the hungry man. He ate ravenously, like a famished wolf, in silence, but questioning with eager eye, "How? Why? What?"

And Ang answered the unspoken question: "It was cold, so cold that the blood in one's body ran slow and became like ice in the stream. The meat became like stone. The supply of nuts failed. The woman grew weak. The huntsman from the north took the child by the throat. His breath came hard. I said, 'He will be taken as the others have been taken, and the mother will not stay without the child, and I shall be alone,' and I cried to the Great One, to Odin, the All-Father: 'We are cold, give us heat; we are hungry, give us food.' I heard no answer; there was no voice; but the prayer was heard. I sat by the going in of the cave, making knives of flint, not thinking to use them, but hoping to forget and cover up the hoarse crying of the child with the noise of the flints. So I smote two stones together, and the chips fell into the dry moss at my feet. There was a buzzing noise like that of a bee in a flower; a little white cloud rose from the moss, then spots of light like star-flies at night. Red tongues reached out and ate up the moss and the dry sticks. I saw that the Red One was hungry, and I gave him more moss and dry wood to eat. He grew big and bright, and his breath was warm like that of summer, and Oma brought out the child, and he drove away the barking sickness from the child's throat. Then we knew that Odin had heard us."