The Later Cave-Men Part 7

_Where does it go? Hold a cold plate over the steam and see what happens. Where do the drops of water on the plate come from?_

_When water stands in the open air, what becomes of part of it?_

_Why do we hang clothes out on the clothes-line to dry?_

_What becomes of the water that was in the clothes?_

_Tell what you think happens just as clouds form. See if you can do something that will show what happens at the time._

_What happens to the clouds just as it begins to rain?_

XI

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Why would the gra.s.s-eating animals go from place to place during the summer? What do you think the Cave-men would do when the herds went away?

At what season of the year are nuts fit to gather? Is there any place near by where you have a right to go nutting?

What animals eat nuts? What animals store nuts? Do you think the Cave-men would gather many nuts?

_The Nutting Season_

Summer pa.s.sed as summers had pa.s.sed before. When the bison went to the higher lands, the Cave-men followed them. When they started toward their winter pastures, the Cave-men came home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_All the women and children went nutting._"]

It was the nutting season when they returned. All the beech, walnut, and b.u.t.ternut trees were heavily laden that year. The ground underneath their branches was nearly covered with nuts. Slender hazel bushes bent under their heavy loads.

Wild hogs and bears had begun to harvest the nuts before the Cave-men returned. Each day they went to the trees and ate the nuts that had fallen. When Eagle-eye saw what they were doing, she said, "Bring your bags and baskets and come. If we do not look out the hogs will get the best of the nuts this year."

Then all the women and children went nutting. They gathered the nuts that lay upon the ground and put them in their baskets. Some climbed trees and shook the branches until they got a shower of nuts; others took their digging sticks and beat the heavily laden branches.

The children had a feast that day. They sat down under the trees and cracked all the nuts they could eat. They gathered handfuls and helped their mothers fill baskets and skin bags. They climbed the trees and they laughed and played all day long.

When the women first came to the trees, they heard the wild hogs in the distance. Once a big hog came up and tried to eat the nuts out of a basket. But Eagle-eye chased him with a big stick and drove him away from the spot.

When Eagle-eye was coming back from the chase, she saw other trees heavily laden. She called to the women, and they came to the spot and forgot all about the nuts they had gathered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The wild hogs were having a feast._]

It was Chew-chew who first thought of the pile of nuts they had left on the ground. It was she who ran to the trees and found the wild hogs having a feast.

Chew-chew struck one of the hogs with her digging stick. He was munching the nuts she had gathered. He turned away and she struck another; then the first hog came back.

Chew-chew soon found that unless she had help the hogs would eat all the nuts, for as fast as she drove one hog away another one came back.

Chew-chew screamed for help and the women came with their digging-sticks.

The women drove the hogs away, but they returned again and again. And so the women learned to keep a close watch while they were gathering nuts. But in spite of all their trouble, they had a good time that day.

It was not until they were starting home that they found that a serious thing had happened. They did not know all about it then, and some of them never knew.

It was all about Fleetfoot. When Eagle-eye looked for him, he was nowhere to be seen. At first she thought he was with Chew-chew, but Chew-chew had not seen him since morn.

Fleetfoot had played near his mother nearly all day. He had cracked nuts; he had climbed trees; he had mimicked the squirrels; he had scattered burrs in the rabbits' paths, and he had done all sorts of things.

But now Fleetfoot was lost, and everybody began to hunt for him.

Eagle-eye found the stones he had left only a short time before. She found his tracks and followed them until they crossed the boundary of the hunting ground. There she lost all trace of him. She called, but the "caw-caw" of a crow was the only answer.

The men heard her call, and came to join in the search. But in spite of all they could do, they did not find the child.

And so the Cave-men thought they would never see Fleetfoot again. They thought he had lost his way in the forest and had been killed by a cave-bear. For a few days they mourned for the child, then they spoke no more of him.

#THINGS TO DO#

_Tell a story of what happened one time when you went nutting._

_Name all the nuts you can that grow on trees. Name those that grow on bushes. Where do peanuts grow?_

_Dramatize this story._

_Draw a picture of the part you like the best._

XII

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Why do people put up such signs as "Keep off," "Do not trespa.s.s"?

Why do people build fences around their land?

Do you think the Cave-men could hunt wherever they chose?

Why did each clan have its own hunting ground? What kind of boundaries did the hunting grounds have? Why was it not safe to go on the land of a stranger?

Why did mothers teach their children the boundary lines?

What do you think some mothers mean when they tell their children that the "Bogie-man" will get them?

_Why Mothers Taught their Children the Boundary Lines_