The Tree-Dwellers Part 15

_How Sharptooth Made a Basket_

Before the Tree-dwellers had fire they did not need baskets.

For a long time afterwards they did not make them.

They ate fruits from the trees and cracked the nuts where they found them.

Each night they came home one by one.

Sharptooth still had charge of the fire.

She ate wild roots that grew near.

She cracked nuts that she found in the trees close by.

She ate berries in a neighboring patch.

But she never went far away, and she never stayed away long.

The blueberries were now ripe, so she went to the patch.

How she wished she might stay a long time!

But as soon as she had eaten a few, she hurried home to the fire.

As she scrambled over the fallen trees, she broke off a handful of bushes.

They were loaded with ripe blueberries.

She carried them home to the children.

She told the women and children about the patch.

They all wanted to go.

So they piled broken branches upon the fire.

Then Sharptooth told one of the women to stay at home and take charge of the fire.

The women left their babies and little children in charge of this woman, too.

How disappointed the little children were!

They watched the women and older children until they had pa.s.sed out of sight among the trees.

Sharptooth led the way to the patch.

In a few moments they found it.

It was almost blue with berries.

The children ate as fast as they picked.

The women ate, too, for a while.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The bottom of the basket_]

But they remembered their little ones at home.

So they picked heaping handfuls of berries.

They wanted to carry more berries, so hunted for something to hold them.

One woman had a rabbit skin.

The other women helped her fill it with berries.

Another woman made a basket of oak leaves.

They filled that with berries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_She bent the rushes and tied the ends together_"]

Sharptooth gathered some rushes from a marshy place and tried still another way.

She sat down upon the gra.s.s and began to weave.

The bottom of the basket was soon made.

Then she bent the rushes and tied the ends together.

After that she wove round and round.

When the basket was deep enough she fastened the ends.

Then the basket was done.

It did not have a rim.

Sharptooth did not miss the rim, for this was her first basket.

She called the women and children around her.

They ran up to see what she had made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_She wove round and round_"]

Every one wanted to take it.

It did not take long to fill the basket with berries.

Sharptooth took them home to the children.

How glad the little ones were when they saw the women and children!

They were glad to eat the berries.

While they were smacking their lips, Sharptooth showed them the basket.

That night as the fathers and mothers came home, the children ran out to meet them.

Each time they told what Sharptooth had made.

Each time they showed the rush basket.

It was not many days before each of the older children had made one like it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_When the basket was deep enough she fastened the ends_"]

THINGS TO DO

_Look at the pictures in this lesson and see how Sharptooth's basket was made._ _Gather tough gra.s.ses or rushes and make a basket of your own._ _Show how the children ran to meet the fathers and mothers as they came home at night. Draw the picture._

XXVII.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you think that the fire clan used fire in as many ways as we do?

What do we use it for?

How many uses do you think that the fire clan made of it?

Can you think how people learned to cook food?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Sabre-tooth was large and fierce_"]

_How Bodo Used Fire_

All the Tree-dwellers now knew that the fire was their friend.

They found it useful in many ways.

It guarded the spot where they slept at night, and it helped them all through the day.

They no longer swung from branch to branch.

When they carried a firebrand, it was safe to walk on the ground.

Their hands were at last free.

When Bodo started out with his firebrand the wild animals ran to their dens.

Sometimes Bodo pursued them.