disappearing with each revolution of his body.
Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to the earth with an audible thud and crunch, his body rebounding slightly and settling down again. Still he lived, for he moved and squirmed, clawing with his hands and feet. I remember the Fire Man running forwards with a stone and hammering him on the head… and then I remember no more.
Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream, did I wake up screaming with fright – to find, often, my mother or nurse, anxious and startled, by my bedside, passing soothing hands through my hair and telling me that they were there and that there was nothing to fear.
My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always with the flight of Lop Ear and myself through the forest. The Fire Man and Broken Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone. Lop Ear and I, in a cautious panic, are fleeing through the trees. In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh, protruding head and shaft from either side, is an arrow of the Fire Man. Not only did the pull and strain of it pain me severely, but it bothered my movements and made it impossible for me to keep up with Lop Ear.
At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree. Lop Ear went right on. I called to him – most plaintively, I remember; and he stopped and looked back. Then he returned to me, climbing into the fork and examining thearrow. He tried to pull it out, but one way the flesh resisted the barbed lead, and the other way it resisted the feathered shaft. Also, it hurt grievously, and I stopped him.
For some time we crouched there, Lop Ear nervous and anxious to be gone, perpetually and apprehensively peering this way and that, and myself whimpering softly and sobbing. Lop Ear was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct in remaining by me, in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of the altruism and comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of the animals.
Once again Lop Ear tried to drag the arrow through the flesh, and I angrily stopped him. Then he bent down and began gnawing the shaft of the arrow with his teeth. As he did so he held the arrow firmly in both hands so that it would not play about in the wound, and at the same time I held onto him. I often meditate upon this scene – the two of us, half-grown cubs, in the childhood of the race, and the one mastering his fear, beating down his selfish impulse of flight, in order to stand by and succour the other. And there rises up before me all that was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias 4 , of life-saving crews and Red Cross nurses, of martyrs and leaders of forlorn hopes, of Father Damien 5 , and of the Christ himself, and of all the men of earth, mighty of stature, whose strength may trace back to the elemental loins of Lop Ear and Big Tooth and other dim denizens of the younger world.
When Lop Ear had chewed off the head of the arrow, the shaft was withdrawn easily enough. I started to go on, but this time it was he that stopped me. My leg was bleeding profusely. Some of the smaller veins had doubtless been ruptured. Running out to the end of a branch, Lop Ear gathered a handful of green leaves. These he stuffed into the wound.They accomplished the purpose, for the bleeding soon stopped. Then we went on together, back to the safety of the caves.
8
Well do I remember that first winter after I left home. I have long dreams of sitting shivering in the cold. Lop Ear and I sit close together, with our arms and legs about each other, blue-faced and with chattering teeth. It got particularly crisp along towards morning. In those chill early hours we slept little, huddling together in numb misery and waiting for the sunrise in order to get warm.
When we went outside there was a crackle of frost under foot. One morning we discovered ice on the surface of the quiet water in the eddy where was the drinking place, and there was a great how-do-you-do about it.
Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to the earth with an audible thud and crunch, his body rebounding slightly and settling down again. Still he lived, for he moved and squirmed, clawing with his hands and feet. I remember the Fire Man running forwards with a stone and hammering him on the head… and then I remember no more.
Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream, did I wake up screaming with fright – to find, often, my mother or nurse, anxious and startled, by my bedside, passing soothing hands through my hair and telling me that they were there and that there was nothing to fear.
My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always with the flight of Lop Ear and myself through the forest. The Fire Man and Broken Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone. Lop Ear and I, in a cautious panic, are fleeing through the trees. In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh, protruding head and shaft from either side, is an arrow of the Fire Man. Not only did the pull and strain of it pain me severely, but it bothered my movements and made it impossible for me to keep up with Lop Ear.
At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree. Lop Ear went right on. I called to him – most plaintively, I remember; and he stopped and looked back. Then he returned to me, climbing into the fork and examining thearrow. He tried to pull it out, but one way the flesh resisted the barbed lead, and the other way it resisted the feathered shaft. Also, it hurt grievously, and I stopped him.
For some time we crouched there, Lop Ear nervous and anxious to be gone, perpetually and apprehensively peering this way and that, and myself whimpering softly and sobbing. Lop Ear was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct in remaining by me, in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of the altruism and comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of the animals.
Once again Lop Ear tried to drag the arrow through the flesh, and I angrily stopped him. Then he bent down and began gnawing the shaft of the arrow with his teeth. As he did so he held the arrow firmly in both hands so that it would not play about in the wound, and at the same time I held onto him. I often meditate upon this scene – the two of us, half-grown cubs, in the childhood of the race, and the one mastering his fear, beating down his selfish impulse of flight, in order to stand by and succour the other. And there rises up before me all that was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias 4 , of life-saving crews and Red Cross nurses, of martyrs and leaders of forlorn hopes, of Father Damien 5 , and of the Christ himself, and of all the men of earth, mighty of stature, whose strength may trace back to the elemental loins of Lop Ear and Big Tooth and other dim denizens of the younger world.
When Lop Ear had chewed off the head of the arrow, the shaft was withdrawn easily enough. I started to go on, but this time it was he that stopped me. My leg was bleeding profusely. Some of the smaller veins had doubtless been ruptured. Running out to the end of a branch, Lop Ear gathered a handful of green leaves. These he stuffed into the wound.They accomplished the purpose, for the bleeding soon stopped. Then we went on together, back to the safety of the caves.
8
Well do I remember that first winter after I left home. I have long dreams of sitting shivering in the cold. Lop Ear and I sit close together, with our arms and legs about each other, blue-faced and with chattering teeth. It got particularly crisp along towards morning. In those chill early hours we slept little, huddling together in numb misery and waiting for the sunrise in order to get warm.
When we went outside there was a crackle of frost under foot. One morning we discovered ice on the surface of the quiet water in the eddy where was the drinking place, and there was a great how-do-you-do about it.
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