The Cave Twins Part 1

The Cave Twins.

by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

In this 1916 Twins book, the sixth of the series by Lucy Fitch Perkins we meet with Firetop and Firefly, and their family. The setting is in an age where none of the nice things of the civilised world exist at all.

There are no books, no wheels, no firearms to hunt with, and everything has to be done by sheer cunning, or found out by sheer accident. The twins' parents set off on a short voyage of exploration, to see what lies over the horizon, and the twins sneak off to follow them secretly.

Of course they soon have to make a "rescue me" signal when they find they can't cope, but they are allowed to remain with their parents, especially as they are quite good at shooting arrows with their bows, and finding small items of food in other ways.

One day there is a huge earthquake and tsunami, and they find they are all marooned on an island, which is what we now know as the Isle of Wight. The twins' father gets an idea from something the twins do, and creates the first canoe, with which he goes and fetches old Granny and other members of the family. A short book, but quite a nice one.

THE CAVE TWINS, BY LUCY FITCH PERKINS.

INTRODUCTION.

PREHISTORIC MAN.

_This is a story about things that happened ages and ages ago, before any of us were born, or our great-great-grandfathers either, for that matter. It was so very long ago that there were no houses, or farms, or roads from one place to another, and there was not a single city, or a town, or even a village in the whole earth_.

_There was just the great, round world, all fresh and new, and covered with growing things; and there were wild beasts of all kinds in the forests, and fishes of all kinds in the seas, and all sorts of birds and flying creatures in the air_.

_Besides all these wonderful things in the new, new world, there was Man_.

_He was quite new too. He didn't know much of anything about the world.

All that he really knew was that there was a world, and that he was in it, and that there were fierce wild animals in it too, which would kill him and eat him if he didn't kill them first. And he knew very well that he was not as swift as the deer, or as big as the elephant, or as strong as the lion, or as fierce as the tiger, and it seemed to him as if he hadn't much chance to stay alive at all in a world so full of terrible creatures who wanted to eat him up_.

_But this Prehistoric Man was very brave, and he could do two things which none of the other creatures could do--he could laugh and he could think_.

_One day, he sat down on a rock, and took his head between his hands and thought and thought, and by and by he lifted up his head and said to his wife,--for of course he had a wife,--"I have it, my dear. If we are not as strong as the wild beasts, we must be a great deal more clever_."

_So he got right up off the rock and set about being clever. And so did his wife. They were so clever that they hid themselves in trees and rocks where the wild beasts could not find them. And they found out the secret of fire_.

_The other creatures could not find out the secret of fire to save their lives, and they were dreadfully afraid of it. Then the Man and his wife made weapons out of stones, and bones, and they made dishes out of mud, and though these things weren't a bit like our weapons or our dishes, they got along very well with them for many years_.

_In the earliest times of all, the Woman hunted and trapped the wild creatures, and fished, all by herself, but by and by she began to let the Man do the hunting and bring home the game, while she stayed in the cave house and kept the hearth-fire bright and took care of the children. She cooked the food that he brought home, and she made needles out of bones and sewed skins together for clothes for her husband and the children and herself. After a long time she began to plant seeds of the wild things that she found were good to eat, and to raise food out of the ground_.

_All these things they did, and many more that had never been done before,--and because they were so much more clever than all the beasts of the forest, the Prehistoric Man and his prehistoric wife lived a long time in a little peace and more happiness than you might at first think possible_.

_They taught their children all the clever things they had thought out, and these children, when they grew up, taught them to their children, and this went on for hundreds and thousands of years. Each generation learned new things and taught them to the next, until now we have houses and churches and villages and cities dotted over the whole earth, and there are roads going from everywhere to everywhere else. There are railroads and steam-cars and telegraph and telephone lines, and printing-presses, so that to-day everybody knows more about the very ends of the earth than Prehistoric Man could possibly know about what was happening fifty miles away from him_.

_And all these things we have to-day because the Prehistoric Man and the Prehistoric Woman did their part bravely and well when the earth was young_.

_This is a story about that far-off time. If you don't believe it's true, every word of it, just get out your atlas and find the places on the map. They are every one of them there_.

CHAPTER ONE.

GRANNIE AND THE TWINS.

One bright morning of early spring, long ages ago, the sun peered through the trees on the edge of a vast forest, and sent a shaft of yellow sunlight right into the mouth of a great, dark cave. In front of the cave a bright fire was burning, and on a rock beside it sat an old woman. In her lap was a piece of birch-bark, and on the bark was a heap of acorns. She was roasting them in the ashes and eating them. At her right hand, within easy reach, there was a pile of broken sticks and tree-branches, and every now and then the old woman put on fresh wood and stirred the coals to keep the fire bright.

A little path ran from the front of the cave where the old woman sat down the sloping hillside to a blue river, and the morning sun s.h.i.+ning across it made a bridge of dazzling light from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

Beyond the river there were green fields and forests, and beyond the forests high hills over which the sun climbed every morning. What lay beyond those far blue hills neither the old woman nor any of the clan of the Black Bear had the slightest idea.

Everything seemed quiet and peaceful on that spring morning so long ago.

The trees were beginning to turn green and little plants were already pus.h.i.+ng their way through the carpet of dead leaves. A robin lit upon the branches of a tree above the cave and sang his morning song.

There was no other sound except the sizzling of a wet stick on the fire, and the snapping noise made by the old woman when she took a roasted acorn from the fire and cracked it with her teeth.

The old woman was not pretty to look at. Her face was as brown as leather and covered with wrinkles, and her hair hung about it in ragged grey locks. It was no wonder that her hair was rough and ragged, for it had never been combed her whole life long, and she was quite old--oh, as old as forty, maybe! But she really couldn't help her hair being like that any more than she could help being forty, because there was not a single comb yet made in the whole world!

It was a mystery how she cracked the nuts so well, because she had only a few teeth left in her mouth. For clothing she had nothing but the skin of a deer fastened over her left shoulder by a thorn, and tied around her waist with a leather thong.

Although she seemed to be thinking of nothing but her nuts, the little bright eyes of the old woman kept close watch in every direction, and her ears were quick to hear every unusual sound. If a twig snapped, or there was a rustling noise in the underbrush, she was ready in an instant to fling fresh dry sticks on the fire and make it glow red against the black opening of the cave.

She knew that no wild animal, however fierce and hungry, would dare come near the leaping flames. Yet watchful as she was, she did not see two children who were creeping stealthily toward her, over the great rocks which sheltered the mouth of the cave.

They were a boy and a girl, and from their size they must have been about eight years old. They both had bright twinkling eyes and flaming red hair, and were dressed alike in skins of red foxes of almost the same colour. You could tell at a glance that they were twins, but it would have puzzled any one to tell whether they were both boys or both girls, or one of each kind. They came down over the rocks so quietly that not even the quick ears of the old woman heard the faintest sound.

When they had almost reached the ground, they stopped, and at the same instant opened their mouths and howled exactly like two young wolves!

The noise was so sudden and so near that the old woman never thought of her fire at all. She simply screamed and fell right over backwards into the cave. Then she rolled over and scuttled on all fours out of sight in the darkness as fast as she could go.

The acorns from her lap flew in every direction and rolled down the hillside. The boy and girl jumped to the ground, shrieking with laughter. In a moment the old woman was back again in the door of the cave. She had a stout stick in her hand and she looked very angry. She shook the stick at the Twins and scolded them so fast that the sound of it was like the chattering of an angry squirrel in a tree-top.

Now, of course, I cannot tell you just the words she used, but, translated into English, this is what she said:--

"You horrid little catamounts, if I catch you, I'll teach you better manners! I'll give you such a taste of this stick that you'll not need more till the river runs dry."

The Twins sprang up, still shrieking with laughter, and danced about the fire just out of reach of the woman's stick.

"But you can't catch us," they screamed.

Their red locks of hair flew about in the wind as they danced, until it looked almost as if red flames were bursting from their heads. The old woman glared at them helplessly.

"Dance away," she cried, "dance away, you red-headed rascals! I shan't need to put sticks on the fire while you are here. Your red hair would scare away the sabre-toothed tiger himself! No wonder you are not afraid to run alone in the forest! With such heads on you, you are as safe as if you were in the heart of the cave."

Just then she saw her acorns all spilled on the ground, and her rage broke out afresh.

"Pick them up, you little rats! They are the last of my winter's store, and it will be four moons yet before they will be ripe again."

Down went the children on their hands and knees, and began to gather up the scattered nuts. Young as they were, they knew the value of food.

They also knew the taste of Grannie's stick. In those days food could be found only at the risk of life itself and was not to be thrown away while hunger lasted.