The Iron Star | Page 2

who reads this may go back and read it again and skip that line.
Be it as it may, there once lived in that great forest a boy and his sister. Not being able to speak their language I do not know what their names may have meant; but they had names, one sounding like a grunt, the other a hiss. Better call them Umpl and Sptz, which is as near as I can come to it. Of course Sptz was the girl; and they both believed most firmly in hobgoblins, evil spirits, wicked elves, that were ever on the watch for them in the dark; and when they heard the long cre-ak of a tree branch rubbing on another branch in the night as the wind arose, their ears told them that it was a branch, but their fears said it was a goblin, and in the night-time they believed their fears the most. If only they had fire, with its light and warmth, it would be different! So they thought many a day, when the sunlight glinted through the tree trunks and lay in spots upon the moss. Then the dark came down, and still they had no fire.
Does this seem strange? Remember, then, that matches were not made in those days. Sometimes they got fire by striking two bits of stone together. There were men who knew how to make fire by rubbing bits of wood together. Some day you might try that. I can promise you that you will get very warm; but I don't think it will be because of the fire which you make by it unless some one first shows you how, and Umpl and Sptz's father did not happen to be one of the men who knew how. It was thus a great misfortune when one day the fire went out, or, rather, was put out by the roof falling on it. You must know, that if this was before the days of cities, it was also before the days of houses, and our young friends lived in a cave. On the whole, it was a good cave, fairly high inside and small to get into, and not too smoky when the wind was right. When it wasn't they could go outside, or have a smaller fire: and when that ton of rock came down so suddenly on both fire and supper they were not at all surprised. It had happened before; but the father was angry just the same, and said that he would rather it had fallen on Sptz. Girls were not thought so much of in those days as they are now. But there! girls are like queens: they don't like to be reminded of such things.
Well, the fire was out. So was the supper. The father picked up his war-club and spear and went out after some more, thinking over in his mind which of his neighbours had a fire and at the same time was not at war with him. He did a deal of thinking and brought to mind every cave for forty or fifty miles around, then shook his shocky head. It was of no use whatever. It was all war. So, when he came back with a bundle of hares they had to cook their supper without any fire, and every one knows how hard that is.
What was nearly as bad, they could not depend on the fire to keep out night prowlers. As they sat in the cave one night the stars in the doorway were darkened. The father had just time to spring to the entrance with a spear when in came the huge head and shoulders of a monstrous Cave Bear. The spear bit deep into the vast shaggy chest and the air was filled with such a shuddering roar that several more pieces of stone fell from the roof; and after all it was not the spear, but the sand and sharp bits of stone which Umpl flung in his eyes that made the animal back out, growling and brushing his head in a rage. Sptz and her mother lost no time in heaping into the entrance all the stone blocks that lay around, till it was so small that they had to take some out in the morning so they themselves could go out, and the father vowed to be the death of that bear before he was a week older. But he looked blue as he said it, for he knew very well the bear would be more likely to be the death of him.
So all the more earnestly they watched the valley below them for some wreath of smoke aside from the well-known spots where enemies were cooking their dinners. Sometimes a thunder-storm would sweep across from peak