The Story of Ab | Page 9

future could not admit of doubt. He was the first-born of an important
family of a great race and his inheritance had no boundaries. Just where
the possessions of the Ab family began or where they terminated no
bird nor beast nor human being could tell. The estates of the family
extended from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean and there were no
dividing lines. Of course, something depended upon the existence or
non-existence of a stronger cave family somewhere else, but that
mattered not. And the babe grew into a sturdy youth, just as grow the
boys of today, and had his friendships and adventures. He did not
attend the public schools--the school system was what might
reasonably be termed inefficient in his time--nor did he attend a private
school, for the private schools were weak, as well, but he did attend the
great school of Nature from the moment he opened his eyes in the
morning until he closed them at night. Of his schoolboy days and his
friendships and his various affairs, this is the immediate story.
The father and mother of Ab as has, it is hoped, been made apparent,
were strong people, intelligent up to the grade of the time and worthy

of regard in many ways. The two could fairly hold their own, not only
against the wild beasts, but against any other cave pair, should the
emergency arise. They had names, of course. The name of Ab's father
was One-Ear, the sequence of an incident occurring when he was very
young, an accidental and too intimate acquaintance with a species of
wildcat which infested the region and from which the babe had been
rescued none too soon. The name of Ab's mother was Red-Spot, and
she had been so called because of a not unsightly but conspicuous
birthmark appearing on her left shoulder. As to ancestry, Ab's father
could distinctly remember his own grandfather as the old gentleman
had appeared just previous to his consumption by a monstrous bear,
and Red-Spot had some vague remembrance of her own grandmother.
As for Ab's own name, it came from no personal mark or peculiarity or
as the result of any particular incident of his babyhood. It was merely a
convenient adaptation by his parents of a childish expression of his
own, a labial attempt to say something. His mother had mimicked his
babyish prattlings, the father had laughed over the mimicry, and,
almost unconsciously, they referred to their baby afterward as "Ab,"
until it grew into a name which should be his for life. There was no
formal early naming of a child in those days; the name eventually made
itself, and that was all there was to it. There was, for instance, a child
living not many miles away, destined to be a future playmate and ally
of Ab, who, though of nearly the same age, had not yet been named at
all. His title, when he finally attained it, was merely Oak. This was not
because he was straight as an oak, or because he had an acorn
birthmark, but because adjoining the cave where he was born stood a
great oak with spreading limbs, from one of which was dangled a rude
cradle, into which the babe was tied, and where he would be safe from
all attacks during the absence of his parents on such occasions as they
did not wish the burden of carrying him about. "Rock-a-by-baby upon
the tree-top" was often a reality in the time of the cave men.
Ab was fortunate in being born at a reasonably comfortable stage of the
world's history. He had a decent prospect as to clothing and shelter, and
there was abundance of food for those brave enough or ingenious
enough to win it. The climate was not enervating. There were cold

times for the people of the epoch and, in their seasons, harsh and
chilling winds swept over bare and chilling glaciers, though a
semi-tropical landscape was all about. So suddenly had come the
change from frigid cold to moderate warmth, that the vast fields of ice
once moving southward were not thawed to their utmost depths even
when rank vegetation and a teeming life had sprung up in the now
European area, and so it came that, in some places, cold, white
monuments and glittering plateaus still showed themselves amid the
forest and fed the tumbling streams which made the rivers rushing to
the ocean. There were days of bitter cold in winter and sultry heat in
summer.
It may fairly be borne in mind of this child Ab that he was somewhat
different from the child of to-day, and nearer the quadruped in his
manner of swift development. The puppy though delinquent in the
matter of opening it's eyes, waddles clumsily