United States or Germany ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Lastly but in Umpl's eyes the most important of all they carried, as of old, in a sling, the Iron Star. Surely this was not the time to leave that good-luck-bringer at home, so Umpl reasoned. Thus the Star once more set out upon its travels. Now, the errand which one goes on sometimes has a great deal to do with what he finds at the end of it.
The green branches of peace would be waved, and he would pass in peace along the plank-way from the shore; but while he talked with Umpl and the other chiefs at the council his eyes, like a wise man's, would be roving hither and yonder, learning much about this new village and its people.
So, when he in his turn was partly grown up, he packed up a sack full of cakes, as his grandfather had done, took another full of beautiful bronze knives and trinkets which he himself had made, and the Star-club, which Umpl had never lost. With these he started off on a trading expedition. Times were better now than in the old days, and traders were more plenty. For many weary weeks he wandered.
And one great day he met a Cave Bear and sent his flint-headed shaft whistling with such force that it broke through the hard skull of the savage beast and dropped him in his tracks. All his life long Umpl wore on his arm an ornament made out of the longest teeth and sharpest claws of that bear; and boys and girls looked at it and wondered if they would ever have the right to be so honored.
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.
Every animal that Umpl had ever killed in the forest he had pictured out on the hardest and whitest bones he could find. They were his picture books, and he could take one in hand, perhaps a sketch of the great hairy elephant which we call the mammoth, and show it around the circle and then tell the story of that hunt.
Every one who had copper wanted it worked up, and Umpl was clear-headed enough to bargain for a hut for his people and one for himself and Sptz. Here he lived happily for many years. He owned a share in the long- horned cattle. His men were the best hunters in the village, and the copper things he made were sought for by men who came long distances. Sometimes they brought him bars of copper.
For instance, how they went to the place again in after days and found the piece of the fallen star, broken into several pieces. And how Sptz found that one of them was just the thing to crack nuts on, and Umpl found another was quite as good as a bone-cracker, till his father took it from him and made a head of it for his war-club, where it did great bone-cracking in another way.
But every time they arrived only to find that the drenching rain had washed out all of the fire but the smell, and that was not very satisfying; so they had to go disconsolately back and take the beating which they were sure to get for disappointing their elders, and had to do a double amount of work besides. It was not all playtime with Umpl and Sptz by any means.
There were lively doings in that village when that howl went up. On the whole, it was well for Umpl and his party that Sptz was with them. Breaking a green branch, she went forward in advance and spears were slowly lowered. Someone was found who could speak a few Cave-Men words, and all could use sign language; so the case was explained and Umpl welcomed.
Word Of The Day