Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

What do you think the beads you wear are made of?

Can you think how they were made?

What do you think the Cave-men used for beads?

What did they wear for ornaments besides beads?

Can you think how they bored holes through their ornaments?

What does the carpenter use to bore holes with?

How does the woodpecker bore holes?

For several days after the feast the Cave-men did not hunt.

As long as they had meat they stayed near the cave and worked upon their trophies.

They were trying to bore holes through the teeth and claws, so as to string them and wear them for ornaments.

Strongarm was working upon the big sabre tooth.

When he had worked for some time, the Cave-men gathered around to see how deep a hole he had made.

Some of the men said that he never could do it, but others thought that it could be done.

Strongarm was tired, so he rested a while and talked to the people about boring holes.

He told what he had heard when he was a boy.

All the grown people had heard what he said many times, but they were always ready to hear it again.

Besides, they wished their children to hear it.

So old and young gathered around to hear what Strongarm said.

They all looked and listened as Strongarm showed the children how to make holes with awls.

As he spoke, the people picked up thorns or sharp bones and punched them through some object.

Then Strongarm showed them a bone awl that he had made to punch holes through seeds and thin shells.

But they could not punch holes through teeth and claws, so they learned to twirl the awls in their hands.

Strongarm did not know how people learned to do this, but he thought that they learned it when at play.

He took a round stick that had a sharp point and twirled it back and forth on his thigh.

The other Cave-men twirled, too, for they wanted to show the children how to bore holes.

The children soon learned how to do it.

Then Strongarm told them of a kind of wood whose surface was coated with sand.

He told of awls and spindles that were made of this wood and used to bore holes through teeth and claws.

Such wood as this could not always be found, so people used other stems.

They tried to find something that was hard enough to bore the teeth and claws.

Sometimes they used sand with a spindle of wood.

At other times they fastened a hard flint point at the end of a wooden spindle.

When they used the sand in boring, they no longer twirled the spindle on their thighs.

They could not use the sand unless they held the spindle upright.

Strongarm showed them how it was done, and all the people tried it.

It was hard work for one person to twirl the spindle steadily.

So they began to twirl in an easier way which they had learned when they were young.

Strongarm and Sharpeyes worked together, and the others worked in the same way.

When Strongarm’s hands were near the foot of the spindle, Sharpeyes’ hands were near the top.

As Sharpeyes’ hands began to move down the spindle, Strongarm began again to twirl at the top.

Sometimes they were awkward in moving their hands.

Then the spindle did not work so well, so they tried to keep the same time with their hands.

They worked together best when they sang as they worked, and the singing kept them from getting tired.

Once when they stopped to look at their work, Strongarm picked up a strap that was on the ground.

He carelessly wound it once around the spindle, keeping hold of one end of the strap.

Then Sharpeyes picked up the other end of the strap, and Strongarm jerked the end that he held.

They did this a few minutes just in play, but at last they began to do it in earnest.

Strongarm placed the end of the spindle in the shallow hole that he had made in the sabre tooth.

Then he and Sharpeyes began to twirl the spindle with the strap.

But there was nothing to keep the spindle from falling.

So they tried to hold it with a piece of wood.

They made a shallow hole in the wood to fit the top of the spindle.

Then while Strongarm and Sharpeyes pulled the strap, a boy held the spindle in place.

Soon the spindle was working steadily, and the hole was becoming deeper and deeper.

When they had bored a hole halfway through the tooth, they began to bore from the opposite side.

All the Cave-men came up to see them work.

As soon as the hole was made, Strongarm took a cord of braided sinew and hung the sabre tooth at his side.

After that he always wore the trophy.

Sometimes he used it for a knife and sometimes for a saw.

Every one who saw this rare trophy knew that Strongarm was a brave man.

THINGS TO DO