"
At the gravel bed, men were at work. One man had a big digging stick.
He put it under a rock and pushed it out of the ground. Another man
had the shoulder bone of a bear. He pushed it under some pebbles and
lifted them and threw them upon an ox skin on the ground. Then he
gathered up the corners of the skin, took it on his back, and carried
it down to the stone yard.
As Thorn watched the men getting out stone for their axes and spear
heads, he said to his grandfather, "Who made the axes for the cave men
before you made them?"
"Oh, ever since the old days," said Flint, "there has been an ax maker.
Some men can chip stone well and easily. Others can never learn to do
it in their whole lives. So the men who can chip stone do it; and they
are the ax makers. The other men use the axes, and they are the
hunters.
"My grandfather told me," said Flint, as he walked slowly down the
hill, "that in the old days the cave men did not have stone axes and
spears. They hunted with sticks; they threw a stick like your mother's
digging stick; and they struck with a stick like your father's hunting
club. And they used the sharp stones they chipped only for knives and
scrapers. But one day, a man thought about tying a sharp stone to a
stick! There, you see, was the first spear!"
[Illustration: Forest scene]
"That was a great day for the cave men!" Flint went on, while his grim
face lighted up.
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