It was not in outdoor and physical life alone that he grew. There
was something more to him, a combination of traits somewhere which made
him a little beyond and above the mere seeker after food. He was never
entirely dormant, a sleeper on the skins and beech leaves, even when in
the shelter of the cave, after the day's adventures. He reasoned
according to such gifts as circumstances had afforded him and he had the
instinct of devising. An instinct toward devising was a great thing to
its possessor in the time of the cave people.
We know very well to-day, or think we know, that the influence of the
mother, in most cases, dominates that of the father in making the future
of the man-child. It may be that this comes because in early life the
boy, throughout the time when all he sees or learns will be most clear in
his memory until he dies, is more with the woman parent than with the
man, who is afield; or, it may be, there is some criss-cross law of
nature which makes the man ordinarily transmit his qualities to the
daughter and the woman transmit hers to the son. About that we do not
know yet. But it is certain that Ab was more like his mother than his
father, and that in these young days of his he was more immediately under
her influence. And Red-Spot was superior in many ways to the ordinary
woman of the cave time.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87