It was soon after this great event of the first fish-catching that
Red-Spot, Ab's mother, died. She had never quite adapted herself to the
new life in the Fire Valley, and after a time she began to grow old very
fast. At last a fever attacked her and the end of her patient, busy life
came. After her death One-Ear was much in Old Mok's cave, the two had so
long been friends. There with them the crippled boy was often to be
found. He was not always gay and joyous. Sometimes he lay for days on his
bed of leaves at home, in weakness and pain, silent and unlike himself.
Then when Lightfoot's care had given him back a little strength, he would
beg to be taken to Old Mok's cave. There he could sleep, he said, away
from the noise and the lights of the outside world, and finally he
claimed and was allowed a nest of his own in the warmest and darkest nook
of Old Mok's den, where he slept every night, and sometimes a good part
of the day, when one of his times of pain and weakness was upon him. Here
during many a long hour of work, experiment and argument, the wide eyes
and quick ears of Little Mok saw and heard, while Ab, Mok and One-Ear
bent over their work at arrowhead or spear point, and talked of what
might be done to improve the weapons upon which so much depended. Here,
when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half
light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and
sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer
snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell
People had a sort of story song.
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