Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1909-12-15
CHAPTER III.
The Word of the Book

ne WORD OF the BOOK
This awakening was not as had been
that of yesterday. She prided herself
on being in full possession Of her fac-
ulties at once and she arose instantly
and stepped out upon the sand. The
man gave way to her respectfully as
i she passed through the entrance. The
mind is brightest in the early morn.
ing after sleep. She would give him
another concept before the uses of the,
day, impaired his receptivity. She had
differentiated him from the rest of Gre
alton when she taught him that he
was man. She would show him now
that his was a divided empire by de-
claring herself woman. She laid her
hand upon her own breast and said
clearly:
Woman" giving the first syllable
the long 90 and definitely accenting
the second. She pointed to him and
repeated MAN." to herself and re-
peated woman" Patiently over and
over again she said the word until
by and by he could say it, TOO.
The baby begins his language with
monosyllabic sounds which mean lit
tie and yet which have been identified
with the mother. 1t was fitting that
this man who was as child and yet
as man should begin with something
deeper than infantile babble.
Man and woman!-she drove these
two ideas into his consciousness be-
fore she ceased her task Ii his idea
of man was at first infinite, she gave
him the concept of limitations imme-
diately following
He was avid for instruction. Once
he had learned the words, he babbled
them man, woman, man, woman"
until the iteration was almost mad.
dehing.
While she washed her face and
hands at the stream he plunged into
a brimming pool fed by the brook ere
it descended to the sea. She noticed
that he could swim like a fish itself,
naturally, instinctively, in an un-
trained way of course, without the
fancy strokes in which she had been
taught, but brilliantly and well, never.
theless. She would have given the
world for dip, but it was not to be,
not yet. that is.
Then they breakfasted and she tried
10 teach him mo" and Yes" and the
meaning thereof She intended to make
circuit of the island later, but there
was no hurry. She began to realize
that time was nothing to her or to
him, and so she iGled under the trees,
setting him tasks as the picking of
fruit and then stopping him with
NO and encouraging him with yes"
until he had some idea Of those words
also. 1t was relief to her to get
them firmly fixed in his mind, for they
provided him with alternatives to the
man and woman words on which he
harped.
After while they started around
the island. 1t was perhaps six or
eight miles in circumference, There
was sand beach everywhere. except
in one place where the rocks came
sheer down to tie shore. From what
she could tell by an inspection of the
surface there was an underwater en-
trance to some cave in the rocks
which some day might be worth ex-
ploring.
| On the other side of the island from
the cave, which was already denomi-
mated home in her mind. she came
across the remains of ships boat
deep bedded in the sand. The boat
| had been nerhaps wraclad and hrnkop
on the barrier reef, Or possibly it had
sailed through the entrance near at
hand-the only opening in the encir-
cling guard of splintered rock which
she had seen-and had been hurled
upon the beach where 1t had lain
through years until buried In the
shifting sand. Only the gunwales of
the boat and the stem and the stern
were exposed. She had no idea as to
what its condition was, but she prom
fsad that SO soon as she could she