, 1909-12-09

c,earIy:
"woman!" giving the first syllable
he long 20 and definitely accenting
the second. She pointed to hin 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 1t, too.
The baby begins his language with
m~onosyllabic sounds which mean lit
tie snd yet which have been identified
with the mother. 1t was fitting that
this man who was as a child and yet
as a 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
dening.
While she washed her face and
hands at the stream he plunged into
a trimming pool fed by the brook ere
1t 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 INT well, never
theless. She would have given the
world for a 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
a 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 idled under h trees,
setting him tasks as the picking OF
fruit and then stopping him with
mo" and encouraging him with Eyes"
until he had some idea of those words
also. 1t vas a 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 a while they started around
the island. 1t was perhaps six or
eight miles in circumference. There
was a sand beach everywhere, except
in one place where the rocks came
sheer down to the 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 a ships boat
deep bedded in the sand. The boat
had been perhaps wrecked and broken
on the barrier reef. or possibly 1t had
sailed through the entrance near at
hand-the only opening in the encir-
cling guard OF splintered rock which
she had - 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
hat its condition was, but she prom
ised that so soon as she could she
would make shift at something for a
shovel and dig 1t out. She gazed at
1t for a long time wondering If it
were an explanation of the presence
OF the solitary inhabitant of the is
land. but nothing was to be gained by
wonderment and speculation.
A little stream she noticed trickled
from under a thick covert across the
sand toward the sea. She turned and
idly walked away from the beach, fol-
lowing the stream. The man, who had
stood with her watching the boat, aid
not for a moment notice her, but so
o o as he discovered her direction,
ran after her and without offering to
touch her barred the way with ex-
ended arms.
mo, no." he cried, his first real
spontaneous use of the word.
She stopped. reflected, waved the
man aside and went on. There was
something in the eoppice that he