Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1909-12-08
Z CHATTER I.
The Primitive Norm.

q young animal she drank 1t in bl1ndly |
with closed eyes. She could hear the |
thunderous roaring of the breakers
crashing upon the barrier reef. Alone
her boat had been wrecked in the
darkness of the night before
the sound softened and mellowed
by distance came to her in a
deep, low accompaniment to the
sharper and nearer sounds of the birds
singing and the breeze rustling gently
through the long leaves of the trees
overhead.
The dry sand on which she lay was
soft and yielding and made a comfort
able bed for her tired body racked
with weary days in the constraint and
narrowness of small boat. 1t was
warm, too. She had been drenched /,
when she scrambled on the shore and
fell PROSTATE on the beach, retaining
Just strength enough and purpose
enough to crawl painfully inward to
where the tall palms grow before she
lapsed in whatsoever way it might
have been into oblivion.
Incoherent thoughts raced through
her bewildered brain; each one, how
ever, bringing her q little nearer the
awakening point of realization. Then
there ran through her young body a
primal pang which dispelled the trem-
ulous and vague illusions which her
fancy had woven about herself as she
Law warm and snug and sunny at the
foot of the tall trees, and she realized
that she was frightfully thirsty, SO
thirsty that she did not know how
hungry she was.
rhe demand for the material awak-
ei the animal in her. Her thoughts
cf erred instantly; they were at once
10 lized on one supreme desire. Coin
q ally Ner ovss Enclosed and she sat
y elinlGrg IN the strong light. The
RI ~ SIN sill low on the horizon
5! tc her full in the eyes and left
Il for the moment dazed again. She
:; leaning upon her hands extended
b ind her back staring seward, say
il nothing. thinking nothing, until a
1 81 age sound to the right of her at
II ted her attention. 1t was sound
n. le by a human voice and yet it was
ii nothing human that she had ever
A I'd. 1t was wordless, language
le ejaculation, but it reused her in
t. st at once despite her material
c, wings.
he wenl1ly turned her head and
Il re standing erect with folded arms
looking down upon her was man. He
wss unclothed entirely save for fan
tt tic girdle of palm leaves about his
" st. She stared at him puzzled,
a azed, affrighted. He returned her
Ii * with an intent curiosity in which
Il re was no suggestion of evil pur-
p Sc, rather of great incorlprehensio
a, amazing wonderment. There was
nothing about him, save the fact that
he was there, which should have
caused any alarm in her heart, for
with woman's swift mastery of the
possibilities of the other sex, she no
ticed in her vague terror and wonder
n,ent that he was remarkably good to
look at Indeed, she thought that she
had never seen SO splendid speci
men of physical manhood as that be
fore her. In color he was white. Save
that he was bronzed by the tropic sun
he was perhaps whittier than she was
His hair, which hung about his head in
wild, matted tangle, not unpictures
que, was golden; his eyes bright blue
Beneath his beard, unkempt but short
and curly, she could see his firm
elean-cut lips. His proportions were
superb. He was limbed and chested
like the Apollo Belvedere. In hin
grace and strength strove for FREEDOM
nance. He was totally unlike all tina
she had read of the aborigines of the
South seas.
1t was the man who broke the 81
lence, as it had been the man WHIT
had broken the spell of her slumber
He made that queer little chucklint
noise in his throat which sounded ia
miliar enough and yet she had heart
1t from the lips of no man before. 1
meant nothing to her except that III
who stood before her at least was no
dumb, although the noise he mad
was certainly no articulate speech a
she knew speech or could imagine ii
At any rate it was stimulus to heI
She opened her own parched lips am
strove to make reply, but her thirst
with rising terror and nervousness
made her dumb and no sound cam
forth. The man might be preparing
to kill her. He could do so, if he will
ed, she thought, but she must drink o
die. If she could not speak, ah
could make signs. She leaned forwar
raised her arm, followed her hand an
dipped as If from well and made a
II to pour it into her lips. Then sh
stretched out both her hands to hl1
in the attitude of petition. The ma
stared hard at her. His brow wrinllet
It was such a simple sign that an
savage would have comprehended i
she thought, and yet it appeared t
her, watching in despair, that it too
a long time for the idea to beat int
his brain. She could wait no longe
She rose to her knees and stretche
out her hands again.
"Water!" she gasped in hoars
whisper. Water, or l die!"
The man had started violently at he
speech. Giving him no time to n
cover; she went through the motto
again. this time with greater effec
for the man turned and vanished. Sh
sank down on the sand too exhauste
to follow him even with her eyes.
he brought the water she would drin
it and live; If he did not, she woul
lie where she was and die. She di
not care much, she thought, whic
would happen. She had so sickened {
life before she essayed that open boa
that she believed it was simply a
animal craving in her which woul
make her take the water in case
should be brought her. And yet whe
he did appear with a cocoanut she
brimming with clear, sparkling liquit
she felt as though the elixir Of III
had been proffered her.