Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-05-03

SmaLI-and we went at II tooth anu
nail.
And thus. in n fight. ended one OF
the earliest attempts to domesticate
the dog We pulled hair out in hand
fuls and scratched and bit and gouged.
Then we sulked and made up. After
that we ate the puppy. Raw? Yes.
We had not yet discovered fire. Our
evolution into cooking animals lay In
the tight rolled scroll Of the future.
Red Eye was an atavism. He was
the great discordant element in our
| horde. He was more primitive than
any of US. He did not belong with US,
yet we were still so primitive our
selves that we were incapable of
cooperative effort strong enough to
kill him or cast him out Rude as was
our social organization, he was, never
theless, too rude to live in it He
tended always TO destroy the horde
/ by his unsocial acts. He was really
reversion to an earlier type, and his
! place was with the Tree People rath-
ess of becoming men.
! He was monster of cruelty, which
! is saying a great deal in that day. He
/ beat his wives-not that he ever had
more than one wife at time, but that
/ he was married many times. 1t was
( impossible for any woman to live with
( him, and vet they did live with him,
out of compulsion. There was no gain
! saying him. No man was strong
/ enough to stand against him.
Often do I have visions Of the quiet
| hour before the twilight From drink
Ing place and carrot patch and berry
swamp the folk are trooping into the
open space before the caves They
I dare linger no later than this. for the
dreadful darkness is approaching, in
which the world is given over to the
carnage of the hunting animals. while
the fOrerunners of man hide trembling
ly in their holes.
There yet remain to US a few min
uteS before we climb to our caves. We
are tired from the play of the day. and
the sounds We make are subdued.
Even the cubs. still greedy for fun and
antics, play with restraint. The wind
from the sea has died down, and the
: shadows are lengthening with the last
of the suns descent. And then sud
denly from Red Eyes cave breaks a
wild screaming and the sound OF
blows. He is beating his wife.
At first an awed silence comes upon
Us. But as the blows and screams
continue we break out into an insane
gibbering of helpless rage 1t is plain
that the men resent Red Eyes actions
but they are too afraid of him The
blows cease and low grOaning dies
away, while We chatter among our
selves and the sad twilight creeps
upon Us.
We, to whom most happenings were
jokes. never laughed during Red Eyes
wife beatings. We knew too we'll the
tragedy Of them. On more than one
morning. at the base of the cliff, did
We find the body of his latest wife. He
had tossed her there, after she had
died, from his cave mouth. He never
buried his dead The task of carrying
away the bodies, that else would have
polluted our abiding-plac he left to
the horde. We usually flung them into
the river below the last drinking place.
Not alone did Red Eye murder his
wives, but he also murdered for his
wives, in order to get them. When he
wanted a new wife and selected the
wife Of another man, he promptly kill
ed that man. Two of these murders |
saw myself. The whole horde knew,
but could do nothing. We had not yet
developed any government to speak of
inside the horde. We had certain Gus
toms and visited our wrath upon the
unlucky ones who violated those Gus
toms. Thus, for example, the indi
vidual who defled a drinking place
would be attacked by every onlooker
while one who deliberately gave q
false alarm was the recipient of mach
rough usage at our hands. But Red
Eye walked roughshod over all our
customs, and We so feared him that We
were incapable of the collective actor
necessary to punish him