Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-04-19

on the instant she leaped straight I'D
into the air, catching an. overhanging
branch with her hands. The next in
slant. with clashing tusks. the boar
drove past underneath. He had recov-
cred from his surprise and sprung for
ward, emitting squeal that was al
most a trumpeting. At any rate it was
a call, for 1t was followed by the rush
ing of bodies through the ferns and
brush from all directions.
From every side wild hogs dashed
into the open space-a score of them.
But my mother swung over the top of
a thick limb a dozen feet from the
ground. and. still holding on to her, we
perched there in safety. She was very
excited. She chartered and screamed
and scolded down at the bristling, tooth
crashing circle that had gathered be-
meath l. too, trembling, peered down
at the angry beasts and did my best to
initiate my mothers cries.
From the distance came similar
cries. only pitched deeper. into a sort
of roaring bass. These grew momen-
tarily louder, and soon | saw him ap-
preaching. my father-at least by all
the evidence Of the times | am driven
to conclude that be was my father.
He was not an extremely progresses
ing father. as fathers go. He seemed
half man and half ape. and yet not ape
and not yet man. I fail to describe
him. There is nothing like him today
on the earth. under the earth. nor in
the earth. He was a large man in his
day, and he must have weighed all of
a hundred and thirty pounds. His face
was broad and fiat. and the eyebrows
overhung the eyes. The eyes them
selves were small, deep set and close
together.
The forehead slanted back from the
eyes, and the hair began right at the
eyes and ran up over the head. The
head itself was preposterously small
and was supported on an equally pre-
posterous thick, short neck.
There was an elemental economy
about his body-as was there about all
our bodies. The chest was deep. it is
true, generously deep; but there were
no full swelling muscles. no wide
spreading shoulders, no clean limbed
straightness, no generous symmetry Of
outline. 1t represented strength. that
body of my fathers, strength without
beauty; ferociOus, primordial strength.
made to clutch and grippe and rend and
destroy.
His hips were thin, and the legs, lean
and hairy, were crooked and stringy
muscled. IN fact, my fathers legs were
more like arms. They were twisted
and gnarly and with scarcely the sem
blance of the full meaty calf such as
graces your leg and mine. | remember
he could not walk on the fat of his
foot. This was because it was a pre-
| hensile foot, more like a hand than a
foot. The great toe, instead of being in
line with the other toes. opposed them.
like a thumb, and its opposition to the
| other toes was what enabled him to
get a grip with his foot This was why
he could not walk on the fiat of his
foot.
But his appearance was no more IN
usual than the manner Of his coming
there to my mother and me as we
perched above the angry wild pigs. He
rame through the trees, leaping from
/ limb to limb and from tree to tree. and
he cane swiftly. l can see him now
! in my Wake-a-day life, as | write this
swinging along through the trees, a
four handed. hairy creature, bowling
| with rage, pauSing now and again tC
| beat his chest with his clenched fist
leaping ten and fifteen foot gaps, catch
| ing a branch with one hand and swing
| ing Cd across another gap to catch
| with his other hand and go on. never
hesitating, never at loss as TO how
to proceed on his arbOreal way.
And as I watched him I felt in my
own being, in my very muscles them
selves, the surge and thrill of desire
to go leaping from bough to bough
!
latent power in that being and in those
muscles of mine. And why not? Lit
tie boys watch their fathers swing
axes and fell trees and feel in them
selves that some day they, too, will
swing axes and fell trees And so with
me. The life that was in me was con
stituted to do what my father did
and it whispered to me secretly and
ambitiously of aerial paths and forest
flights.
At last my father Joined US. He was
extremely angry. I remember the out
thrust of his protruding underlip as he
glared down at the wild pigs. He
snarled something like a dog, and
remember that his eyeteeth were large
like fangs, and that they impressed me
tremendously.
His conduct served only the more tt
infuriate,the pigs. He broke off twigs
and small branches and flung then
down upon our enemies. He ever
hung by one hand, tantalizingly just be
yond reach, and Knocked them as they
enashed their tusks with impotent
rage. Not content with this, he brokt
off stout branch and, holding on with
one hand and foot, jabbed the infuri
ated beasts In the sides and whackeG
them across their noses. Needless tt
state, my mother and l enjoyed the
sport
But one tires Of all good things, ant
in the end my father, chuckiing mali