Evening star., 1924-08-02
CHAPTER III.

He was different from his brothers
and sisters. Their hair already be
trayed the reddish hue inherited from
their mother. the she-wolf: while he
alone. in this particular, took after
his father. He was the one httle gray
cub of the litter. He had bred true
to the straight wolf-stock-in fact.
he had bred true physically, to old
One Eye himself, with but single
exception, and that was that he had
two eyes to his fathers one.
The gray cubs eyes had not been
open long, yet already he could see
with steady clearness. And while his
eyes were still closed he had felt,
tasted, and smelled. He knew his
two brothers and his two sisters very
well He had begun to romp with
them in a feeble, awkward way, and
even to squabble. his little throat
vibrating with a queer rasping noise
(the forerunner of the growD, as he-
worked himself into a passion And
long before his eyes had opened. ht
smell to know his mother-a fount
of warmth and liquid food and tender
ness. She possessed gentle, cares
ing tongue that soothed him when II
passed over his soft little body. ana
that impelIed him to snuggle close
against her and to doze off to sleep.
Most of the first month OF his life
had been passed thus in sleeping, but
now he could see quite well, and he
stayed awake for. longer periods of
time, and he was coming to learn hlS
world quite well. His world was
gloomy. but he did not know that
for he knew no other world. 1t was
dim lighted, but his eyes had never
had to adjust themselves TO any other
light His world was very small. Its
limits were the walls of the lair, but
as he had no knowledge of the wide
world outside he was never oppressed
by the narrow confines of his exist
ence.
But he had early discovered that
one wall OF his world was different
from the rest. This was the mouth Of
the cave and the source of light He
had discovered that it was different
from the other walls long before he
had any thoughts of his own. any
conscious volitions. 1t had been an
irresistible attraction before ever his
eyes opened and looked upon il. The
light from it had beat upon his sealed
lids, and the eyes and the optic.
like flashes. warm colored and
strangely pleasing. The life OF his
body and of every fiber of his body.
the life that was the very substance
of his body and that was apart from
his own personal life, had yearned to-
toward it in the same way that the
summing chemistry of a plant urges ii
toward the sun.
Always, in the beginning, before his
conscious life dawned. he had craWled
toward the mouth OF the cave. And
in this his brothers and sisters were
one with him. Never in that period
did any of them crawl toward the
dark corners of the back wall. The
light drew them as If they were
plants. The chemistry of the life
that composed them demanded the
light as a necessity of being, and
their little puppet bodies crawled
blindly and chemically. like the ten
developed individuality and became per-
sonally conscious of impulses and de-
sires, the attraction of the light in
creased. They were always crawling
and sprawling toward it, and being
driven back from it by their mother
1t was in this way that the gray
cub learned other attributes OF his
mother than the soft. soothing tongue.
In his insistent crowling toward the
light he discovered in her a nose that
with sharp nudge administered re-
buke, and later paw that crushed
him down or rolled him over and
over with swift, calculating stroke.
Thus he learned hurt. and on top of
it he learned to avoid hurt, first, by
not mourning the risk of it, and.
second when he had incurred the
risk, by lodging and by retreating
These were conscious actions, and
were the results of his first generali-
cations upon the world. Before that
he had recoiled automatically from
hurt, as he had crawled automatically
toward the light. After that ne re-
coiled from hurt because he knew
that it was hurt.