before months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds were counted and named, consider how peculiar it all must have seemed. for example, when the unknown-about folk of those prehistoric times wished to know when a thing would happen, of course they can have had no word when, and no answer. if a little prehistoric girl gave a party, she cannot have known when to tell her guests to come, so she must have had to wait until the supper was ready and then invite them; and if they were not perfectly-bred little guests, they may have been offended because they hadn’t been invited before—only they would not have known how to say or to think “before,” so they cannot have been quite sure what they were offended at; but they may have been offended anyway, as happens now with that same kind of guest. and if a little prehistoric boy asked his father17 to bring him a new eagle or a new leopard for a pet, and his father came home night after night and didn’t bring it, the prehistoric boy could not say, “when will you bring it, sir?” because there was no when, so he may have asked a great many other questions, and been told to sit in the back of the cave until he could do better. nobody can have known how long to boil eggs or to bake bread, and people must have had to come to breakfast and just sit and wait and wait until things were done. worst of all, nobody can have known that time is a thing to use and not to waste. since they could not measure it, they could not of course tell how fast it was slipping away, and they must have thought that time was theirs to do with what they pleased, instead of turning it all into different things—this piece into sleep, this piece into play, this piece into tasks and exercise and fun. just as, in those days, they probably thought that food is to be eaten because it tastes good and not because it makes the body grow, so they thought that time was a thing to be thrown away and not to be used, every bit—which is, of course, a prehistoric way to think. and nobody can have known about birthdays, and no18 story can have started “once upon a time,” and everything must have been quite different.
about then,—only of course they didn’t know it was then—a prehistoric mother said one morning to her prehistoric little daughter:—
“now, vertebrata, get your practising done and then you may go to play.” (it wasn’t a piano and it wasn’t an organ, but it was a lovely, reedy, blow-on-it thing, like a pastoral pipe, and little girls always sat about on rocks in the landscape, as soon as they had had their breakfasts, and practised.)
so vertebrata took her reed pipes and sat on a rock in the landscape and practised—all of what we now know (but she did not know) would be five minutes. then she came in the cave, and tossed the pipes on her bed of skins, and then remembered and hung them in their place above the fireplace, and turned toward the doorway. but her mother, who was roasting flesh at the fire, called her back.
“vertebrata,” she said, “did i not tell you to practise?”
“i did practise,” said vertebrata.
“then practise and practise,” said her mother,19 not knowing how else to tell her to do her whole hour. her mother didn’t know hours, but she knew by the feel of her feelings when vertebrata had done enough.
so vertebrata sat on a rock and did five minutes more, and came and threw her pipes on her bed of skins, and remembered and hung them up, and then turned toward the door of the cave. but her mother looked up from the flesh-pot and called her back again.
“vertebrata,” she said, “do you want mother to have to speak to you again?”
“no, indeed, muvver,” said her little daughter.
“then practise and practise and practise,” said her mother. “if you can’t play when you grow up, what will people think?”
so vertebrata went back to her landscape rock, and this thing was repeated until vertebrata had practised what we now know (but she did not know) to have been a whole hour. and you can easily see that in order to bring this about, what her mother must have said to her the last time of all was this:—
“i want you to practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and practise20 and practise and practise—” or something almost as long.
now of course it was very hard for her mother to say all this besides roasting the flesh and tidying the cave, so she made up her mind that when her prehistoric husband came home, he must be told about it. and when the sun was at the top of the sky and cast no shadow, and the flesh was roasted brown and fragrant, she dressed it with pungent herbs, and raked the vegetables out of the ashes and hid the dessert in the cool wall of the cave—that was a surprise—and spread the flat rock at the door of the cave and put vine-leaves in her hair and, with vertebrata, set herself to wait.
there went by what we now know to have been noon, and another hour, and more hours, and all afternoon, and all early twilight, and still her prehistoric husband did not come home to dinner. vertebrata was crying with hunger, and the flesh and the vegetables were ice-cold, and the prehistoric wife and mother sat looking straight before her without smiling. and then, just as the moon was rising red over the soft breast of the distant wood, the prehistoric father appeared, not looking as if he had done anything.
21 “is dinner ready?” he asked pleasantly.
now this was the last straw, and the prehistoric wife and mother said so, standing at the door of the cave, with vertebrata crying in the offing.
“troglodyte,” she said sadly (that was what she called him), “dinner has been ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready ...” and she showed him the ice-cold roasted flesh and vegetables.
“i’m so sorry, dearest. i never knew,” said the troglodyte, contritely, and did everything in the world that he could do to show her how sorry he was. he made haste to open his game-bag, and he drew out what food he had killed, and showed her a soft, cock-of-the-rock skin for a cap for her and a white ptarmigan breast to trim it with, and at last she said—because nobody can stay offended when the offender is sorry:—
“well, dear, say no more about it. we’ll slice up the meat and it will do very well cold, and i’ll warm up the potatoes with some brown butter (or the like). but hurry and bathe or i’ll be ready first again.”
so he hurried and bathed in the brook, and22 the cave smelled savoury of the hot brown butter, and vertebrata had a grogan tail stuck in her hair, and presently they sat down to supper. and it was nearly eight o’clock, but they didn’t know anything about that.
when the serious part of supper was done, and the dessert that was a surprise had been brought and had surprised and gone, vertebrata’s mother sat up very straight and looked before her without smiling. and she said:—
“now, something must be done.”
“about what, leaf butterfly?” her husband asked.
“vertebrata doesn’t practise enough and you don’t come home to dinner enough,” she answered, “and something must be done.”
“i did practise—wunst,” said vertebrata.
“but you should practise once and once and once and once and once and once, and so on, and not have to be told each once,” said her mother.
“i did come home to dinner,” said the prehistoric husband, waving his hand at his empty platter.
“but you should come first and first and first and first and first, and so on, and not let the23 dinner get ice-cold,” said his wife. “hear a thing,” said she.
she sprinkled some salt all thick on the table and took the stick on which the flesh had been roasted, and in the salt she drew a circle.
“this,” she said, “is the sky. and this place, at the top, is the top of the sky. and when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no shadow, i will have ready the dinner, hot and sweet in the pot, and dessert—for a surprise. and when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no shadow, do you come to eat it, always. that will be dinner.”
“that is well,” said the troglodyte, like a true knight—for in those first days even true knights were willing that women should cook and cave-tidy for them all day long and do little else. but that was long ago and we must forgive it.
then she made a mark in the salt at the edge of the circle a little way around from the first mark.
“when the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, i will have ready berries and nuts and green stuffs and sweet syrups and other things that i shall think of—for you. and when the24 sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, do you hurry to us, always. that will be supper.”
“that is well,” said the troglodyte, like a true knight.
then she drew the stick a long way round.
“this is sleep,” she said. “this place here is waking, and breakfast. and then next the sun will be at the top of the sky again. and we will have dinner in the same fashion. and this is right for you. but what to do with the child i don’t know, unless i keep her practising from the time the sun is at the top of the sky until it is at the bottom. for if she can’t play when she grows up, what will people think?”
now, while she said this, the prehistoric woman had been sitting with the stick on which the flesh had been roasted held straight up in her fingers, resting in the middle of the ring which she had made in the salt. and by now the moon was high and white in the sky. and the man saw that the moon-shadow of the stick fell on the circle from its centre to beyond its edge. and presently he stretched out his hand and took the stick from her, and held it so and sat very still, thinking, thinking, thinking....
25 “faddie,” said vertebrata—she called him that for loving—“faddie, will you make me a little bow and arrow and scrape ’em white?”
but her father did not hear her, and instead of answering he sprang up and began drawing on the soft earth before the cave a deep, deep circle, and he ran for the long stick that had carried his game-bag over his shoulder, and in the middle of the earth circle he set the stick.
“watch a thing!” he cried.
vertebrata and her mother, understanding little but trusting much, sat by his side. and together in the hot, white night the three watched the shadow of the stick travel on the dial that they had made. of course there was no such thing as bed-time then, and vertebrata usually sat up until she fell over asleep, when her mother carried her off to her little bed of skins; but this night she was so excited that she didn’t fall over. for the stick-shadow moved like a finger; like, indeed, a living thing that had been in the world all the time without their knowing. and they watched it while it went a long way round the circle. then her mother said, “nonsense, vertebrata, you must be sleepy now whether you know it or not,” and she put her26 to bed, vertebrata saying all the way that she was wide awake, just like in the daytime. and when her mother went back outside the cave, the man looked up at her wonderfully.
“trachystomata,” said he (which is to say “siren”), “if the sun-shadow will do the same thing as the moon-shadow, we have found a way to make vertebrata practise enough.”
in the morning when vertebrata came out of the cave—she woke alone and dressed alone, just like being grown-up—she found her mother and her father down on their hands and knees, studying the circle in the soft earth and the long sun-shadow of the stick. and her mother called her and she went running to her. and her mother said:—
“now we will have breakfast, dear, and then you get your pipes and come here and practise. and when you begin, we will lay a piece of bone where the shadow stands, and when i feel the feeling of enough, i will tell you, and you will stop practising, and we will lay another piece of bone on that shadow. and after this you will always practise from one bone to another, forever.”
vertebrata could hardly wait to have breakfast27 before she tried it, and then she ran and brought her pipes and sat down beside the circle. and her father did not go to his hunting, or her mother to her cooking and cave-tidying, but they both sat there with vertebrata, hearing her pipe and watching the shadow finger move, and waiting till her mother should feel the feeling of enough.
now! since the world began, the hours, minutes, and seconds had been hanging over it, waiting patiently until people should understand about them. but nobody before had ever, ever thought about them, and vertebrata and her mother and her father were the very first ones who had even begun to understand.
so it chanced that in the second that vertebrata began to pipe and the bone was laid on the circle, that second (deep in the air and yet as near as time is to us) knew that it was being marked off at last on the soft circle of the earth, and so did the next second, and the next, and the next, and the next, until sixty of them knew—and there was the first minute, measured in the circle before the cave. and other minutes knew what was happening, and they all came hurrying likewise, and they filled the air with exquisite,28 invisible presences—all to the soft sound of little vertebrata’s piping. and she piped, and piped, on the lovely, reedy, blow-on-it instrument, and she made sweet music. and for the first time in her little life, her practising became to her not merely practising, but music-making—there, while she watched the strange time-shadow move.
“j—o—y!” cried the seconds, talking among themselves. “people are beginning to know about us. it is time that they should.”
“ah!” they cried again. “we can go faster than anything.”
“think of all of our poor brothers and sisters that have gone, without anybody knowing they were here,” they mourned.
“pipe, pipe, pipe,” went vertebrata, and the little seconds danced by almost as if she were making them with her piping.
the minutes, too, said things to one another—who knows if time is so silent as we imagine? may not all sorts of delicate conversations go on in the heart of time about which we never know anything—second talking with second, and minute answering to minute; and the grave hours, listening to everything we say and seeing29 everything we do, confiding things to the day about us and about eternity from which they have come. i cannot tell you what they say about you—you will know that, if you try to think, and especially if you stand close to a great clock or hear it boom out in the night. and i cannot tell you what they say about eternity. but i think that this may be one of the songs that they sing:—
song of the minutes
we are a garland for men,
we are flung from the first gate of time,
from the touch that opened the minds of men
down to the breath of this rhyme.
we are the measure of things,
the rule of their sweep and stir,
but whenever a little girl pipes and sings,
we will keep time for her.
we are a touching of hands
from those in the murk of the earth,
through all who have garnered life in their hands
and wrought it from death unto birth.
30
we are the measure of things,
the rule of their stir and sweep,
and wherever a little child weeps or sings
it is his soul we keep.
at last, when sixty minutes had danced and chorussed past, there was, of course, the first rosy hour ever to have her coming and passing marked since earth began. and when the hour was gone, vertebrata’s mother felt the feeling of enough, and she said to vertebrata:—
“that will do, dear. now you may go and play.”
that was the first exact hour’s practising that ever any little girl did by any sort of clock.
“ribbon-fish mine,” said the prehistoric man to his wife, when vertebrata had finished, “i have been thinking additional thoughts. why could we not use the circle in other ways?”
“what ways, besides for your coming home and for vertebrata’s practising?” asked the prehistoric woman; but we must forgive her for knowing about only those two things, for she was a very prehistoric woman indeed.
“little bones might be laid between the big bones,” said the man—and by that of course31 he meant measuring off minutes. “by certain of them you could roast flesh and not kneel continually beside the fire. by certain of them you could boil eggs, make meet the cakes, and not be in peril of burning the beans. also....”
he was silent for a moment, looking away over the soft breast of the wood where the sun was shining its utmost, because it has so many reasons.
“when i look at that moving finger on the circle thing,” he said slowly, “it feels as if whoever made the sun were saying things to me, but with no words. for his sun moves, and the finger on the circle thing moves with it—as if it were telling us how long to do this thing, and how long to do that thing—you and me and vertebrata. and we must use every space between the bones—and whoever made the sun is telling us this, but with no words.”
the prehistoric woman looked up at her husband wonderfully.
“you are a great man, troglodyte!” she told him.
at which he went away to hunt, feeling for the first time in his prehistoric life as if there were a big reason, somewhere out in the air, why he should get as much done as he could.32 and the prehistoric woman went at her baking and cave-tidying, but always she ran to the door of the cave to look at the circle thing, as if it bore a great message for her to make haste, a message with no words.
as for vertebrata, she had taken her pipes and danced away where, on rocks in the landscape, the other little prehistorics sat about, getting their practising done. she tried to tell them all about the circle thing, waving her pipes and jumping up and down to make them understand, and drawing circles and trying to play to them about it on her pipes; and at last they understood a little, like understanding a new game, and they joined her and piped on their rocks all over the green, green place. and the seconds and minutes and hours, being fairly started to be measured, all came trooping on, to the sound of the children’s piping.
when the sun was at the top of the sky, vertebrata remembered, and she stuck a stick in the ground and saw that there was almost no shadow. so she left the other children and ran very hard toward her own cave. and when she had nearly reached it, somebody overtook her, also running very hard.
sat on a rock in the landscape and practised.
33 “faddie!” she called, as she called when she meant loving—and he swung her up on his shoulder and ran on with her. and they burst into the open space before the cave just as the shadow-stick pointed straight to the top of the circle thing.
there, before the door of the cave, was the flat rock, all set with hot baked meat and toothsome piles of roast vegetables and beans that were not burned. and the prehistoric woman, with vine-leaves in her hair, was looking straight before her and smiling. and that was the first dinner of the world that was ever served on time, and since that day, to be late for dinner is one of the things which nobody may do; and perhaps in memory of the prehistoric woman, when this occurs, the politest ladies may always look straight before them without smiling.
“is dinner ready, sea anemone?” asked the man.
“on the bone,” replied his wife, pleasantly.
“what’s for ’sert?” asked vertebrata.
“it’s a surprise,” said her mother—which is always the proper answer to that question.
and while they sat there, the days and weeks34 and months and years were coming toward them, faster than anything, to be marked off on the circle thing before the door, and to be used. and they are coming yet, like a message—but with no words.
