nd
the children--always the most conservative in such matters, took the
notion that they were losing something, and dared to essay the novel
diet. One taste, as a rule, proved enough to vanquish their
prejudices. In a very few minutes every shred of the carcase that
could claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and all were
clamoring for more. Fully three-parts of the carcase remained, indeed,
but it was all raw flesh. A-ya looked down upon it with disdain.

"Take it back and throw it on the fire again!" she ordered angrily.
The generous lump of steak, which she had hacked off for herself from
the loin, had proved to be merely scorched on the outside, and she was
disappointed. She stood fingering the raw mass with resentful
aversion, while the old men and women, chattering gleefully and
followed by the horde of children dragged the mangled carcase back to
the fire, lifted it laboriously by all four legs, and managed to
deposit it in the very midst of the flames. A shrill shout of triumph
went up from the withered old throats at this achievement, and they
all drew back to wait for the fire to do its wonderful work.

But A-ya was impatient, and vaguely dissatisfied as she watched that
crude roasting in the process. She stood brooding, eyeing the fire and
turning her lump of raw flesh over and over in her hands. The attitude
of body was one she had caught from Grom, when he was groping for a
solution to some problem. And now it seemed as if she had caught his
attitude of mind as well. Into her brain, for the moment passive and
receptive, flashed an idea, she knew not whence. It was as if it had
been whispered to her. She picked up a spear, jabbed its stone head
firmly into the lump of meat, and thrust the meat into the edge of the
fire, as far as it could go without burning the wood of the spear
shaft.

It took her a very few minutes to realize that her idea was nothing
less than an inspiration. Moving the morsel backwards and forwards to
keep it from charring, she found that it seemed to do best over a mass
of hot coals rather than in a flame; and being a thin cut, it cooked
quickly. When it was done she burnt her fingers with it, and her big
red mouth as well; and her two boys, for whom she had torn off shreds
too hot for herself to hold, danced up and down and wept loudly with
the smart of it, to be instantly consoled by the savor.

Noting the supreme success of A-ya's experiment, the spectators rushed
in,