THE STORY OF AB

A TALE OF THE TIME OF THE CAVE MAN

BY

STANLEY WATERLOO

1905

Author of "A Man and a Woman," "An Odd Situation," etc.

INTRODUCTION.

This is the story of Ab, a man of the Age of Stone, who lived so long agothat we cannot closely fix the date, and who loved and fought well.

In his work the author has been cordially assisted by some of the ablestsearchers of two continents into the life history of prehistoric times.With characteristic helpfulness and interest, these already burdenedstudents have aided and encouraged him, and to them he desires to expresshis sense of profound obligation and his earnest thanks.

Once only does the writer depart from accepted theories of scientificresearch. After an at least long-continued study of existing evidence andinformation relating to the Stone Ages, the conviction grew upon him thatthe mysterious gap supposed by scientific teachers to divide Paleolithicfrom Neolithic man never really existed. No convulsion of nature, no newrace of human beings is needed to explain the difference between therelics of Paleolithic and Neolithic strugglers. Growth, experiment,adaptation, discovery, inevitable in man, sufficiently account for allthe relatively swift changes from one form of primitive life to anothermore advanced, from the time of chipped to that of polished implements.Man has been, from the beginning, under the never resting, neverhastening, forces of evolution. The earth from which he sprang holds therecord of his transformations in her peat-beds, her buried caverns andher rocky fastnesses. The eternal laws change man, but they themselves donot change.

Ab and Lightfoot and others of the cave people whose story is told in thetale which follows the author cannot disown. He has shown them as theywere. Hungry and cold, they slew the fierce beasts which were scarcelymore savage than they, and were fed and clothed by their flesh and fur.In the caves of the earth the cave men and their families were safelysheltered. Theirs were the elemental wants and passions. They wereswayed by love, in some form at least, by jealousy, fear, revenge, and bythe memory of benefits and wrongs. They cherished their young; theyfought desperately with the beasts of their time, and with each other,and, when their brief, turbulent lives were ended, they passed intosilence, but not into oblivion. The old Earth carefully preserved theirstory, so that we, their children, may read it now.

S. W.