Jack London. Before Adam -
18 >
But his appearance was no more unusual than the manner of
his coming, there to my mother and me as we perched above the
angry wild pigs. He came through the trees, leaping from limb
to limb and from tree to tree; and he came swiftly. I can see
him now, in my wake-a-day life, as I write this, swinging along
through the trees, a four-handed, hairy creature, howling with
rage, pausing now and again to beat his chest with his clenched
fist, leaping ten-and-fifteen-foot gaps, catching a branch with
one hand and swinging on across another gap to catch with his
other hand and go on, never hesitating, never at a 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 themselves, the surge and thrill of desire to go
leaping from bough to bough; and I felt also the guarantee of
the latent power in that being and in those muscles of mine.
And why not? Little boys watch their fathers swing axes and
fell trees, and feel in themselves that some day they, too,
will swing axes and fell trees. And so with me. The life that
was in me was constituted 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 I
remember that his eye-teeth were large, like fangs, and that
they impressed me tremendously.
His conduct served only the more to infuriate the pigs. He
broke off twigs and small branches and flung them down upon our
enemies. He even hung by one hand, tantalizingly just beyond