Jack London. Before Adam -
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life, wild boars dashed through my dreams, and I, with
fantastic parents, swung through the lofty tree-spaces.
Do you wonder that I was frightened and oppressed by my
nightmare-ridden nights? I was accursed. And, worst of all, I
was afraid to tell. I do not know why, except that I had a
feeling of guilt, though I knew no better of what I was guilty.
So it was, through long years, that I suffered in silence,
until I came to man's estate and learned the why and wherefore
of my dreams.
There is one puzzling thing about these prehistoric
memories of mine. It is the vagueness of the time element. I lo
not always know the order of events;--or can I tell, between
some events, whether one, two, or four or five years have
elapsed. I can only roughly tell the passage of time by judging
the changes in the appearance and pursuits of my fellows.
Also, I can apply the logic of events to the various
happenings. For instance, there is no doubt whatever that my
mother and I were treed by the wild pigs and fled and fell in
the days before I made the acquaintance of Lop-Ear, who became
what I may call my boyhood chum. And it is just as conclusive
that between these two periods I must have left my mother.
I have no memory of my father than the one I have given.
Never, in the years that followed, did he reappear. And from my
knowledge of the times, the only explanation possible lies in
that he perished shortly after the adventure with the wild
pigs. That it must have been an untimely end, there is no
discussion. He was in full vigor, and only sudden and violent
death could have taken him off. But I know not the manner of