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 reach, and mocked them as
they gnashed their tusks with impotent rage.
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