Many thousands of years ago, long before our civilization, people lived very much like animals. In fact, animals in those days could take care of themselves far better than people could, and the animals were much healthier. An ancient legend tells us that the animals could even talk and would frighten the creatures called people. To protect themselves from the animals, the people lived inside caves and stayed very close together in groups called tribes.
As the story goes, there was a young caveman by the name of Cranius who began to ask the elders of the tribe a lot of questions.
“Why is it,” he asked, “that all animals live happily outside while we have to live inside these caves?”
“Well,” said one of the elders, “we do not have claws and big teeth to fight with or wings to fly with or fast legs to run with or fur on our bodies to keep us warm.”
“But,” said Cranius, “there must be something we can do that they cannot do.”
And they all began to think and think.
Suddenly, Cranius jumped to his feet. “That’s it! We can think,” he said.
The people had to agree. They all began to think about this and became quite excited.
Then Cranius announced, “We must first think of a way to defend ourselves against the animals.”
They then all put their heads together and began to discuss their ideas. It wasn’t long before they thought of the weapon that became known as a spear. It was a long pole with a pointed rock tied to the end of it, and it was very sharp.
When some of the animals found out about the weapon the people had, they ran away into the deep woods and hid from the people. But many of the animals could not run away because they didn’t know how to live in the deep woods. So they got together and decided to become friends with the people. A sheep was the first to make a friendly offer. It stepped forward and said, “If we can be friends, we’ll be happy to share with you our wool coating, which can keep you warm.”
Next, a mother hen stepped forward and said, “If we can be friends, we’ll let you have our eggs when you’re hungry.”
“And if we can be friends,” said the cows, “we’ll give you milk every day.”
The horses then stepped up and said, “If you will be our friends, we’ll let you ride on our backs and take you anywhere you want to go.”
Then, a dog spoke up. “If you will be our friends, we’ll warn you of any danger and be the best friends you ever had.”
And so it was, from that day on, many of the animals became friends with people.
