Preface to “How Everything Was Made”

Dr. E. Otha Wingo

In his seventy-sixth year, Max Freedom Long wrote a series of stories for children based on Huna. He called them How Everything Was Made. His unique gift of wit and imagination were brought into full play, as he described stories relating to the creation. The first draft of the stories was intended as an experimental unit and each reader was asked to act as editor and reviewer. The first pages were published as No. 76 of the Huna Vistas for February-March, 1967. A second installment brought the number of pages to 38. Pages 39-105 were printed separately and sent only to those who requested them.

I visualize a book, eventually, perhaps with illustrations of a simple nature, he stated. The age-group he had in mind was about four to eight and suggested that some of the material could be re-written for different ages. In order to make the stories more bearable for the elders who must read or tell them, I will take a leaf from Alice in Wonderland and try to put in little quips which may go over the heads of the children.

When the equipment and materials from Max’s Study were shipped to me in 1973, an unexpected treasure was discovered among the papers from Vista – an unused electronic stencil of a single page of illustrations for this book! There are three panels in the drawing, but they were placed on a single sheet and are reproduced from that copy. [These drawings have been added to the story below. ed]

HOW EVERYTHING WAS MADE

From Huna Vistas Bulletin 76

STEP ONE

The best stories of all are those which tell all about how WE were made, and also the animals, birds, insects and even flowers. It is also fun to hear how such things as clouds and rainbows came to be.

In the Beginning, ever so many years ago, there was no world. There were no animals or people, not even stars in the sky. But all through the places where the stars and world and sun and moon were to be put, there was God.

Now God is so large that no one can imagine anyone or anything that big, and so, in telling the story of CREATION (which is how things were made), the men of old had to think of God as a very wise and strong MAN, and they called Him, “The Father”, and said that he lived in the heavens.

The odd thing about God is that he is invisible. That means that no one can see Him. He has no body like ours, but is made of the STUFF that is used to make THOUGHTS. We can call it “thought stuff or “self stuff” because even people know that they are themSELVES, without having to stop to think that they have bodies. (You and I and all the creatures were given a bit of think stuff so we can know that we are alive and are God’s Children.)

If you have trouble thinking of things which can’t be seen, you might like to play a little game like Jack and Jill did long ago. (You may know their story, but there was a part of it that was secret and did not get into the books. Now you can know the secret part.)

Jack and Jill were playing and Jill had her crayons and a sheet of paper on a board so she could draw pictures. Jack was trying to tell her the Secret. He used the thought stuff in his head to make a fine big thought, than said to Jill, “I’ve made a thought. See if you can see or feel or hear or taste what it is.”

“There isn’t anything that I can see,” said Jill after a minute of trying. She felt in the air around Jack’s head and listened and smelled. But, of course, she could sense nothing. Jack’s thought – just like God and His thoughts – was as if nothing had been made. But something very real had been made. Thoughts are very real. Jill said, “I’ll give up. I think this is all pretend.”

“No it isn’t,” said Jack. “A nice lady at the library told how to understand such things as God and THOUGHTS. It’s easy, and I will show you. First you have to make a thought, just like I did, and then you have to find a word to match it. That is how everything was made to start with. The lady told us that in a very old book some wise man had written, ‘In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ I don’t think God was really the Word. He just must have thought a thought and then found the right word to match it before he spoke the Word. Anyway, we all can think a thought and find a word for it. The word that will make you able to hear my thought is BLUE. I made a thought of blue. Take your crayons and mark a blue patch on you paper, then you can also see my thought. But the blue spot will be harder to feel, and can hardly be smelled or tasted at all.”

Jill made a blue spot with her crayons. She studied it and then asked, “If you think of God and say the word ‘God’ for Him, can I draw Him in a picture?”

“I asked the story lady that same thing,” said Jack. “She said that ever so long ago the Egyptians who built the pyramids we see in our geography books had tried to make a picture of God so they could put it into their tombs. But finally they had to pretend. They said that a shadow was the nearest thing they could think of that was like God. And because the sun made a shadow with its light, they said that the SUN should stand for God in all their pictures, and that for God’s invisible body they would picture a shadow. They said that God had given men shadow bodies just like his, and the shadows of Kings were so royal that there was always a servant standing around just to see that no one ever stepped on the king’s shadow and he tried not to step on it himself, so when he walked in the sunshine, another servant carried an umbrella to cover him so he would not make a shadow to get stepped on.”

“Does it hurt one’s shadow to get stepped on?” asked Jill.

“I don’t know,” said Jack thoughtfully. “It just might. But more sacred even than the king’s shadow was the sun itself. They believed that it stood as the real Thought and Word of God – even that it WAS God – which the story lady said was a mistake. But, mistake or not, they used to think of God and then say the word, SUN or the word LIGHT, and that was how He got that name. And they called God’s great power SUNLIGHT.”

Jill picked up her scissors and her paper. “If thoughts are real, I am going to make us into  a king and a queen. She snipped out two crowns from her paper and put one on her own head and the other on Jack’s. “There you [are], Mr. King” she laughed. “See to it that you don’t step on your royal shadow and spoil it. But come, we’d better go up the hill to the spring and get Mother that pail of water.”

The took their pail and climbed the hill. As the sun was in front of them and threw their shadows behind as the went, they had no trouble in not stepping on them. But when they had filled their pail and started down the hill with their shadows in front of them, they tripped in trying not to step on them, and Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill, who had also tripped, came tumbling after.

Jack shivered as he picked up Jill. Spring water is very cold. “I don’t know,” said Jack, “whether my shadow body – my real one, not just my shadow – can get wet, but my regular body sure can. We’d better get another pail of water and hurry home and get into dry clothing.”

So, now that you know what really happened that time to Jack and Jill, let’s go back to the story of how everything was MADE. But first it must be explained that because God and his shadow body and Sunlight Power are hard to imagine without the shadows or the sun, we will do like an ancient neighbor people of the Egyptians did. They made everything simple and called God THE FATHER. And, (here is a very special secret for you) because even God cannot be a father without there being a mother, we will call her, in our stories, THE MOTHER. She is also too large to imagine and has a shadowy body one can’t see, and is very powerful. She is very beautiful and very kind and she loves everything, especially baby creatures. Try to remember that our story is not all true. Most stories are part PRETEND, and so ours will have to be.

Well, once upon a time the wise Father and lovely Mother decided that they would do a little creating. But before they could make animals and birds and men, there had to be a place to put them. And so, while they were at it, the made all the space that could ever be needed. It reached as far as one can reach with a thought, and that is very far, indeed. Into this vast space they placed the stars as they made them, and our sun and moon and world. Our world was an extra fine one and was made with greatest care, for on it would be place men and women after it had cooled off and everything was ready. The world was made round like a ball, as almost everything is to start with. It spun like a top and circled rather slowly around the sun in a circle so big that it took a year just to go around it. With the earth for company had been created several other worlds or planets, some farther away from the  sun and some closer, some larger than the earth and some smaller. They all had one moon, like we have, or three or four. Some of the planets were too close to the sun, however, and got too hot. Others were too far away and were too cold. Only our earth was just right.

As soon as the earth had cooled off, The Father and The Mother came to look it over and decide what to do next. It was too dry for plants, so they made RAIN out of little round drops of water, and the rain fell and fell and fell. There is something odd about rain drops. They are round, like most good things when they are created, but they mix together and make water. And in water we cannot see where one rain drop ends and the next begins. They all get pressed down flat on the sides so they fit together to make water and the seams can not be seen even with a magnifying glass. But, if the air is cold when the rain drops fall, they freeze, and then we can see them as hail, and notice how they stay round until they get warm and turn to water.

Pretty soon there was enough water, but it covered all the world and did not leave dry land. To fix this trouble, parts of the earth were pushed up into mountains and plains, and all the water ran into the low places to make lakes and oceans. As the water made little streams in the hills and started to run downward toward the low places, the streams were very happy – and still are to this day. They sang melodious little songs as they splashed over stones or made little waterfalls. And the rain drops like doing this so much that when they are in the ocean, they climb up the ladders made by the rays of the warm sun, and make clouds in which they sail back, pushed by the wind, to high spots over the land where they can fall once more and join to make brooks and sing their way to the sea.

Father said to Mother, “I’ve finished drawing plans for most of creation. We’ll have to start with the very little things and grow them in the warm water of the ocean near the shore.”

“I’ll be ready to help you any time,” replied Mother. “Have you decided what to use to make the creatures out of when we begin?”

“I’ve planned about a hundred different kinds of earth stuff to use,” explained Father. “And most of the things can be mixed together to make still more kinds of matter. We’ll have some which are gasses, some fluids like water, and many which are soft or hard or in between.” He held out his hand and showed several kinds of stuff called ‘elements’. “Want to help me make shadowy bodies for a few little creatures? We can then fill them with matter and put a little of our think stuff and self stuff into them as well as some life force, and that ought to get things started.”

Mother reached out a lovely hand and took Father’s big kind hand. They joined to make the needed thought pictures of the little creatures. That done, they made shadowy bodies to dress up the picture bodies, and folded in the bits of their own self  stuff so the creatures would have first grade intelligence and know they were themselves. To each the Mother fastened an invisible little shadowy thread which she fastened to her apron strings so she could keep track of all and help them to know just how to live. (It is called ‘Instinct’ when the Mother tells creatures how to do things, such as how to eat and grow. She tells them through the tiny shadowy threads.)

When Father’s hand got too full, the Mother said, “Let’s go into the house and I’ll find a bowl of the right size to use. So they went into their house and put the little things they were creating into a bowl. But they were too dry, and when stirred, did not mix well.

“We need some nice pure water,” said Father. They went outside and looked up into the sky. A small cloud was floating there and Father called, “Little Cloud! We need you. Come over here and see if you can rain a little in this bowl.”

The Little Cloud was so proud and excited to be asked to help that it almost burst itself hurrying to rain. It is very hard for clouds to rain until things are just right. But it squeezed and squirmed and tried until it began to turn black in the face. “Easy,” cautioned Mother, and it tried one more time, its very hardest, to squeeze out some rain drops, but accidentally let go a fork of lightning and a clap of thunder. “Careful!” warned Mother. “You almost burned the mixture.” The little cloud burst into tears, and as it was crying rain drops, and the bowl was soon half filled, and all was well.

Father watched while Mother stirred gently. Soon he said, “I think that is about enough, and that little touch of lightning may be just the thing needed to get the life  force working.”

“You’re right!” exclaimed Mother. “See! Little balls are forming and growing skins around themselves. Balls are always a good sign.” They watched and Mother stirred ever so gently.

Soon the little balls, which looked like jelly, began to wiggle and squirm with life. “Listen,” commanded Father, “you little fellows grow as fast as you can and multiply so that we can have plenty of one celled creatures.”

Mother wiped her hands and hung up her apron of stars. “What do you plan to do with them when there are enough?”

“Oh,” answered Father, “have them join to make larger creatures with many cells. l bet some cells will take over the work of being eyes for the creature, and some of being the stomach, and some mouths. You will have to instruct them through the shadowy stuff threads fastened from them to your apron strings.”

“I’ll be glad to instruct them,” said Mother. “I’ve wanted a family for some time, and these will be cunning children. When the time comes I will see that their instinct teaches them how to grow teeth and ears and hair. Then later, I will see that they learn things like building nests. It will be most entertaining.”

As they took the bowl to go to pour the mixture into the warm ocean, they were surprised to find a whole group of clouds gathered above their house. They had heard of the wonderful honor bestowed on Little Cloud by being allowed to help with creating things. They all were just waiting and almost bursting themselves to be ready to rain at a moment’s notice. The air filled with flashes of lightning and loud rolls of thunder. But Father and Mother did not mind. They only smiled and covered the bowl to show that they had enough rain in it already. They walked across the beach and emptied the bowl here and there among the rocks on the shore. Once in the water the little creatures lost no time getting to work. Some became plants and some creatures. All they needed was time to show what they could do.

THE NEXT DAY

The next day was a very long time coming, at least as we think of time, for the days of the Father and Mother are ever so much longer than ours. But the next long day of their time came at last, and all the little new one-celled creatures came to the top of the water to show themselves proudly.

Some had learned to make little hands of parts of their bodies to grasp food. But, having no mouths, they just wrapped their bodies around the bit of food and digested it. Others had been busy learning to be plants, and most of them had learned how to use sunshine and smoke from the air to make green stuff so anyone would know they were plants. The smoke was in the air and got mixed into the water, so making this green “chlorophyll” was really quite easy.

Father saw that there were too many plant cells and not enough animal ones. He looked up at the smoke in the air which had come from volcanoes before the earth had cooled, and said, “Mother, unless we can clear up the air and get rid of the smog and smoke, we’ll have the ocean filled with plant cells and there will hardly be room left for the little animals.”

Mothers said, “Couldn’t we put the air through my washing machine and wash it? Let’s go home and try.” So they went home and to the laundry room. Mother poured soap and bleach into her big machine and said to Father, “You pull in the air and stuff it into the machine. I’ll stand over here and try to keep it from tangling as it comes out of the wringer.”

Father went outside and told the clouds to go lie on the ground for a little while, then began pulling in the air. Before long he had it blowing in all by itself and making a fine wind. The wind liked the game and whistled at the top of its voice. Mother had heard another noise and had gone to look out of the window at the clean air which was shooting out of the whirling wringer.

“Come and look,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ve done something to the air.” She pointed to little whirlwinds which raced along the beach and picked up sand, and out over the ocean there were three big whirlwinds making tall spouts and sucking up the ocean water to make “water spouts.” “I think we could have done very well without those,” she said anxiously. “I’ll slow down the washer and we’ll take more time putting the air through.”

When all the washing was done, Mother sighed. “In spite of everything, we made several tornadoes and one cyclone. Now we will have to teach Adam and Eve, when we get them created, to get into caves when they see a tornado coming. “

Going back again to the sea, they watched the little animals pull in their belts so tightly on their middles that they cut themselves in two. They were doing this to obey the command to grow and multiply. And to grow they gobbled up the little plant cells for food.

“Is that to be allowed?” asked Mother. “It doesn’t look very kind.”

“I did my level best,” said Father, “but it was the only way there was. So its a ‘Law’ and I’m afraid all animal life will be marked by some cruelty – even the lives of Adam and Eve and their children. They will have to live in animal bodies you know, and so be subject to the rules that have to be made for all animals, large and small. Everything will eat some living thing, be it plant or smaller creature, but at the first bite the self stuff in the one being eaten will leave and come back to be saved to enter new plants or creatures later on. And – this is very important – each time the self stuff goes through a life, it will pick up experience and be smarter. When we make Adam and Eve, the self stuff we will have to put into them will be so experienced that it will make them the most intelligent of all the animals.”

“I hope your plans do not call for men to be too cruel and savage,” said Mother hopefully.

“No, said Father. I have man planned to be as kind as I dare. But he will have to keep other animals from eating him, and have to do his share of cruel acts.” He reached down and stirred the sea water with his hand. “All that will come a bit later. Just now we must give the command to these little fellows to join up and form larger and larger plants and creatures – many different kinds.” So he spoke in a low voice and gave the commands and everything in the sea began following the plans and joining up to do as they were told.

With Father and Mother right there to supervise (which is to boss the job), and with Mother to hold the ends of the invisible shadowy threads running to each plant and creature so that she could supply enough direction through “instinct”, the sea soon became filled with worms and snails and little fish and eels, also little crabs and oysters and no end of interesting creatures. The plants had likewise grown, and one had made kelp, with little green bags filled with air to keep the tops of the plants floating on the top of the water.

They started back to their house, taking the path that came in from the back, and came upon a small lake of black water. “Did all that come from the washing of the air?” asked Mother.

“Must have,” answered Father. “The air was certainly dirty.” He looked up and sniffed. “Still has too much smoke in it. But pretty soon the plants will move from the sea to the land and begin to grow. They’ll take the carbon from the air and then the dead layers of plants will make oil so that Adam’s children can have gasoline for their automobiles and dirty up the air again by burning it. There will also be coal to burn and make smoke. I must find time to draw plans for some kind of smog control. The other day when I was checking my plans by looking far ahead through our time telescope, I focused on one century where the smog was so bad over the cities that it was making all of Adam’s children weep and wipe their eyes.”

At their house Mother set about getting lunch while Father got out his drawing board and tried to invent a way to prevent Smog. He covered many sheets of paper with drawings and wrote endless notes until his fountain pen ran dry. But by then it was time for lunch and after that to set the universe a good example by taking a little nap. When they woke up after exactly half an hour, Father laughed and said, “I had a funny dream. In it I saw our lake of black wash water from the clouds. It had been covered by ages of dust and had dried down to a bed of tar. There was a sign saying, ‘La Brea Tar Pits’ and a museum holding the bones of poor animals of the past who had gotten caught in the tar ages before.”

Mother said, “Let’s go back to the beach and see what the plants and creatures are doing by this time. So they went. And when they got there they found everything on a larger scale. The fish were much larger and there was a lobster with claws large enough to pinch almost anything. Mother let it pinch her finger (for nothing can hurt her or Father), and she said, “Aren’t they all cunning! But didn’t you plan any of them square or with flat sides? All these seem to be round like balls or round and a little flat. And all their legs are round, but pulled out to make little jointed pipes.”

“Round is the best way,” explained the Father. Only the worst builders make things square or with flat lines. Through the time telescope I looked on ahead a few ages to see how Adam’s children would do with their buildings, and I am sorry to say that from the pyramids of Egypt down to the skyscrapers of New York, the flat sides and squares and triangles were used. However, I did notice a few lovely round domes, mostly on temples. The most beautiful round homes that I saw were in the cold North. The Eskimos had no trees to cut down to use to hold up the roofs of their snow houses, so they learned to build them round and that is the strongest as well as the most beautiful way. You’ll love the Eskimos when we get them made. Their babies, when dressed in furs to play outside in cold weather are almost as round as their houses.”

Mother pointed to a small squid which had a round head and body all in one, and eight legs, none of them longer than the length of a hand. “Isn’t this a cunning one? And it certainly has stayed with round ways of building. It must be rather intelligent, too. Do you suppose it is going to be good for anything?”

Father leaned down and tickled the squid with a finger. “I remember the plan I drew for this one. And, as I recall, it had some special gift. Perhaps it will perform for us.” He tickled the little squid again, then waited.

Little Squid knew that something was expected of it, but couldn’t imagine what. It waved its legs and wiggled its mouth and eyes, but that did not seem enough. Then becoming much ashamed, it decided to hide, and squeezed in its sides and shot out a big spurt of black that made ink of the water all around it and hid it entirely.

“That was it,” laughed the Father. “He can make ink!” He reached down and found Little Squid and placed him over in clear water, after which he took his big fountain pen from his vest pocket and filled it with the fine black ink. “Well done, my boy,” he said, patting Little Squid who was so delighted at having been able to furnish ink for the Father that he could hardly keep from trying to color the whole ocean black. And so, to this day, the squids keep on showing us how to make ink. They keep Father’s fountain pen filled, and it is just possible that they furnish all the ink for our ball point pens.

THE THIRD STEP

The next long day had to be spent by the Father and the Mother finishing a new galaxy out in the suburbs of the Universe. The big centers had become very much crowded, and more and more people were wanting to commute back and forth in their flying saucers to the suburbs. When suns and planets of the new galaxy had all been placed and given their regular spins and circling orbits, the pieces were picked up and put in the trash bin, but when Mother had carefully brushed up the leftover star dust, she put it in an envelope and placed it in her handbag. “It might come in handy,” she said. “But now let’s go see how Earth is doing.”

When they arrived, Mother went to open their house and air it, while Father crossed the beach to the sea and looked into the warm waters. Everything had done well and many creatures had become quite large. One fish had done especially well and was the biggest in a splashing school. Father called, “Come here, Whale!” and it came as fast as it could, swimming for a while under water, then rising to the surface to blow water out of the nose hole in the top of its head. Once it had gotten rid of the water, it sucked in a large supply of air and dived for another swim.

Father was much interested, and as Mother came up just then, he said, “These fish have done extra well. I see that, according to plan number Steen-point-seven, they have managed to learn to bring forth their young alive instead out of eggs. They have also grown teats with milk to feed the little whales.” He turned the big whale on it’s side in the water so they could see the little calf whale having its lunch.

“Very nicely, done,” said Mother. “Do you think you can bring them along farther enough so your Adam could be a fish and live in water?”

“No,” said the Father with a shake of his head. “I did draw up early plans and write a few notes for a mermaid, but she seemed rather impractical. I think we will have to get some of the fish out on land and work with them.”

The school of whales made a great splashing and spouting. Mother was amused by their play. “They have holes in their heads, she pointed out. I hope when your men are made, they won’t have.”

Father chuckled. “I looked at men when I was examining future buildings, and noticed that quite a few had holes in their heads – or so I judged from the strange things they were doing. They had made atom bombs, and half the men wanted to blow up the other half because they disagreed on what seemed to be the need to be Red or White. But they were afraid to use their bombs for fear they would, at the same time, blow themselves up. I was almost ashamed that we ever made them.”

“But until and unless they do blow each other up,” said Mother, “the whale’s idea of making milk for babies seems very good. Little Adam and Eve will have no mother, so they will certainly have to have milk from whales or some other animals. Have you planned for milk, or should I worry about it?”

“Don’t worry,” said Father. “I’ve drawn plans for hundreds of animals which will give milk. There will be horses and cows, but one of the most promising is the goat. When the time comes I am sure there will be no trouble. Besides, I have planned on some plants which may help. There was the milkweed plan, but the milk could not be made without being bitter. The poppy plant milk was no good for babies, although it turned out to be just right for the making of opium. The coconut palm was the best of the lot, but the milk in the big nuts always remained watery no matter how I worked over my plans.”

“When shall we try to coax the plants and other things out of the water to live on land?” asked Mother.

“Any time, now,” answered Father. “The plans are all made for grass and trees and land and swamp plants. As soon as we get them started, the creatures which can eat them as food can come ashore, and when they have come, the others who have to eat animals to live can come. The place will look beautiful when we get plants and things growing. Even weeds. I couldn’t help including a few weeds to even out some plant families, but even these will often be useful.”

“I’ll help you get some of the plants to come out of the sea to the land,” said Mother. And they began selecting the ones which seemed best for different places.

It must be explained that Father and Mother could talk to all the plants and creatures, not in words and in English (for that had not yet been invented), but by sending talk pictures along the little threads which came from every plant and creature to be part of the bundle of invisible threads tied to Mother’s apron strings.

Sending thoughts for talk back and forth on the little threads is very much like talking words back and forth over telephone wires, but is called TELEPATHY. Try to remember this fine word, for it is very important. Telepathy is used by all of the animals because it is hard for them to make sounds to tell other animals just what is to be known. AND, telepathy was very important to Adam and Eve because for a long time they were just animals in a human animal body and were unable to talk.

Father and Mother told all the little plants and creatures by the use of telepathy that they were to do their best to try to come out to live on land, and while they were doing their parts, there was work to be done to make things ready for them out on the land. A place was made on the sandy beach for a few, but back beyond the beach the soil was better, so Father quickly spaded up a fine large garden plot. While he was doing this, Mother found a brook that ran right into the ocean and which would be easy for the plants and animals to follow to a nice swamp that was watered with salt water when the tide came in. Above the tide line, the water in the swamp was fresh, so the place seemed ideal for some kinds of plants and creatures.

By afternoon of the long day, the plants were ready to come out to the garden spot, and Father and Mother carried them there and set them out in neat rows.

“Without water they will wilt,” said Mother, and she telepathed a call, “Little Cloud! Where are you? We need your help again.” Little Cloud had been hanging around not far away, hoping it would be needed. Now it called to its friend, the Wind, and it pushed and pulled, and in almost no time at all, Little Cloud was there.

“Good,” said Mother, giving Little Cloud a pat and nodding her thanks to the Wind. “I need your help, Cloudlet. Do you think I can trust you to come several times a day and rain gently on the new garden to keep the plants from wilting?”

Little Cloud telepathed a breathless, “Yes”, and, almost bursting with pride at being called upon for such an important job, began at once to puff itself and get slightly black in the face.

“No! No!” warned Mother. “No lightning and thunder, and just the smallest and gentlest rain on the little plants.” She turned to the Wind and said, “You go and play making white caps on the waves over on the ocean. If you keep racing around here you’ll dry out the garden faster than Little Cloud can water it.”

The Father had gone to the beach to bring some plants for the swamp, but he had hardly touched the water when Little Squid came flop flop swimming as fast as he could and got ready to make ink. Father’s fountain pen was not even partly dry, but just because it gave Little Squid so much pleasure to be allowed to help he said, “Splendid idea,” and when a fine pool of ink was ready, fill his pen to overflowing. He then took the proper plants to the swamp and planted them. Going to the house to find Mother, he said, “I want to get out my Adam and Eve plans and check them. I’ve run into a problem. It’s the matter of how to keep the children clean after we create them. They will be very tiny at first and quite helpless, and as they will not live like fish and be washed all the time by water, they will need help.”

Mother came and they looked over the plans carefully. Soon she said, “There must be a solution. Suppose I run out and look through the Time telescope and see what they will have done about babies by the 19th Century.” She left Father to go out on the veranda. There she sat down and looked through the telescope, focusing it carefully until suddenly she saw what she wanted. It was a human mother with two small children clinging to her skirts, and a baby in a little cart. She had been doing her laundry, and was hanging diapers on the line. The baby was wearing a diaper also. Mother hurried back into the house.

“I found what we need. We must find a way to make large squares of thick cloth to act as diapers for Adam and Eve. It must be soft and nice for them, as they will be very tender and very tiny. It’s a good thing I have a proper washing machine.”

Father scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Weaving cloth is quite an undertaking for our earth children – at least it will be just now when we need diapers. …. Now if Adam and Eve were half fish and could live in the sea. . . . “

“You gave up that idea,” said Mother, “Our men and women can’t sit around all the time half in the water and half out. But don’t fret. This is woman’s work and I’ll find a way. If worst comes to worst, we might sew together rabbit skins…. only I am afraid they might not wash well.”

Father selected a plan from his files and held it up. “I have made drawings of a plant which might give us soft fur to weave. I called it ‘cotton’ – see, long white fibers in its seed pods. Take out the seeds and you have the cotton to weave into diapers.”

“We’ll also need safety pins and needles and thread and buttons,” said Mother. “And toys for the children.”

Father made some notes. “Yes, toys, but they can wait. I am sure little animals will make good things to play with. About needles, I have already planned pine needles, but they would hardly be stiff enough for sewing. Perhaps when that little sea creature you called ‘a pincushion’ comes out on land it might be of use. We will have plenty of time to work things out, but it’s time we got back to that new nebula we started. By now it may be spreading itself so thin that it will be all over the place. And let’s go by the Milky Way. We might get an idea there to help with the problem of milk for the children.”

Mother laughed as she put on her traveling cloak. “I hope you are not planning some big jokes on poor little Adam. Think of stuffing a million stars into his bottle for a meal.”

“What do you mean by ‘bottle’?” asked Father as they set off at a thousand times the speed of light.”

“Bottles are going to be my invention,” said Mother, “Very important for babies. You just wait and see.”

They laughed together and drew up on the farther side of the Universe, for they were made of thought stuff, and thoughts travel the fastest of anything. Just think you are there, and in just moments, well, THERE YOU ARE!

“Now look at that nebula,” said Mother. “We might have known. All over space! While you get some comet tails and twist them into brooms, I’ll put away our cloaks. I’ll help you sweep the nebula back where we want it.”

Father made the brooms out of comet tails and they started sweeping, but their thoughts were back on Earth. “I must plan a broom plant for Eve,” Father said.

“Are you planning to make Eve do all the sweeping?” asked Mother anxiously.

“Just around the house and yard,” said Father. “When Adam is asked to help I foresee that he will wiggle out of the job by inventing a sweeping machine and showing poor Eve how to use it.”

THE LIFE ON LAND

AFTER A LONG NIGHT, Father and Mother arrived early and were delighted to find how everything had grown and spread out. There was grass on all the hills, and trees covered the places where they were most needed. The swamps were so thick with growing things that the water was almost covered in spots.

Little Cloud had hurried up. Now she showered a few big drops to call attention to herself. So Mother telepathed, “Why, Little Cloud! You did marvelously well! Not a single plant could have wilted. The garden is perfect, and you are perhaps the smartest and most reliable cloud in the sky.” She turned to Father. “What can we do to reward Little Cloud?”

Father thought for a moment. “I have drawings for a thing called ‘a rainbow’,” he said. “It will be some time before the fine, large ones that stretch all across the land will be ready, but I might make a small, individual one for her.”

“Oh, do!” urged Mother. “It will make her the most beautiful little cloud ever.”

So father made the right thought picture. Then he turned to Little Cloud and said, “Turn around so the sun will shine right under you. That’s right. Now rain a little.” Little Cloud did just as she was told, and soon there hung below her in a small arch a most beautiful little rainbow.

“Lovely!” exclaimed Mother. “But if we turned the rainbow over, it would make a nice necklace – the first one in the world – for Little Cloud.”

“I’m afraid of that,” said Father. “Rainbows are rather fragile.”

“Aren’t all beautiful things fragile?” asked Mother.

“All except you,” replied Father gallantly. “The trouble with rainbows is that they make bowls when you turn them over, and they will fill with rain. If they get too full, their bottoms rip out and make cloudbursts so that roads and bridges, get washed out and there is no end of trouble.”

“Oh, let her have it for a necklace” coaxed Mother. “It will be a long time before Adam will be building roads and bridges, and, besides, Little Cloud will be very careful, I’m sure.” Little Cloud nodded and bobbed up and down excitedly, so Father kindly allowed her to turn her little rainbow over and wear it as a necklace.

But changing things after they have been carefully planned is always dangerous. In later years other clouds also wanted necklaces, and when they were out over desert places, where no one would notice, they often turned their rainbows up side down to make necklaces …. and, as you may know, even today, the bottoms rip out and the rain falls in one great splash, washing out everything that stands in the way. However, cloudbursts are not always caused, and never by Little Cloud. If you see a small cloud with its rainbow turned over under it, but not making a cloudburst, you can be quite sure that it is Little Cloud. She sometimes doubles her rainbow to make it stronger so the bottom will not tear. She is always VERY careful.

Father stooped and brought up some water in the cup of his hand. “See these odd little fellows?” he asked. “They are diatoms, and in each is a tiny drop of oil. In time to come they will have died in countless numbers, but their oil will have gone into the ground. Yes, Adam will have oil for his automobiles …. and smog. This lush plant growth which is taking the smoke from the air will get covered with earth, and one day will give Adam his coal.

Mother had found a polliwog, and she called Father’s attention to it. He had found a fine cattail, but turned to see what Mother had discovered. She said excitedly, “The little fish creatures have come to land as well as the plants. This little round one has already grown a mouth and tail, and I do believe that it is starting to grow front and back legs!”

Father studied the little creature and found the plan to match it. “A polliwog,” he announced. “But this is a baby frog. In time its legs will grow large and its tail drop off, and it will be a small frog. Let’s find its parents. They must be around close.

Mother touched the invisible threads which ran from her apron strings to all the creatures, and found the right one. Through it she telepathed a “Come hither”, call and soon a fine big frog who was hiding under a lily pad mounted the pad and stood ready to pay attention.

“You have done well,” said Father. “You are one of the first fish to come out on land for us, and now we have a creature who can live either in water or on land. We are very proud of you. You shall have a reward. Call your wife.”

The frog dived into the water and came back quickly with his wife. Father had been looking through his notes.

“You are Bull Frogs,” said Father. (He turned to Mother and said in a whisper, “I was thinking of milk when I drew up the plan for these.”) To the frogs he said, “For your reward I am going to give you voices and a fine song – one all of your own   for you and your children to have and sing all down the centuries. Now draw in a big breath. Now tighten your throats. Now breathe out very slowly and try to sing.” He motioned to Mother, and they made a few magic passes in the air over the frogs. Suddenly it happened! From both of the frogs came big booming voices and they began to sing their very own song. It was, “First out! First out! First out!” and they were endlessly proud of being the first to come out on land.

And to this day you can hear the bull frogs in the swamp bragging all night long. (The baby bull frogs do not have fine big voices, so they croak “Am, Am, Am”, which is short for “Amphibian”, which means a creature which can live either in or out of the water.)

Leaving the swamp, Father and Mother came upon two cousins of the Bull Frogs. They were Mr. and Mrs. Toad, and they were living out on the dry land, even if they did have to start as tadpoles in a pond, just like the polliwogs.

Mother telepathed to them a question, “How do you come to be living out here so far from the swamp?”

Mr. Toad blinked his big eyes and replied sadly, “It was my fault. I get lost. I can’t keep from getting turned around and taking the wrong path, so we gave up trying to find our way back to the swamp every day, and just live out here. But it’s not bad. We can catch lots of flies and bugs. We manage.” He looked at Mrs. Toad, who nodded, and then said, “Please could we have a reward? We got even farther away from the sea than the frogs.”

“Of course,” said Mother. “Do you also want a song?”

“Please,” said Mr. Toad.

Father instructed them to breathe in deeply and tighten their throats, then made the proper passes over them with Mother’s help. But neither Toad could utter a sound.

Father said, “Their throats get so dry out here away from water. Suppose we try something else.” He looked around and on the damp side of a log made a pass. Mother also made a pass, and out of the ground grew with surprising speed the finest toadstool one could imagine. The toads were delighted.

“All our very own?” asked Mr. Toad.

“All your very own,” promised Father. “You can sit under one all day long and IT will keep you from having a shadow Then no one can STEP on your shadow, and you will be as splendid as any King Toad in Egypt, that is, when there is an Egypt of course.” So now, almost no one was ever known to step on a toad’s shadow from that day to this.

As they walked on along the path toward the ocean, Mother said. “I can’t help trying to remember what ones of Adam’s children I saw through the Time telescope ones who looked just like Mr. Toad.”

Father laughed. “I haven’t forgotten. In time to come one will always be able to see elderly Adams and their plump wives sitting in the shade of big umbrellas at Miami Beach, trying not to cast shadows lest they get sunburned, and both looking just like big toads. Not,” he hastened to add, “that I have anything against toads “

When they came to the ocean, Old Mama Whale caught sight of them and came spouting and splashing up to the beach. After they had exchanged polite greetings, Niarna Whale telepathed,

“Many of the fish have gone out to live on land as animals. I can show you the way each kind went and what path to take to find them. But I didn’t try to come out. I felt that I needed some help.” She added hurriedly, “Not that the whale family has failed entirely! A few smaller members of our family made it …… but I …….” She saw a big wave coming and cried a little wildly, “Now I’ll try!” And try she did, only managing to get herself washed up on the beach where she could get neither out on land or back into the water. “O dear, O dear”, she sputtered, “and already I am getting short of breath.”

Mother smiled and raised her hands high to call for a very large wave, and out rolled a very fine BIG wave that was all green inside. It picked up Mama Whale with ease and carried her back into deep water.

When she had caught her breath, she panted, “My! My! I never dreamed I would be that much heavier out of water than in it. This time, honest, I AM GOING TO REDUCE.”

“That’s a whale of an idea,” said Father. “And as a reward for your effort, I promise you that for centuries to come, half of Adam’s children will repeat your promise, word for word.” (And that is why, even today, when anyone says, “I am going to reduce,” we must all clap our hands and cheer them on and shout, “That’s a WHALE OF AN IDEA.”)

A big sucker fish had been watching with a big grin. Father telepathed to him, “Did you try to come out on land?”

“Not I,” answered the sucker with a smirk. “Everyone says I’m a sucker, but at least I’m smart enough to stay as I am. Only a real sucker would ever want to be an animal, go to live on land, and take the terrible chance of being made into a man.”

“You may be smart at that,” said Father, then he said to Mama Whale, “Did you say you could point out the path that would take us to where the successful member of the whale family lives? The one which came out to live on land?”

Mama Whale tipped a little so she could point with a spout of water. “That second path to the left by that large tree. And say that Granny sent you.

They crossed the beach and took the trail by the big tree. It led back inland, and on to a big gray animal standing by a pool and drinking water through a long pipe that seemed to hang down from its head. “What an odd creature,” said Mother. And as she spoke, the tube lifted and spouted water all over the creature’s back. “A whale! I do believe it is what we came to find! Did you see it spout?”

Father had been consulting his bundle of plans. He put them back into his large pocket with a chuckle. “That is my ELEPHANT. Right according to my plans. She is a true daughter of Old Mama Whale, only with legs, and come out on land.

“But she spouted, just like a whale, although the water came from that pipe and not from a hole in her  head, ” said Mother.

“I planned the hole in the end of a trunk,” explained Father. And the trunk is a very useful invention. See the baby elephant there! It is using its trunk to get its dinner. The elephants also give milk.

Mother had found the right threads, and they telepathed their greetings while Mrs. Jumbo browsed lazily on bamboo shoots and Little Jumbo finished his meal.

“Do you suppose elephant milk would do for babies?” asked Mother, for she kept thinking of Adam and Eve.

“Too fattening, I’m afraid,” said Father. “Just look how rollypolly Little Jumbo has become, to say nothing of his mother.

Mrs. Jumbo had overheard. “It’s a gland that makes me overweight. It’s called a stomach, and everything I put into it turns to food. But,” she sighed loudly, “I am going to begin to reduce right away.”

“A whale of an idea!” cried Father, and he and Mother both clapped and cheered.

“Mother said, “Did you just have to say that?”

“A promise is a promise,” said Father, “and you know what I promised Mama Whale.” He turned to Mrs. Jumbo, who had stopped chewing and looked about to begin to cry. “Don’t you worry. We like our elephants nice and round and plump. Go right on as you are. In time to come you will be the favorite animal in every circus, and children will love you more than any of the other animals and will feed you peanuts and popcorn. You can take them for rides on your back.

They took leave of the elephants and set off across lots to find the next path that led up from the beach so that they could see what animals had made it.

A BIT LATE

Father and Mother came to a desolate valley beside a swamp. On the ground they saw the bones of great creatures. Father said, “Just a moment, Dear,” and paused to consult his bundle of plans.

“Yes, here they are,” he said. “Those are the bones of several members of the Dinosaur family. They must have come out on land quite early. We are a bit late to see them alive. The first ones ate tree ferns, then some learned to eat others and developed big teeth and great appetites. Soon these ate up all the gentle tree eating dinosaurs …. and when they were all gone, starved to death. But I’m glad they are gone. Adam will not have to run from them, and that will be a help.

They passed several lizards, and a few snakes who had managed to come out on land without developing legs and were managing fairly well. One snake sat up and rattled his tail rattles for them.

“The first member of percussion bands which are to come,” explained Father. “He is poisonous and dangerous, but will teach Adam to mind his step.” The Father pointed to the edge of the swamp where a big alligator was basking in the sun, his tail in the water. “That is another creature who will teach Adam to be careful and alert.”

Mother said, “For my part, I could do without these ugly beasts. Let’s hurry on.”

So they hurried on along the crosscut path and soon came to another large valley with grass and trees and vines and bushes.

“This may be where the catfish or dogfish came out on land to live,” said Father. “Or the parrot fish, or pork fish or the sea horse.” He chuckled, and added, “Just think how future biologists will turn over in their graves when they learn that cats came from catfish – just to mention one kind of scientist who will hear how the earth was really created and that the true story is being told to all the little Adams and Eves. But all joking aside, fun is a very important thing and I have taken great care in planning Adam to see to it that he will have a sense of humor. I have planned to give him a funny bone, and to be extra certain that it will work, I will see that it is placed on the end of an arm bone called the humerus.”

“You and your puns and old jokes!” Mother pretended to scold. “You’ll have poor Eve spending half her time trying to keep Adam from being either silly or ridiculous.”

Father became very serious. “What I am really trying to do is to fix it so Adam will be able to laugh at himself. If he can do that, it will save the day for him in a thousand tight places.”

There was a rustling of leaves as they passed a small grove of aspen trees, and Mother pointed, crying delightedly, “Look! It’s my sea pincushion come out on land!”

“So it is,” agreed Father. “The sea urchin, and now it has become a porcupine with quills to make all kinds and sizes of pins and needles for you.”

Mother was already telepathing to Porcy, and he came happily to her and dropped a good dozen quills at her feet so she could take her pick. That done, he sat up and looked expectant.

“Is there any particular reward that you wish?” asked Mother. “A song, perhaps? Or a loud voice?”

Porch rattled his quills hopefully and telepathed, “Can you fix it so I won’t have to be afraid of getting eaten? There are some very fierce animals around here.”

Mother turned to Father, “Can you help?”

Father nodded and said to Porcy, “What you need is courage. You haven’t been eaten yet, have you?”

“Not quite,” admitted Porcy, “but almost, a lot of times.”

“Nothing will bite you,” said Father. “They see that they would get their mouths all filled with needles. So, take this gift of courage that I will give you, and when any animal bothers you, just lift your quills and stand still. You will be safe and after awhile the animal will go away.” He waved his hand; Mother waved hers, and suddenly Porcy had courage and always has from that day to this.

“I’ll be back when I need more needles or pins,” promised Mother and they went on along the path.

Father said, “I hope Adam and Eve can learn that most of the things of which they will be afraid cannot hurt them, and that most of the bad things they fear will happen never do.”

They walked on and came to a meadow. Mother stopped and studied the lush green grass. “Shouldn’t there be flowers to brighten it up?” she asked. “Adam’s son will be sure to need flowers to take to the beloved when courting, and to give to tired wives between times to make their lives a little easier. Flowers mean love, you know.”

The Father smiled tenderly at her. “I could do with a bouquet myself to present to you right now, my dear. We must give orders to the sea plants to come to the land and make plants which will flower. I am sure the sea anemone would be able to come out quickly.”

Mother opened her handbag and took out a little package of star dust. “This is a trick I learned from the Irish when looking through the Time telescope. Watch me: he shook the vial and the breeze scattered the star dust over the meadow. “The Irish were singing a song about how star dust was sprinkled there to make the shamrocks grow,” she explained. “And I’m sure it will make all the other loved things grow equally well. But it is growing late. Shall we go back across the Universe and finish some chores while we give time for the plants to come out of the sea and make flowers?”

“Remind me to fill my vial with star dust,” said Mother, and they spoke the magic words together and were off.

THE FLOWERS COME OUT

After another heavenly day and night, Father and Mother arrived back at the meadow, and to their delight, flowers of all sorts and sizes bloomed in the grass and on bushes and trees.

“They are beautiful,” said Mother. “But I didn’t expect them all to be white. She leaned over to smell of some fine flowers on a low bush. And weren’t they to have perfume?”

Father looked over his plans. “Yes, they are to be in colors and to have many different kinds of perfume. But,” he bowed to Mother, “YOU are the keeper of all that is beautiful and fragrant. They had to await your touch. Will you see what you can do?”

Mother quickly found the right threads and began to telepath to the plants and flowers. “Now children, listen carefully. You have done a splendid job coming up from the sea and making flowers for the world. Would you like a reward?”

The flowers and plants beneath them danced excitedly although there was very little breeze. They all nodded together and the sensitive plant opened and closed its leaf clusters a dozen times although its flowers were not much to boast about.

Mother took from her bag her compact, and called to the Wind, saying, “When I open my compact, you blow the fragrance from it all over the meadow so that the flowers can pick a fragrance that suits them… there are hundreds to choose from. She opened her compact and instantly the most heavenly fragrances drifted out. The flowers were enchanted as they selected the fragrance they liked best. Some took powerful perfumes, some liked best the delicate ones better suited to them as violets or roses. A few, out where the wind hardly reached, ended with almost no perfume at all.

Next, Mother looked about to find Little Cloud and called to her. “I need you again, Cloudlet,” she said, and Little Cloud was fit to burst with pride at being called upon again to help. “Float over at the end of the meadow,” instructed Mother. “Make a gentle rain and a fine brilliant rainbow.” She turned to the flowers, “Watch carefully, and soon you will see all the colors there are or ever will be. As the second part of your reward, you may select as many colors as you want for your flowers, or mix the colors. Now see what you can do.”

Little Cloud rained gently. The sun struck the rain drops, and a marvelous rainbow arched all across the meadow. The flowers made grabs, and in a moment the meadow and the bushes and the trees burst into color. Every color in the rainbow had been used …. and every kind of flower had its color and its perfume except for a few who had not paid attention and so didn’t get around to acting until all the color was gone and not a sniff of heavenly perfume was left. To this day they have to remain white, and some have just no scent at all. The moral is that, “When Mother speaks, one will do well to pay strict attention and to do as one is told just as fast as possible.”

Father picked a red hibiscus for Mother, and she wore it in her hair at one side, just below her crown of stars. Mother then found a shamrock with four leaves and put it into Father’s buttonhole. “To give you the Luck of the Irish in making little Adam and little Eve,” she said. “Now what did you say about plants to make white fiber from which to make diapers?”

“Let’s look around,” said Father, and they left the meadow and came upon various plants, one of which had large round bolls on it. Father picked one and opened it. Packed tightly inside with several seeds was cotton. “All according to plan,” said Father with satisfaction. “This is much better than the cotton from the cottonwood tree. Now if we can find creatures who can be pressed into service to spin, and weave the cotton, we will be almost ready for Adam and Eve.”

“While I think of it,” said Mother, “how will I get eyes in my quill needles for the thread when I get thread?”

“Borers,” said Father. “I have planned for several types. I’ll keep an eye out for a good one with a hard bill who can drill the eyes just right.”

Father pointed at some buttercups and cowslips growing in the grass. “Both are the right color – bright yellow,” he said. “Very clever to pick the right color to match their names. And, with them here, we must be getting close to where the cows have come out of the sea.”

They went on and found a path running beside a fine stream that flowed toward the ocean, and soon they began to see goats and sheep and cows and bulls and buffaloes. The buffalo bull came, making a great show of starting to hook them, but Mother telepathed to him and said, “Behave yourself. You can’t buffalo us. Besides, we are your friends.” The buffalo was ever so much ashamed. He turned red in the face, and even today his mane is rather red. Next, a bull with long, sharp horns came charging at them. Father stepped toward it, saying, “Hold up, son. This isn’t a bull fight. You can save that for the times when Adam will play with you and show you what becomes of bulls who have bad manners.”

Mother pointed, “Why there is that Little Mermaid I saw down by the sea. The one you partly planned and then decided could not be human and still live half in the water and half out.” She felt for the proper thread, and telepathed a friendly greeting to Little Mermaid, who sat on the bank of the stream splashing the water nervously with her tail. She had a pretty sea shell in one hand and had been drinking milk from it. In the other hand she had the muzzle of a baby goat which had been sharing her breakfast.

“I’m very well, thank you ” she telepathed in answer to Mother’s greeting, for, as we all know, only humans can talk with language, and when Adam and Eve were made, they couldn’t talk until they were given a bit of SECOND GRADE self stuff to go with the bit of FIRST GRADE self stuff that all living creatures start out with.

Father said, “I think this mermaid is an answer to prayer.”

“Prayer to whom?” asked Mother. “Doesn’t all prayer have to come to us? Is there anyone else to whom it could go?”

“I was just borrowing a line that I heard Adam speak when looking through the Time telescope,” said Father. “What I mean is that Little Mermaid seems to be just what we have needed.” He turned to her and said in a very fatherly telepathic way, “Where did you get your milk, Little Mermaid?”

“From the kind goats who are grazing over behind those bushes,” answered Little Mermaid. “They are very tame and very kind. And I bring them salt water every day from the ocean in my shell, you know. They LOVE salt.”

Father turned to Mother and said, “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

“Yes, I think I may be,” said Mother. “But wouldn’t it be against one of your Laws to make a Milk Maid out of a Mermaid just to get help in milking goats to get milk for baby Adam and Eve?”

“Not exactly against Natural Law,” explained Father. “You see, Mermaids are only half real. The other half of them is story. If there was trouble later on, we could do something about it. He turned to Little Mermaid and telepathed, “How would you like to be a land creature and come out all the way to live on land?”

“It might be nice,” she said hopefully. “If I could just trade my tail for legs and feet so I could walk.” She splashed in the water and said, “Did you ever try walking on a fish’s tail like mine? I don’t think it can be done.”

Mother exchanged glances with Father, then said to Little Mermaid, “My dear, if you will do us a great favor, we will give you a fine pair of legs and feet.”

“I’ll be glad to try to help. What do you want me to do?”

Father said, “Sit very still and breathe in four deep, slow breaths, then four more, and then four more. Yes, just like that. A few more times while Mother and I say some magic words.” (The words were whispered and a thought-picture made of legs and feet.) Suddenly the tail was gone and Little Mermaid stood up and began dancing around. She was delighted.

Mother said, “Wait a moment child. You are almost like a human girl, and so will need to be made pretty with some clothing.” She pulled some soft grass from the bank of the stream and made her a fine grass skirt. Then she picked flowers and made her a lei of them to wear around her neck. “There,” she said when she had finished. “Your title now shall be ‘The World’s first Milkmaid.’ And the favor we ask of you is that you tend the goats and milk nice milk in your sea shell for some babies. We are soon going to create some little human babies who will be very tiny and helpless and who will have no mothers to care for and feed them.”

“I’ll love helping to take care of the babies,” said Little Milkmaid. “I’ll even borrow kids for them to play with. Kids make wonderful playfellows.”

“Then it is all settled, at least for now,” said Father. He pointed, saying “See that hill over there? Our house is right behind it with a nice meadow. Drive your herd of goats over there and practice your milking. It will not be too long before we need you.”

“I’ll go to the sea every day to get salt water for the goats,” said Little Milkmaid, “and I’ll bring plenty of shells for the milk.” With that she called to the goats and set off with them to find the house and meadow.

Father and Mother cut across to the next valley, and on the way came upon a number of plants which were climbing over rocks and even into trees. Mother stopped to examine them, and said happily, “Here is my invention, bottles growing on vines!”

Father looked at what she had picked. “A gourd! One of my gourds!” he said. “Why, of course! Cut a hole in the bottom end and shake out the seeds. I think I see a cork tree over there, and with corks, all you will need is a hole in the little end from which the milk can come out for the babies.”

“I’ve already figured out how to make a nipple to go over the small end of the gourd bottle,” said Mother. In the sea the kelp plants make little rubbery green balls and fill them with air to keep the plants afloat. Cut in two, they will make fine nipples for the bottles. Now if we could find a way to get the cotton woven into diapers, we would be nearly ready to create the babies.

They went on, and when they came into the next valley, they saw that it was the one in which the birds lived. Father took out his bundle of plans and ran through them. “Here it is,” he said, selecting a plan. “With luck we should be able to find some weaver birds here. Will you send out a call?”

Mother sorted the shadowy threads at her apron strings and found the right ones. “Come hither, all Weaver Birds!” she telepathed.

They had almost no time at all to wait, for from right above their heads, in the lower limbs of a tree, came a chorus of answering chirps. Down fluttered a dozen fine weaver birds. Looking upward, Father found their big nest. It was woven carefully out of grass, and had room inside for several nests. The door opening was at the bottom. He pointed it out to Mother.

“Wonderful!” she cried. “Beautifully woven! If they can use cotton and weave it like that, we can have diapers.” She gathered the weaver birds around them and hurried to explain the problem of the diapers, and what was wanted. The birds were very proud to be called upon to help and with some woodpeckers invited to come along to peck open the cotton bolls, they set off to find cotton to pick so that the weaving could begin.

A big gray spider had been watching from where she sat in the middle of a fine web which was woven between three small limbs. She jumped up and down and shook the web excitedly to attract Mother’s attention, and when she noticed her, telepathed, “Please! Mayn’t WE help’! Look at the beautiful web I have woven, and all my friends are just as good at spinning and weaving!”

“Why, of course!” said Mother. “And I see that you spin lovely smooth thread that is very strong. Will it stand washing in water?”

“It gets rained on and doesn’t shrink a bit,” said Mrs. Spider proudly. If you tell us what strength of thread you want, we will twist light threads together and make you whatever you need. Look!” She dropped from her web and spun out a thread  so fine that it could hardly be seen, but which was ever so strong. It came out of her mouth and as she spun it out she went right down to the ground. There she stopped a moment, then climbed up the thread to her web to show how strong even the thinnest spider web thread was made. Mother and Father clapped their hands and said, “Bravo!”

Mr. Spider, who was much smaller, but very dignified, telepathed from the edge of his wife’s fine web. “I am also a great spinner,” he said boastfully.

“Oh, hush up!” scolded Mrs Spider. “All you can spin are big yarns – and not one of them has ever washed without falling apart in a mess of lies.”

Mr. Spider sighed telepathically and said, “Well, if you ever need someone to entertain you and spin you some tall tales, just let me know.”

“Your trouble,” said Father, “is that you forget to start your stories by saying, ‘I will now spin you a tale’, or by saying, ‘Once upon a time. (And Mr. Spider never forgot after that, nor should humans – otherwise we soon are called ‘liars’ by our enemies, and will have almost NO friends.)”

Very soon the weaver birds began to arrive with bills so full of cotton that they could hardly sing a note of their weaver’s song. Old Grandma Weaver Bird had taken charge and had called in all the weaver birds from the whole valley – and there were quite a number of them. They selected trees with straight branches and while some brought cotton, the others began to weave it. At first they did not know just what to weave, but Mother stood by and instructed. Starting, they made thin cheese cloth, but as there was no cheese, they were told to make it much thicker. The next time they tried, they made a Turkish towel, but as there were no Turks yet, they were set right on that mistake. Soon Grandma Weaver Bird got the hang of it and produced a diaper which was thick and fluffy and just right. “Warp your woof and then woof the warp over and back,” she ordered, and soon all was well. Like magic the diapers began to take form.

“How many shall we make?” asked Grandma Weaver Bird, her mouth so fun of cotton she could hardly telepath her question.

Mother thought about it. As birds cannot count very well, she had to find another way. “Make a pile this high,” she said, holding her beautiful hand high in the air. “That will do for the beginning and later we can make more if needed. And, I suggest that when you have them woven, you spread them over bushes in the sun for a day to let them get bleached. If they get rained on, spread them out carefully to dry, and when all is ready, fly with them over that hill you see in the distance. There you will find a house with a window open in the laundry room. Put the diapers in there on the floor in a neat pile and thanks ever so much to all of you. As your reward, you will all be given season tickets to come and perch in trees near the house and watch the show when we create little Adam and little Eve. You can also see how diapers are put on …. and how useful they are. (And that is how some birds got season tickets, and why, when humans are doing things, they are allowed to perch all around and see what is going on. When you see a bird with cotton in its mouth flying around near your house, you can be sure that it is one hoping to be called upon to do some weaving.)

“Let’s follow that path up the valley and see what is there,” suggested Father. As they went along, he said anxiously, “I have been wondering whether or not it is a good thing to pass out rewards to the creatures each time they do a job of work properly.”

Mother considered the matter and brought to bear her great wisdom. “I’m not at all a 20th century Communist,” she said, “nor should you be. It’s all very well to say, ‘Work for work’s sake’, but from what I have seen when looking ahead in time, a little reward is a great help, be it given man or bird.”

“Perhaps I’ve been wrong,” admitted Father. “I’ve been trying to fix things so that the work itself would be a sufficient reward. But Eve is a problem. At the very best I can’t seem to find a way to make her jump with joy at the sight of a sink full of dirty dishes three times a day.”

“Can’t you make Adam with a built in desire to help with the dishes?” asked Mother.

“No, not yet. Each time I try it turns out in my plans that after dinner he manages to land in his easy chair with the evening paper. But I have not given up. Perhaps I can follow your system and find some reward to offer him for drying the dishes for Eve, if nothing more.”

“Try filling him with love and understanding and sympathy,” said Mother. “That would cover no end of other lacks in his nature. For my part in creating him, I plan to try to build in a good little bundle of gentleness and compassion, not as much as will go into Eve, but at least a little.”

WHERE THE DOGFISH AND CATFISH WENT

Coming farther up the long valley, they came to a place where it widened out, and saw the dogwood trees in full bloom while on the ground the catnip grew thick.

“There must be dogs and cats, or members of their families around here,” said Father. “I’ll see if I can call in some dogs.” He gave several loud whistles, and they waited. Soon there was a great scurrying in the bushes, and dogs of all sorts came tearing. There were big dogs and little, and of all colors, but every one of them was filled with delight and excitement. “They must think we are Adam and Eve,” said Father. He patted heads and scratched behind ears. Mother picked up a fat brown puppy and carefully removed a bur from the long hair on its ear. The dogs made little whimpering noises of joy and showed that they were all ready to follow right along.

“Not yet,” Mother telepathed. “We are not Adam or Eve, but they will be along soon, and then we will send for you. You will find that they are the dog’s best friend.”

“You have done very well,” praised Father, “and for a reward we will give you a fine bark which will be all your own. Now draw in a deep breath, and get ready. I will give the signal, then try to bark.” He nodded at Mother, and they joined in the work, saying a magic word that sounded like, “Woof woof”, and when Father lifted his hand, they all tried and out came the most surprising assortment of barks. There were big deep barks, and medium barks and little thin, sharp barks. But every bark was unmistakably that of a dog.

Father laughed and lifted his hands to hush them as he telepathed, “Good! That is fine. Now go back to your hunting and we will send for you soon.”

The dogs went obediently, and soon their barking could be heard all around.

Mother said curiously, “Did I get that line about man going to be the dog’s best friend right? It seems to me that there was something wrong with it.”

“You got it slightly turned around,” said Father. “It should be, ‘The dog is man’s best friend.’ But it works both ways, so no harm has been done.”

Going on up the valley, they came to a place where some large animal had been rolling in a catnip bed.

“Shall I try to make a call?” asked Mother. Father smilingly agreed that she should, so she hunted for the right shadowy threads at her apron strings and telepathed, “Kitty, kitty, kitty!”

There was a stir under a tree near by, and a fine large lion rose and came lazily toward them. Father glanced at his sheaf of plans and said, “Yes, a lion.” He telepathed, “Good morning, Mr. Lion. I hope you and your wife and family are all doing well?”

“Well. enough,” replied Mr. Lion, “unless you want to say that my wife does not understand me very well. However, I make out.” He came close and purred a little while Mother scratched his ears.

Father said, “Are there other cats around here? Other kinds? Big ones and little ones?”

“Sure,” said Mr. Lion. “The valley is full of them . But they know better than to crowd me. I’m boss around here.”

“Could you get some of the others to come to us so we could see them?” asked Father.

“Well, since you ask, I suppose I could,” said Mr. Lion. “I’ve done a good job chasing them out of this piece of ground, so I should be able to chase them into it. Suppose you stand here and make catcalls good and loud while I round some of them up. I don’t know whether I can get Old Sabertooth in, but if I can find  him, I’ll bring all of him in or a piece of his hide. He hates to have me boss him, and he’s a pretty good cat for his size.” With that Mr. Lion galloped off through the trees, and soon, while Mother continued to call, “Kitty, kitty, kitty!” cats of all kinds began to come. There were house cats of all colors from yellow to black and gray and spotted. There were wildcats and leopards and civet cats who smelled very civet indeed.

Not far away there arose the sounds of battle, with roars and screams. A cloud of dust arose, then suddenly there was silence. Soon Mr. Lion came back, limping slightly and covered with dust and bits of grass.

He shook himself and sat down to rest. “That tiger, Old Sabertooth will be along soon,” he said. “At first he refused to come, but it didn’t do him any good. In a fight he always leads with his left and leaves his glass jaw wide open. You knew he had an unhinged glass jaw, didn’t you? So he can open his mouth wider and use his long teeth. He got one nip at my left hind paw, but I landed a haymaker of a right cross on his jaw and he cracked like a whip. It even threw his tail out of joint in three places. He’ll come along as soon as he gets his jaw out of the back of his neck. Yes, there he comes now.”

Mrs. Lion was listening. She said. “Always bragging! And look at you! All dusty and dirty just when we had company.”

“See what I mean?” said Mr. Lion to Father. “She just never understands me or what has to be done to keep order in the valley. I hope you understand.”

“We certainly do!” said Father enthusiastically. “And just to show it, we will reward you with a title which you and your sons can carry down the years. I NOW PROCLAIM YOU KING OF BEASTS!”

Mr. Lion gave his wife a triumphant look, but she only sniffed and turned to slap the face of a big black panther who was getting out of line and acting as though he might be planning to make a meal of Mother.

“Then all is settled,” said Mother, nodding her thanks to Mrs. Lion. But just then they were interrupted by the arrival of Old Sabertooth. He was barely able to walk, and his tail made a zig-zag, what with three joints of it being out. The black panther moved over to make a place for him, and he sank dejectedly down on the ground, working his jaw from side to side to try to get his long front teeth to match again. He said nothing, and Father did not try to engage him in conversation, for he realized that when one’s tail is out of joint in three places there is very little left to say.

Mother said, “In a few days we’ll send over to you for a house cat or two, if you can spare them. Our house is over behind a hill back there, and we mustn’t be overrun with mice.”

“Just any time,” said Mrs. Lion, “Say the word and I’ll find you a good mouser.”

After thanking the cats for coming to see them, Father and Mother took their leave and went back down the valley and to their house.

WHERE THE MAN-A-TEE FISH WENT

That afternoon, after their lunch and nap, Father suggested that they go to the beach and see if Old Mom Whale knew where the MAN-a-tee had gone when leaving the water.

They went, and sure enough, Old Mom knew. She spouted a fine stream of water at a slant off to the left and telepathed, “The Man-a-tees all went over that way to the left of your hill and house. Just follow that trail and the nut shells and trash and you will be sure to find some. They always throw trash around no matter where they go.”

“I thank you kindly, ” said Father. “Did you reduce any yet?”

Old Mom sighed and spouted water uncertainly. “Well, I can’t exactly say that I have. For a while I gave up cuttlefish and even some other fattening kinds, but you know how it is when one has to work so hard….”

“Of course.” said Father comfortingly. “Don’t you worry. We like our whales plump. Please give our love to your calves.”

The path led through a large grove of palm trees and the ground was found to be littered with husks. Father looked at his plans and said, “Coconuts. The Man-a-tee’s children must come down here often to get them.” He pointed as they set off along the path, and remarked, “They certainly do throw trash around. Not tidy and nice like the other animals we have been visiting.”

The sun was shining down very hot, and Mother stopped to look up into the sky. Just as she had hoped, there was Little Cloud tagging along – just in case. But it was easy to see that she had not expected them to go for a walk. She had turned her rainbow up side down and it was half full of rain water. She didn’t quite know what to do with it, so she had just come along as she was.

“Oh, there you are, Little Cloud!” telepathed Mother. “Will you please float on above us and make a little shade? It is very hot today.”

“Cloudburst weather,” added Father. And Little Cloud shivered and held onto her rainbow basin of water with all her might as she moved up to make shade.

Soon they came to a lake, and along the shores were just what Father had been watching for the MEN children of the Man-a-tee. They were all over the place. In trees and coming from caves in the cliffs above the lake. They were of several colors, from black to gray, and they were without hair except on their heads. They smelled to high heaven, and almost all of them carried big clubs and had belts of skin around their waists to hold big bone daggers they seemed to have made from the top leg bones of antelopes with the ends sharpened on rocks with grinding so they could be used as daggers. Father shook his head in doubt. They were not very promising. Even as they came closer, they saw a ring had been made and two big black males were having a prize fight. The ones running the show had charged a coconut each for admission to the ring, and were whacking all those who brought no admission tickets to drive them away.

“Was that part of your plan?” asked Mother as she saw one black man ape hit the other with his big club, and listened while all those in the audience, especially the females, screamed and cheered and clapped.

“I suppose it must be,” admitted Father. “I did not draw the rules too closely for their change from Man-a-tee to man.” He listened as all those around the ring telepathed, “Kill him! Kill him!” and watched while one of the black men brought his club down on the head of the other and knocked him galley west ….. “Madison Square Gardens, and Ali Muhammad vs What’s His Name,” said Father thoughtfully.

“Just as I saw it through the Time Telescope. I am afraid that I left my plans open too wide. These foul smelling and almost naked creatures are not at all what I had in mind. I will wager that they are crooks, liars and thieves. Some of those around the ring collecting coconuts look like members of the Black Hand, and several may well be the ancestors of crooked politicians.” Father reached into his big pocket and brought out his vaccination kit and small bottles so he could begin giving the ape men shots. He explained to Mother, “I doubt if it will work, but we will soon see.”

“What do you intend to do?” asked Mother as she watched him fill his syringe and squeeze the air out of the end of the needle.

“I’m going to give them shots,” he said. “The shots are of Second Grade Self stuff. I have gathered it after it went through a dozen lives on the animal level as First Grade Self Stuff. If I can add it to these animal men to give them a second SELF or soul or spirit – one that can think better and reason – I may save several million years time in changing them from fish to real men.” He telepathed to the noisy crowd around the big prize fighter and said, “All of you come and stand in a line to get your shots. It will be only a little prick, and you are all tough fellows. Come on prize fighter, you are first.”

“Me?” telepathed the big black ape man, beginning to shake with fright. “Not ME! You can’t draft Me! I’m the greatest! And I’m a preacher and man of peace! A SHOT might kill me. Give it to one of those little white apes. They aren’t any loss even if you kill the lot of them.”

“This is something all good Mohammedans have to have done to them, and it does not hurt,” said Father. “Show what a really tough guy you are and come and get your shot.”

The big ape came, still frightened half out of his wits, and Father tossed the needle into his behind quickly and squeezed. The ape man rose into the air with a wild whoop and took off for the nearest clump of trees, bawling with terror.

“What a champion!” laughed Father. He took a small ape by the scruff of his dirty neck and in a moment he also rose yelling into the air and landed running. So it was with the whole line, but after the last one was finished, one old fellow with a long white beard refused to come. He stood on a raft of big logs in the lake and kept telepathing, “No..ah! NO…ah! No..ah!” So Father let him go and put away his syringe.

“Do you hear anything from the woods that sounds like a word?” asked Father of Mother as he leaned forward, hand cupped to ear to listen.”

“Not a single word,” said Mother. “But why do you ask? Did you expect them to begin to talk with words after having their shots?”

“No, I really did not expect it. But I just hoped that the shot might take with one or two of them. You know that only men who have a good working bit of Second Grade Self Stuff can talk with words, of course.”

“I had almost forgotten,” said Mother. They listened a little longer, then were about to give up, when out of the woods came a regular army. All the ape men had armed themselves with their clubs and daggers and, led by an old gray ape man, were running to attack Father and Mother.

“Oh, bother,” said Father with annoyance. He lifted a divine finger to give them a taste of Divine Wrath, but Mother pushed down his hand and said, “Let me handle it my way.” She looked up at Little Cloud and telepathed, “Empty your bowl of water on them, my dear. And touch them up with a little bit of lightning. Not too hot!”

Little Cloud was right over the advancing ape men. She flipped over her rainbow and made a little cloudburst that was really something to see. It picked up every last one of the culprits and washed the whole kit and boodle of them right down into the lake. Right on their heels Little Cloud sprayed forks of lightning, and meanwhile she thundered so loudly that it made the hills shake.

In the lake old No … ah! helped them out of the water onto his log raft one by one. Overhead, Little Cloud shook herself and took up her position to make shade. She was so proud she could hardly contain herself.

“That,” said Father, pointing to the now very meek ape men on the log raft, “is what we will hear about centuries from now when men write the story of Noah and his Ark. …. But let’s go on up the valley and see what other animals we can find. The bone headed and stubborn, lowbrows will be of little use to us. We will have to start from the beginning and make little Adam and little Eve from scratch.”

Mother had been telepathing her praise to Little Cloud, and now they went on together along the path. It led around the lake and took them into another part of the big valley. There Father stopped to examine a fine tree. “It’s a monkey pod”, he said. “We must be in monkey territory now, or we will soon be.”

As they went along farther, Little Cloud very importantly turned her rainbow over and carefully fill it with rain water so that she would be ready in case she was again called upon to help. Some of the larger clouds had been floating along at a distance to watch, and half of them were green with envy – which is a very poor color to be if there are rainbows to be made and the colors are not to be all mixed with green and turned to brown or gray.

There was a sudden commotion in the branches of the trees and Father said, “Look! My Chimpanzees! Right according to plan!”

Mother had filled her apron pocket with peanuts before leaving the house, and now she was ready to be the hostess at a real reception party – a really and truly Social Event, for Chimps are very correct and social animals. They were received with loud chatters of delight, and the Old Maw Chimp of the group came loaded down with politeness and wild plums.

Mother and Father telepathed their greetings and thanked Old Maw for her gift, then gave each of the several chimps a peanut. Old Maw caught a small grandson and give it to Mother to hold. She then took Father’s hand and, while chattering the very finest small talk, led him on down the path to Chimpville. There they found no end of Chimps, and the reception became a social event which would have made the first page of the Society News in all the local papers – if there had been any papers … which, of course, was not yet.

Old Maw introduced everyone, and then telepathed, politely, “Are you just going through, or did you come especially to visit us?”

Mother explained why they had come, but said, of course, that their visit was especially to see the Chimp People. Then she explained that they would soon be creating some babies, and as they would have no mothers, they would badly need help to nurse and raise them. “You could do us a great favor, if you could help,” said Mother.

Old Maw was delighted. “If you have peanuts at your house, I can get you all the help you can possibly use,” she telepathed.

“A big garden filled with peanuts,” said Father. And a whole plantation of fine banana trees just beyond. On the beach you can pick coconuts, and I am sure you will love the work and the babies and everything.”

Mother said, practically, “Pick us out about a dozen older female chimps – ones who have raised their families and who are very knowing about little ones. And have them bring their husbands. We will need quite a crew.”

So it was quickly arranged and the time was set as “Day after tomorrow.”

Old Maw went with them to call on other monkey and ape people in the valley and they had as social an afternoon as if they had drunk a barrel of tea and eaten ten jars of cookies.

Everyone was very friendly and it was a good thing that Mother’s apron pocket was of the magic self-filling kind, otherwise the peanuts would not have lasted ten minutes. The gorilla people were especially friendly and wanted to come along with the chimps to nurse the promised new babies, but since they were so very large and did not know their strength, their offer had to be turned down. The monkey people, large and small, entertained by doing monkey shines and showing how they did monkey business chasing each other through the tops of trees and making swings out of strong vines. By the time the afternoon was over, everyone voted that they had never had such a good time or tasted such good refreshments.

Starting for home, Mother called to Little Cloud and telepathed, “My dear, will you float along ahead to see if it is safe for us to go through the place where those horrid ape men live?”

Little cloud was all set and ready. She called to Mr. Wind to blow gently in the other direction, and went on ahead, all dark and grim above her full rainbow. They came to the place where the attack had been made on them in the morning, and stopped to see what was going on.

Old NO … ah was still out on his raft in the lake, but the rest of the ape men had come ashore and were lined up before their caves. They were armed with piles of stones to throw, and ready to run into their caves if threatened by another cloudburst.

Little Cloud first emptied the water from her rainbow bowl into the lake, dowsing Old NO..ah good, then gave a small rumble of thunder and started darting forks of lightning at the ape men. That was all that was needed. With howls of dismay, and clutching their scorched bottoms, they dived into their caves. Little Cloud stood by and shot an occasional fork here and there just to remind them, and Father and Mother walked on undisturbed and slightly amused. Mother was holding her hanky over her nose. She said, “Those ape men smelled bad enough when they were wet, but now that they are singed, the smell is twice as bad.” However, they were soon past the smell, and all was well. Little Cloud sailed, all puffed up with pride, just over their heads to make shade, and even smirked a little at the other clouds who had been watching and who were now even greener than ever with envy.

As they went along, Father stopped here and there to look at beds of clay and to make balls of it to carry home. There was white clay, red, brown, gray, and even black. Father said, “We’ll make several clay images of the babies and see which kind works out best. If we didn’t use clay, the stories which the Hebrews and Polynesians will tell later about the creation of Adam and Eve will not match. And, as you know, my dear, it really makes little difference what we use so long as it  works.”

THE GREAT WORK BEGINS

Early the next morning, Father and Mother enjoyed a good breakfast of cereal and goat’s milk which Little Mermaid had made ready. After breakfast Father laid out his plans on his big workbench and began to get ready to start making the small wooden molds to be used to mold the babies in clay. He called in a swarm of carpenter bees and put them to work cutting out the wood of the molds with great care, always following the lines Father marked on the wood just exactly.

Meantime, Mother and Little Mermaid finished the dishes and set the house in order. That done, they set off together for the sea shore. Old Mom Whale saw them the minute they arrived, and came puffing and spouting to say her telepathic, “Good morning.”

Mother telepathed to her, “Isn’t it a lovely morning! And Little Mermaid and I think you might be able to help us. Can you think of anything we could use for the small tubs in which to bathe the babies we are about to create? Big clam shells or turtle shells which the clams or turtles have stopped using?”

“That’s easy,” replied Old Mom. I know where there is a whole pile of shells left from giant clams. Just wait here and I’ll bring you some. Will you need a very tall pile of them?”

“About as tall a pile as I am,” said Mother, “Perhaps a few extra just in case.”

Mom Whale swam off, and in less time than you could say, “Fisherman”, was back, her great mouth filled with fine clam shells. She brought them to a place where the water was deep beside a rock, and neatly set the shells on the rock above the tide. They made too big a load for Mother and Little Mermaid to carry, so Old telepathed ashore to her relative, Mrs. Elephant, telling her the problem. Then before you could say. “Fisherman” backwards, three elephants came hurrying out of the woods and across the beach. One was Mrs. Elephant, one was her husband, and the third was their baby, now grown to quite a size.

When greetings were over, Mr. Elephant pushed his big tusks under the tall pile of clam shells, balanced the pile at the top with his strong trunk, and lifted all with the greatest of ease. With Little Mermaid and Mother leading they way, they set off happily along the path. Soon they came to the house and the Elephants were thanked, given each a bag of peanuts, and invited to come to visit again, just any day which isn’t ever quite as good as saying, “Come for tea on Monday.” Little Mermaid set to work to scour out the clam shells with sand so they would be all ready when needed, and Mother went to see if she could be of help to Father.

“Yes,” he said, wiping his noble brow. “you can be a great help. I find that I used up all my stock of Second Grade Self Stuff trying to make men of those ape men dropouts yesterday. Will you see if you can send out telepathic calls and bring in six male and six female SELVES who have lived several lives each in some smart animal, and who can now be touched by Divine Grace and made ready to be added to the little animal Adams and Eves so they can reason and TALK words. That is the test. If we can get them well enough created and an animal and human self made to stay together and work together in a body, all will be well.”

“Do you expect them to be able to talk right away?” asked Mother.

“I don’t know. In a new experiment like this one can never be sure. But at least they should be able to say a word or two by the time they are two or three. And at the end of that time, if they can’t, we’ll know we have failed and will have to wait a few million years for the ape men to catch up.”

“What language will the babies be supposed to use when they start to talk, if they ever do start?” asked Mother curiously.

“I’ve invented a few words that will be about the same in any language,” replied Father as he measured the depth of one of the molds and made a fresh mark for the carpenter bees to use. “‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ and things like that. By the way, have you figured out a way to make safety pins yet to fasten the diapers?”

“Yes,” said Mother. “Last night I put some of the porcupine quills to soak in vinegar, and they softened up so I can bend them into a circle and stick the sharp points into the hollow ends. It worked well. I also telepathed a call to Porcy to come over and live in the grove so we would be sure to have plenty of pins and needles. In the matter of the needles, I wonder if one of your busy carpenter bees could spare time to cut a few eyes for thread in the quills I have chosen for needles.”

Father telepathed an order and the boss bee sent a small worker who had a very sharp chisel to cut the eyes. The work was new to her, but she did a very good job of it in short order.

Mother was delighted. She thanked the bee and brought out her thread which the spiders had made. Threading her needle, she set to work on some left over bits of cloth to make bibs. “We’ll need quite a number of bibs,” she explained to Little Mermaid, who had finished polishing up the clam shells and had come in to look over Mother’s shoulder. Father glanced around to see how the bibs were going,  and pointed with surprise at a basket of very busy worms.

“What are THEY doing?” he asked. “Cut worms,” laughed Mother, “they are cutting out the cloth for me to make the bibs. You haven’t invented scissors yet, or have you forgotten?”

“How right you are,” chuckled Father. “Leave it to the women every time!” He pointed to a large tray of sprouting corn seeds and asked, “Is that part of your project?”

“That,” said Mother gently, “is the reward for my cutworms. When they have cut out the bibs, they will be very hungry, and I will put them on the tray so they can cut off the roots of the little corn plants and eat them. It’s hard on the corn plants, but as you say, it is the Law that everything has to eat something else to grow upward through the evolutionary scale of life so that the human level can at last be reached.”

Father nodded his approval. “Yes, that is the Law, ” he agreed. “But have you telepathed a call for the Talking spirits to be placed in our Adams and Eves?”

“The call has gone out,” said Mother. “I am quite sure we will have a dozen of the finest and most experienced little Selves ever assembled.”

Father went back to his bench and checked the molds for Adam and Eve. They seemed perfect. So he rewarded the carpenter bees with tiny grindstones on which to sharpen their chisels, and called to Mother, “I’ll be back soon. I am taking my molds down to the beach to have the sandpipers use their pipes to sand up the insides of my molds. And when that is done, I will go past the bee tree and ask the honey bees to wax my molds for me so the babies will come out perfectly smooth and lovely.” With that he picked up the molds and started for the beach.

Mother smiled and began feeling at her apron strings for the right shadowy threads to find the Sandpipers. She made a call, and soon was able to tell them to go to the beach and watch for Father and help him. Turning to Little Mermaid, she said, “Father might have wasted half the day hunting sandpipers without first making a call for them. And now I had better find the right threads and call that queen bee in the old tree with her helpers and tell them to get the wax ready. Men just expect everything from meals up and down to be ready whenever they happen to want them, bless their thoughtless hearts.”

Within the hour Father was back, his molds all sanded and waxed and beautifully ready to have the clay pressed into them in the morning to start the work on the babies. Lunch and naps over, it was time for the chimps to arrive and be taught what they would have to do.

“The house seems very hot,” said Father. “I wonder where Little Cloud is? She certainly is not making much shade for us.”

“I sent her to protect the chimps when they came past the ape men,” said Mother. They should be here almost any time now.” And even as  she spoke, a cool shadow fell over the house and garden and from outside there came a gay chatter of arriving chimps. They went to meet and greet them, and there were fresh introductions all around. They all shook hands very gravely with Little Mermaid, and were told that she was also the official Milkmaid whenever she was caring for the goats.

“Before we do anything else,” said Mother, “Let us have our tea. Gather here on the veranda and make a nice circle. I will serve.” And serve she did: peanuts and a banana for each chimp. Old Maw Chimp sat at the head of the circle, as was her right as head of the group. Beside her sat her husband, Old Paw Chimp, very grave and wise and feeling himself of the greatest importance. When tea was over and the banana peels carefully put into the garbage pail, the work of instruction began. They were taught to get the gourd milk bottles, of which Mother had plenty on the shelves waiting. Little Mermaid had brought the floats from the strands of kelp beds in the sea, and these were cut in half and holes made in one end to act as nipples on the gourd bottles whose thin necks had been carefully cut off. While the ladies of the chimps went into those things, Father taught the gentlemen how to use the big washing machine and they practiced on some of the many diapers which were piled high and waiting. The problem of clotheslines was easily solved by Old Paw Chimp. He sent his crew into the woods to bring long trailers of strong, green vines. They stripped off the leaves and twisted two vines together. Stringing these between trees, the diapers could be hung up to dry without clothespins. The line was untwisted a bit and the corner of a diaper tucked in. That held very nicely. Father was very careful not to give the least hint that washing was woman’s work, and the chimps were soon certain that only a lordly male would be able to do the washing.

A slight difficulty arose late in the day. Little Mermaid had been wearing her grass skirt and flower lei, and the lady chimps could not bear it not to have similar garments with which to decorate themselves. In the end, Little Mermaid had taught them to braid grass skirts, but making flower leis was too much for even Old Maw to understand. So it ended up with all the lady chimps wearing their new grass skirts around their necks, and, as the only grass to be found near the house was not over a few inches long, the little skirts were hardly a ruffle. But that was very satisfactory, and when dinner was over, they each took off their adornment and hung it with great care close at hand while they went to bed in the branches of a tree. For them it had been a most wonderful day.

In the morning, an early breakfast out of the way, the serious work of creation got going. From far and wide the birds who had season tickets came to perch in the trees around the house to watch the show. Little Cloud took up her position to make shade or rain or lightning, as might be needed. The chimps lined up in the proper social order on the veranda railing, and Father brought out his smaller bench so that everyone might see what went on.

Mother had welcomed the little Talking Spirit Selves as they arrived soon after dawn, and had given them each a little pair of angel wings to use just for the time being so that they could be seen and could come to the right place when wanted. Of course, as Self Stuff cannot be seen, they looked a little odd – just two tiny white wings fluttering around with nothing to be seen between them. The chimps rubbed their eyes in amazement. They had never seen butterflies or moths with just wings and no body, but they were too polite to say anything.

When all was ready, Father took the balls of clay and pressed them into the wooden molds. The two halves of the molds were pressed together and the extra clay trimmed off. When the molds were opened, out came, each and every time, a perfect little pair of clay Adams and Eves.

As they worked, Mother said, “Didn’t you make the heads too large at the top?”

“No,” said Father. “The animal Self uses all the lower part of the head, and so I have had to add on a second story, so to speak, for the Talking self to use. They look odd to us after seeing small skulls, but the larger ones will in time be considered much more beautiful. In fact, looking through the Time Telescope the other day, I saw that the women of the 20th Century were building up their hair around wire forms to make it look as if they had skulls almost as long as their bodies.”

When the six pairs of clay babies were ready, the little Talking Selves were called and the males separated from the females, care being taken to have the right ones on the babies to match whether they were boy or girl. “It wouldn’t do,” said Father. “To get a boy Talking spirit in a girl’s body just wouldn’t do at all.”

Mother said, “Shall I call twelve experienced animal spirits to take over and care for the body? And what kind should they be?”

“I am almost sorry to have to say,” replied Father, “that in this case we can’t do anything else but use spirit selves from those man apes we came so to dislike. They are the nearest to the human shape we are molding, and besides, if we used dog or cat animal selves, they might go back from human to dog or cat just enough to ruin the experiment.”

“I suppose the Talking spirits will make the new ones be more like humans,” said Mother. She began sorting threads at her apron strings and soon shuddered slightly. “I’ve got them,” she said. “I’ll call for a lot of them and we can sort out the ones who have lived in the ape bodies the most times and so will be the smartest, even if they have also to be the meanest.” She sent the call, and Father picked up a big tray and said a few magic words over it.

They had only a few minutes to wait. Father examined the tray from time to time and when enough ape man Selves had landed on it to cover it nicely, he took his magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers and began picking out the oldest Selves, taking care to pick up a girl Self and tuck it into the soft clay of a little Eve doing the same with each of the baby Adams. That done, and the remaining selves sent back to live with the ape man people, Father nodded to Mother and they took their places in front of the table and the row of clay babies. They first clasped hands, and then took deep breaths, four at a time, to gather in a large amount of life force or mana.

From the audience came not a chirp or even an echo of chatter. It was so quiet that one could have heard a pin drop, had there been pins. Little Cloud, who was able to look down and see everything, telepathed a running account of everything to the other clouds. Old Mom Whale was listening, and passed on the news to the other ocean creatures. None of the creatures knew just what was happening, but they sensed that it was an event of vast importance. Perhaps “The End of the World”.

Father and Mother paused and said to the little Selves who had come first, “Now listen, we declare you TALKING SELVES through our Divine Grace. Now drop your wings and the moment you see your baby begin to wiggle, dive in through one of its ears and take your place in the second story of its head.” The little angel wings all fluttered to the floor, and everything was ready.

Father and Mother took turns going up and down the row of clay babies and breathing the LIFE FORCE into them,. At the same time they thought pictures in their minds of living babies, all alive and squirming and suddenly it happened! The clay babies came to life and one after another began to cry as they took their first breaths. One did not cry, so Father picked it up by the legs and gave it a smart spat on the bottom… That did it and it began to howl lustily.

The audience went wild with delight. Everything able to make a noise made its kind of noise at the top of its voice. Little Cloud got so excited she let out a rip of thunder that shook the whole house. In the ocean the whales all spouted like mad. The chimps, who had behaved very well indeed, could stand it no longer, they jump from the veranda railing and would have grabbed wildly for each a baby had Mother not stopped them.

“Wait,” she telepathed firmly. “You’ll each get your baby, I promise you. But first get out your clam shells and help me give them a bath. Most of them have clay on their feet still. But before that, throw away those silly little grass miniskirts you have around your necks. They are out of style, and aprons are in – see my apron? Look, I have made each of you ladies an apron. Come and get them and see that you tie them around your waists instead of your necks. Mini-aprons would be more out of style than the skirts. Let Little Milkmaid help you tie them, and then get warm water in your basins and we’ll get to work.”

So….that was the way it all happened. The six pairs of babies were adorable. One fine pair was black, and Father was very proud of them. “These will be able to stand the sun without being sunburned and can live even in the middle of Africa,” he said. The other babies were various shades of brown, and one pair rather red. “These,” Father said “would probably become the ‘Noble Red Man’ of North America.”

Thanks to the help of the beavers, woodpeckers and carpenter bees, Father had in storage little rocking chairs and nice wide cradles. He gave each of the twelve Chimp foster mothers a chair, and placed a cradle for each pair of babies.

“The Chimp ladies already know their individual babies,” said Mother, looking up from her work of showing how diapers were to be put on. “And it’s a good thing they do, for except for the black and red pair, I can hardly tell them apart. But I’ve got them numbered now, starting in the social order of the Chimps, with the Black pair as Adam One and Eve One. Next come the brown pair as Adam Two and Eve Two. I think this will work out well enough.

When the time came for the first meal, Little Milkmaid was right on the job. She milked the goats, filled the gourd bottles, showed the Chimp nurses again how to put on the nipples of kelp floats, and helped Mother instruct the Chimps in the art of bottle feeding and burping. The bibs came in very handy. Things went off just as planned.

After dinner and when it came to be time for bed, the Chimp nurses bedded down, two together, at the foot of the large cradles, and took turns rocking the babies to sleep.

Mother put on a fresh apron, and she and Father went to sit awhile on the veranda. It was a lovely soft night, and at that time of the earth the poles had not yet been knocked off to one side by a meteor, so the summers and winters were all just the same, and the climate was as wonderful as the Los Angels Chamber of Commerce later claimed it to be.

“An amusing thing happened this afternoon,” said Mother. “Old Maw Chimp said to her husband that little black Adam One looked just like herself. Paw objected, saying that if he were to judge, he would say that Adam One was the spitting image of himself. Old Maw put the matter up to me to decide, and I got them to compromise by agreeing that he had her eyes, and his nose. It was really very funny, for Adam One, like all the others, does look amazingly like Chimp babies.”

“They’ll outgrow it soon,” said Father, “and then all the Adams may come to look a little like me. And, I do hope that all the little Eves can be blessed by looking at least a little bit like you, my dear.”

“You are always flattering me,” smiled Mother. “I’ll be satisfied if they look like your plan drawings – like fairly respectable human beings.”

Father stifled a yawn, for it had been a hard day. “Shall we go inside and try our beds?” he asked. “We haven’t slept in beds as long as I can remember, but now that we will have to observe earth time and stay here for some years to rear the children, I suppose that we had better start getting used to regular hours and beds.”

And so it came about that everything settled down peacefully. And it was the end of the First Day.

Nothing of importance happened until five days later. It was on a Saturday, and Chimp Nurse #6 happened by accident to see Mother pour  some bleach from a jug into the washing machine where some rather dingy diapers were to be washed. That gave Nurse #6 an idea, and when the time came to bathe the babies, she slipped into the laundry room and got the jug. From it she poured a whole cup of bleach into her clam shell tub. Her fellow nurse next door added a generous batch of bleach to her bath water, and then the jug went from hand to hand right down the line, each Chimp snatching it from the next until, at the last, there was not a drop left for the water of Adams One and Two or Eves One and Two.

Little Milkmaid came in a few minutes later, and and found the Chimps frantically rinsing off the babies who had gone into the water into which the bleach had been poured. One pair had been bleached out white with hair the color of straw, and eyes blue. The next pair had been bleached to a light yellow tan and the next to a very light brown. Father and Mother came running, and soon the veranda was flooded with rinse water, but other than that, no damage seemed to have been done. The bleached babies did not seem to be hurt at all. Father studied the matter for some time, then got out his plans and made a few changes.

“It will be all right,” he told Mother. “We can use them to start the various races. The white ones can live in the colder climates where they will not get so badly sunburned in summer, and the yellowish ones will be just right to people China when the time comes. The tan ones will do for the Mediterranean Peoples.”

And so, that is how there came to be several colors of people and several races.

Of course, and as might have been expected, little Adam 6 and Eve 6 had to be kept out of the sun and given time to get a coat of tan. As it was, they both grew some freckles and had to have their small noses greased to keep them from peeling. Old Nurses 6 and 6 1/2 were not at all sure that their white babies were as good as the black or red or brown, or even the yellow ones. Father found them trying to trade them off and had to correct matters by whispering telepathically to them that the white babies might even be a tiny bit better than the ones with more color. It satisfied the Nurses at that time, but centuries later the white Adams and Eves came to believe what the Father had hinted, and took to bragging that they were better than any of the other people.

GOGGELY, GIGGILY, COO

As the second birthday of the babies drew near, both Father and Mother began to work more seriously with the twelve little fellows who were swarming all over the place, getting into everything, and learning rapidly to feed themselves with bananas and even cereal and goat’s milk. They looked no end cute in their little training pants, and Adam and Eve 6 were tanned so brown that one could hardly tell them from the also tanned yellow babies who were Adam and Eve 5.

Father had sent out a call, with Mother’s help, of course, for six parrots, and had selected the oldest and wisest and most beautiful they could find. These they had taught to talk in several languages and had placed in and around the play pens of the children to try to teach them to talk.

Parrots, you know, although not human, are very close to it, considering the trouble birds have in lacking hands. In spite of the fact that they are never quite sure what they are saying, they usually repeat whatever is taught to them.

The Parrots had been able to hold the attention of the children because of their brilliant colors, and had faithfully spoken the proper words for the children to hear. There was only a little screeching, as Father had ordered that it be kept low. All the parrots taught ‘Mama and Papa’, as those words went in any language. They also taught exercise words to train young tongues and voices, like ‘Goo, gilly, gigglie and coo.’ It was the first school in the world, and the parrots were the first teachers.

By the time the second birthday of the children was almost there, all of them had learned ‘Goo’ very nicely, and some ‘Giggley coo’ as well. All could screech to high heaven, just like parrots, and a few were beginning to chatter a little bit, like their nurses.

Father said, “We will hold the birthday party and put the children to the test. We will make them say a real word or not give them a piece of their birthday cake. And for those who say a word or two for us, we will have a special reward of a kitten for the girls and a puppy for the boys. The cat and dog relatives have been invited to the party, and it should be very exiting, especially as all the chimps will be here and all the birds with their season tickets for the best seats in the trees. Little Cloud will go to help the chimps to get here safely.”

Mother said, “With that many coming, I’d better get Old Paw and his boys back into the kitchen to add a few dozen more layers to the birthday cake.” She telepathed while putting on her kitchen apron, and Old Paw and his crew came as if going to a fire. They grabbed their small aprons and climbed their stools beside the work table, each ready to do his part in making the cake. Mother said, “Yes, as before, you shall all have rewards by being allowed to lick the spoons and bowls when we get the cakes into the oven.” Over her shoulder she said to Father, “It may not be very sanitary, but the way we wash our dishes in this kitchen would discourage the bravest germ you ever created.” She added, “Of course, I had to help create them, but I shuddered all the time. Too bad they had to be made so that there would not be a gap in your life circle.”

Father said, “It takes a great number of life forms to let the evolutionary cycle go ahead, and germs are very important in hundreds of ways. But tell me, did you put a ring in a part of your cake where you could find it as the very extra special reward for the baby who said the first real word?”

“I have a confession to make,” replied Mother. “I didn’t put a single ring in the cake. But I have a dozen in my apron pocket and will slip them into the proper pieces, if and when they are deserved.”

“You are simply wonderful,” said Father. “You always know how to do everything exactly right. And your cakes smell so nice it almost makes my mouth water.”

The next day, after breakfast was over and everyone was slicked up and made ready, the celebration was begun. The chimps from Chimpville, under the care of Little Cloud, arrived in proper order and took up their places in the trees, keeping watch that they did not sit in the seats reserved in the front rows of branches for the birds.

Little Cloud had hardly taken her place over the house to shade it from the sun, when the cat delegation arrived  in style, one might say – with Mr. Lion leading the way and Old Sabertooth meekly coming along in second place. Father showed them their places to sit, and Little Milkmaid served goat’s milk in clam shells for them all, as they were too hungry, after their journey, to be trusted too far with the other guests. The house cats, swelling with pride, sat in the front row, holding the six fine kittens which would be gifts for the Eves who said words.

There was a great barking in the distance, and soon the dog delegation arrived. The big dogs were each given a place and then the little dogs seated in front of them. They were also hungry, and to keep them minding their manners in the direction of the cats, each was given all the dog biscuits he or she could hold. The six puppies were placed by Father in a basket and given milk.

The birds arrived in a flock, paying their respects with a jumble of fine chirps and songs. They were so full of worms and things that they hardly tasted the bird seeds when Little Milkmaid passed them around.

There were no delegates from the ocean, naturally, but Little Cloud took up her position and began telepathing broadcasting to them everything just as it happened. Mom Whale sent greetings for Happy Birthday to all twelve of the babies and Little Cloud passed on the greetings with a tiny peal of thunder just for good measure and because she was so excited she could hardly contain herself anyway. It was the very first birthday party anyone could remember. At a proper distance all the big clouds watched, and far away the frogs could be heard booming, “First out! First out!”

The birthday cake had so many layers that it made a tower, and Father had to walk beside it and steady it from the top when Old Paw and his crew carried it in on the stool on which it stood. With the cake balanced in the right place in the veranda, it was time for the nurses to bring out the babies. Mother gave the signal and out they came, every last one able to walk and holding the hand of a nurse.

At the sight of them, the black panther, who had been placed beside Mrs. Lion, lashed his tail and crouched down to make a leap and get a tender meal. But Mrs. Lion had been watching, and at the first twitch of his long tail, she reached over and slapped his face until his teeth chattered and his tail curled up into a hard knot. He instantly forgot his stomach. But the commotion had frightened the children. They had never seen so many strange animals, and as with one voice they screamed, “Mama! Mama!” and clutched at their nurses. Father stepped forward to show that there was nothing to fear, and they all cried out, “Papa! Papa!” and then quieted down.

Father and Mother beamed at each other. The first words had actually been spoken, and now they knew that the experiment was a success and that in each little head a Talking Self was at home and doing what it should to make all the difference between an animal and a human being.

A large clam shell filled with whipped cream frosting was set out for the cats, as they were not very fond of cake, but all the other animals had cake with frosting begin to come their way. Mother held the dishes while Father carved from the top, and all went well until the children, who had been holding out their hands and making Chimp noises, began to howl because their guests were being served first. It was most disgraceful of them, but they were very spoiled and still very small, so no one blamed them.

One of the parrots screeched so loud that he could be heard over the howling, and shouted, “Polly wants a cracker!” Father tossed him a bit of cake and, would you believe it, the children saw what had taken place and again with one voice cried, “Polly wants a cracker!”

“How fast they learn,” said Father happily, and just as he spoke, and while the children were repeating, even louder, “Polly wants a cracker,” the CAKE TOWER fell over!

Mother said, “I had half expected, that, so I had a cloth placed on the floor. We can still serve the cake: She looked at Father and, said, “I suppose that when the story of what has happened to the cake is written by some son of an Adam, it will be all about the Fall of the Tower of Babble. At least the children are babbling now beautifully, and in several tongues. One is saying, ‘Chiggey Chock’ all the time. Do you think that might be Sanskrit?”

“No,” said Father with a learned smile. It is Chimp. I haven’t invented the Sanskrit language yet.

The next thing on the program was the passing out of the little rings to the little fellows and, as all of them had talked words, each got a ring. More and more cake was passed around, and when the last lick of frosting was gone from the cloth under the stool, it was time to go home. They all sang “Happy Birthday to You” with barks and meows and screeches and chirps. Little Cloud dared thunder just a note or two, and as the guests left for home, they paid their respects to Father, Mother and Little Milkmaid, during which time they said, each in his own telepathic language, that never had there been such a wonderful birthday party.

Little Cloud was so busy broadcasting the last details that she almost forgot, but Mother reminded her, and she set out obediently with the Chimps to see them safely through the dangerous part of the valley where the ape men lived. And it is good to be able to say, the ape men had learned their lesson and behaved themselves.

When the last guest was gone, Father remembered that the kittens and puppies had not been given to the children and were left behind to be taken care of. Father said, “I can imagine kittens being left on the doorstep, but NOT puppies. Anyway, it is our fault, and even at that we are not much to blame, considering the great excitement of hearing the very first words ever spoken by human beings.”

Mother said, “Let’s all take our naps, and after that we can decide what to do.” But as they went back to the veranda to say it was nap time, what should they see but every last child with either a kitten or a puppy clasped in its little arms, and all, including the exhausted chimp nurses, fast asleep.

“Isn’t it sweet,” said Mother gently as she pulled a bit of cover up around one of the pairs of children and smiled at Father. “I wanted a family, as you know, but I had not expected it to include kittens, puppies and even chimps but they are all just too darling and appealing.”

They settled down on their lounge chairs where they could keep an eye on the children lest a puppy get hugged too tightly or a kitten scratch someone who was too loving. Little Cloud hovered overhead, taking her nap, and for a time everything was quiet and peaceful.

Then the earth began to shake slightly, and, looking up, they saw the Elephant Family arriving. Mrs. Elephant said, “I hope we are not disturbing your nap, but we came to apologize for forgetting which day it was that the birthday party came on.”

“Now, now,” said Father smilingly. “Elephants never forget. What was the real reason you did not come?”

Mrs. Elephant hung her head as far as her very short neck would allow and confessed, “It was because we learned that the animals were supposed to give some of their little ones to the children as birthday gifts, and as Father and I have only our one little one, we just couldn’t bear the idea of giving him up.” She looked appealing at Mother and was comforted, when Mother said, “Don’t worry. Only house cats and dogs were wanted. Your baby is very lovely, but entirely too large to make a pet for a human baby. I’m sorry we haven’t any more birthday cake left. Could you eat a few peanuts?”

“I really shouldn’t,” said Mrs. Elephant. “I planned to start dieting today.”

Father said under his breath, “A whale of an idea.”

Mother said, “Tomorrow will time enough to begin to reduce.” She went to the kitchen and filled her self-filling apron pocket with peanuts, then came back and invited the elephants to help themselves. This they did, most happily, and after eating about a bushel each, they wished the children a Happy Birthday, paid their respects to Father and Mother, and went contentedly home.

Father said, “If you will give me a hand, before the children wake up, we can give each of them a THIRD SELF. I have made one for each out of Third Grade Self Stuff, and we will fasten each self – each living in its shadow body, of course – to its child with a strong thread. Then it can take your place, at least in part, and the children can gradually be cut loose from your apron strings.”

Mother helped, and in a few moments there was a little round ball of light floating above each child. This was the most wonderful thing to see, but only Father and Mother can see Self Stuff or spirits, which is too bad, but can’t be helped. And even today, every child is given a fine Self of THIRD GRADE Spirit Stuff that is ever so wise and kind and which will come whenever called to help and comfort. In fact, it is often called “The Comforter”. And so MAN was made up with three Selves or spirits, one an animal self, one a Talking Self, and one the Comforter Self. All three selves have a shadowy body to live in, as well as the animal body for the First and Second Grade Selves. It is a very wonderful way to be made.

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2

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