Dum cuts it (No. 29)

I stumbled across Dum the other day and he told me what had been going on his life. For previous episodes click on Cavemen in the labels bar.

Dum and Yum were now quite settled in the village life, hunting fishing and growing vegetables and harvesting wild fruit in season. Inside their hut they kept all they needed but everything was placed on the floor or hung from the walls of the hut.

When they ate they sat on the floor, when they slept they laid down on the floor and when the children played indoors when it was raining they played on the floor getting in everyone’s way. At last after a particularly wet period Yum could stand it no more and hit Dum on his arm and pointed to the mess everywhere inside their hut. She didn’t need to say anything; Dum knew exactly what the problem was as the children played a game of chasey around his legs.

He nodded his understanding to her and went outside in the pouring rain with his axe, knife and twine. Yum nodded for she knew he would solve the problem or if not there would be at least one less inside their hut. The children wanted to go with him but she shook her head so they ran round in circles again.

Meanwhile Dum strode off to the forest and the trees cover allowed him to rest in the shade and have a good think. Before long he had pieced together a few ideas but knew he would have to take them home to continue working on them.

The weather was starting to brighten up as he returned to the village with his pieces of wood and tools in his bag and ideas in his head.

He could now see the children of the village all playing together in the puddles and in the sunshine and Yum greeted him with a gentle caress to his face this time and looked at him with a smile. Then raised her eyebrows at the bits and pieces he had brought home. She was almost going to say it doesn’t matter any more but could see in the look on his face he had an idea.

For the whole afternoon he fiddled and cut, and shaped the wood pieces and the set about fixing them together with a bit of cutting here and whittling there until he had just about finished one piece. It was a three legged stool, not big enough for him or in fact for Yum but one the children could sit on. It was quite stable on three legs and he called out to Yum to come and see it.

Immediately she could see the possibilities and started chattering about making one for each of them…and one to put things up off the dirt floor.  Her mind was clicking over as she began to think of other things he could make for inside their hut. She even spread her arms wide to indicate a huge one so that nothing was on the floor at all. And why not boxes to put things in, big seats for the adults to sit on and even shelves on the walls.

Dum looked shocked, far from coming up with a simple answer to a simple request for a seat for the children on a rainy day he now had to make furniture for whole house.

                                                How I imagine Dum's stool looked

Image 1 found at www.rvwest.com

Image 2 found at www.ebay.com