apes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see
how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with
another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got
an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,
and I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I WAS
so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned
against a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling
until they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,
and ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I
parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man
was about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.
I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I
put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it out again. It
was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on
one foot and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery;
then I was full of interest, and began to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it
occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE! I
was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So
without hesitation I named it that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new
thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was
proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him
about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and
did not do it. No--he would not care for it. He would ask what it was
good for, and what could I answer? for if it was not GOOD for something,
but only beautiful, merely beautiful--

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good for anything; it could
not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could not hurry a
fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would
despise it and say cutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I
said, "Oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are
BEAUTIFUL--and that is enough!" and was going to gather it to my breast.
But refrained. Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was
so nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:
"THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS