AMERICAN “CAVE MAN.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1260, 18 June 1914, Page 4

AMERICAN “CAVE MAN.”

ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY

An American hermit, Charles Cole, aged sixty years, student, philosopher, woodcutter and pearl fisher, is the original cave man of the Arkansas Ozarks. He represents the stone age in the midst of modernism. He lives in a comfortable little cave in a big sand bin If that towers several hundred feet above the beautiful White River, a short distance below the town of Calico Rock, on the White River Railroad,

Nature provided him a home without hammer, nails, lumber, or other building material, or labour, and Charley being something of a philosophic genius, following the lines ot least resistance, crawled in and took possession. There was no cost of construction, and a stronger or more solid residence could not be conceived. It is a shelter against rain and snow, and no cyclone can blow it away. It is more fireproof than the most modern fireproof skyscraper ; and Charley does not have to carry fire insurance.

The wild things are his only neighbours, and do not bother him ; in fact, they keep him company, and he loves them. A more magnificent view of river aud mountain scenery cannot be had from the verandah of any milliou-dollar hotel in the South or West than Charley has from his front door.

Charley is strangely happy, healthy and contented. On account of his strange habitation he is sometimes called a hermit, but he is a hermit only in name, for he is no recluse. He also has a family, his dog Bounce and bis faithful old tomcat, Tom. He has inherited a rich legacy from nature both in abode and disposition.

The home of this modern cave dweller sits well down toward the foot of the bluff, and is about sixteen feet square. It is reached by a winding path leading up from the river, well worn by several years of travel. The floor of the house is carpeted with pure, glistening white sand, which has crumbled and leached during the past ages from the walls and roof. The walls and ceiling of bis one-room residence are of the same material, and it looks as though it had been cut out of one immense lump of powdered sugar. A cook stove, a makeshift table, and a comfortable bunk take the place of the stone house furnishings used by the original stoneage man. With these house furnishings he lives the primitive simple Ute.

The cave man's dwelling is no place for a lazy man. There is no over sleeping there. At the break of dty he is awakened by a thousand noises, for other things live on the Mull with him —wild things, anti wild tilings ucvei over-sleep, ilc is aroused from his shimlters at dawn by the cr< of (.In* kingfisher, who > hs ‘it.itdoor neighbour, living in a hole in the bluff, and who goes shrieking down the river in search of his breakfast at some shallow shoal. He dresses to the music of the wood-thrush aud the redbird, and eats breakfast amid the noisy chatter of the squirrel. The Red River stretches away like a blue ribbon in the distance, and the mountains of Stone County rise in majestic beauty through a hazy blue, all in harmony with the primitive spirit of the cave rnan. He asks no odds, he owes no man. He has a kingdom of his own, and he is king.