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diff --git a/old/20766-8.txt b/old/20766-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96d1540 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20766-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3204 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Autobiography of Methuselah, by John +Kendrick Bangs, Illustrated by F. G. Cooper + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Autobiography of Methuselah + + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + + + +Release Date: March 7, 2007 [eBook #20766] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH*** + + +E-text prepared by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from +digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/American +Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 20766-h.htm or 20766-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766/20766-h/20766-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766/20766-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/methuselah00bangrich + + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH + +Edited by + +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + +Illustrated in Color by F. G. Cooper + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Methuselah's stationery] + + + +New York +B. W. Dodge & Company +1909 +Copyright, 1908, by +B. W. Dodge & Company + + + + +CONTENTS + + + FOREWORD + + CHAPTER + + I I AM BORN AND NAMED + + II EARLY INFLUENCES + + III SOME REMINISCENCES OF ADAM + + IV GRANDMOTHER EVE + + V SOME NOTES ON CAIN AND ABEL + + VI HE CONFESSES TO BEING A POET + + VII THE INTERNATIONAL MARINE AND ZOO FLOTATION COMPANY + + VIII ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE MASTODON + + IX AS TO WOMEN + + + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Having recently passed into what my great-grandson Shem calls my +Anecdotage, it has occurred to me that perhaps some of the +recollections of a more or less extended existence upon this +globular[1] mass of dust and water that we are pleased to call the +earth, may prove of interest to posterity, and I have accordingly, at +the earnest solicitation of my grandson, Noah, and his sons, Shem, +Ham and Japhet, consented to put them into permanent literary form. In +view of the facts that at this writing, ink and paper and pens have +not as yet been invented, and that we have no capable stenographers +among our village folk, and that because of my advanced years I should +find great difficulty in producing my manuscript on a type-writing +machine with my gouty fingers--for, of the luscious fluid of the grape +have I been a ready, though never over-abundant, consumer--even if I +were familiar with the keyboard of such an instrument, or, if indeed, +there were any such instrument to facilitate the work--in view of +these facts, I say, I have been compelled to make use of the literary +methods of the Egyptians, and with hammer and chisel, to gouge out my +"Few Remarks" upon such slabs of stone as I can find upon my native +heath. + +[Footnote 1: It is quite interesting, in the light of the contentions +of history as to man's earliest realization that the earth is round, +to find Methuselah speaking in this fashion. It would seem from this +that the real facts had dawned upon the Patriarch's mind even at this +early period, and one is therefore disposed to regard as less +apocryphal the anecdote recorded in Volume III, Chapter 38, of "The +Life and Voyages of Noah," wherein Adam, after being ejected from the +Garden of Eden, asked by Cain if he believes the world to be round +like an orange, replies: + +"_I used to think so, my son, but under prevailing conditions I am +forced into a more or less definite suspicion that it is elliptical, +like a lemon._"--EDITOR.] + +[Illustration: Ye scribe decides not to use Egyptian writing.] + +Let us hope that my story will not prove as heavy as my manuscript. It +is hardly necessary for me to assure the indulgent reader that such a +method of composition is not altogether an easy task for a man who is +shortly to celebrate his nine hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, more +especially since at no time in my life have I studied the arts of the +Stone-Cutter, or been a master in the Science of Quarrying. Nor is it +easy at my advanced age, with a back no longer sinewy, and muscles +grown flabby from lack of active exercise, for me to lift a virgin +sheet of stone from the ground to the surface of my writing-desk +without a derrick, but these are, after all, minor difficulties, and I +shall let no such insignificant obstacles stand between me and the +great purpose I have in mind. I shall persist in the face of all in +the writing of this Autobiography if for no worthier object than to +provide occupation for my leisure hours which, in these patriarchal +days to which I have attained, sometimes hang heavy on my hands. I +know not why it should so transpire, but it is the fact that since I +passed my nine hundred and fiftieth birthday I have had little liking +for the pleasures which modern society most affects. To be sure, old +and feeble as I am, and despite the uncertain quality of my knees, I +still enjoy the excitement of the Virginia Reel, and can still hold my +own with men several centuries younger than myself in the clog, but I +leave such diversions as bridge, draw-poker and pinochle to more +frivolous minds--though I will say that when my great-grandchildren, +Shem, Ham and Japhet, the sons of my grandson Noah, come to my house +on the few holidays, their somewhat over-sober parent allows them from +their labors in the ship-yard, I take great delight in sitting upon +the ground with them and renewing my acquaintance with those games of +my youth, marbles, and mumbledy-peg, the which I learned from my +great-uncle-seven-times-removed, Cain, in the days when with my +grandfather, Jared, I used to go to see our first ancestor, Adam, at +the old farm just outside of Edensburg where, with his beautiful wife +Eve, that Grand Old Man was living in honored retirement. + +Nor have I in these days, as I used to have, any especial taste for +the joys of the chase. There was a time when my slungshot was +unerring, and I could bring down a Dodo, or snipe my Harpy on the wing +with as much ease as my wife can hit our barn-door with a rolling-pin +at six feet, and for three hundred and thirty years I never let escape +me any opportunity for tracking the Dinosaur, the Pterodactyl, or that +fierce and sanguinary creature the Osteostogothemy to his lair and +there fighting him unto the death during the open season for wild game +of that particular sort. I well remember how, in my boyhood days, to +be precise, shortly after my two hundred and twenty-second birthday, I +went with my great-grandfather, Mehalaleel, over into the woods back +of Little Ararat after a great horned Ornythyrhyncus and--but that is +another story. Suffice it to say that I have at last reached a period +in my life where I am content to leave the pleasures of Nimrod to my +more nimble neighbors, and that now no winged thing, save an +occasional mosquito, or locust, need fear my approach, and that my +indulgence in the shedding of the blood of animals is confined to an +infrequent personal superintendence of the slaughter of a spring-lamb +in green-pea time, when the scent is in the julep and the bloom is on +the mint; or possibly, now and then, the removal from the pasture to +the pantry of a bit of lowing roast-beef, when I feel an inner craving +for the crackle and the steak. + +Racing I have an abhorrence for, and always have had since in my early +days I attended the county-fair at North Ararat, and was there induced +by one of my neighbors to participate as a rider in a twenty-mile +steeplechase between a Discosaurus which I rode, and a Diplodocus in his +possession. I found after the race had started that the animal which had +been assigned to me as a gentleman jockey, had not been broken to the +saddle, and my experience during the next six days in staying on his +back--for he immediately took the bit between his teeth and bolted for +the woods, and was not again got under control for that time--as he +jumped over the various obstacles to his progress, from thank-you-marms +in the highways which were plentiful, to such mountains as the country +for a thousand miles about provided for his delectation, was one of the +most terrific in my life, prolonged as it has been. I had been assured +that the race was to be a "Go-As-You-Please" affair, but I had not been +seated on that horrible creature's back for two minutes before I +discovered that it was a "Go-As-He-Pleased" affair and that +"Going-As-I-Pleased," like the flowers that bloom in the Spring, had +nothing to do with the case. Had I begun in the pursuit of the pleasures +of the track in later years after the invention of wheels, whereby that +easy running vehicle, the sulky, was brought into being, and when, by +the taming of the horse, the latter became a domesticated animal with +sporting proclivities, instead of a mere prowler of the plains, I might +have found the joys of racing more to my taste, although in these later +years of my life when a truly noble pursuit has degenerated into a mere +gambling enterprise, wherein those who can ill afford it squander their +substance in riotous bookmaking, I am inclined to be grateful that my +first experience in this direction has led me to cultivate an +unconcerned aloofness from a pursuit which is ruinous to the old and +corrupting to the young. + +Were the present state of literature more hopeful, perhaps I should +find pleasure in reading, but I have viewed with such increasing alarm +the growth of sensationalism in the literary output of my age that I +have felt that I owed it to my posterity, which is rapidly growing in +numbers--I believe that the latest annual report of the Society of the +Sons and Daughters of Methuselah shows a membership of six hundred and +thirty-eight thousand, without counting the new arrivals since the end +of the last fiscal year, which, at a rough guess, I should place at +thirty-six thousand--I have felt, I say, that I owe it to that +posterity to set it the example of not reading, as my most effective +protest against those pernicious influences which have made the modern +literary school a menace to civilization. Surely if Noah's children +for instance, Shem, Ham and Japhet, whom I have already had occasion +to mention, were to surprise me, their venerable, and I hope venerated +ancestor, reading such stories as are now put forth by our most +successful quarrymen--stories like that unspeakable novel "Three +Decades," of which I am credibly informed eight million tons have +already been sold; and which, let me say, when I had read only seven +slabs of it I had carted away and dumped into the Red Sea; or the +innocuous but highly frivolous tales of Miss Laura Jean +Diplodocus--they would hardly accept from me as worthy of serious +attention such admonitions as I am constantly giving them on the +subject of the decadence of literature when I find them poring over +the novels of the day. Consequently even this usual solace of old age +is denied to me, and writing becomes my refuge. + +I bespeak the reader's indulgence if he or she find in the ensuing +pages any serious lapses from true literary style. I write merely as I +feel, and do not pretend to be either an expert hieroglyphist or a +rhetorician of commanding quality. Perhaps I should do more wisely if +I were to accept the advice of my great-grandson Ham, who, overhearing +my remark to a caller last Sunday evening that the work I have +undertaken is one of considerable difficulty, climbed up into my lap +and in his childish way asked me why I did not hire a boswell to do it +for me. I had to tell the child that I did not know what a boswell +was, and when I questioned him on the subject more closely, I found +that it was only one of his childish fancies. If there were such a +thing as that rather euphoniously named invention of Ham's who could +relieve me of the drudgery of writing my own life, and who would do it +well, I would cheerfully relinquish that end of my enterprise to him, +but in the absence of such a thing, I am, in spite of my manifest +shortcomings, compelled to do the work myself. On behalf of my story I +can say, however, that whatever I shall put down here will be the +truth, and that what I remember notwithstanding my advanced years, I +remember perfectly. I am quite aware that in some of the tales that I +shall tell, especially those having to do with Prehistoric Animals I +have met, or Antediluvians as I believe the Scientists call them, what +I may say as to their habits--I was going to say manners, but refrain +because in all my life I have never observed that they had any--and +powers may fall upon some ears as extravagant exaggerations. To these +let me say here and now that there are exceptions to all rules, and +that if for instance, I tell the story of a Pterodactyl that after +being swallowed whole by a Discosaurus, successfully gnaws his way +through the walls of the latter's stomach to freedom, I make no claim +that all Pterodactyls could do the same, but merely that in this +particular case the Pterodactyl to which I refer did it, and that I +know that he did it because the man who saw it is a cousin of my +grandfather's first wife's step-son, and is so wedded to truth that he +is even now in jail because he would not deny a charge of +sheep-stealing, which he might easily have done were he an untruthful +man. Again when I observe that I have caught with an ordinary +fish-hook, baited with a common garden, or angle worm, on the end of a +light trout-line, a Creosaurus with a neck ninety-seven feet long, and +scales so large that you could weigh a hay-wagon on the smallest of +the lot near the end of his tail, I admit at the outset that the feat +was unusual, had never occurred before, and is never likely to occur +again, but can bring affidavits to prove that it did happen that time, +signed by reputable parties who have heard me tell about it more than +once. I make these statements here not in any sense to apologize for +anything I shall say in my book, but merely to forestall the criticism +of highly cultivated and truly scientific readers who, after a +lifelong study of the habits of these creatures may feel impelled to +question the accuracy of my statements and add to my perplexities by +so advertising my book that I shall be put to the arduous necessity of +chiseling out another edition, a labor which I have no desire to +assume. + +One word more as to the language I have chosen for the presentation of +my narrative. I have chosen English as the language in which to chisel +out these random recollections of mine for a variety of reasons. Most +conspicuous of these is that at the time of this writing no one has as +yet thought to devise a French, German, Spanish or Italian language. +Russian I have no familiarity with. Chinese I do not care for. Latin +and Greek few people can read, and as for Egyptian, while it is an +excellent and fluent tongue for speaking purposes, I find myself +appalled at the prospect of writing a story of the length of mine in +the hieroglyphics which up to date form the whole extent of Egyptian +chirography. An occasional pictorial rebus in a child's magazine is a +source of pleasure and profit to both the young and the old, but the +autobiography of a man of my years told in pictures, and pictures for +the most part of squab, spring chickens, and canvas-back ducks, would, +I fear, prove arduous reading. Moreover I am but an indifferent +draughtsman, and I suspect that when the precise thought that I have +in mind can best be expressed by a portrait of a humming-bird, or a +flamingo, my readers because of my inexpert handling of my tools would +hardly be able to distinguish the creature I should limn from an +albatross, a red-head duck, or a June-Bug, which would lead to a great +deal of obscurity, and in some cases might cause me to say things that +I should not care to be held responsible for. There is left me then +only a choice between English and Esperanto, and I incline to the +former, not because I do not wish the Esperantists well, but because +in the present condition of the latter's language, it affects the eye +more like a barbed-wire fence than a medium for the expression of +ideas. + +At this stage of the proceedings I can think of nothing else either to +explain or to apologize for, but in closing I beg the reader to accept +my assurance that if in the narratives that follow he finds anything +that needs either explanation or apology, I shall be glad to explain +if he will bring the matter to my attention, and herewith tender in +advance for his acceptance any apology which occasion may require. + +And so to my story. + +GEORGE W. METHUSELAH. + +Ararat Corners, B. C. 2348. + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH + +CHAPTER I + +I AM BORN AND NAMED + + +The date of my birth, occurring as it did, nine hundred and sixty-five +years ago, is so far removed from my present that my recollections of +it are not altogether clear, but Mrs. Adam, my great-grandmother seven +times removed, with whom I was always a great favorite because I +looked more like my original ancestor, her husband, than any other of +his descendants, has given me many interesting details of that +important epoch in my history. Personally I do remember that the date +was B. C. 3317, and the twenty-third of June, for the first thing to +greet my infant eyes, when I opened them for the first time, was a +huge insurance calendar hanging upon our wall whereon the date was +printed in letters almost as large as those which the travelling +circuses of Armenia use to herald the virtues of their show when at +County Fair time they visit Ararat Corners. I also recall that it was +a very stormy day when I arrived. The rain was coming down in +torrents, and I heard simultaneously with my arrival my father, Enoch, +in the adjoining room making sundry observations as to the +meteorological conditions which he probably would have spoken in a +lower tone of voice, or at least in less vigorous phraseology had he +known that I was within earshot, although I must confess that it has +always been a nice question with me whether or not when a man +expresses a wish that the rain may be dammed, he voices a desire for +its everlasting condemnation, or the mere placing in its way of an +impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much +depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in +which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the +occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity +than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In +any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably +imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently +no telling when my venerable sire would have to go out into the wet +and fetch one. + +In those primitive days doctors were few and far between. There was +little profit in the practice of such a profession at a time when +everybody lived so long that death was looked upon as a remote +possibility, and one seldom called one in until after he had passed +his nine hundredth birthday and sometimes not even then. It may be +that this habit of putting off the call to the family physician was +the cause of our wonderful longevity, but of that I do not know, and +do not care to express an opinion on the subject, for socially I have +always found the medicine folk charming companions and I would not say +aught in this work that could by any possibility give them offense. +Not only were doctors rare at that period, but owing to our limited +facilities in the matter of transportation, it was exceedingly +difficult for them to get about. The doctor's gig, now so generally in +use, had not as yet been brought to that state of perfection that has +made its use in these modern times a matter of ease and comfort. We +had wheels, to be sure, but they were not spherical as they have since +become, and were made out of stone blocks weighing ten or fifteen tons +apiece, and hewn octagonally, so that a ride over the country roads in +a vehicle of that period not only involved the services of some thirty +or forty horses to pull the wagon, but an endless succession of jolts +which, however excellent they may have been in their influence on the +liver were most trying to the temper, and resulted in attacks of +sickness which those who have been to sea tell me strongly resembles +sea-sickness. So rough indeed was the operation of riding in the +wagons of my early youth that a great many of our best people who kept +either horses or domesticated elephants, still continued to drive +about in stone boats, so-called, built flat like a raft, rather than +suffer the shaking up which the new-fangled wheels entailed. Griffins +were also used by persons of adventurous nature, but were gradually +dying into disuse, and the species being no longer bred becoming +extinct, because of the great difficulty in domesticating them. It was +not a hard task to break them to the saddle, and on the ground they +were fleet and sure footed, but in the air they were extremely +unreliable. They used their wings with much power, but were not +responsive to the reins, and in flying pursued the most erratic +courses. What was worse, they were seldom able to alight after an +aerial flight on all four feet at once, having a disagreeable habit of +approaching the earth vertically, and headfirst, so that the rider, +unless he were strapped on, was usually unseated while forty or fifty +feet in the air, with the result that he either broke his neck, or at +least four or five ribs, and a leg or two, at the end of his ride. +When we remember that in addition to all this we had no telephone +service at that time, and that the umbrella had not as yet been +devised, my father's anxiety at the moment may easily be realized. + +His temper was only momentary, however, for I recall that I was very +much amused at this critical moment of my career by another +observation that I overheard from the adjoining room. My grandfather, +Jared, who was with my father at the time looking out of the window +made the somewhat commonplace observation-- + +"It's raining cats and dogs, isn't it?" + +"Cats and dogs?" retorted Enoch, scornfully. "It's raining +Diplodocuses!" + +This was naturally the first bit of humor that I had ever heard, and +coming as it did simultaneously with my début as a citizen of +Enochsville, perhaps it is not to be wondered at that instead of +celebrating my birth with a squall, as do most infants, I was born +laughing. I must have cackled pretty loudly, too, for the second thing +that I remember--O, how clearly it all comes back to me as I write, or +rather chisel--was overhearing the Governor's response to the nurse's +announcement of my arrival. + +"It's a boy, sir," the good woman called out as she rushed excitedly +into the other room. + +"Good, Dinah," replied my father. "You have taken a great load off my +mind. I am dee-lighted. I was afraid from his opening remarks that he +was a hen!" + +It was thus that the keynote of existence was struck for me, one of +mirth even in the dark of storm, and that I have since become the +oldest man that ever lived, and shall doubtless continue to the end of +time to hold the record for longevity, I attribute to nothing else +than that, thanks to my father's droll humor, I was born smiling. Nor +did the good old gentleman ever stint himself in the indulgence of +that trait. In my youth such things as comic papers were entirely +unknown, nor did the columns of the newspapers give over any portion +of their space to the printing of jokes, so that my dear old father +never dreamed of turning his wit to the advantage of his own pocket, +as do some latter-day joke-wrights who shall be nameless, lavishly +bestowing the fruits of his gift upon the members of his own family. +Of my own claims to an inheritance of humor from my sire, I shall +speak in a later chapter. + +I recall that my first impressions of life were rather disappointing. +I cannot say that upon my arrival I brought with me any definite +notions as to what I should find the world to be like, but I do know +that when I looked out of the window for the first time it seemed to +me that the scenery was rather commonplace, and the mountains which I +could see in the distance, were not especially remarkable for +grandeur. The rivers, too, seemed trite. That they should flow +down-hill struck me as being nothing at all remarkable, for I could +not for the life of me see how they could do otherwise, and when night +came on and my nurse, Dinah, pointed out the moon and asked me if I +did not think it was remarkable, I was so filled with impatience that +so ordinary a phenomenon should be considered unusual that I made no +reply whatsoever, smiling inwardly at the marvelous simplicity of +these people with whom destiny had decreed that I should come to +dwell. I should add, however, that I was quite contented on that first +day of my existence for the reason that all of my wants appeared to +be anticipated by my guardians, the table was good, and all through +the day I was filled with a comfortable sense of my own importance as +the first born of one of the first families of the land, and when +along about noon the skies cleared, and the rain disappeared before +the genial warmth of the sun, and the neighbors came in to look me +over, it was most agreeable to realize that I was the center of so +much interest. What added to my satisfaction was the fact that when my +great-uncle Zib came in and began to talk baby-talk to me--a jargon +that I have always abhorred--by an apparently casual movement of my +left leg I was able with seeming innocence of intention to kick him on +the end of his nose. + +An amusing situation developed itself along about 4 o'clock in the +afternoon, in respect to my name. One of the neighbors asked my +father what my name was to be. + +"Well," he replied with a chuckle, "we are somewhat up a tree in +respect to that. We have held several family conclaves on the subject, +and after much prayerful consideration of the matter we had finally +settled on Gladys, but--well, since we've seen him the idea has been +growing on us that he looks more like a James." + +And indeed this question as to my name became a most serious one as +the days passed by, and at one time I began to fear that I should be +compelled to pass through life anonymously. There was some desire on +the part of my father, who was of a providential nature, to call me +Zib, after my great uncle of that name, for Uncle Zib had been +forehanded, and was possessed of much in the way of filthy lucre, +owning many cliff-dwellings, a large if not controlling interest in +the Armenian Realty Company, whose caves on the leading thoroughfares +of Enochsville and Edensburg commanded the highest and steadiest +rents, and was the chief stock-holder in the Ararat Corners and Red +Sea Traction Company, running an hourly service of Pterodactyls and +Creosauruses between the most populous points of the country. This +naturally made of Uncle Zib a nearer approach to a Captain of Finance +than anything else known to our time, and inasmuch as he had never +married, and was without an heir, my father thought he would +appreciate the compliment of having his first-born named for him. But +Uncle Zib's moral character was of such a nature that his name seemed +to my mother as hardly a fit association for an infant of my tender +years. He was known to be addicted to pinochle to a degree that had +caused no end of gossip at the Ararat Woman's Club, and before he had +reached the age of three hundred he had five times been successfully +sued in the courts for breach of promise. Indeed, if Uncle Zib had had +fewer material resources he would long since have been ostracised by +the best people of our section, and even as it was the few people in +our neighborhood to whom he had not lent money regarded his social +pretensions with some coolness. The fact that he had given Enochsville +a public library, and had filled its shelves with several tons of the +best reading that the Egyptian writers of the day provided, was +regarded as a partial atonement for some of his indiscretions, and the +endowment of a large stone-quarry at Ararat where children were taught +to read and write, helped materially in his rehabilitation, but on the +whole Uncle Zib was looked upon askance by the majority. On the other +hand Uncle Azag, a strong, pious man, who owed money to everybody in +town, was the one after whom my mother wished me to be named, a +proposition which my father resisted to the uttermost expense of his +powers. + +"What's the use?" I heard him ask, warmly. "He'll get his name on +plenty of I. O. U.'s on his own account before he leaves this glad +little earth, without our giving him an autograph that is already on +enough over-due paper to decorate every flat in Uncle Zib's model +tenements." + +The disputation continued with some acrimony for a week, until finally +my father put his foot down. + +"I'm tired of referring to him as IT," he blurted out one night. +"We'll compromise, and name him after me and thee. He shall be called +Me for me, and Thou for thee, Selah!" + +And so it was that from that day forth I was known as Methouselah, +since corrupted into Methuselah. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + + +Boys remained boys in those old days very much longer than they do +now. The smartness of children like my grandsons, Shem, Ham and +Japhet, for instance, who at the age of two hundred and fifty arrogate +to themselves all the knowledge of the universe, was comparatively +unknown when I was a child. To begin with we were of a different breed +from the boys of to-day, and life itself was more simple. We were +surrounded with none of those luxuries which are characteristic of +modern life, and we were in no haste to grow old by taking short cuts +across the fields of time. We were content to remain youthful, and +even childish, taking on ourselves none of the superiorities of age +until we had attained to the years which are presumed to go with +discretion. We did not think either arrogantly or otherwise that we +knew more by intuition than our parents had been able to learn from +experience, and, with a few possible exceptions, we none of us assumed +that position of high authority in the family which is, I regret to +say, generally assumed by the sons and daughters of the present. For +myself, I was quite willing to admit, even on the day of my birth, +that my father, in spite of certain obvious limitations, knew more +than I; and that my mother in spite of the fact that she was a woman, +was possessed, in a minor degree perhaps, but still indubitably +possessed, of certain of the elementary qualities at least of human +intelligence. As I recall my attitude towards my elders in those +days, the only person whose pretensions to superior attainments along +lines of universal knowledge I was at all inclined to resent, was my +maiden aunt, Jerusha, my father's sister, who, having attained to the +kittenish age of 623 years, unmarried, and having consequently had no +children, knew more about men and their ways, and how to bring up +children scientifically than anybody at that time known to civilized +society. Indeed I have always thought that it was the general +recognition of the fact that Aunt Jerusha knew just a little more than +there was to know that had brought about that condition of enduring +spinsterhood in which she was passing her days. Even her, however, I +could have viewed with amused toleration if so be she could have been +induced to practice her theories as to the Fifty-seven Best Ways To +Bring Up The Young upon others than myself. She was an amusing young +thing, and the charming way in which even in middle age--she was as I +have already said 623 years old at the time of which I write--she held +on to the manners of youth was delightful to contemplate. She always +kept herself looking very fit, and was the first woman in our section +of the world to wear her hair pompadour in front, running to the +extreme psychic knot behind--she called it psychic, though I have +since learned that the proper adjective is Psyche, indicating rather a +levity of mind than anything else. It should be said of her in all +justice that she was a leader in her set, and as President of the +Woman's Club of Enochsville was a person of more than ordinary +influence, and it was through her that the movement to grant the +franchise to all single women over three hundred and forty, resulted +in the extension of the suffrage to that extent. + +[Illustration: "It's a boy, sir!"] + +Incidentally I cannot forget the wise words of my father in this +connection. He had always been an anti-suffragist, but when Aunt +Jerusha's plan was laid before him he swung instantly around and +became one of its heartiest advocates. + +"It is a wise measure," said he. "Safe, sane and practical, for no +single woman will confess to the age of qualification, so that in +passing this act we grant the prayers of our petitioners without +subjecting ourselves to the dangers of women's suffrage. Remember my +son, that it always pays to be generous with that which costs you +nothing, and that woman's suffrage is as harmless as the cooing dove +if you only take the precaution to raise the age limit high enough to +freeze out the old maids." + +I should add too that Aunt Jerusha had a way with her that was not +without its fascination. To look at her you would never have supposed +that she was more than four hundred years old, and the variety of eyes +that she could make when there were men about, was wonderful to see. I +noticed it the very day I was born, and when I first caught sight of +that piquante little glance that now and then she cast in my direction +out of the tail of her eye, I began rummaging about in the back of my +subconscious mind for the precise words with which to characterize +her. + +"You giddy old flirt!" was the apostrophe I had in mind at the moment, +but, of course, having had no practice in speech I was compelled to +forego the pleasure of giving audible expression to the thought. + +Unfortunately for me Aunt Jerusha equipped with that intuitive +knowledge of what to do under any given circumstances that invariably +goes with the status of maiden-aunthood in its acute stages, now +assumed complete control of my destinies; and for a time it looked as +though I were in a fair way to become what the great Egyptian ruler, +King Ptush the Third was referring to in many of his State papers as a +"Meticulous Mollycoddle." To begin with, Aunt Jerusha was a strong +believer in the New Thought School of Infantile Development, and when +I was barely six weeks old she began strapping me on a board like an +Eskimo baby, and suspending me thus restrained to a peg in the wall, +where, helpless, I was required to hang and stare while she implanted +the germs of strength in my soul by reading aloud whole chapters from +the inspired chisellings of the popular seer Ber Nard Pshaw, who was +to the literature of that period what King Ptush was to statecraft. He +was the acknowledged leader of the Neo-Bunkum School of Right +Thinking, and had first attracted the attention of his age by his +famous reply to one who had called him an Egotist. + +"I am more than that," he answered. "I am a Megotist. The world is +full of I's, but there is only one Me." + +Upon this sort of thing was I fed, not only spiritually but +physically, by my Aunt Jerusha. When, for instance, I found myself +suffering from a pain in my Commissary Department for the sole and +sufficient reason that my nurse had inadvertently handed me the hard +cider jug instead of my noon-day bottle of discosaurus' milk, she +would rattle off some such statement as this: _Thought is everything. +Pain is something. Hence where there is no thought there can be no +pain. Wherefore if you have a pain it is evident that you have a +thought. To be rid of the pain stop thinking._ + +Then she would fix her eye on mine, and gaze at me sternly in an +effort to remove my sufferings by the hot poultice of her own mushy +reflections instead of getting the peppermint and the hot-water bag. +When night came on and I was restless instead of wooing slumber on my +behalf with soft and soothing lullabies, or telling me fairy-stories +such as children love, she would say: _The child's mind is immature. +His conclusions, therefore, are immature. Whence his decisions as to +what he likes lack maturity, and consequently to give him that for +which he professes to like is equivalent to feeding him on unripe +fruit. So we conclude that what he says he likes he really does not +like, and to please him therefore, it becomes necessary to give him +what he professes to dislike. Ergo, I will read him to sleep with the +seventeenth chapter, part forty-nine of the works of Niet-Zhe on the +co-ordination of our ćsthetic powers in respect to the relative +delights of pleasure and pain._ + +I will do my Aunt Jerusha the credit of saying at this point that her +method of putting me to sleep was efficacious. I do not ever remember +having retained consciousness past the third paragraph of her remedy +for insomnia. + +[Illustration: Aunt Jerusha as a disciplinarian.] + +I tremble to think of what I should have become had this fauntleroy +process of rearing been allowed to continue unchecked. There were +prigs enough in our family already without afflicting the world with +another, and it rejoices me to this day to recall that just as we were +reaching the point when it was either an early and beautiful demise in +the odor of sanctity as a perfect child, or my present eminence as the +most continuous human performance on record for me, my father stepped +in, reasserted his authority and rescued me from the clutches of my +Aunt Jerusha. Returning one day from business, he discovered Aunt +Jerusha sitting in a rocking-chair in the nursery before me reading +aloud from her tablets, whilst I, as usual, hung strapped and +suspended from a hook on the picture moulding. It was my supper-time, +and she was feeding me according to the New Thought method of +catering. The substance of her discourse was that hunger was an idea, +nothing more. She was proving to her own satisfaction at least that I +was hungry only because I thought I was hungry, and as father came in +she was trying to persuade me that if I would be a good boy and make +up my mind that my appetite had been appeased by a series of courses +of thought biscuits, spirituelle waffles, and mental hors d'oeuvres +generally I would no longer be hungry. + +"Fill your spirit stomach with the food of thought, Methy, dear," she +was saying as my father appeared in the door-way. "Make up your mind +that it is stuffed with the crackers and milk of the spirit; that +your spiritual bread is buttered with the oleomargerine of lofty +ideals, and sugared with the saccharin of your granulated meditations, +and you will grow strong. You will become an intellectual athlete, +like the great King Ptush of Egypt; a winner in the spiritual +Marathon--" + +"What are you trying to do with this kid, anyhow?" demanded my father +at this point. "Turn him into a strap-hanger, or is this just a little +lynching party?" + +"Hush, Enoch," protested Aunt Jerusha. "Do not project an +unsympathetic thought wave across our wires. I am just getting little +Methy into a receptive mood. He is having his supper." + +"Supper?" roared my father. "You call that stuff supper? Why, the +child is getting thinner than a circus lemonade--" + +"In the grosser sense, yes," replied Aunt Jerusha, calmly, after the +manner of maiden ladies who are sure of their position. "But look at +those eyes. Do they not betoken a great and budding soul within that +is hourly waxing in strength and beauty?" + +"My dear Jerusha," said my father, unhooking me from the wall and +handing me a ripe red banana to eat, "all that you say is very lovely, +and I have no doubt that under your administration of affairs the boy +will sooner or later become a bully idea, but I hate a man whose +convexity of soul has been attained through a concavity of stomach. +What this boy needs at this stage of the game is development in what +you properly term the grosser sense, I might even go so far as to say +the butcher sense as well as the grocer sense. Ham and eggs is what he +needs." + +And with that he sent out and had a diplodocus carnegii killed, and +fed me himself for the next ten days on dainty morsels cut from the +fatted calf of that luscious bird. It was thus that I escaped the fate +of the over-good who die young and became a factor in the world of +affairs rather than a pleasant memory in the minds of my family. + +As for my education it was limited, and I may say desultory. In this +my Aunt Jerusha was allowed a greater authority than in the matter of +my diet, and she early made up her mind that the great weakness of the +educational system of the day was the tendency of the teachers in our +schools to cram the minds of the young. + +"There is no hurry in days like these when people live to be eight or +nine hundred years old," she observed to my mother. "There is not very +much to be learned as yet. Science is in its infancy, very little +history has been made, and as for Latin and Greek, it is entirely +unnecessary for Methy to study those languages, because as yet, +nobody speaks them, and with the possible exception of that tramp +poet, Homer, who passed through here last week on his way West, nobody +is using it in literature. Teach him the three Rs and all will be +well. Taking the alphabet first and learning one letter a year for +twenty-six years he will be able to read and write as early in life as +he ought to. If we were more careful not to teach our children to read +in their childhood we should not be so anxious about the effects of +pernicious literature upon their adolescent morals. If I had my way no +one should be taught to read until after he had passed his hundredth +year. In that way, and in that way only can we protect our youth from +the dreadful influence of such novels as 'Three Cycles, Not To Mention +The Rug,' which dreadful book I have found within the past month in +the hands of at least twenty children in the neighborhood, not one of +whom was past sixty." + +It was thus resolved that my education should proceed with due +deliberation and even as Aunt Jerusha had suggested, I was taught only +one letter a year for the first twenty-six years of my life, after +which I took up addition, multiplication, short and long division and +fractions. My father would not permit me to learn subtraction. + +"It is a waste of time," said he. "Children subtract by intuition. Put +in all your time teaching Methy how to add and multiply." + +My history was meagre, because as Aunt Jerusha had said, history +itself was meagre. There had not even been a flood, much less a first, +second, or third Punic War. Nobody in my time had ever heard of +Napoleon Bonaparte or George Washington or Julius Cćsar, or +Alexander, save a few prophets in the hills back of Enochsville, in +whose prognostications few of their contemporaries took any stock; as +was indeed not unnatural, since when they attempted to prophesy as to +the weather they showed themselves to be rather poor guessers. If a +man prophesies a blizzard for to-morrow and to-morrow comes bringing +with it the balmy odors of Spring, no one is likely to set much store +by his prognostications concerning the possible presidential candidacy +of a man named Bryan six or seven thousand years later. Consequently +the only history with which I took the trouble to familiarize myself +was that which ante-dated my birth, and even that was somewhat hazy in +the minds of historians. My predecessors in the patriarchal profession +were a reticent lot, inherited no doubt from our original ancestor +Adam, who could never be got to talk even to members of his immediate +family on the subject of his early years. True, it is generally +believed that he had no early years, and that he was born on his +fifty-ninth birthday, but even as to that he would not speak. I shall +never forget the look on his face when I asked him at a Thanksgiving +dinner one year if he had ever been a monkey with a tail. He rose up +from the table with considerable dignity, and leading me out into the +wood-shed turned me over on his knee and subjected me to a rather +severe course of treatment with a hair-brush. + +"There, my lad," he observed when he had done. "If I had had a tail +that is about where I should have worn it." + +I never referred to the subject again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOME REMINISCENCES OF ADAM + + +The concluding paragraphs of my last chapter have set my mind running +upon the subject of my original forebears, and inasmuch as I have +decided to write these memoirs of mine along the lines of least +resistance, it becomes proper that I should at this time, put down +whatever happens to be in my mind. To speak frankly I never really +could get up much of a liking for old grandfather Adam. He was as +devoid of real humor as the Scottentots, and simply because by a mere +accident of birth he became the First Gentleman of Europe, Asia and +Africa, he assumed airs that rendered him distinctly unpopular with +his descendants. He considered himself the fount of all knowledge +because in the early days of his occupancy of the Garden of Eden there +was no one to dispute his conclusions, and the fact that he had been +born without a boyhood, as we have already seen at the age of +fifty-nine, left him entirely unsympathetic in matters where boys were +concerned. I shall never forget a conspicuous case in point +demonstrating his utter lack of comprehension of a boy's way of +looking at things. He was on a visit to our home at Enochsville, and +on the night of his arrival, having called for a glass of fermented +grape-juice, thinking to indulge in a mere pleasantry, I brought him a +tumblerful of sweetened red ink, the which he gulped down so avidly +that it was not until it was beyond recall that he realized what I had +done; and when in his wrath he called for an instant remedy and I +brought him the blotting paper, instead of smiling at the merry +quality of my jest, he pursued me for two hours around my father's +farm, and finally cornering me in the Discosaurus shed, larruped me +for twenty full minutes with a paddle pulled from a prickly cactus +plant in my mother's drawing-room, thorn side down. Indeed most of my +early recollections of the old gentleman are inseparably associated +with a series of chastisements which, even as he had prophesied when +administering them, I have not been able to forget, although I cannot +see that any of them ever resulted in a lasting reformation of my +ways. On the contrary the desire to see what new form of thrashing his +disciplinary mind could invent led me into devising new kinds of +provocation, so that for a great many years his visits to our house +were a source of great anxiety to my parents. His view of me and my +ways were expressed with some degree of force to our family physician +who, when at the age of a hundred and fifty-three I came down with the +mumps, having summoned the whole family and said that I would burst +before morning, was met by a reassuring observation from Adam that he +wouldn't believe I was dead even if I had been buried a year. + +"It is the good who die young, Doctor," he said. "On that principle +this young malefactor will live to be the oldest man in the world." + +A curious example of his gift of prophecy! + +Adam's table manners were a frequent source of mortification to us +all. The free and easy habits of the Garden period clung to him +throughout his life, and under no circumstances could he be induced to +use either a fork, a knife or a spoon, and even on the most formal +occasions he absolutely refused to dress for dinner. + +"Fingers were made before forks," he said, "and as for spoons I have +no use for such frills. I can eat my peas out of the pod, and as for +soup it tastes better out of a dipper anyhow." + +As for the knives, his dislike of them was merely in their use at +table. He was fond of knives of all sorts, and he regarded them always +as his legitimate spoil whenever he dined anywhere, pocketing every +one he could lay his hands on with as much facility as the Egyptian, +and Abyssinian drummers who visited our section of the country every +year made off with the spoons of our hostelries. Nor could we ever +appeal to him on the score of etiquette. Any observation as to the +ways of our first families was always met by a cold but quick response +that if there was any firster family than his own in all creation, he +couldn't find its name in the social register. Indeed the old +gentleman was rather inclined to be very snobbish on this point, and +when any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the +crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over +and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively +new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to +what was or was not good form. The only person who ever succeeded in +bowling him over on this point was Uncle Zib, hitherto referred to as +the billionaire member of our family, who, after listening to a long +and somewhat supercilious discourse from Adam on the subject of +family, turned like a flash and asked: + +"And who pray was your grandfather?" + +The old gentleman flushed deeply, and for once was silent, being as I +have already intimated rather sensitive, and therefore inclined to +reticence on the score of his ancestry. + +[Illustration: Adam's Dress Chart.] + +He took a great deal of pride in his success as a namer of animals, +but as my grandson Noah remarked several hundred years later, it was a +commonplace achievement after all. + +"A dog is a dog, and a cat is a cat, and a horse is a horse. Any fool +would know that, so what virtue there was in his calling the beasts by +their real names I don't quite see," said Noah. + +I am disposed, however, to give the old fellow the credit that is his +due for making so few mistakes. That he should instantly be able to +tell the difference between a dromedary and a camel without any +previous instruction, strikes me as evidence of a more or less +remarkable intuition, the like of which we do not often find to-day, +and his dubbing that long-eared, four-footed piece of resistant +uselessness the Ass an ass, always seemed to me to be a master +stroke, although my father used to say that his greatest achievement +lay in correctly designating the pig at first sight. + +"If there is any animal in the whole category of four-legged creatures +that more thoroughly deserves to be called a pig than the pig, I don't +know what it is. He looks like a pig, he behaves like a pig, and he +eats like a pig--in fact he is a pig, and Adam never did anything +better than when he invented that name and applied it." + +The old gentleman was present when my father said that, and his face +flushed with pleasure at his words of praise. + +"Thank you, Enoch," he said. "I am rather proud of it, but I think I +did quite as well when it came to the hen. Anything more aptly +answering to the word hen in all its various shades of meaning than +the hen itself I don't know, but it took me a full week to reason the +thing out. It was not until I heard its absurd cackling over the +laying of a strictly fresh egg, strutting about the barn-yard like a +feathered Napoleon Bonaparte, and acting altogether as though she were +the winner of a Twentieth Century Marathon race that it dawned on me +that the creature was a hen, and could never be anything else than a +hen. Mother wished me to call her an omelette, the feminine form of an +om, as she expressed it, but I had already named the rooster, and the +bird seemed so exactly like a rooster that I declined to make any +changes." + +"I don't see," put in Uncle Zib at this point, "where you got the word +hen from. That is the wonder of it to my mind." + +"Oh," laughed Adam, "that was easy, my dear Zib. I got it from an +inspection of the egg." + +"The egg?" demanded Uncle Zib. + +"Certainly," replied Adam. "You see the minute I picked up the egg and +looked at it closely, I saw that it was a hen's egg, and there you +are." + +After all it seemed very simple. + +I have spoken of his abhorrence of dress. He carried this to an +extreme degree and to the end of his life predicted dire things from +the tendency of his descendants toward sartorial display. I shall +never forget the lucid fashion in which he presented the situation to +my father once while we were camping out one night on Mount Ararat, +after a day's hunting. He was seated on a woody knoll skinning a +pterodactyl for our supper. + +"I tell you, Enoch," he said, "and if you don't mark my words you'll +wish you had, these new fangled notions that are coming along, and +affecting the whole of modern society in respect to what you are +pleased to call dress, are going to result sooner or later in trouble. +I can clearly see even if you cannot, that the new ideas as to clothes +are breeders of extravagance. As things were in my young days anybody +who felt the need of a new costume of one kind or another had only to go +out into the woods and pick it. If your great-great-great-grandmother or +I, for instance, wanted a new Spring suit we'd go hand in hand together +to the orchard, and in the course of a half hour's steady work would fit +ourselves out with a wardrobe that would have made this Queen of Sheba +that the prophets are foretelling, look like thirty clam-shells; and +what is more, a Spring costume was indeed a Spring costume and nothing +else, for it was made of the freshest of the vernal leaves, beautiful in +their early greens, and decorated here and there with a bit of a blossom +that gave the whole a most fetching appearance. And so it was with the +other seasons. For summer we used leaves of the vintage of July and +August, deeper in their green, with the summer flowers for decoration. +Nothing ever so stirred the heart of man as Mother Eve decked out in her +gown of rose leaves, or hollyhocks; and occasionally when we went +travelling together dressed in our suits of hardy perennials, we were +the cynosure of all eyes. In the Autumn the rich red of the maple gave +us an aspect of gayety in respect to our clothes that was most +picturesque; and then when the winter blasts began to blow, our garments +of pine, cedar and hemlock were not only warm, but appropriate and +becoming. It is true that clothes made of hemlock were not altogether +comfortable at first, having some of the prickly qualities of the +hair-shirt, but the very tittilation of the epidermis by their pointed +spills, sharp sometimes as a needle, served to keep our blood in +circulation, and consequently at all times warm and glowing. And it all +cost us nothing more than the labor of the harvest, but now, all is +different. The use of costly fabrics, woven stuffs, silks, satins and +calicos, has introduced an added element of expense into our daily +lives, and all to no useful purpose. Take your Aunt Jerusha, for +instance. Where Mother Eve enjoyed as many different costumes as there +were trees in the country without cost, all of them becoming, and wholly +adequate, your Aunt Jerusha has to be satisfied with three or four gowns +of indifferent fit, made by the village seamstress at an average cost of +thirty or forty dollars apiece. A sheath-gown, costing Jerusha +seventy-five dollars, in the distance, gives no more of an impression in +the matter of figure to an admiring world than your original grandmother +used to make without any further sartorial embellishment than an +ostrich feather in her hair, and as for the men--well, if you see any +value in the change in men's garments over those which prevailed in my +day, you can see what I cannot, and what is going to be the result? The +time will come when tailors' bills will be regarded as a curse. Fathers +of families who, under the scheme of dress invented by myself, could +keep a large number of growing boys appropriately clad, will sooner or +later be forced into bankruptcy by the demands of tailors under these +new methods now coming into vogue. In the train of this will come also a +love of display, and in the course of years you will find men judged not +by the natural stature of their manhood, but by the clothes they wear, +to the everlasting deception of society. By the use of a little expert +padding, building up here and there, a miserable little human shoat will +be able to appear in all the glory of a gladiator. A silk outer garment +will cover the shoddy inner nature of a bit of attleboro humanity so +effectively that you will hardly be able to tell the real thing from the +bogus, and many a man lured into matrimony by the charms of an outward +Venus, will find after marriage that he has tied himself up for life to +a human hat-rack, specially designed by a clever dressmaker, to yank him +from the joys of a contented celibacy into the thorny paths of hymeneal +chaos. + +"Nor will it stop here," the old gentleman continued, warming to his +subject. "I prophesy that just as at the present time society looks +with disfavor on me for going around in the simple dress of my early +days, so the time will come when an even more advanced society will +demand the placing of more clothes on top of those that you all wear +now. The outer garments of to-day will become the under-clothes of +some destined to-morrow, and centuries hence a man found walking on +the public highways dressed as you are will be arrested by the police +for shocking the sense of propriety of the community, and so on. It +will go on and on until you will find human beings everywhere decked +out in layer after layer of clothes until he or she has lost all +semblance to that beautiful thing that an all-wise Providence has +designed us to be. Man will wear under-clothes and outer clothes. He +will devise an absurd bit of starch, button-holes and tails called a +shirt, in which doubtless he will screw diamond-studs, and over which +he will wear a resounding waistcoat embroidered with all sorts of +wild-flowers in bloom. Then will come a stiff uncomfortable yoke for +his neck, which he will call a collar, around which he will wind what +he will call a necktie, the only useful purpose of which will be its +value as a danger signal to the rest of mankind, for it will be +through the medium of this addition to the human dress that character +will manifest itself, man being prone unconsciously to show his +strength or weaknesses in the manner of his personal adornment. This +will lead to all sorts of vain exhibitions until it will be with +extreme difficulty that the public will be able to differentiate +between a genuine peacock and an upstart jack-daw, masquerading in a +merry widow hat. Then will come the crowning misdemeanor in men's +clothes which, for want of a better term let us call pants--a pair of +bags sewed together at the top, and designed for no other purpose than +to conceal from the world the character and quality of the wearer's +legs. When that beatific invention arrives your spindle-legged, +knock-kneed imitation of a man will, as far as the public eye is +concerned, find himself on as sure a footing as your very Adonis, and +a person with a comparatively under-developed understanding will be +able to make as good a showing in the world as the man who is really +all there. Like charity, these pants will cover a multitude of shins +that once exposed to the world would at once give warning of the +possessors' fundamental instability. In other words this new style of +dress that our fashionable leaders are now advocating is designed +simply for the purpose of concealing from the world their natural +defects, enabling them to appear for what they are not, and therefore +to deceive, the sure result of which is to be the fostering of vanity, +a love of display, the breeding of snobs, and an impairment of the +average man's purse to such an extent that some day or other tailors' +and dressmakers' bills will become an inevitable item in every +schedule in bankruptcy in the land. Clothes will also breed rags, for +without clothes to grow threadbare and frayed, it is clear that the +raw material of rags and tatters would be lacking, and many a scene of +beggary would be avoided. + +"Wherefore, my son," the old man concluded, "let me warn you to set +your face sternly against these modern innovations, and to return to +the plainer, and yet more beautiful habiliments of your sires. Let the +sturdy oak be your tailor; when you need a vernal gown, seek the +spreading chestnut tree and from its upper branches pluck the clothing +that you need, and when drear winter comes upon the scene hie you to +the mountain top, and from the rich stock of Hemlock, Pine and Co., +Tailors, By Special Appointment To Their Majesties, The Eternal Hills, +gather the sartorial blessings that there await you." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GRANDMOTHER EVE + + +Very different in almost every imaginable respect from Adam was his +attractive lady, Madame Eve. Indeed, so radically different from each +other were this rather ill-assorted pair that it was always difficult +for us to believe that they were related even by marriage, and I +hesitate to say what I think would have been the outcome of their little +romance had there been any competition for the lady's hand when Adam set +out to win it. I have personally always had a feeling that this first of +hymeneal experiments was rather a marriage of convenience than anything +else, and I have heard my great-great-great-grandmother say that in the +old pioneer days there was very little for a woman to choose from in the +matter of men's society. + +"For a long time," she remarked, "Adam was the only man in sight, and +I was a young thing entirely without experience in worldly matters. He +seemed to my girlish fancy to be all that a man should be. His habits +were good. He neither smoked nor drank, cared apparently nothing for +cards, and barring an interest in Discosaurus Racing, had very few +sporting proclivities. We were thrown together a great deal, and +inasmuch as the life in the Garden was a somewhat lonely one, we took +considerable pleasure in each other's society. For myself, I was not +particularly anxious to be married, preferring the free and +independent life of the spinster, but as time went on and we came to +realize that the people of future generations might misunderstand us +and, as people will do, talk about us, we decided that the best way +to avoid all gossip was to announce our engagement, and at the end of +the usual period, settle down together as man and wife. I don't know +that I have ever regretted the step, though I will say that I think it +is undesirable for a young girl to enter too hastily into the +obligations of matrimony, or to marry the first man that comes along, +unless she is absolutely sure that he is the only man she could +possibly endure through three meals a day for the balance of her +life." + +It must not be assumed from this little reminiscence of this first +lady in the land that her marriage was an unhappy one. I think, that +as a matter of fact, it was quite the contrary, for subsequent to the +wedding each was too busy with other matters to get thinking either +morbidly or otherwise on the subject of their individual happiness. +They took it as a matter of course, and in the division of labor which +the social conditions of the day involved, found too much to occupy +them to worry over such unimportant abstractions as mere personal +felicity. + +"We were spared one of the direst afflictions of modern social life," +Madame Eve once remarked to my mother, in talking over the old days, +"in the absence of domestic servants from our family circle. Adam was +head of the house, general provider, hired-man, stable-boy, +head-gardener, coach-man, night-watchman and everything else of the +male persuasion on the place; whilst I was cook, laundress, nurse, +housekeeper, manicure, stenographer, and general housemaid, as well as +the mother of the family--a situation that even though it involved us +in no end of hard work, had its compensations. Living off in suburbs +as we did, you can have no idea of what a comfort it was to us not to +be at the mercy of a cook who would threaten to leave us every time +anything happened to displease her, such as an extra meal to be cooked +in emergency cases, or the failure of the cooking-sherry to come up to +the exalted standards of her taste as a connoisseur in wines, and hard +as the housework was, as I look back upon it now, I realize how much +trouble I was spared in not having to follow a yellow-haired fluffy +ruffles about the house all day long cleaning up after her. If there +is anything of the labor-saving device in that modern invention known +as a chambermaid, I don't know where it comes in. I'd rather sweep +three floors, and make twenty-nine beds, every day of my life than put +in one single week trying to get seven cents worth of efficient work +out of a fourteen-dollar housemaid." + +At this point I ventured to put in the suggestion that I should have +thought some use could have been made of the monkeys in the matter of +Domestic Service, whereupon the dear lady, who was not nearly so +sensitive on the subject of the Simian family as her husband had +always shown himself to be, patted me on the head, and smiled +indulgently, as she cracked her little joke. + +"Monkeys, my dear Methy," she replied, "were always more efficient in +the higher branches. Seriously, however," she went on, "we had that +same idea ourselves, and we tried Simian labor for a while, but it was +far from satisfactory. They were too playfully impetuous, and we had +to give them up as indoor servants. We had a Monkey Butler one season, +and nothing could induce him to serve our dinner in that dignified +fashion in which a dinner should be served. He would pass the soup +with one paw, the fish with the other, while serving the bread with +his tail, and all simultaneously, so that instead of dinner becoming a +peaceful meal, it was at all times, a highly excitable function that +left us all in a state of trembling nervousness when it was over. Try +as we might we could not induce them to do one thing at a time, and +finally when this particular butler, to whom I have referred, instead +of standing as he was instructed to do behind Adam's chair, insisted +on swinging from the chandelier over the center of the table suspended +by his caudal appendage, we decided that we would rather wait on +ourselves." + +Asked once if she had not found the primitive life uncomfortable, she +shook her head in a decided negative. + +[Illustration: Eve's Scrap Book.] + +"There were too many compensations in our freedom from the things that +make your social life of to-day a complex problem," she replied. "In +the first place I never had to worry much over Adam. When he was not +out getting the raw material for our daily meals he was most generally +at home, for the very excellent reason that there was no other place +to go. We hadn't any Clubs to begin with, so that on his way home from +business there was no temptation for him to stop off anywhere and +frivol away his time playing billiards, or squandering his limited +means on rubbers of bridge or other ruinous games. The only Vaudeville +shows we had at the time consisted of the somewhat too continuous +performances of the monkeys and the poll-parrots right there in our +own back-yard, so that that menace to the happy home was entirely +unknown to us, and inasmuch as I was the only cook in all Christendom +at the time, the idea of not coming home to dinner never occurred to +Adam. It is true that at times he criticised my cooking, but in view +of certain ancestral limitations from which he suffered, I never had +to sit quietly and listen to an exasperating disquisition on the Pies +That Mother Used To Make, a line of conversation that in these modern +days has broken up many an otherwise happy home. Socially the time had +its draw-backs, but even in that respect there were advantages. The +fact that we had no next-door neighbors enabled us to live without +ostentation. I have discovered that much of the trouble in the world +to-day arises from a love of showing-off, and of course, if there is +no one about to show-off to, you don't indulge in that sort of +foolishness. Being the only family in the place we were not spurred +into extravagances of living, either because we had to keep up an end +in society, or because we wished to make a better showing than someone +else was making. There was correspondingly no gossip going on all +about us. The absence of society meant that there were no Sewing +Circles anywhere where peoples' reputations were pulled apart while +under-clothes for alleged heathen were put together. Nobody ever +descended upon us at unreasonable hours with unwelcome Surprise +Parties eating us out of house and home and compelling us to stay up +all night dancing the Virginia Reel when we were so sleepy we could +hardly keep our eyes open. We didn't have to give dinners to people we +didn't like, or make calls on persons in whom we took no earthly +interest whatever. There was no question of Woman's Suffrage to make +an everlasting breach between Adam and myself; no church squabbles +over whether the new carpet should be pink or green, and as for +politics, there was not anything even remotely resembling a politic in +the whole broad land. If Adam or I felt the need of a law now and +then, we'd make it, and if it didn't work, we'd repeal it, so that +there were no endless discussions on such subjects, involving hard +feeling, acrimonious correspondence, and an endless chain of Chapters +of the Ananias Club all over creation. And when the children came +along I was permitted to bring them up according to my own ideas, +thanks to the entire absence from the country of inspired old-maids, +and omniscient editors, ceaselessly endeavoring to reduce a natural +maternal function to an arbitrary science. It has been said that I did +not have much to be proud of in the results of my efforts to bring up +my children right, and I suppose that in the case of Cain and Abel I +must admit that I have not; but I am not so sure that things would +have turned out any different if I had reared them after a Fireside +Companion pattern for the making of a panne velvet posterity. I will +go so far as to say that after looking over the comic supplements of +the Sunday Newspapers, I believe Cain would have killed Abel ten years +earlier than he did if he had had the example of the Katzenjammer Kids +and Buster Brown before him in the formative years of his life. So, on +that score, I am comfortable in my mind, much as I regret the +disastrous climax of the lives of those two boys. In connection with +this matter of the bringing up of children I believe, too, that +despite the narrowness of our outlook, the primitive conditions were +better than those which now exist. I never heard of my boys running +loose about town waking up the whole community with their cheers +because their college football team had crippled eleven other boys +from another college for life; and hard to manage as Cain and Abel +were at times, Adam and I never had to put them to bed at five +o'clock in the morning because they had paralyzed their throats at a +college banquet announcing to an exasperated world that they were Sons +of a Gambolier. In fact, the educational problem of those early days +was an educational problem and not a social one. We did not spend our +time teaching boys to speak seventeen languages, without any ideas to +express in any one of them, but went in for the ideas first. We +regarded speech merely as a vehicle for the expression of ideas, and +went at it from that point of view, rather than the other way around +according to modern notions. Cain and Abel didn't have to go to a +military school to learn how to haze each other, and no young man of +that day ever thought of qualifying for his A. B. by compelling +another young man to sip Tabasco sauce through a straw. What they +learned, they learned by experience, and not through the pages of a +book. If we felt it well to teach one of them that water was wet, we +did not subject his young mind to a nine months course of lectures by +a Professor on Hydropathy, but took him out and dropped him in the +duck-pond and let him draw his own conclusions; and when it came to +Botany, we found that either one of them could get a more +comprehensive idea of the habits of growing plants from weeding a +ten-acre lot than he could get out of a four years' course at a +Correspondence School. The result was that when he came to graduate +and go out into the world he was ready for business, and didn't have +to serve as an Office-Boy on a salary of nothing a week for +seventy-five or a hundred years before he was able to earn his own +living." + +It surely was an idyllic picture that the dear old lady drew, and I +have often wished myself amid the rush and roar of modern life, that +we might go back to the simpler methods of those Arcadian days. + +On the subject of dress, Eve was entirely out of accord with her +husband. She viewed Adam's theories on that subject with toleration, +however, and always laughed when they were mentioned. + +"He's just like a man," she smiled. "He really has no objection to +fetching costumes when they are worn by other people. He merely does +not wish to be bothered with such things himself. He has just as much +of an eye for a daintily dressed little bit of femininity as anybody +else, but he is eternally afraid that if I go in for that sort of +thing he will be turned into a lady's maid. The idea of a hook-and-eye +fills him with horror. His eyesight is not as good as it used to be, +and he dreads the notion that if I come out in one of these +new-fangled waists that hook up at the back he will be compelled to +put in an hour or two fastening it up for me every time I put it on, +and I don't blame him. It seems to me that if there is anything in +this world that is unbefitting the glorious manhood of a true +masculine being it is to have to sit down in a chair for an hour +before dinner looking for a half million hooks and eyes, or +cloth-covered buttons and loops, on the back of his wife's gown, and +trying to fasten them up properly without the use of language unsuited +to a lady's ears. When you think that the hand of man was made to +wield the sceptre of imperial power over this magnificent world, it +becomes a gross impropriety to divert it from the path of destiny into +so futile an effort as hooking up a mere bit of fuss, feathers and +fallals. You might just as well hitch up a pair of thoroughbred +elephants to a milk wagon. It will do, as Adam says, for the +Mollycoddle and the meticulous weakling, but never for a real man +worthy of the name. But after all that is no reason why woman should +be shorn of one of her chief glories, and I totally disagree with him +in his condemnation of all clothes just because some of them are +conceived in foolishness. Dresses can be made to button up at the +side, or in front, and when I think of some of the new fall styles +that are coming in I find myself regretting that I am over five +hundred years old, and cannot with strict propriety, go in for them +myself. Take those little chiffon--" + +And so the dear old lady went on into an enthusiastic disquisition on +the glories of dress that was so intimately feminine that I hesitate +to attempt to quote her words in this place, knowing little as I do on +the subject, and hardly able myself to tell the difference between a +gimp and a café parfait. I will merely close this chapter by quoting +Eve's last remark on the subject. + +"All I can say is," she observed, "that Adam makes a great mistake in +objecting to woman's thinking so much about her clothes, for I can +tell him that if she didn't think about her own clothes she would +begin to think about his, and if that were to happen it wouldn't be +long before all men in creation would be going about looking as if +somebody had picked them off a Christmas tree. In the matter of +clothes woman is the court of last resort, and it is better for men +that she should concentrate all her attention on herself!" + +Incidentally let me add that when someone once asked Eve if she hadn't +often wished she had been a man, she replied: + +"Lord no! In that case there would have been two of us, and goodness +knows one was enough!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOME NOTES ON CAIN AND ABEL + + +My acquaintance with my great-uncles, Cain and Abel, was not +particularly intimate and in later years they are seldom spoken of by +members of the family for reasons sufficiently obvious to need no +mention here. Every family must sooner or later develop an undesirable +or two, and on the whole I think that we have done tolerably well in +having up to this time only one portrait in our Rogues' Gallery. Just +what has become of Cain no one at this writing is aware, but wherever +he is I hope when these memoirs of mine are published he will read +them far enough to note that one member of the family at least holds +him in pleasant recollection for the fun he has afforded him in the +past. The two first boys of creation were not bad fellows at all, +although as was natural, their bringing up resulted in a general +condition of pure cussedness that at times became appalling to their +parents. The fact that there had never been any other boys in the +world before placed Adam and Eve at a considerable disadvantage in +rearing these two youngsters. There were no precedents to go by, and +as a consequence the lads were permitted to do a good many things that +our modern boys would not dream of doing. There were no schools to +send them to, and no Sunday Newspapers with Woman's Pages to instruct +Eve in the Complete Science of Motherhood, so that when Cain and Abel +came along to bless the world with their presence, neither their +father nor their mother knew what on earth to do with them. Then, +too, Eve's household duties were such that they very nearly absorbed +all her time, and for years the youthful scions of this first family +in the land were left to the tender mercies of a kindly old Gorilla +who, however amiable and willing she may have been, was hardly the +kind of person a modern mother would choose as an influence in the +formative years of her children's development. I am quite aware that +in some sections of the country to-day this oldtime custom of leaving +the young to the care of servants still prevails, and in some cases it +has its distinct advantages considering the moral characteristics of +the parents who so leave them, but as a social custom to be commended +it is an entire failure, and was adopted by Eve not from choice, but +from necessity. It was not through any desire to shine in society as a +constant attendant at the Five O'Clock teas of her time, or, because +she deemed that her duty lay in trying to secure the alleged +Emancipation of her Sex from imaginary shackles at the expense of her +home life and its responsibilities; or, because she believed that the +primary duty of a mother was to provide her offspring with a maternal +relative who could expound the most abstruse philosophies of the age +with her eyes shut, that led Mother Eve into an apparent neglect of +her children. It was simply the inevitable result of the life of her +time. One can hardly be all that she had to be whether she wanted to +be it or not and at the same time fulfill all the functions of +motherhood. The daily labors of a large ranch such as the world +practically was at that time were of enormous proportions, and with +all due respect to Adam it has always been my profound belief that a +good ninety per cent. of them were performed by Eve. It was she who +had to look after the domestic details of the hour, day in and day +out, while he after the fashion of mankind, led the freer life of the +open. Indeed I have never found that in the matter of manual labor +Adam was in any wise noted. The naming of the animals was a purely +intellectual achievement, and while, of course, he was the provider +when it came to getting in the food supply, I have never observed that +any man yet created ever regarded a day on a trout stream with a fly +and a rod, or a chase through the forest after a venison steak, or a +partridge, as in any way even remotely resembling work. On the +contrary Adam lived the life of a Naturalist and a Nimrod, while Eve +faithfully did the chores. It was inevitable then that the children +when they first came along, should be allowed to grow wild, to +associate with their inferiors, and to become confirmed in habits that +were deplorable and reprehensible. I am entering upon no defense of +my Uncle Cain. I do not excuse his misbehavior in the least, but when +a censorious world holds up its hands in holy horror whenever he is +mentioned, and uses his name as a synonym for evil, I would merely beg +it to remember the lad's bringing up, and to ask itself whether under +similar conditions it would do much better itself. Particularly do I +ask that branch of human society, now growing rather larger than I +like to see it, who are themselves allowing their children to grow up, +not only removed but far away from all parental influences whatsoever, +if they realize that they will have only themselves to blame if they +add to the stock of unfortunates who bear the mark of Cain? Of course, +a woman who would rather play Bridge than rock her baby to sleep would +be a bad influence upon a budding soul at any time, and her child is +to be congratulated when its mother's engagement card is full from +Sunday to Sunday, but even a mother of that sort owes it to society to +see that her place is filled not by any old gorilla from the handiest +intelligence office that comes along as poor Eve was forced into +doing, but by some capable person in whom the love of motherhood rules +as strong as does the passion for the grand-slam in her own breast. + +[Illustration: Cain's Inspiration] + +But enough of this moralizing! I had not meant to preach a sermon, and +it is only because I see so many wistful little faces of motherless +youngsters around me day after day--Social Orphans, whose mothers have +not gone to Heaven, but to Mrs. Grundy's; children who with the +qualities of service in their souls are treading dangerously near to +the footsteps of the original scapegrace for lack of attention; that I +have been led into this garrulous homily. It must not be supposed, +either from what I have said that there was never any discipline in +the Home of Adam and Eve. Later on there came to be a lot of it, and I +am not sure that its excesses in later periods were not as evil in +their influence as its utter lack at a time when ten minutes with the +hair-brush would have done Cain more good than ten years in the county +jail. + +To the world at large these two boys are interesting because of the +fact that they introduced humor into the world. Adam never had any, +and Eve, as we have seen, was rather too busy to joke, but not so with +the youngsters, who, doubtless from their constant association with +the monkeys bubbled over with a kind of fun that though necessarily +primitive, was quite appealing. It was Cain who invented that immortal +riddle, "When is a door not a door?" the true answer being, "when it +is a bird." This is as far as I have been able to discover the first +thing in the nature of a joke ever known on this planet, though +whether it was the one that made the original Hyena laugh I have not +been able to ascertain. It is a joke that has appeared in modified +form many times since. Even that illustrious pundit, Senator Chauncey +M. DeMagog uses it as his most effective peroration at this season's +public banquets. I heard him myself get it off at The Egyptian Society +Dinner last month, as well as at the Annual Banquet of The Sons and +Daughters of the Pre-Adamite Evolution, the month before, changing the +answer, however, to "when it's a jar"--which I personally do not +consider an improvement, for when a door becomes a jar I must confess +I cannot see. A jar, as I understand it, is a vessel, a receptacle, a +jug, a sort of demijohn, or decanter that people use to store up +water, or to keep the juice of the grape in, like a pitcher, or an +amphora; and how by any stretch of the imagination a door could become +such a thing is beyond my ken, although I must say that the jest when +told by the Senator in his own inimitable way, was received with +shouts of laughter every time he got it off. For my own part I think +that Cain's version is infinitely more humorous and instructive as +well, because a "door is not a door" when it is a "daw," which is, +indeed, as Cain's answer to the riddle claims it to be, a bird. It is, +of course, a great compliment to Cain that the Senator and a hundred +others I might name like him should go back to him for their humor, +but I think they would do better if they took his jests exactly as +they found them instead of trying to improve them to their +destruction. + +I find also in our family records that it was Abel who first asked the +question, "Why is an elephant like an oyster? Because it cannot climb +a tree," a jest that similarly to Cain's riddle, possesses not only +true humor but is at the same time educational, as the best humor must +always be, in that it teaches the young certain indubitable facts in +the Science of Natural History, viz., that neither the pachyderm nor +the bivalve, in common with several other carnivorous botanical +specimens, is gifted similarly to the squirrel, the ant, or the +grizzly bear. + +Mother Eve, who always took a naďve delight in the droll sayings of +her offspring, used to tell with great glee of Cain's persistent habit +of asking questions of his father, some of which used to tax all the +old gentleman's powers of invention to answer intelligently. One of +these that I recall most vividly was as follows: + +"Say, Pa," said Cain, one Saturday afternoon, when the whole family +were off on a picnic together, "did you have any sisters?" + +"No, my son," replied Adam, plucking a bottle of olives from a +neighboring tree, and placing them on the outspread table-cloth on the +grass. + +"Well, did Ma have any sisters?" persisted Cain. + +"No," said Adam. "Your mother had no sisters, either. Why do you ask?" + +"Oh, nothin'," replied the lad with a puzzled expression coming over +his face as he scratched his back. "I was just wonderin' where the +Ants came from." + + * * * * * + +It was Abel on the other hand who asked his father why he had not +named the male ants uncles, a question that to this day has not been +satisfactorily answered. Indeed I have frequently found myself +regretting that there was nobody at hand to ask Adam these very +pertinent questions earlier in his life, and before it was too late +to instil in his mind the idea that a little more consistency would be +desirable in his selection of names for the creatures he was called +upon to christen. Zoölogy might have been a far simpler science in the +matter of nomenclature than it is now ever likely to become, had Adam +been surrounded at the beginning with inquiring minds like those of +Cain and Abel, not necessarily to dispute his conclusions or his +judgments, but to seek explanations. Why, for instance, should a +creature that is found chiefly on the Nile, and never under any +circumstances on the Rhine, be called a Rhinoceros? And why should a +Caribou be called a Caribou entirely irrespective of its sex? There +are Caribou of both sexes, when we might have had Caribou for one and +Billibou for the other, and yet Adam has feminized the whole Bou +family with no apparent thought about the matter at all. Then there +is the animal which he called the Bear. He is not bare at all--on the +contrary he wears the shaggiest coat of all the animals, except +possibly the Buffalo, who, by the way, is not buff, but a rather dirty +dull brownish black in color. The Panther does not wear pants, and the +Monkey far from suggesting the habits of a Monk is a roystering, +philanderous old rounder that would disgrace a heathen temple, much +less adorn a Monastery. And finally if there is anything lower than a +Hyena, or less coy than a Coyote, I don't know what it is. + +There is considerable evidence in Mother Eve's Garden Book, in which +she jotted down now and then little notes of her daily life that most +of these points, or at least similar ones, were brought to Adam's +attention at one time or another by his sons, and not always in a way +that was pleasing to him. Indeed, as we read these notes we observe a +growing tendency on Adam's part to be irritated by the enquiries which +seem to have formed an inevitable part of the family conversation. At +random I select the following: + +_August 3rd_, 5569. Cain spanked and put to bed without his supper for +asking his father why he had not called the male Kangaroo a +Kangarooster. + +_September 5th_, 5567. Cain sentenced to the wood-pile for four hours +for enquiring of Adam why he called the Yak a Yak when everybody knew +he looked more like a Yap. Adam is getting very nervous under this +persistent questioning. + +_January 4th_, 5565. Adam has just retired to the wood-shed with poor +Abel on what he termed a "whaling-expedition," to explain why he had +named the elephant of the sea a whale instead of a sealephant. I +judge from Abel's blubbering that his father is giving him an object +lesson in the place where it is most likely to impress itself forcibly +on his understanding, though I must say I think the child's idea a +rather good one, and I often wish my dear husband would not be so +sensitive on the subject of his possible mistakes. + +_May 25th_, 5563. Adam has forbidden the children to ask any more +questions about the names of the animals, Cain having exasperated him +by asking how much a guinea was worth. + +"About five dollars," said Adam. + +"Gee!" cried Cain. "You must have got stung on the guinea-pigs, then. +They're dear at a dollar a dozen." + + * * * * * + +It may interest modern readers who seem to have created a demand for +what is known as the Mother-in-Law joke that this style of humor +found its origin in an early remark of Abel's, if his mother's Diary +is to be believed. A visitor once interrupted him in the midst of a +ball game that he was playing with Cain and a number of his Simian +friends, to ask him how his grandmother was. + +"Never had one," replied Abel, with a grin. + +"Poor boy," sympathized the visitor. "And don't you wish you had?" + +"Yes," said Abel. "I think a Mother-in-Law around the house would have +done Pa good!" + +I will close my remarks concerning these famous boys with a little +poem which their mother had clipped from an Egyptian paper and pasted +in her book. It seems to me to be a pretty accurate picture of two +very interesting figures in our family history. + + I don't suppose that Cain and Abel + Were very mannerly at table. + From what I've read by those that knew 'em + They'd speak when none had spoken to 'em, + And in a manner unbefittin' + Upon their shoulders they'd be sittin', + And sundry dinosaurs be treating + With scraps the while themselves were eating. + I fear they smacked their lips while pickin' + The bones of tarpon and spring chicken, + And each the other would be hazin' + To see who got the final raisin. + The notion in my brain-pan lingers + They ate their flapjacks with their fingers-- + Not that their mother fair assented, + But knives and forks were not invented. + When there was pie, I fear they grabbed it, + Unless their Pa'd already nabbed it; + And that in fashion most unmoral + O'er cakes and puddings they would quarrel. + I don't believe that either chapkin + E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, + And if one biscuit graced the platter + 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, + Or if they'd beans--no doubt they had 'em-- + They failed to snap a few at Adam. + I fear me as they ate their salade + They hummed some raw primeval ballad, + And when the Serpent came to dinner, + They made remarks about the sinner. + No doubt they criticised the cooking + And hooked the fruit when none was looking, + And when they'd soup--O my! O Deary! + The very notion makes me weary. + About these youngsters let's stop writing + And turn to subjects more inviting! + +I have never been able to ascertain the authorship of this poem, but +if the poet ever sees this I hope he will be glad to know that I +heartily agree with Mother Eve's memorandum written underneath the +clipping in her book, + +"I guess this scribe has had boys of his own!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HE CONFESSES TO BEING A POET + + +I do not know whether it is a part of the programme mapped out for me +that I am to live forever or not, and I realize the danger that a man +runs in writing his memoirs if he put aught down in them which shall +savor of confession. They say that confession is good for the soul, +but I have not yet discovered anybody who was profited by it to any +material extent. On the contrary, even the virtuous have suffered from +it, as witness the case of my dear old Uncle Zekel. In his extreme +youth Zekel went out one summer's day, the call of the wild proving +too much for his boyish spirit, and ere night fell had done a certain +amount of mischief, although intrinsically he came nearer to being a +perfect child than anyone yet known to the history of the human race. +Thoughtlessly the lad had chopped down one of his father's favorite +date trees, the which when his father observed it, caused considerable +consternation. + +"Who did this thing?" he cried angrily, summoning the whole family to +the orchard. + +"Father," said Zekel, stepping forward, pale, but courageous, "I +cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little tomahawk." + +"Very well, my son," said the old gentleman, pulling a switch from the +fallen tree, and seizing Zekel by the collar, "in order to impress +this date more vividly upon your mind, we will retire to the barn and +indulge in a little palmistry." + +Whereupon he withdrew with Zekel from the public gaze and +administered such a rebuke to the boy that forever afterwards the +mere association of ideas made it impossible for Zekel to sit under a +palm tree with any degree of comfort.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Editor's Note: It is very interesting to find this story +in the Memoirs of Methuselah owing to its marked resemblance to an +anecdote related of General Washington, in which the youthful father +of his country is represented as having acted in a like manner upon a +later occasion.] + +I realize, however, that in writing one's memoirs one should not +withhold the truth if there is to be any justification in the eyes of +posterity for their existence, so I am not going to conceal anything +from my readers that has any important bearing upon my character. Let +me therefore admit here and now, apropos of the charming lines with +which my last chapter was brought to a close, that I have myself at +times written poetry. It is the lamentable fact that in this day and +generation poets are not held in that high esteem which is their due. +We have unfortunately had a number of them in this vicinity of late +years who have not been any too particular about paying their board +bills, and whether their troth has been plighted to our confiding +maidens, or to our trustful tailors, the result has been the +same--they have not been conspicuously present at the date of maturity +of their promises. One very distinguished looking old gentleman in +particular, who registered from Greece, came here several centuries +ago and secured five hundred subscriptions to his book of verses, +collected the first instalment, and then faded from the scene and +neither he nor his verses have been heard from since. The consequence +has been that when any of the young of this community show the +slightest signs of poetic genius their parents behave as though the +measles had broken out in the family, and do all they can spiritually +and physically to stamp out the symptoms. My cousin Aminidab indeed +went so far while he was in the Legislature here, to introduce a bill +making the writing of poetry a misdemeanor, and ordering the police +immediately to arrest all persons caught giving way in public or +private to an inspiration. The bill only failed to become a law by the +expiration of the session before it had reached its final reading. It +may be readily imagined, therefore, why until this I have never +acknowledged my own proneness to expressing myself in verse. Only two +or three of my most intimate friends have been aware of the tendency, +and they have been so ashamed of it that as my friends they have +sought rather to suppress than to spread the report. + +I quite remember the consternation with which my first effort was +received in the family. Father Adam had been reminiscing about the +Garden Days, and he had made the remark that when some of the animals +came up to be christened they were such extraordinary looking +creatures he was afraid they were imaginary. + +"Take the Ornithorhyncus, for instance," he said, "and the Discosaurus +Carnegii--why, when they came ambling up for their tickets I could +hardly believe my eyes, and I turned to Eve and asked her with real +anxiety, whether or not she saw anything, and, of course, her answer +reassured me, but for a minute I was afraid that the grape-juice we +had had for lunch was up to its old tricks." + +This anecdote amused me tremendously, for I had myself thought the +Discosaurus about the funniest looking beast except the shad, I had +ever seen, and I promptly constructed a limerick which I handed over +to my father. It ran this way: + + There was an old fellow named Adam, + Who lived in the Garden with Madam. + When the critters they came + All demanding a name + He thought for a minute he "had 'em!" + +I don't think I shall ever forget the result of my father's horrified +reading of the lines. All my grandfathers back to Adam himself were +there, and wrath, fear, and consternation were depicted on every +countenance when the last line was delivered, and then every eye was +turned on me. If there had been any way of disappearing I should have +faded away instantly, but alas, every avenue of escape was closed, and +before I left the room each separate and distinct ancestor had turned +me over his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of +all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to +take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary +served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until +now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, +triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of one kind or another. + +One little piece that I recall had to do with the frequency with which +I was punished for small delinquencies. It was called + + +WHEN FATHER SPANKED ME + + My Father larruped me, and yet + I could but note his eyes were wet, + When lying there across his knee + I got what he had had for me-- + It seemed to fill him with regret. + + "It hurt me worse than you," he said, + When later on I went to bed, + And I--the truth would not be hid-- + Replied, "I'm gug-gug-glad it did!" + +There were other verses written as I grew older that, while I do not +regard them as masterpieces, I nevertheless think compare favorably +with a great deal of the alleged poetry that has crept into print of +late years. A trifle dashed off on a brick with a piece of charcoal +one morning shortly after my hundredth birthday, comes back to me. The +original I regret to say was lost through the careless act of one of +my cousins, who flung it at a pterodactyl as it winged its flight +across our meadows some years after. I reproduce it from memory. + + +THE JUNE-BUG + + The merry, merry June-bug + Now butts at all in sight. + He butts the wall o' mornings, + He rams the ceil at night. + + He caroms from the book-case + Off to the window-pane, + Then bounces from my table + Back to the case again. + + He whacks against the door-jamb + And tumbles on the mat; + Then on the grand-piano + He strikes a strident flat; + + Then to the oaken stair-case + He blindly flops and jumps, + And on the steps for hours + He blithely bumps the bumps. + + They say that he is foolish, + And has no brains. No doubt + 'Tis well for if he had 'em + He'd surely butt them out. + +As I say, this is mere a trifle, but it is none the less beautifully +descriptive of a creature that has always seemed to me to be worthy of +more attention than he has ever received from the poets of our age. I +have been unable to find in the literature of Greece, Egypt or the +Orient, any reference to this wonderful insect who embodies in his +frail physique so much of the truest philosophy of life, and who, +despite the obstacles that seem so persistently to obstruct his path, +buzzes blithely ever onward, singing his lovely song and uttering no +complaints. + +[Illustration: Noah brings disgrace upon the family.] + +In the line of what I may call calendar poetry, which has always been +popular since the art of rhyming began, none of the months escaped my +attention, but of all of my efforts in that direction I never wrote +anything that excelled in descriptive beauty my + + +ODE TO FEBRUARY + + Hail to thee, O Februeer! + It is sweet to have you here, + Lemon-time of all the year! + Making all our noses gay + With the influenziay; + Flinging sneezes here and yon, + Rich and poor alike upon; + Clogging up the bronchial tubes + Of the Urbans and the Roobs; + Opening for all your grip + With its lavish stores of pip; + Scattering along your route + Little gifts of Epizoot; + Time of slush and time of thaw, + Time of hours mild and raw; + Blowing cold and blowing hot; + Stable as a Hottentot; + Coaxing flowers from the close + Just to nip them on the nose; + Calling birdies from their nests + For to freeze their little chests; + Springtime in the morning bright, + With a blizzard on at night; + Chills and fever through the day + Like a sort of pousse café; + Time of drift and time of slosh! + Season of the ripe golosh; + Running rivers in the street, + Frozen toes, and soaking feet; + Take this wreath of Poesie + Dedicated unto thee, + Undiluted stream of mush + To the Merry Month of Slush! + +I preferred always, of course, to be original, not only in the matter +of my thought, but in the manner of my expression as well, but like +all the rest of the poetizing tribe, I sooner or later came under the +Greek influence. This is shown most notably in a little bit written +one very warm day in midsummer, back in my 278th year. It was +entitled + + +TO PAN IN AUGUST + + I don't wish to flout you, Pan. + Tried to write about you, Pan. + Tried to tell the story, Pan, + Of your wondrous glory, Pan; + But I can't begin it, Pan, + For this very minute, Pan, + All my thoughts are tumid, Pan, + 'Tis so hot and humid, Pan, + And for all my trying, Pan, + There is no denying, Pan, + I can't think, poor sighing Pan, + Of you save as frying, Pan. + +It was after reading the above, when it dropped out of my coat pocket +during one of our visits to the wood-shed, that Adam expressed the +profound conviction that I was born to be hanged, but as I have +already intimated, neither his sense of justice, nor his sense of +humor was notable. + +Once in awhile I tried a bit of satire, and when my son Noah first +began to show signs of mental aberration on the subject of a probable +flood that would sweep everything before it, and put the whole world +out of business save those who would take shares in his International +Marine and Zoo Flotation Company, I endeavored to dissuade him in +every possible way from so suspicious an enterprise. Failing to +impress my feelings upon him in one way, I fell back upon an +anonymously published poem, which I hoped would bring him to his +senses. The lines were printed in red chalk on the board fence +surrounding his Ship-Yard, and ran as follows: + + +MARINE ADVICES + + O Noah he built himself a boat, + And filled it full of animiles. + He took along a billie-goat, + A pug and two old crocodiles. + + A pair of very handsome yaks + A leopard and hyenas two; + A brace of tender canvas-backs, + A camel and a kangaroo. + + A pair of guinea-pigs were placed + In state-rooms off the main saloon, + Along with several rabbits chaste, + A 'possum and a gray raccoon. + + Now all went well upon that cruise, + And they were happy as could be, + Until one morning came the news + That filled old Noah with misery. + + Those guinea-pigs--O what a tide!-- + Were versed in plain Arithmetic; + The way they upped and multiplied + Made Captain Noah mighty sick. + + And four days out he turned about, + And made back to the pier once more + To rid himself of all that rout, + And put the guinea-pigs ashore. + + And where there were but two of these + When starting on that famous trip, + When they got back from off the seas, + Three hundred thousand left the ship! + +Poor Noah! He took this publication so much to heart that he offered a +reward of a thousand dollars, and a first-class passage on his cruise +to the top of Mount Ararat to any one who could give him the name of +the miscreant who had written the lines, but he has never yet found +out who did them, and until he reads these memoirs after I have +passed away, he will never know from how near home they came. + +Finally let me say that in a more serious vein as a Poet I was not +wanting in success--that is in my own judgment. As a mystic poet +nothing better than the following came from my pen: + + O arching trees that mark the zenith hour, + How great thy reach, how marvellous thy power, + So lavishly outpouring all thy rotund gifts + On mortal ways, in superhuman shifts + That overtax the mind, and vex the soul of man, + As would the details of some awful plan, + Jocund, mysterious, complex, and yet withal + Enmeshed with Joy and Sorrow, as a pall + Envelops all the seas at eventide, and brings + New meaning to the song the Robin sings + When from her nest matutinal she squirms + And hies her forth for adolescent worms + With which her young to feed, yet all the time + With heart and soul laments my dulcet rhyme! + +Of this I was naturally quite proud, and when under the title of +"Maternity" I read it once in secret to my Aunt Jerusha, she burst +into tears as I went on, and three days later read it as a New Thought +gem before the Enochsville Society of Ethical Culture. It was there +pronounced a great piece of symbolic imagery, and prediction was made +that some day in some more advanced age than our own, a Magazine would +be found somewhere that would print it. This may be so, but I fear I +shall not live to see it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE INTERNATIONAL MARINE AND ZOO FLOTATION COMPANY + + +I have never yet been quite able to make up my mind with any degree of +definiteness in regard to the sanity of my son Noah. In many respects +he is a fine fellow. His moral character is beyond reproach, and I +have never caught him in any kind of a wilful deception such as many +parents bewail in their offspring, and I know that he has no bad +habits. He has no liking for cigarette smoking, and he keeps good +company and good hours. His sons Shem, Ham and Japhet, are great +favorites with all of us, and as far as mere respectability goes there +is no family in the land that stands higher than his, but the +complete obsession of his mind by this International Marine and Zoo +Flotation Company of his is entirely beyond my comprehension, and his +attempts to explain it to me are futile, because its utter +impracticability, and the reasons advanced for its use seem so absurd +that I lose my temper before he gets half way through the first page +of his prospectus. From his boyhood up he has been fond of the water, +and when the bath-tub was first invented we did not have to drive him +to it, as most parents have to do with most boys, but on the contrary +we had all we could do to keep him away from it. I don't think any one +in my household for five hundred years was able to take a bath on any +night of the week without first having to clear away from the tub the +evidence of Noah's interest in marine matters. Nothing in the world +seemed to delight his spirit more as a child than to fill the tub +full of water, turn on the shower at its fullest speed, and play what +he called flood in it, with a shingle or a chip, or if he could not +find either of these, with a floating leaf. Many a time I have found +him long after he was supposed to have gone to bed sitting on the +bath-room floor singing a roysterous nautical song like "Rocked in the +Cradle of the Deep," or "A Life On the Ocean Wave," while he pushed a +floating soap dish filled with ants, spiders and lady-bugs up and down +that overflowing tub; and later in his life, when more manly sports +would seem to be more to any one's tastes, while his playmates were +out in the open chasing the Discosaurus over the hills, or trapping +Pterodactyls in the bull-rushes, he would go off by himself into the +woods where he had erected what he called his ship-yard, and whittle +out gondolas, canoes, battle-ships, arks and other marine craft day +in and day out until one could hardly walk in the dark without +stubbing his toe on some kind of a boat. I recall once coming upon him +on the farther slopes of Mount Ararat, putting the finishing touches +to as graceful a cat-boat as any one ever saw--a thing that would have +excited the envy of mariners in all parts of the world, but in spite +of my admiration for his handicraft, it worried me more than I can say +when I thought of all the labor he had expended on such a work miles +away from any kind of a water course. It did not seem to square with +my ideas as to what constituted sense. + +"It is very beautiful, my son," I observed, after inspecting the +vessel carefully for a few moments. "Her lines are perfect, and the +model indicates that she will prove a speedy proposition, but it seems +to me that you have left out one of the most important features of a +permanently successful sailing vessel." + +Noah looked at me patronizingly, and shrugged his shoulders as much as +to inquire what on earth I knew about boat-building. + +"If you refer either to the bowsprit or to the flying balloon-jib," he +replied coldly, and acting generally as if he were very much bored, +"you are entirely wrong. This isn't a sloop, or a catamaran, or a +caravel. Neither is it a government transport, an ocean gray-hound, or +a ram. It's just a cat-boat, nothing more." + +"No," said I. "I refer to nothing of the sort. I don't know much about +boats, but I know enough to be aware without your telling me, that +this affair is not a battle-ship, tug, collier, brig, lugger, barge or +gravy-boat. Neither is it a dhow, gig or skiff. But that does not +affect the validity of my criticism that you have forgotten an +important factor in her successful use as a sailing craft." + +"What is it?" he demanded, curtly. + +"An ocean," said I. "How the dickens do you expect to sail a boat like +that off here in the woods, where there isn't enough water to float a +parlor-match?" + +He laughed quietly as I advanced this objection, and for the first +time in his life gave evidence of the haunting idea that later took +complete possession of his mind. + +"Time enough for that," said he. "There'll be more ocean around here +some day than you can keep off with a million umbrellas, and don't you +forget it." + +Somehow or other his reply irritated me. The idea seemed so +preposterously absurd. How on earth he ever expected to get an ocean +out there, half way up the summit of our highest mountain, no sane +person could imagine, and I turned the vials of my wrathful satire +upon him. + +"You ought to start a Ferry Company from the Desert of Sahara to the +top of Mount Ararat," I observed, as dryly as I knew how. + +"The notion is not new," he replied instantly. "I have already given +the matter some thought, and it isn't impossible that the thing will +be done before I get through. There will be a demand for such a thing +all right some day, but whether it will be a permanent demand is the +question." + +It may interest the public to know that it was at this period that I +invented a term that has since crept into the language as a permanent +figure of speech. Speaking to my wife on the subject of the day's +adventure that very evening, after I had expressed my determination to +apply for the appointment of a Commission De Lunatico Enquirendo on +Noah's behalf, she endeavored to quiet my anxiety on the score of his +good sense by saying: + +"Don't worry, dear. He is very serious in this matter. He has always +had a great storm in his mind ever since he was a baby." + +"I guess it's a brain-storm," I interjected contemptuously, for I +could not then, and I cannot now conceive of any kind of a shower that +will make the boy's habit of building caravels in the middle of +ten-acre lots, and submarines on fifteen-by-twenty fish ponds, and +schooner yachts on mill-dams only three feet deep at high tide a +reasonable bit of procedure. + +Occasionally one of my neighbors would call upon me to remark somewhat +critically on this strange predilection of my son, and several of them +advised me to take the matter seriously in hand before it was too +late. + +"If you lived on the seaboard, it would be a fine thing to have such +a son," they said, "but off here in the lumber district it would be +far more to the point if he went in for the breeding of camels, or +some other useful vehicle of transportation, instead of constructing +ferry-boats that never can be launched, and building arks in a spot +where the nearest approach to an ocean is a leak in the horse-trough." + +I could not but admit that there was justice in these criticisms, but +when it came to the point I never felt that I could justify myself in +interfering with the boy's hobby until it was too late, and the lad +having passed his three hundredth birthday, was no longer subject to +parental discipline. I reasoned it out that after all it was better +that he should be building dories and canal-boats out under the apple +trees, and having what he called "a caulking good time," in an +innocent way, than spending his time running up and down the Great +White Way, between supper-time and breakfast, making night hideous +with riotous songs, as many youths of his own age were doing; and when +our family physician once tried to get him to join a football eleven +at the Enochsville High School in order to get this obsession of a +deluge out of his mind, I was not a little impressed by the +impertinent pertinence of his ready answer. + +"No rush-line for mine, Doctor," he said, firmly. "I'd rather have +water on the brain than on the knee." + +I had hoped that as the years passed on he would outgrow not only his +conviction of the imminence of a disastrous deluge by which the world +would be overwhelmed, and the predilection for nautical construction +that the belief had bred in him, but alas for all human expectation, +it grew upon him, instead of waning, as I had hoped. Our prosperous +farm was given over entirely to the demands of his ship-yard, and +when his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet came along he directed all their +education along lines of seamanship. He fed them even in their tender +years upon hard-tack and grog. Up to the time when they were two +hundred years old he made them sleep in their cradles, which he kept +rocking continuously so that they would get used to the motion, and +would be able to go to sea when the time came without suffering from +sea-sickness. All clocks were thrust bodily out of his house, and if +anybody ever stopped at the farm to inquire the time of day he was +informed that it was "twenty minutes past six bells," or "nineteen +minutes of three bells," or some other unmeaning balderdash according +to the position of the sun. When the farmhouse needed painting, +instead of renewing the soft and lovely white that had made it a +grateful sight to the eye for centuries, Noah had it covered with +pitch from roof to cellar, until the whole neighborhood began to smell +like a tar barrel. And then he began his work upon this precious ark +of his--Noah's Folly, the neighbors called it; placed in the middle of +our old cow-pasture, twenty-five miles from the sea; about as big as a +summer hotel, and filled with stalls instead of state-rooms! He +mortgaged the farm to pay the first instalment on it, and when I asked +him how on earth he ever expected to liquidate the indebtedness he +smilingly replied that the deluge would take care of everything that +stood in need of liquidation when the date of maturity came round. He +was even flippant on the subject. + +"Don't talk about falling dew," he remarked. "There'll be something +dewing around here before many days that will make you landlubbers +wish your rubbers were eight or nine million sizes larger than the +ones you bought last February; and as for liquidation--well, father +dear, you can take my word for it that when this mortgage of mine is +presented at my office for payment by its present holder there will be +liquid enough around to float a new bond issue in case I can't pay in +spot cash. If that is not satisfactory to my creditors, you still need +not worry. I have a definite fund in mind that will take care of +them." + +"That is a relief," said I, innocently. "But may I ask what fund you +refer to?" + +"Certainly, father dear," he replied. "I refer to the Sinking Fund +which will be in full working order the minute the deluge arrives." + +This was about all the satisfaction I was ever able to get out of my +son on the subject of his Ark, and after two or three hundred years I +stopped arguing with him on the futile extravagance of his course. As +we have seen in the last chapter of my memoirs, I did write a bit of +verse on the subject which made him very angry, but beyond that I did +nothing, and then the great scandal came! + +[Illustration: Noah regrets having shipped guinea pigs.] + +It was the blackest hour of my life when it came to be rumored in and +about Enochsville that Noah, now grown to independent estate, had +method in his madness, and was about to embark upon a questionable +financial enterprise. One of the yellow journals of the day--for we +had them even then, although they were not put forth from printing +presses, but displayed on board fences in scare-head letters six or +eight feet high--one of the yellow journals of the day, I say, issued +a muck-raking Extra, exposing what it termed _The International Marine +and Zoo Flotation Company_, and most unfortunately there was just +enough truth in the story in so far as its details went, to lend +color to its sensational accusations. It could not be denied, as was +stated in _The Enochsville Evening Gad_, that Noah had built a large, +unwieldy vessel of his own designing in the old pasture up back of our +Enochsville farm, miles away from tide-level. That it resembled what +_The Gad_ called a cross between a cow-barn and a Lehigh Valley +Coal-Barge, was evident to anybody who had merely glanced at it. But +what was its apparent purpose? asked the reporter of _The Gad_. Stated +to be the housing of a menagerie during a projected cruise of +forty-odd days! "What philanthropy!" ejaculated the editor of _The +Gad_. What a kindly old soul was the projector of this wonderful +enterprise, that he should take a couple of tired old elephants off on +a Mediterranean trip out of the sheer kindness of his heart! Was it +not the acme of generosity for a man who had lately been so hard up +that he had mortgaged his farm to go to the expense of building a +huge floating barge on which the gorillas, giraffes, and rhinoceri of +the land, having lately shown signs of enfeebled health, might take a +winter's trip to the Riviera, or to the recuperative sands of the +Sahara? + +The article was indeed a scathing arraignment, a masterpiece of +ridicule, but as it went on it became even worse, for it now got down +to the making of serious charges against my son's integrity. + +"Such are the alleged purposes of this project," said _The Gad_. "Let +us now consider its real purpose, far more insidious than any one has +hitherto suspected, but which is now seen to be that of _separating +the widows and orphans of this land from their accumulated savings_, +and diverting them into the _pockets of Noah and his family_!" + +I thought I should sink through the floor when this met my eyes, and +I was appalled when I read on and realized how many thousands of +people would believe the plausible tale of villany _The Gad_ had +managed to construct out of a few innocent facts. Noah's plan was in +brief stated to be a scheme for the impoverishment of innocent +investors, by selling them shares of stock, both common and preferred, +in his International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company. According to +the writer of this infamous libel, immediately the vessel was finished +at a cost of about $79.50, it was Noah's intention to incorporate his +enterprise with himself as President and Treasurer, and Shem, Ham and +Japhet as his Board of Directors, the capital being placed at the +enormous sum of $100,000,000. + +"This capitalization," said the exposure, "will be divided into fifty +millions of preferred stock, and fifty millions of common, all of +which will be sold to the public at par; subject to a first mortgage +already existing, and held by Noah and his sons, which it is intended +to foreclose, and the company reorganized, the minute the $100,000,000 +of the public's money has passed into the treasurer's hands. + +"Talk about your _deluge_!" continued the article. "This is indeed the +biggest thing in _deluges_ this little old world has ever known. The +Preadamite Steel Trust is a dewdrop alongside of it. Noah gets the +_salvage_, but the _people_ get the _water_!" + + * * * * * + +Such was the attitude of the public toward my son's great project, and +all I could ever get him to say in reply to these and other equally +nefarious charges was, while he had intended to have quarters for +every kind of beast on board his boat, he had now definitely decided +to leave out Mastodons, Muck-Rakers and Yellow Journalists! + +Verily there seems to be some foundation to the belief that devotion +to the life of a seaman makes a man callous to assaults on his +personal reputation! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE MASTODON + + +The recent visit of King Ptush to our wild districts in search of a +fresh hunting-ground for himself and his son, Prince Ptutt, brought +about a very serious condition of affairs in respect to the mastodon, +or what some persons refer to as the Antediluvians. This most +distinguished personage, wearying of the affairs of state in his own +land, gave over the reins of government for a while to his Grand +Vizier, and on behalf of the Nimrodian Institution, a Museum of +Natural and Unnatural History in his own capital city, came hither to +study the fauna and flora of our district, and incidentally to take +back with him a variety of stuffed specimens of our more conspicuous +wild beasts for exhibition purposes. Entirely unaware of His Majesty's +unerring aim in hitting large surfaces at short range, we welcomed him +cordially to our midst, and rather unwisely presented him with the +freedom of the jungle, a ceremony which carried with it the privilege +of bagging anything he could hit with his slungshot, in season or out +of it. The results of His Majesty's visit were appalling, for he had +not been with us more than six weeks before his enthusiasm getting the +better of his sportsmanship he turned the jungle into a zoological +shambles, from which it is never likely to recover. On his first day's +outing, to our dismay he brought down thirty-seven ring-tailed +ornithorhyncusses, eighteen pterodactyls, three brace of dodo, and a +domesticated diplodocus, and then assured us that he didn't know what +could be the matter with his aim that he had missed so many. The next +day he rose early, and while the rest of his suite were sleeping went +out unattended, returning before breakfast was over with a tally-card +showing a killing of thirteen dinosaurs, twenty-seven megatheriums, +and about six tons of chlamy-dophori, not to mention a mammoth +jack-rabbit that some idiot had told him was the only specimen in the +world of the monodelphian mollycoddle. The situation became very +embarrassing to us because we were on excellent terms with King Ptush +and his subjects, and we did not wish to do anything to offend either +of them, but here was a case where in the interests of our own fauna +something had to be done. Going on at the rate in which he had begun +it was easy to see that unless somebody got out an injunction +restraining him from shooting between meals it would not be many days +before there wasn't a prehistoric beast left in the whole country. It +was a mighty ticklish position for all of us. If we withdrew the +freedom of the jungle His Majesty might go home in a huff and declare +war against us, and with Noah's Ark as the sum total of our navy, and +that built in a ten-acre lot thirty miles from the coast, and no army +of any sort standing or sitting, we could hardly afford a complication +of that kind. Our wisest counsellors were called together to consider +the situation, but they were all men given to many words and lovers of +disputation, so that what with the framing of the original resolution, +and the time consumed in debating the amendments offered thereto, it +was quite three months before any definite conclusion was reached, and +it was then found when the resolution came up to its final vote that +it had nothing whatever to do with the subject the conference was +called to discuss, but had been transformed into an Act providing for +an increased duty on guinea-pigs imported from Sumatra. From that day +to this I have had little belief in that kind of popular government +which provides for the election of public servants whose chief end and +aim seems to be to thwart the public will. + +[Illustration: EXTRA!!] + +It was then that my fellow-citizens, availing themselves of a certain +diplomacy of method which I was said to possess, called upon me to +undertake a personal interview with King Ptush, and to see what could +be done to stay his voracious appetite for the slaying of our +mammalia. Always ready to serve my fellows in their hour of need, I +undertook the mission, and appeared bright and early one morning at +his encampment, unannounced, thinking it better to seem to happen in +upon him in a neighborly fashion than to make a national affair of my +mission by coming formally and with official pomp into his presence. +At the hour of my arrival the great king was standing on the stump of +a red cedar, delivering a lecture to his entourage upon "The Whole +Duty of Man, With a Few Remarks About Everything Else." But even then +he was not neglectful of his opportunities as a Nimrod, for every now +and then he would punctuate his sentences with a shot at a casual bit +of fauna passing by, either on the earth or flying, never pausing in +his lecture, but nevertheless bringing to an untimely end thirty-eight +griffins, seven paralellopipedon, a gumshurhynicus, forty google-eyed +plutocratidć, and a herd of June-bugs grazing in a neighboring +pasture--the latter wholly domesticated, by the way, and used by their +owner as spile-drivers for a dike he was building in apprehension of +Noah's predicted flood. It was then that I began to get some insight +into the character of this wonderful person, for as I sat there +listening to his discourse, delivered at the rate of five hundred +words a minute, and apparently covering seven or eight subjects not +necessarily corollary or collateral to each other, at once, and +watched him simultaneously bringing down with unerring aim this +tremendous bag of game, something of the man's intrinsic nature was +revealed to me. His strength, of which we had heard much from +travelers in his own land, lay in an almost scientific lack of +concentration, backed up by a vocabulary of tremendous scope, and a +condition of optical near-sightedness that enabled him to see but +obscurely further than the end of his nose. These attributes gave him +the power to discuss innumerable subjects coeternally, if not +coherently, using his vocabulary with such skill that his meaning +depended entirely upon the interpretation of his remarks by individual +hearers, while the limitations of vision caused him, on the sudden +appearance of masses of any sort, to shoot at them impulsively, +regardless of such minor details as consequences. As a result of these +gifts he was ever hitting something with either the arrows of speech +or the slungshot, which produced a public impression of ceaseless +activity and of material accomplishment. In addition to this it was +his wont to do all things smiling with an almost boyish manifestation +of pleasure, so that he endeared himself to the people and was +pronounced in some respects likeable even by his enemies. + +When his lecture was over he descended from his improvised platform +and greeted me most cordially. + +"Deeee-lighted!" was the exact word he used as he took my hand and +shook it until my arm worked indifferently well in its socket. + +I was not aware that His Highness had ever heard of me before, but it +was not long before I was more than glad that I had come, for it +transpired that I was the one person in all creation that he had most +wished to meet, though for what particular purpose he did not make +clear. In any event, so cordial was his reception of me that for three +or four weeks I had not the heart to mention the particular object of +my mission, and even then I was not permitted to do so because at any +time when I felt that the psychological moment had been reached he +would talk of other things, his scientific lack of concentration of +which I have already spoken enabling him with much grace to be +reminded of an experience in the Transvaal by a chance allusion of my +own to the peculiar habits of the Antillean Sardine. In the meanwhile +the work of slaughter was going on apace, and whole species were +gradually becoming extinct. Exactly five weeks after my arrival the +last Diplodocus in the world breathed its last. Two days later the +world's visible supply of Pterodactyls passed into the realms of the +annihilated. The Dodo, the largest and sweetest song-bird I have ever +known, the only bird in all the primeval forests possessed of a +diaphragm capable of expressing harmonies of what for want of a better +term I may call a Wagnerian range, quickly followed suit, and in its +train, alas! went the others, Creosauri, Dicosauri, Thracheotomi, +Megacheropodć, Manicuridć, and the Willumjay, the latter a gigantic +parrot with a voice like silver that rang continuously through the +forests like a huge fire bell. At the end of the tenth week of my +mission a message was received from Noah. + + "Dear Grandpa," he wrote: "Can't you do something to stave + off King Ptush? In making up my passenger-list I can't get + hold of enough mammals to fill an inside room. I have been + through the country with a fine-tooth comb, and as far as I + can find out there isn't a prehistoric beast left in + creation. If this thing goes on much longer I shall be + compelled to load up with a cargo of coon-cats, armadillos, + hippopotami and Plymouth rocks. Get a move on! + + "NOAH." + +My first impulse was to hand this letter without a word to His +Majesty, but on second thoughts I decided not to do this, since it +might involve me in a humiliating explanation of my grandson's foolish +obsession about the impending flood. I had too much pride to wish +King Ptush to know that I had a human brain-storm on the list of my +posterity, so I threw the brick upon which the letter was engraved +into a neighboring fish-pond, and resolved to get rid of His Majesty +by strategy. For three nights I pondered over my plan of operations, +and then the great method came to me like the dawning of the sun after +a night of abysmal darkness. I went to the royal tent and discovered +His Majesty hard at work chiseling out an article on "How I Brought +Down My First Proterosaurus" on a slab of granite he had brought with +him. As I approached he smiled broadly, and with a wave of his hand +called my attention to the previous day's bag. It covered a ten-acre +lot. + +"There isn't sawdust enough in creation to stuff half of these +beasts," he remarked proudly. "I hardly know what I shall do about +that." + +"Better bury them in the mud," I suggested, "and let them petrify." + +He seemed pleased with the idea, and later put it into operation. + +"Fossils are not so susceptible to moths," he observed as he gave +orders for their immersion in a Triassic mud-puddle of huge +proportions. "That was a good idea of yours, Methuselah." + +"I have a better one than that," I returned, seeing at last an opening +for my strategic movement. "Why should a man of Your Majesty's prowess +waste his time on such insignificant creatures as these, when the +whole country is ringing with complaints of an animal a thousand times +as large, and that no one hereabouts has ever dared attempt to +pursue?" + +He was on the alert instantly. + +"What animal do you refer to?" he demanded, his interest becoming so +deep that he put four pairs of eyeglasses upon his royal nose, so that +he could see me better. + +"It belongs to the family of Rodents," I replied. "It is without any +exception the biggest rat in the history of our mammals. It is a +combination of the Castoridć, the Chinchillidć, the Dodgastidć, and +the Lagomydian Leporidć, with just a dash of the Dippydoodle on the +maternal side." + +His Majesty gave a sigh of disappointment, and resumed his writing. + +"I haven't come here to shoot rats," he observed coldly, removing the +three extra pairs of spectacles from his nose. "I am a huntsman, not a +trapper." + +"Your Majesty does not understand that this is no ordinary rat," I +returned calmly. "If I may be permitted to continue, what would Your +Highness think of a rat that was several thousand feet higher than +the pyramids, that has lived continuously for thousands of years, and +is as fresh and green in spirit as on the day it was born? Suppose I +were to tell you that so great is its strength that I have myself seen +a whole herd of aboriginal elephants lying asleep upon its broad back? +What would you say if I told you that its epidermis is so thick that +if there were such a thing as a steam-drill in creation six hundred of +them could bore away at it night and day for as many years without +making any visible impression thereon?" + +He again put down his chisel, and laid the hammer aside, as he ranged +the extra eyeglasses along the bridge of his nose. + +"Colonel Methuselah," he said, incisively biting off his words, "if +you told me anything of the kind I should say that you are what +posterity will probably call a nature faker, and one of a +perniciously invidious sort." + +"I can bring affidavits to prove it, Your Majesty," said I. + +"It is strange that I have never heard of it before," he mused. + +"We are not particularly proud of it," I explained. "One may boast of +the number of Discosauri one finds in one's hunting preserves, or the +marvelous fish in one's lakes, or the birds of wondrous plumage that +dwell in one's forests, but none ever ventures to speak of the number +or quality of rats that infest the locality." + +"You say it overtops a pyramid?" he demanded. + +"I do," I replied. "The exact estimate of its height is sixteen +thousand nine hundred and sixty-four feet!" + +"Great Snakes!" he cried. "Why, he must be a perfect mountain!" + +"He is," I replied. "He is so tall that summer and winter the top of +his head is covered with snow." + +This was too much for King Ptush. He rose up immediately from his seat +and summoned his entourage. + +"You will make ready for a strenuous afternoon," he said to them +sharply. "I am going after the biggest game that history records. +Colonel Methuselah has just told me of a quarry alongside of which all +that we have landed in the past months sinks into insignificance." + +"You do well to call it a quarry," I cried. "There never was a +better--and it is only ten miles from here as the griffin flies." + +The king's face flushed with joy at the prospect, but suddenly a look +of perplexity came into his eyes. + +"By the way," he said, "how shall we bring him down--with a slungshot +or a catapult?" + +[Illustration: Gr't. Gr't. Gr't. Grandfather Adam as a +disciplinarian.] + +I laughed. + +"No ordinary ammunition will serve Your Majesty's purpose here," I +said. "The only thing for you to do is to steal quietly up to him +while he sleeps. Surround him in the silence of some black night, and +build a barbed-wire fence around him. Once you succeed in doing this +he will not try to get away, and you can have him removed at Your +Majesty's pleasure." + +"We go at once," cried the king, his enthusiasm aroused to the highest +pitch. "My friends," he added, drawing himself up to the full of his +soldierly height, "we go to capture the--the--the er--by the way, +Colonel, what do you call this creature?" + +"The Ararat," I replied. + +He repeated the word after me, sprang lightly into the saddle of +Griffin we had presented to him upon his arrival, and, followed by +his entourage, was off on the greatest hunt of his life. What happened +subsequently we never knew, for none of the party ever returned; but +what I do know is that my stratagem came too late. + +A subsequent investigation of our preserves showed that all our +treasured mastodons from the Jurassic, Triassic, and other periods of +history, had been killed off, root, stock and branch, by our honored +guest, and poor Noah was reduced to the necessity of drumming up trade +among such commonplace creatures as the Rhinoceri, the Yak, the +Dromedary, and that vain but ornamental combination of fuss and +feathers known as the Hen. + +The Ararat we still have with us, and as for me, I am inclined to +think that it will remain, flood or no flood, for any creature that +has successfully withstood a campaign against it by King Ptush cannot +be removed from the scene by anything short of a convulsion of +Nature. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + (This Chapter of the Autobiography of Methuselah is made up + entirely of fragments. The manuscript of the preceding + chapters was found in fine condition, and entirely + unobliterated by the passage of the centuries since it was + written, but beginning at this point cracks appear, and in + some places such complete fractures as make the continuity of + the narrative impossible. The fragments have been as + carefully deciphered as the complete chapters, however, and + are here presented for what they are worth.) + +AS TO WOMEN + + +The position of woman among us will doubtless prove of interest to +posterity. Our matrimonial laws are not all that they should be, in +my judgment, though there are men who consider them as nearly perfect +as they can be made. The idea that the best way for a young man to +declare his love for a young girl is to hit her on the head with a +wooden club and then run off with her before she regains consciousness +has never received my approval, and never will. Something should be +left for the post-nuptial life, and I cannot see how after it has been +used as an instrument of courtship a club can take its place as it +ought to as an instrument of discipline in the household. My own wives +I have invariably caught in a trap, so that later on in life, when I +have found it desirable to emphasize my authority in my home by means +of a stout stick, that emblem of power has had no glamor about it to +weaken its force as an argument.... Then as to the number of wives +that a man should be permitted to have, I am in distinct disagreement +with the majority of my neighbors, who maintain that it is entirely a +matter of individual choice as to whether a man should have five, ten +or a thousand. I should not advocate the limitation to an arbitrary +number, but I believe that the question of one's actual needs should +rule. If a man's possessions enable him to maintain a large +establishment requiring the services of a cook, a laundress, two +waitresses and four upstairs girls, eight wives would be sufficient; +but on the other hand, for a young man beginning his career who needs +only a general house-worker, one is enough. Individual cases should +regulate the law as applied to the individual, and those who claim +that they may marry any number of women, whether they need them or +not, entirely regardless of whether or not they can keep them +occupied, should be told that no man is entitled to more of the good +things of this life than he can avail himself of in his daily +procedure. Any other course than this will sooner or later result in a +great scarcity of nuptial raw material, and it is not impossible to +conceive of a day when all the women in the land will become the +property of a select, privileged few. A monopoly of this sort would +enable a few men to control posterity and build up a Trust in the +Matrimonial Industry that would engender not only a great deal of +bitter feeling between the masses and the classes, but enforce a +system of compulsory bachelorhood which ... Nevertheless, if woman +wants to vote let her do so. In spite of all that I have just said +about the subtle quality of her intellect, I still say let her vote. +What harm can come from permitting her to go to the polls and drop a +ballot in the box for this or that man, or for this or that measure? +It will please her to be allowed to do this, and by granting her +petition for the suffrage we shall put an end to an otherwise endless +disputation. I am quite sure that as long as her votes are kept +separate from the men's votes, and are _not_ counted, no possible harm +can come from a little complacency in the face of ... Personally I +have no objection to divorce. If a man marries a woman under the +impression that she is a good cook, and after the waning of the +honeymoon finds that she does not know the difference between +sponge-cake and a plain common garden sponge, why should he be forced +forevermore to court dyspepsia on her account? I fail to see either +justice or reason in this, though as to the method of divorce I +cannot agree with those who claim that as the man has married the +woman by hitting her with a club, as I have already shown, the proper +method of divorce is for the woman to return the blow with a +rolling-pin. The proper way to do is for the husband to be permitted +to return the girl to her parents as not up to the specifications, or +if she have no parents to dispose of her at the best bargain possible +to one of his neighbors who may happen to be in need of a girl of that +sort at that particular time.... But these Newport separations, as I +believe they are called, are apt to prove embarrassing, particularly +when the divorcées all happen to be present at the same dinner-table. +A lady whose hostess is the wife of her former husband, finding +herself sitting opposite the divorced wife of her present husband, who +has at one time or another been married to two or three other ladies +at the board, is not likely to be able to comport herself with that +degree of _savoir faire_ that is the ear-mark of the refined.... + +As for the mother-in-law, for certain reasons of a private nature I +was not going to speak of her in these memoirs, but after mature +reflection upon the subject I deem it my duty to posterity to say +that.... + + +SOME LONG-FELT WANTS + +I have often wished that in my youth I had studied science a little +more carefully. It is growing very obvious to me the longer I live +that there are a number of little things that we need in this world to +make life more comfortable. It does not seem to me beyond reason to +think that by the use of a proper mechanism these thunderbolts that +play about the heavens can be made to do errands for us. It angers me +to see so much light going to waste in the heavens from the flash of +the lightning, when it might be stored up for use instead of these +intolerable axle-grease dips that we are forced to use to light us on +our way to bed. I don't see why some one cannot entrap one of these +bolts on a wire, just as we catch a rat in a trap, and keep it running +round and round a loop, giving out its light until it is exhausted.... +It would be pleasant, too, to have a kind of carriage that would go of +its own power. I cannot quite reason the thing out, but I believe that +the time will come when there will be something of the sort. I +remember back in my four-hundred-and-fifty-second year finding one of +my father's farm wagons on the top of the hill back of the cow +pasture. I wheeled it to the edge of the descent, and was much +delighted to see it go speeding down to the base of the hill, +gathering momentum at every turn of the wheels, and ending up by +hitting the back door of Uncle Zibb's cottage with such force that it +came out of the front parlor window before stopping. This seemed to +indicate that under certain circumstances a wheeled vehicle could be +made to go without a horse, but in what precise way it can be brought +about the limitations of my mechanical training prevent me from +determi ... I was watching the heated vapor rising from our tea-kettle +the other night, and was much diverted to notice that it made a +whistling sort of sound as it emerged from the nozzle of the pot. It +ran from B sharp to high C, and was loud enough to be heard on the +other side of the room. It has occurred to me that there may be in +this some hidden principle that will some day enable man to make this +vapor do his work for him, especially along musical lines. Surely if +this misty substance can make a tea-kettle squeak, why should it not, +if multiplied in volume and run through a trombone, afford us a +capable substitute for Bill Watkins, who plays second base on our +Village Band? + + +AS TO PROPHECIES + +If our Prophets would only confine themselves to probabilities I am +inclined to think we should take more stock in the things they +foretell. I am impelled to the making of this reflection by the +presence in our town of an Astrologer who is setting all the women by +the ears by prophesying a day when they will not have to do their own +housework, and will thrive in many lines of endeavor now open solely +to men. He is an interesting old fellow, in spite of the foolishness +of his predictions; but when he tells the women's clubs that in some +far off century women will be found writing novels, and adorning +themselves with rich fabrics, and surrounded by a class of paid +toilers who will do nothing but minister to their ease and comfort, I +lose all patience with him. It is filling their minds with socialistic +notions that are impairing their usefulness, and I have had to +chastise seven of my own fair helpmeets this past week for neglecting +their duties and treating my instructions with contempt. A curious +thing about his prophecies is their confirmation of Adam's fears as to +the ultimate result of these new-fangled ideas as to dress, and, what +interested me more than anything else, he predicted a machine called a +Moh-Thor-Cah, that not only runs along without outside assistance, +but is propelled entirely by the same vapor that I have spoken of +before as striking the high C in the nozzle of my tea-kettle. He goes +too far with this, as well as with his other prophecies, for he says +that there will be a time when ships larger than Noah's Ark will be +forced across great bodies of water by this same power. The idea of +anybody, after Noah's experience, being foolish enough to build a +craft of that kind, to say nothing of working it with a tea-kettle, is +preposterously abs ... In one of his visions he claims to have seen a +gathering of people, called a city, in which there are to be more than +four million souls, and governed not by the virtuous, as in our own +day, but by the most desperate political malefactors that ever banded +together for plunder, and this at the direct request of the people +themselves! I am perfectly aware that human nature is weak, and given +over at times to strange delusions, but that any body of +self-respecting persons should deliberately and of their own free will +turn the management of their affairs over to those who would more +properly grace a jail than a City Hall, surpasses belie ... + + +MISCELLANEOUS FRAGMENTS + +... cannot be denied that a daily newspaper would be an interesting +thing, if it were possible to print it, but I doubt its real value. I +dislike gossip, and I do not see how the newspaper could fill up +without it. What advantage is it to me to know that Hiram +Wigglesworth, of Ararat Corners, who is unknown to me, was arrested on +Thursday evening for beating his wife? Why should I be called upon to +impair the value of my eyes by reading in small type all the +scandalous details of the separation proceedings between two people I +never saw and would not permit to enter my front door if they came to +call? It is nothing to me that Mrs. Zebulon Zebedee, of Enochsville, +has spent thirty thousand clam-shells a year on bottled grape-juice, +and run up bills against her husband's account at the diamond-quarries +for two or three hundred thousand tons of wampum, and if she chooses +to go joy-riding on a Diplodocus with a gentleman from the Circus, it +is Zebulon Zebedee's business, not mine, and a newspaper that insisted +upon dumping this unsavory mess on my breakfast-table every morning +would sooner or later become an unmitigated nuis ... + + * * * * * + +... but he pays no attention to my protestations. I think the oldtime +method of walloping them every Sunday morning, on the principle that +they deserved it for something they had done during the past week, was +a good one. Shem and Japhet are not so bad, but since Ham came back +from the Ararat Academy of Higher Learning he has been about as +useless a member of the community as we have ever had. What he doesn't +know would fill six hundred volumes of the Triassic Cyclopćdia. I +caught him only the other night trying to teach his grandmother to +suck eggs, although my estimable wife was a past-mistress of that art +four hundred years before he was born. He has absolutely no respect +for age, and frequently refers to me as "the old boy," criticizes my +clothes, and remarks apropos of my patriarchal garments that +night-shirts as an article of dress for a five o'clock tea went out a +thousand years ago. Indeed, so disrespectful is he that I sometimes +wonder if he is not a foundling. I note two suspicious things in +respect to him. The first is that he is getting blacker in the face +every day, which suggests that there is in him somewhere a strain of +the Ćthiopian, none of which he gets from me or his grandmother, who +was an Albino. And the second is that his father will not allow him to +be spanked, a very strange inhibition, I think, unless that operation +would disclose the boy's possession of the Missing Link. Indeed, I +should not be at all surprised to discover that the lad is either an +Ćthiopian, or a direct descendant of Adam's old friend and neighbor, +Col. Darwin J. Simian, of Coacoa-on-Nut. In all of my reflections on +the subject of the training of the young, manual training has always +seemed to me the most efficacious, especially if in applying the hand +you do not restrain its force, and are not loath to use the hair-brush +or a good leathern trunk-strap as an auxiliary. And in order to +ensure their freedom from evil associations, and to keep them from +making the night hideous by their raucous yells, I have never heard of +anything better than the method of Doctor Magog Rodd, of the +Enochsville Military Academy, who kept his students in cages and +corked them up every night before they retir ... + +[Illustration: The Head Nurse of the Adam Family.] + + * * * * * + +... so no more at present. My manuscript already weighs three hundred +and forty tons, and every word of it has been gouged out with my own +hands--a difficult operation for a man of my years. I am painfully +aware of its shortcomings, but such as it is it is, and so it must +remain. There is no time left for its revision, and, indeed, a man +who has just celebrated his nine hundred and sixty-ninth birthday can +hardly be expected ... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH*** + + +******* This file should be named 20766-8.txt or 20766-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/20766-8.zip b/old/20766-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bcd8e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20766-8.zip diff --git a/old/20766-page-images.zip b/old/20766-page-images.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1c4bed --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20766-page-images.zip diff --git a/old/20766.txt b/old/20766.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4aad645 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20766.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3204 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Autobiography of Methuselah, by John +Kendrick Bangs, Illustrated by F. G. Cooper + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Autobiography of Methuselah + + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + + + +Release Date: March 7, 2007 [eBook #20766] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH*** + + +E-text prepared by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from +digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/American +Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 20766-h.htm or 20766-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766/20766-h/20766-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766/20766-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/methuselah00bangrich + + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH + +Edited by + +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + +Illustrated in Color by F. G. Cooper + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Methuselah's stationery] + + + +New York +B. W. Dodge & Company +1909 +Copyright, 1908, by +B. W. Dodge & Company + + + + +CONTENTS + + + FOREWORD + + CHAPTER + + I I AM BORN AND NAMED + + II EARLY INFLUENCES + + III SOME REMINISCENCES OF ADAM + + IV GRANDMOTHER EVE + + V SOME NOTES ON CAIN AND ABEL + + VI HE CONFESSES TO BEING A POET + + VII THE INTERNATIONAL MARINE AND ZOO FLOTATION COMPANY + + VIII ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE MASTODON + + IX AS TO WOMEN + + + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Having recently passed into what my great-grandson Shem calls my +Anecdotage, it has occurred to me that perhaps some of the +recollections of a more or less extended existence upon this +globular[1] mass of dust and water that we are pleased to call the +earth, may prove of interest to posterity, and I have accordingly, at +the earnest solicitation of my grandson, Noah, and his sons, Shem, +Ham and Japhet, consented to put them into permanent literary form. In +view of the facts that at this writing, ink and paper and pens have +not as yet been invented, and that we have no capable stenographers +among our village folk, and that because of my advanced years I should +find great difficulty in producing my manuscript on a type-writing +machine with my gouty fingers--for, of the luscious fluid of the grape +have I been a ready, though never over-abundant, consumer--even if I +were familiar with the keyboard of such an instrument, or, if indeed, +there were any such instrument to facilitate the work--in view of +these facts, I say, I have been compelled to make use of the literary +methods of the Egyptians, and with hammer and chisel, to gouge out my +"Few Remarks" upon such slabs of stone as I can find upon my native +heath. + +[Footnote 1: It is quite interesting, in the light of the contentions +of history as to man's earliest realization that the earth is round, +to find Methuselah speaking in this fashion. It would seem from this +that the real facts had dawned upon the Patriarch's mind even at this +early period, and one is therefore disposed to regard as less +apocryphal the anecdote recorded in Volume III, Chapter 38, of "The +Life and Voyages of Noah," wherein Adam, after being ejected from the +Garden of Eden, asked by Cain if he believes the world to be round +like an orange, replies: + +"_I used to think so, my son, but under prevailing conditions I am +forced into a more or less definite suspicion that it is elliptical, +like a lemon._"--EDITOR.] + +[Illustration: Ye scribe decides not to use Egyptian writing.] + +Let us hope that my story will not prove as heavy as my manuscript. It +is hardly necessary for me to assure the indulgent reader that such a +method of composition is not altogether an easy task for a man who is +shortly to celebrate his nine hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, more +especially since at no time in my life have I studied the arts of the +Stone-Cutter, or been a master in the Science of Quarrying. Nor is it +easy at my advanced age, with a back no longer sinewy, and muscles +grown flabby from lack of active exercise, for me to lift a virgin +sheet of stone from the ground to the surface of my writing-desk +without a derrick, but these are, after all, minor difficulties, and I +shall let no such insignificant obstacles stand between me and the +great purpose I have in mind. I shall persist in the face of all in +the writing of this Autobiography if for no worthier object than to +provide occupation for my leisure hours which, in these patriarchal +days to which I have attained, sometimes hang heavy on my hands. I +know not why it should so transpire, but it is the fact that since I +passed my nine hundred and fiftieth birthday I have had little liking +for the pleasures which modern society most affects. To be sure, old +and feeble as I am, and despite the uncertain quality of my knees, I +still enjoy the excitement of the Virginia Reel, and can still hold my +own with men several centuries younger than myself in the clog, but I +leave such diversions as bridge, draw-poker and pinochle to more +frivolous minds--though I will say that when my great-grandchildren, +Shem, Ham and Japhet, the sons of my grandson Noah, come to my house +on the few holidays, their somewhat over-sober parent allows them from +their labors in the ship-yard, I take great delight in sitting upon +the ground with them and renewing my acquaintance with those games of +my youth, marbles, and mumbledy-peg, the which I learned from my +great-uncle-seven-times-removed, Cain, in the days when with my +grandfather, Jared, I used to go to see our first ancestor, Adam, at +the old farm just outside of Edensburg where, with his beautiful wife +Eve, that Grand Old Man was living in honored retirement. + +Nor have I in these days, as I used to have, any especial taste for +the joys of the chase. There was a time when my slungshot was +unerring, and I could bring down a Dodo, or snipe my Harpy on the wing +with as much ease as my wife can hit our barn-door with a rolling-pin +at six feet, and for three hundred and thirty years I never let escape +me any opportunity for tracking the Dinosaur, the Pterodactyl, or that +fierce and sanguinary creature the Osteostogothemy to his lair and +there fighting him unto the death during the open season for wild game +of that particular sort. I well remember how, in my boyhood days, to +be precise, shortly after my two hundred and twenty-second birthday, I +went with my great-grandfather, Mehalaleel, over into the woods back +of Little Ararat after a great horned Ornythyrhyncus and--but that is +another story. Suffice it to say that I have at last reached a period +in my life where I am content to leave the pleasures of Nimrod to my +more nimble neighbors, and that now no winged thing, save an +occasional mosquito, or locust, need fear my approach, and that my +indulgence in the shedding of the blood of animals is confined to an +infrequent personal superintendence of the slaughter of a spring-lamb +in green-pea time, when the scent is in the julep and the bloom is on +the mint; or possibly, now and then, the removal from the pasture to +the pantry of a bit of lowing roast-beef, when I feel an inner craving +for the crackle and the steak. + +Racing I have an abhorrence for, and always have had since in my early +days I attended the county-fair at North Ararat, and was there induced +by one of my neighbors to participate as a rider in a twenty-mile +steeplechase between a Discosaurus which I rode, and a Diplodocus in his +possession. I found after the race had started that the animal which had +been assigned to me as a gentleman jockey, had not been broken to the +saddle, and my experience during the next six days in staying on his +back--for he immediately took the bit between his teeth and bolted for +the woods, and was not again got under control for that time--as he +jumped over the various obstacles to his progress, from thank-you-marms +in the highways which were plentiful, to such mountains as the country +for a thousand miles about provided for his delectation, was one of the +most terrific in my life, prolonged as it has been. I had been assured +that the race was to be a "Go-As-You-Please" affair, but I had not been +seated on that horrible creature's back for two minutes before I +discovered that it was a "Go-As-He-Pleased" affair and that +"Going-As-I-Pleased," like the flowers that bloom in the Spring, had +nothing to do with the case. Had I begun in the pursuit of the pleasures +of the track in later years after the invention of wheels, whereby that +easy running vehicle, the sulky, was brought into being, and when, by +the taming of the horse, the latter became a domesticated animal with +sporting proclivities, instead of a mere prowler of the plains, I might +have found the joys of racing more to my taste, although in these later +years of my life when a truly noble pursuit has degenerated into a mere +gambling enterprise, wherein those who can ill afford it squander their +substance in riotous bookmaking, I am inclined to be grateful that my +first experience in this direction has led me to cultivate an +unconcerned aloofness from a pursuit which is ruinous to the old and +corrupting to the young. + +Were the present state of literature more hopeful, perhaps I should +find pleasure in reading, but I have viewed with such increasing alarm +the growth of sensationalism in the literary output of my age that I +have felt that I owed it to my posterity, which is rapidly growing in +numbers--I believe that the latest annual report of the Society of the +Sons and Daughters of Methuselah shows a membership of six hundred and +thirty-eight thousand, without counting the new arrivals since the end +of the last fiscal year, which, at a rough guess, I should place at +thirty-six thousand--I have felt, I say, that I owe it to that +posterity to set it the example of not reading, as my most effective +protest against those pernicious influences which have made the modern +literary school a menace to civilization. Surely if Noah's children +for instance, Shem, Ham and Japhet, whom I have already had occasion +to mention, were to surprise me, their venerable, and I hope venerated +ancestor, reading such stories as are now put forth by our most +successful quarrymen--stories like that unspeakable novel "Three +Decades," of which I am credibly informed eight million tons have +already been sold; and which, let me say, when I had read only seven +slabs of it I had carted away and dumped into the Red Sea; or the +innocuous but highly frivolous tales of Miss Laura Jean +Diplodocus--they would hardly accept from me as worthy of serious +attention such admonitions as I am constantly giving them on the +subject of the decadence of literature when I find them poring over +the novels of the day. Consequently even this usual solace of old age +is denied to me, and writing becomes my refuge. + +I bespeak the reader's indulgence if he or she find in the ensuing +pages any serious lapses from true literary style. I write merely as I +feel, and do not pretend to be either an expert hieroglyphist or a +rhetorician of commanding quality. Perhaps I should do more wisely if +I were to accept the advice of my great-grandson Ham, who, overhearing +my remark to a caller last Sunday evening that the work I have +undertaken is one of considerable difficulty, climbed up into my lap +and in his childish way asked me why I did not hire a boswell to do it +for me. I had to tell the child that I did not know what a boswell +was, and when I questioned him on the subject more closely, I found +that it was only one of his childish fancies. If there were such a +thing as that rather euphoniously named invention of Ham's who could +relieve me of the drudgery of writing my own life, and who would do it +well, I would cheerfully relinquish that end of my enterprise to him, +but in the absence of such a thing, I am, in spite of my manifest +shortcomings, compelled to do the work myself. On behalf of my story I +can say, however, that whatever I shall put down here will be the +truth, and that what I remember notwithstanding my advanced years, I +remember perfectly. I am quite aware that in some of the tales that I +shall tell, especially those having to do with Prehistoric Animals I +have met, or Antediluvians as I believe the Scientists call them, what +I may say as to their habits--I was going to say manners, but refrain +because in all my life I have never observed that they had any--and +powers may fall upon some ears as extravagant exaggerations. To these +let me say here and now that there are exceptions to all rules, and +that if for instance, I tell the story of a Pterodactyl that after +being swallowed whole by a Discosaurus, successfully gnaws his way +through the walls of the latter's stomach to freedom, I make no claim +that all Pterodactyls could do the same, but merely that in this +particular case the Pterodactyl to which I refer did it, and that I +know that he did it because the man who saw it is a cousin of my +grandfather's first wife's step-son, and is so wedded to truth that he +is even now in jail because he would not deny a charge of +sheep-stealing, which he might easily have done were he an untruthful +man. Again when I observe that I have caught with an ordinary +fish-hook, baited with a common garden, or angle worm, on the end of a +light trout-line, a Creosaurus with a neck ninety-seven feet long, and +scales so large that you could weigh a hay-wagon on the smallest of +the lot near the end of his tail, I admit at the outset that the feat +was unusual, had never occurred before, and is never likely to occur +again, but can bring affidavits to prove that it did happen that time, +signed by reputable parties who have heard me tell about it more than +once. I make these statements here not in any sense to apologize for +anything I shall say in my book, but merely to forestall the criticism +of highly cultivated and truly scientific readers who, after a +lifelong study of the habits of these creatures may feel impelled to +question the accuracy of my statements and add to my perplexities by +so advertising my book that I shall be put to the arduous necessity of +chiseling out another edition, a labor which I have no desire to +assume. + +One word more as to the language I have chosen for the presentation of +my narrative. I have chosen English as the language in which to chisel +out these random recollections of mine for a variety of reasons. Most +conspicuous of these is that at the time of this writing no one has as +yet thought to devise a French, German, Spanish or Italian language. +Russian I have no familiarity with. Chinese I do not care for. Latin +and Greek few people can read, and as for Egyptian, while it is an +excellent and fluent tongue for speaking purposes, I find myself +appalled at the prospect of writing a story of the length of mine in +the hieroglyphics which up to date form the whole extent of Egyptian +chirography. An occasional pictorial rebus in a child's magazine is a +source of pleasure and profit to both the young and the old, but the +autobiography of a man of my years told in pictures, and pictures for +the most part of squab, spring chickens, and canvas-back ducks, would, +I fear, prove arduous reading. Moreover I am but an indifferent +draughtsman, and I suspect that when the precise thought that I have +in mind can best be expressed by a portrait of a humming-bird, or a +flamingo, my readers because of my inexpert handling of my tools would +hardly be able to distinguish the creature I should limn from an +albatross, a red-head duck, or a June-Bug, which would lead to a great +deal of obscurity, and in some cases might cause me to say things that +I should not care to be held responsible for. There is left me then +only a choice between English and Esperanto, and I incline to the +former, not because I do not wish the Esperantists well, but because +in the present condition of the latter's language, it affects the eye +more like a barbed-wire fence than a medium for the expression of +ideas. + +At this stage of the proceedings I can think of nothing else either to +explain or to apologize for, but in closing I beg the reader to accept +my assurance that if in the narratives that follow he finds anything +that needs either explanation or apology, I shall be glad to explain +if he will bring the matter to my attention, and herewith tender in +advance for his acceptance any apology which occasion may require. + +And so to my story. + +GEORGE W. METHUSELAH. + +Ararat Corners, B. C. 2348. + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH + +CHAPTER I + +I AM BORN AND NAMED + + +The date of my birth, occurring as it did, nine hundred and sixty-five +years ago, is so far removed from my present that my recollections of +it are not altogether clear, but Mrs. Adam, my great-grandmother seven +times removed, with whom I was always a great favorite because I +looked more like my original ancestor, her husband, than any other of +his descendants, has given me many interesting details of that +important epoch in my history. Personally I do remember that the date +was B. C. 3317, and the twenty-third of June, for the first thing to +greet my infant eyes, when I opened them for the first time, was a +huge insurance calendar hanging upon our wall whereon the date was +printed in letters almost as large as those which the travelling +circuses of Armenia use to herald the virtues of their show when at +County Fair time they visit Ararat Corners. I also recall that it was +a very stormy day when I arrived. The rain was coming down in +torrents, and I heard simultaneously with my arrival my father, Enoch, +in the adjoining room making sundry observations as to the +meteorological conditions which he probably would have spoken in a +lower tone of voice, or at least in less vigorous phraseology had he +known that I was within earshot, although I must confess that it has +always been a nice question with me whether or not when a man +expresses a wish that the rain may be dammed, he voices a desire for +its everlasting condemnation, or the mere placing in its way of an +impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much +depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in +which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the +occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity +than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In +any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably +imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently +no telling when my venerable sire would have to go out into the wet +and fetch one. + +In those primitive days doctors were few and far between. There was +little profit in the practice of such a profession at a time when +everybody lived so long that death was looked upon as a remote +possibility, and one seldom called one in until after he had passed +his nine hundredth birthday and sometimes not even then. It may be +that this habit of putting off the call to the family physician was +the cause of our wonderful longevity, but of that I do not know, and +do not care to express an opinion on the subject, for socially I have +always found the medicine folk charming companions and I would not say +aught in this work that could by any possibility give them offense. +Not only were doctors rare at that period, but owing to our limited +facilities in the matter of transportation, it was exceedingly +difficult for them to get about. The doctor's gig, now so generally in +use, had not as yet been brought to that state of perfection that has +made its use in these modern times a matter of ease and comfort. We +had wheels, to be sure, but they were not spherical as they have since +become, and were made out of stone blocks weighing ten or fifteen tons +apiece, and hewn octagonally, so that a ride over the country roads in +a vehicle of that period not only involved the services of some thirty +or forty horses to pull the wagon, but an endless succession of jolts +which, however excellent they may have been in their influence on the +liver were most trying to the temper, and resulted in attacks of +sickness which those who have been to sea tell me strongly resembles +sea-sickness. So rough indeed was the operation of riding in the +wagons of my early youth that a great many of our best people who kept +either horses or domesticated elephants, still continued to drive +about in stone boats, so-called, built flat like a raft, rather than +suffer the shaking up which the new-fangled wheels entailed. Griffins +were also used by persons of adventurous nature, but were gradually +dying into disuse, and the species being no longer bred becoming +extinct, because of the great difficulty in domesticating them. It was +not a hard task to break them to the saddle, and on the ground they +were fleet and sure footed, but in the air they were extremely +unreliable. They used their wings with much power, but were not +responsive to the reins, and in flying pursued the most erratic +courses. What was worse, they were seldom able to alight after an +aerial flight on all four feet at once, having a disagreeable habit of +approaching the earth vertically, and headfirst, so that the rider, +unless he were strapped on, was usually unseated while forty or fifty +feet in the air, with the result that he either broke his neck, or at +least four or five ribs, and a leg or two, at the end of his ride. +When we remember that in addition to all this we had no telephone +service at that time, and that the umbrella had not as yet been +devised, my father's anxiety at the moment may easily be realized. + +His temper was only momentary, however, for I recall that I was very +much amused at this critical moment of my career by another +observation that I overheard from the adjoining room. My grandfather, +Jared, who was with my father at the time looking out of the window +made the somewhat commonplace observation-- + +"It's raining cats and dogs, isn't it?" + +"Cats and dogs?" retorted Enoch, scornfully. "It's raining +Diplodocuses!" + +This was naturally the first bit of humor that I had ever heard, and +coming as it did simultaneously with my debut as a citizen of +Enochsville, perhaps it is not to be wondered at that instead of +celebrating my birth with a squall, as do most infants, I was born +laughing. I must have cackled pretty loudly, too, for the second thing +that I remember--O, how clearly it all comes back to me as I write, or +rather chisel--was overhearing the Governor's response to the nurse's +announcement of my arrival. + +"It's a boy, sir," the good woman called out as she rushed excitedly +into the other room. + +"Good, Dinah," replied my father. "You have taken a great load off my +mind. I am dee-lighted. I was afraid from his opening remarks that he +was a hen!" + +It was thus that the keynote of existence was struck for me, one of +mirth even in the dark of storm, and that I have since become the +oldest man that ever lived, and shall doubtless continue to the end of +time to hold the record for longevity, I attribute to nothing else +than that, thanks to my father's droll humor, I was born smiling. Nor +did the good old gentleman ever stint himself in the indulgence of +that trait. In my youth such things as comic papers were entirely +unknown, nor did the columns of the newspapers give over any portion +of their space to the printing of jokes, so that my dear old father +never dreamed of turning his wit to the advantage of his own pocket, +as do some latter-day joke-wrights who shall be nameless, lavishly +bestowing the fruits of his gift upon the members of his own family. +Of my own claims to an inheritance of humor from my sire, I shall +speak in a later chapter. + +I recall that my first impressions of life were rather disappointing. +I cannot say that upon my arrival I brought with me any definite +notions as to what I should find the world to be like, but I do know +that when I looked out of the window for the first time it seemed to +me that the scenery was rather commonplace, and the mountains which I +could see in the distance, were not especially remarkable for +grandeur. The rivers, too, seemed trite. That they should flow +down-hill struck me as being nothing at all remarkable, for I could +not for the life of me see how they could do otherwise, and when night +came on and my nurse, Dinah, pointed out the moon and asked me if I +did not think it was remarkable, I was so filled with impatience that +so ordinary a phenomenon should be considered unusual that I made no +reply whatsoever, smiling inwardly at the marvelous simplicity of +these people with whom destiny had decreed that I should come to +dwell. I should add, however, that I was quite contented on that first +day of my existence for the reason that all of my wants appeared to +be anticipated by my guardians, the table was good, and all through +the day I was filled with a comfortable sense of my own importance as +the first born of one of the first families of the land, and when +along about noon the skies cleared, and the rain disappeared before +the genial warmth of the sun, and the neighbors came in to look me +over, it was most agreeable to realize that I was the center of so +much interest. What added to my satisfaction was the fact that when my +great-uncle Zib came in and began to talk baby-talk to me--a jargon +that I have always abhorred--by an apparently casual movement of my +left leg I was able with seeming innocence of intention to kick him on +the end of his nose. + +An amusing situation developed itself along about 4 o'clock in the +afternoon, in respect to my name. One of the neighbors asked my +father what my name was to be. + +"Well," he replied with a chuckle, "we are somewhat up a tree in +respect to that. We have held several family conclaves on the subject, +and after much prayerful consideration of the matter we had finally +settled on Gladys, but--well, since we've seen him the idea has been +growing on us that he looks more like a James." + +And indeed this question as to my name became a most serious one as +the days passed by, and at one time I began to fear that I should be +compelled to pass through life anonymously. There was some desire on +the part of my father, who was of a providential nature, to call me +Zib, after my great uncle of that name, for Uncle Zib had been +forehanded, and was possessed of much in the way of filthy lucre, +owning many cliff-dwellings, a large if not controlling interest in +the Armenian Realty Company, whose caves on the leading thoroughfares +of Enochsville and Edensburg commanded the highest and steadiest +rents, and was the chief stock-holder in the Ararat Corners and Red +Sea Traction Company, running an hourly service of Pterodactyls and +Creosauruses between the most populous points of the country. This +naturally made of Uncle Zib a nearer approach to a Captain of Finance +than anything else known to our time, and inasmuch as he had never +married, and was without an heir, my father thought he would +appreciate the compliment of having his first-born named for him. But +Uncle Zib's moral character was of such a nature that his name seemed +to my mother as hardly a fit association for an infant of my tender +years. He was known to be addicted to pinochle to a degree that had +caused no end of gossip at the Ararat Woman's Club, and before he had +reached the age of three hundred he had five times been successfully +sued in the courts for breach of promise. Indeed, if Uncle Zib had had +fewer material resources he would long since have been ostracised by +the best people of our section, and even as it was the few people in +our neighborhood to whom he had not lent money regarded his social +pretensions with some coolness. The fact that he had given Enochsville +a public library, and had filled its shelves with several tons of the +best reading that the Egyptian writers of the day provided, was +regarded as a partial atonement for some of his indiscretions, and the +endowment of a large stone-quarry at Ararat where children were taught +to read and write, helped materially in his rehabilitation, but on the +whole Uncle Zib was looked upon askance by the majority. On the other +hand Uncle Azag, a strong, pious man, who owed money to everybody in +town, was the one after whom my mother wished me to be named, a +proposition which my father resisted to the uttermost expense of his +powers. + +"What's the use?" I heard him ask, warmly. "He'll get his name on +plenty of I. O. U.'s on his own account before he leaves this glad +little earth, without our giving him an autograph that is already on +enough over-due paper to decorate every flat in Uncle Zib's model +tenements." + +The disputation continued with some acrimony for a week, until finally +my father put his foot down. + +"I'm tired of referring to him as IT," he blurted out one night. +"We'll compromise, and name him after me and thee. He shall be called +Me for me, and Thou for thee, Selah!" + +And so it was that from that day forth I was known as Methouselah, +since corrupted into Methuselah. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + + +Boys remained boys in those old days very much longer than they do +now. The smartness of children like my grandsons, Shem, Ham and +Japhet, for instance, who at the age of two hundred and fifty arrogate +to themselves all the knowledge of the universe, was comparatively +unknown when I was a child. To begin with we were of a different breed +from the boys of to-day, and life itself was more simple. We were +surrounded with none of those luxuries which are characteristic of +modern life, and we were in no haste to grow old by taking short cuts +across the fields of time. We were content to remain youthful, and +even childish, taking on ourselves none of the superiorities of age +until we had attained to the years which are presumed to go with +discretion. We did not think either arrogantly or otherwise that we +knew more by intuition than our parents had been able to learn from +experience, and, with a few possible exceptions, we none of us assumed +that position of high authority in the family which is, I regret to +say, generally assumed by the sons and daughters of the present. For +myself, I was quite willing to admit, even on the day of my birth, +that my father, in spite of certain obvious limitations, knew more +than I; and that my mother in spite of the fact that she was a woman, +was possessed, in a minor degree perhaps, but still indubitably +possessed, of certain of the elementary qualities at least of human +intelligence. As I recall my attitude towards my elders in those +days, the only person whose pretensions to superior attainments along +lines of universal knowledge I was at all inclined to resent, was my +maiden aunt, Jerusha, my father's sister, who, having attained to the +kittenish age of 623 years, unmarried, and having consequently had no +children, knew more about men and their ways, and how to bring up +children scientifically than anybody at that time known to civilized +society. Indeed I have always thought that it was the general +recognition of the fact that Aunt Jerusha knew just a little more than +there was to know that had brought about that condition of enduring +spinsterhood in which she was passing her days. Even her, however, I +could have viewed with amused toleration if so be she could have been +induced to practice her theories as to the Fifty-seven Best Ways To +Bring Up The Young upon others than myself. She was an amusing young +thing, and the charming way in which even in middle age--she was as I +have already said 623 years old at the time of which I write--she held +on to the manners of youth was delightful to contemplate. She always +kept herself looking very fit, and was the first woman in our section +of the world to wear her hair pompadour in front, running to the +extreme psychic knot behind--she called it psychic, though I have +since learned that the proper adjective is Psyche, indicating rather a +levity of mind than anything else. It should be said of her in all +justice that she was a leader in her set, and as President of the +Woman's Club of Enochsville was a person of more than ordinary +influence, and it was through her that the movement to grant the +franchise to all single women over three hundred and forty, resulted +in the extension of the suffrage to that extent. + +[Illustration: "It's a boy, sir!"] + +Incidentally I cannot forget the wise words of my father in this +connection. He had always been an anti-suffragist, but when Aunt +Jerusha's plan was laid before him he swung instantly around and +became one of its heartiest advocates. + +"It is a wise measure," said he. "Safe, sane and practical, for no +single woman will confess to the age of qualification, so that in +passing this act we grant the prayers of our petitioners without +subjecting ourselves to the dangers of women's suffrage. Remember my +son, that it always pays to be generous with that which costs you +nothing, and that woman's suffrage is as harmless as the cooing dove +if you only take the precaution to raise the age limit high enough to +freeze out the old maids." + +I should add too that Aunt Jerusha had a way with her that was not +without its fascination. To look at her you would never have supposed +that she was more than four hundred years old, and the variety of eyes +that she could make when there were men about, was wonderful to see. I +noticed it the very day I was born, and when I first caught sight of +that piquante little glance that now and then she cast in my direction +out of the tail of her eye, I began rummaging about in the back of my +subconscious mind for the precise words with which to characterize +her. + +"You giddy old flirt!" was the apostrophe I had in mind at the moment, +but, of course, having had no practice in speech I was compelled to +forego the pleasure of giving audible expression to the thought. + +Unfortunately for me Aunt Jerusha equipped with that intuitive +knowledge of what to do under any given circumstances that invariably +goes with the status of maiden-aunthood in its acute stages, now +assumed complete control of my destinies; and for a time it looked as +though I were in a fair way to become what the great Egyptian ruler, +King Ptush the Third was referring to in many of his State papers as a +"Meticulous Mollycoddle." To begin with, Aunt Jerusha was a strong +believer in the New Thought School of Infantile Development, and when +I was barely six weeks old she began strapping me on a board like an +Eskimo baby, and suspending me thus restrained to a peg in the wall, +where, helpless, I was required to hang and stare while she implanted +the germs of strength in my soul by reading aloud whole chapters from +the inspired chisellings of the popular seer Ber Nard Pshaw, who was +to the literature of that period what King Ptush was to statecraft. He +was the acknowledged leader of the Neo-Bunkum School of Right +Thinking, and had first attracted the attention of his age by his +famous reply to one who had called him an Egotist. + +"I am more than that," he answered. "I am a Megotist. The world is +full of I's, but there is only one Me." + +Upon this sort of thing was I fed, not only spiritually but +physically, by my Aunt Jerusha. When, for instance, I found myself +suffering from a pain in my Commissary Department for the sole and +sufficient reason that my nurse had inadvertently handed me the hard +cider jug instead of my noon-day bottle of discosaurus' milk, she +would rattle off some such statement as this: _Thought is everything. +Pain is something. Hence where there is no thought there can be no +pain. Wherefore if you have a pain it is evident that you have a +thought. To be rid of the pain stop thinking._ + +Then she would fix her eye on mine, and gaze at me sternly in an +effort to remove my sufferings by the hot poultice of her own mushy +reflections instead of getting the peppermint and the hot-water bag. +When night came on and I was restless instead of wooing slumber on my +behalf with soft and soothing lullabies, or telling me fairy-stories +such as children love, she would say: _The child's mind is immature. +His conclusions, therefore, are immature. Whence his decisions as to +what he likes lack maturity, and consequently to give him that for +which he professes to like is equivalent to feeding him on unripe +fruit. So we conclude that what he says he likes he really does not +like, and to please him therefore, it becomes necessary to give him +what he professes to dislike. Ergo, I will read him to sleep with the +seventeenth chapter, part forty-nine of the works of Niet-Zhe on the +co-ordination of our aesthetic powers in respect to the relative +delights of pleasure and pain._ + +I will do my Aunt Jerusha the credit of saying at this point that her +method of putting me to sleep was efficacious. I do not ever remember +having retained consciousness past the third paragraph of her remedy +for insomnia. + +[Illustration: Aunt Jerusha as a disciplinarian.] + +I tremble to think of what I should have become had this fauntleroy +process of rearing been allowed to continue unchecked. There were +prigs enough in our family already without afflicting the world with +another, and it rejoices me to this day to recall that just as we were +reaching the point when it was either an early and beautiful demise in +the odor of sanctity as a perfect child, or my present eminence as the +most continuous human performance on record for me, my father stepped +in, reasserted his authority and rescued me from the clutches of my +Aunt Jerusha. Returning one day from business, he discovered Aunt +Jerusha sitting in a rocking-chair in the nursery before me reading +aloud from her tablets, whilst I, as usual, hung strapped and +suspended from a hook on the picture moulding. It was my supper-time, +and she was feeding me according to the New Thought method of +catering. The substance of her discourse was that hunger was an idea, +nothing more. She was proving to her own satisfaction at least that I +was hungry only because I thought I was hungry, and as father came in +she was trying to persuade me that if I would be a good boy and make +up my mind that my appetite had been appeased by a series of courses +of thought biscuits, spirituelle waffles, and mental hors d'oeuvres +generally I would no longer be hungry. + +"Fill your spirit stomach with the food of thought, Methy, dear," she +was saying as my father appeared in the door-way. "Make up your mind +that it is stuffed with the crackers and milk of the spirit; that +your spiritual bread is buttered with the oleomargerine of lofty +ideals, and sugared with the saccharin of your granulated meditations, +and you will grow strong. You will become an intellectual athlete, +like the great King Ptush of Egypt; a winner in the spiritual +Marathon--" + +"What are you trying to do with this kid, anyhow?" demanded my father +at this point. "Turn him into a strap-hanger, or is this just a little +lynching party?" + +"Hush, Enoch," protested Aunt Jerusha. "Do not project an +unsympathetic thought wave across our wires. I am just getting little +Methy into a receptive mood. He is having his supper." + +"Supper?" roared my father. "You call that stuff supper? Why, the +child is getting thinner than a circus lemonade--" + +"In the grosser sense, yes," replied Aunt Jerusha, calmly, after the +manner of maiden ladies who are sure of their position. "But look at +those eyes. Do they not betoken a great and budding soul within that +is hourly waxing in strength and beauty?" + +"My dear Jerusha," said my father, unhooking me from the wall and +handing me a ripe red banana to eat, "all that you say is very lovely, +and I have no doubt that under your administration of affairs the boy +will sooner or later become a bully idea, but I hate a man whose +convexity of soul has been attained through a concavity of stomach. +What this boy needs at this stage of the game is development in what +you properly term the grosser sense, I might even go so far as to say +the butcher sense as well as the grocer sense. Ham and eggs is what he +needs." + +And with that he sent out and had a diplodocus carnegii killed, and +fed me himself for the next ten days on dainty morsels cut from the +fatted calf of that luscious bird. It was thus that I escaped the fate +of the over-good who die young and became a factor in the world of +affairs rather than a pleasant memory in the minds of my family. + +As for my education it was limited, and I may say desultory. In this +my Aunt Jerusha was allowed a greater authority than in the matter of +my diet, and she early made up her mind that the great weakness of the +educational system of the day was the tendency of the teachers in our +schools to cram the minds of the young. + +"There is no hurry in days like these when people live to be eight or +nine hundred years old," she observed to my mother. "There is not very +much to be learned as yet. Science is in its infancy, very little +history has been made, and as for Latin and Greek, it is entirely +unnecessary for Methy to study those languages, because as yet, +nobody speaks them, and with the possible exception of that tramp +poet, Homer, who passed through here last week on his way West, nobody +is using it in literature. Teach him the three Rs and all will be +well. Taking the alphabet first and learning one letter a year for +twenty-six years he will be able to read and write as early in life as +he ought to. If we were more careful not to teach our children to read +in their childhood we should not be so anxious about the effects of +pernicious literature upon their adolescent morals. If I had my way no +one should be taught to read until after he had passed his hundredth +year. In that way, and in that way only can we protect our youth from +the dreadful influence of such novels as 'Three Cycles, Not To Mention +The Rug,' which dreadful book I have found within the past month in +the hands of at least twenty children in the neighborhood, not one of +whom was past sixty." + +It was thus resolved that my education should proceed with due +deliberation and even as Aunt Jerusha had suggested, I was taught only +one letter a year for the first twenty-six years of my life, after +which I took up addition, multiplication, short and long division and +fractions. My father would not permit me to learn subtraction. + +"It is a waste of time," said he. "Children subtract by intuition. Put +in all your time teaching Methy how to add and multiply." + +My history was meagre, because as Aunt Jerusha had said, history +itself was meagre. There had not even been a flood, much less a first, +second, or third Punic War. Nobody in my time had ever heard of +Napoleon Bonaparte or George Washington or Julius Caesar, or +Alexander, save a few prophets in the hills back of Enochsville, in +whose prognostications few of their contemporaries took any stock; as +was indeed not unnatural, since when they attempted to prophesy as to +the weather they showed themselves to be rather poor guessers. If a +man prophesies a blizzard for to-morrow and to-morrow comes bringing +with it the balmy odors of Spring, no one is likely to set much store +by his prognostications concerning the possible presidential candidacy +of a man named Bryan six or seven thousand years later. Consequently +the only history with which I took the trouble to familiarize myself +was that which ante-dated my birth, and even that was somewhat hazy in +the minds of historians. My predecessors in the patriarchal profession +were a reticent lot, inherited no doubt from our original ancestor +Adam, who could never be got to talk even to members of his immediate +family on the subject of his early years. True, it is generally +believed that he had no early years, and that he was born on his +fifty-ninth birthday, but even as to that he would not speak. I shall +never forget the look on his face when I asked him at a Thanksgiving +dinner one year if he had ever been a monkey with a tail. He rose up +from the table with considerable dignity, and leading me out into the +wood-shed turned me over on his knee and subjected me to a rather +severe course of treatment with a hair-brush. + +"There, my lad," he observed when he had done. "If I had had a tail +that is about where I should have worn it." + +I never referred to the subject again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOME REMINISCENCES OF ADAM + + +The concluding paragraphs of my last chapter have set my mind running +upon the subject of my original forebears, and inasmuch as I have +decided to write these memoirs of mine along the lines of least +resistance, it becomes proper that I should at this time, put down +whatever happens to be in my mind. To speak frankly I never really +could get up much of a liking for old grandfather Adam. He was as +devoid of real humor as the Scottentots, and simply because by a mere +accident of birth he became the First Gentleman of Europe, Asia and +Africa, he assumed airs that rendered him distinctly unpopular with +his descendants. He considered himself the fount of all knowledge +because in the early days of his occupancy of the Garden of Eden there +was no one to dispute his conclusions, and the fact that he had been +born without a boyhood, as we have already seen at the age of +fifty-nine, left him entirely unsympathetic in matters where boys were +concerned. I shall never forget a conspicuous case in point +demonstrating his utter lack of comprehension of a boy's way of +looking at things. He was on a visit to our home at Enochsville, and +on the night of his arrival, having called for a glass of fermented +grape-juice, thinking to indulge in a mere pleasantry, I brought him a +tumblerful of sweetened red ink, the which he gulped down so avidly +that it was not until it was beyond recall that he realized what I had +done; and when in his wrath he called for an instant remedy and I +brought him the blotting paper, instead of smiling at the merry +quality of my jest, he pursued me for two hours around my father's +farm, and finally cornering me in the Discosaurus shed, larruped me +for twenty full minutes with a paddle pulled from a prickly cactus +plant in my mother's drawing-room, thorn side down. Indeed most of my +early recollections of the old gentleman are inseparably associated +with a series of chastisements which, even as he had prophesied when +administering them, I have not been able to forget, although I cannot +see that any of them ever resulted in a lasting reformation of my +ways. On the contrary the desire to see what new form of thrashing his +disciplinary mind could invent led me into devising new kinds of +provocation, so that for a great many years his visits to our house +were a source of great anxiety to my parents. His view of me and my +ways were expressed with some degree of force to our family physician +who, when at the age of a hundred and fifty-three I came down with the +mumps, having summoned the whole family and said that I would burst +before morning, was met by a reassuring observation from Adam that he +wouldn't believe I was dead even if I had been buried a year. + +"It is the good who die young, Doctor," he said. "On that principle +this young malefactor will live to be the oldest man in the world." + +A curious example of his gift of prophecy! + +Adam's table manners were a frequent source of mortification to us +all. The free and easy habits of the Garden period clung to him +throughout his life, and under no circumstances could he be induced to +use either a fork, a knife or a spoon, and even on the most formal +occasions he absolutely refused to dress for dinner. + +"Fingers were made before forks," he said, "and as for spoons I have +no use for such frills. I can eat my peas out of the pod, and as for +soup it tastes better out of a dipper anyhow." + +As for the knives, his dislike of them was merely in their use at +table. He was fond of knives of all sorts, and he regarded them always +as his legitimate spoil whenever he dined anywhere, pocketing every +one he could lay his hands on with as much facility as the Egyptian, +and Abyssinian drummers who visited our section of the country every +year made off with the spoons of our hostelries. Nor could we ever +appeal to him on the score of etiquette. Any observation as to the +ways of our first families was always met by a cold but quick response +that if there was any firster family than his own in all creation, he +couldn't find its name in the social register. Indeed the old +gentleman was rather inclined to be very snobbish on this point, and +when any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the +crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over +and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively +new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to +what was or was not good form. The only person who ever succeeded in +bowling him over on this point was Uncle Zib, hitherto referred to as +the billionaire member of our family, who, after listening to a long +and somewhat supercilious discourse from Adam on the subject of +family, turned like a flash and asked: + +"And who pray was your grandfather?" + +The old gentleman flushed deeply, and for once was silent, being as I +have already intimated rather sensitive, and therefore inclined to +reticence on the score of his ancestry. + +[Illustration: Adam's Dress Chart.] + +He took a great deal of pride in his success as a namer of animals, +but as my grandson Noah remarked several hundred years later, it was a +commonplace achievement after all. + +"A dog is a dog, and a cat is a cat, and a horse is a horse. Any fool +would know that, so what virtue there was in his calling the beasts by +their real names I don't quite see," said Noah. + +I am disposed, however, to give the old fellow the credit that is his +due for making so few mistakes. That he should instantly be able to +tell the difference between a dromedary and a camel without any +previous instruction, strikes me as evidence of a more or less +remarkable intuition, the like of which we do not often find to-day, +and his dubbing that long-eared, four-footed piece of resistant +uselessness the Ass an ass, always seemed to me to be a master +stroke, although my father used to say that his greatest achievement +lay in correctly designating the pig at first sight. + +"If there is any animal in the whole category of four-legged creatures +that more thoroughly deserves to be called a pig than the pig, I don't +know what it is. He looks like a pig, he behaves like a pig, and he +eats like a pig--in fact he is a pig, and Adam never did anything +better than when he invented that name and applied it." + +The old gentleman was present when my father said that, and his face +flushed with pleasure at his words of praise. + +"Thank you, Enoch," he said. "I am rather proud of it, but I think I +did quite as well when it came to the hen. Anything more aptly +answering to the word hen in all its various shades of meaning than +the hen itself I don't know, but it took me a full week to reason the +thing out. It was not until I heard its absurd cackling over the +laying of a strictly fresh egg, strutting about the barn-yard like a +feathered Napoleon Bonaparte, and acting altogether as though she were +the winner of a Twentieth Century Marathon race that it dawned on me +that the creature was a hen, and could never be anything else than a +hen. Mother wished me to call her an omelette, the feminine form of an +om, as she expressed it, but I had already named the rooster, and the +bird seemed so exactly like a rooster that I declined to make any +changes." + +"I don't see," put in Uncle Zib at this point, "where you got the word +hen from. That is the wonder of it to my mind." + +"Oh," laughed Adam, "that was easy, my dear Zib. I got it from an +inspection of the egg." + +"The egg?" demanded Uncle Zib. + +"Certainly," replied Adam. "You see the minute I picked up the egg and +looked at it closely, I saw that it was a hen's egg, and there you +are." + +After all it seemed very simple. + +I have spoken of his abhorrence of dress. He carried this to an +extreme degree and to the end of his life predicted dire things from +the tendency of his descendants toward sartorial display. I shall +never forget the lucid fashion in which he presented the situation to +my father once while we were camping out one night on Mount Ararat, +after a day's hunting. He was seated on a woody knoll skinning a +pterodactyl for our supper. + +"I tell you, Enoch," he said, "and if you don't mark my words you'll +wish you had, these new fangled notions that are coming along, and +affecting the whole of modern society in respect to what you are +pleased to call dress, are going to result sooner or later in trouble. +I can clearly see even if you cannot, that the new ideas as to clothes +are breeders of extravagance. As things were in my young days anybody +who felt the need of a new costume of one kind or another had only to go +out into the woods and pick it. If your great-great-great-grandmother or +I, for instance, wanted a new Spring suit we'd go hand in hand together +to the orchard, and in the course of a half hour's steady work would fit +ourselves out with a wardrobe that would have made this Queen of Sheba +that the prophets are foretelling, look like thirty clam-shells; and +what is more, a Spring costume was indeed a Spring costume and nothing +else, for it was made of the freshest of the vernal leaves, beautiful in +their early greens, and decorated here and there with a bit of a blossom +that gave the whole a most fetching appearance. And so it was with the +other seasons. For summer we used leaves of the vintage of July and +August, deeper in their green, with the summer flowers for decoration. +Nothing ever so stirred the heart of man as Mother Eve decked out in her +gown of rose leaves, or hollyhocks; and occasionally when we went +travelling together dressed in our suits of hardy perennials, we were +the cynosure of all eyes. In the Autumn the rich red of the maple gave +us an aspect of gayety in respect to our clothes that was most +picturesque; and then when the winter blasts began to blow, our garments +of pine, cedar and hemlock were not only warm, but appropriate and +becoming. It is true that clothes made of hemlock were not altogether +comfortable at first, having some of the prickly qualities of the +hair-shirt, but the very tittilation of the epidermis by their pointed +spills, sharp sometimes as a needle, served to keep our blood in +circulation, and consequently at all times warm and glowing. And it all +cost us nothing more than the labor of the harvest, but now, all is +different. The use of costly fabrics, woven stuffs, silks, satins and +calicos, has introduced an added element of expense into our daily +lives, and all to no useful purpose. Take your Aunt Jerusha, for +instance. Where Mother Eve enjoyed as many different costumes as there +were trees in the country without cost, all of them becoming, and wholly +adequate, your Aunt Jerusha has to be satisfied with three or four gowns +of indifferent fit, made by the village seamstress at an average cost of +thirty or forty dollars apiece. A sheath-gown, costing Jerusha +seventy-five dollars, in the distance, gives no more of an impression in +the matter of figure to an admiring world than your original grandmother +used to make without any further sartorial embellishment than an +ostrich feather in her hair, and as for the men--well, if you see any +value in the change in men's garments over those which prevailed in my +day, you can see what I cannot, and what is going to be the result? The +time will come when tailors' bills will be regarded as a curse. Fathers +of families who, under the scheme of dress invented by myself, could +keep a large number of growing boys appropriately clad, will sooner or +later be forced into bankruptcy by the demands of tailors under these +new methods now coming into vogue. In the train of this will come also a +love of display, and in the course of years you will find men judged not +by the natural stature of their manhood, but by the clothes they wear, +to the everlasting deception of society. By the use of a little expert +padding, building up here and there, a miserable little human shoat will +be able to appear in all the glory of a gladiator. A silk outer garment +will cover the shoddy inner nature of a bit of attleboro humanity so +effectively that you will hardly be able to tell the real thing from the +bogus, and many a man lured into matrimony by the charms of an outward +Venus, will find after marriage that he has tied himself up for life to +a human hat-rack, specially designed by a clever dressmaker, to yank him +from the joys of a contented celibacy into the thorny paths of hymeneal +chaos. + +"Nor will it stop here," the old gentleman continued, warming to his +subject. "I prophesy that just as at the present time society looks +with disfavor on me for going around in the simple dress of my early +days, so the time will come when an even more advanced society will +demand the placing of more clothes on top of those that you all wear +now. The outer garments of to-day will become the under-clothes of +some destined to-morrow, and centuries hence a man found walking on +the public highways dressed as you are will be arrested by the police +for shocking the sense of propriety of the community, and so on. It +will go on and on until you will find human beings everywhere decked +out in layer after layer of clothes until he or she has lost all +semblance to that beautiful thing that an all-wise Providence has +designed us to be. Man will wear under-clothes and outer clothes. He +will devise an absurd bit of starch, button-holes and tails called a +shirt, in which doubtless he will screw diamond-studs, and over which +he will wear a resounding waistcoat embroidered with all sorts of +wild-flowers in bloom. Then will come a stiff uncomfortable yoke for +his neck, which he will call a collar, around which he will wind what +he will call a necktie, the only useful purpose of which will be its +value as a danger signal to the rest of mankind, for it will be +through the medium of this addition to the human dress that character +will manifest itself, man being prone unconsciously to show his +strength or weaknesses in the manner of his personal adornment. This +will lead to all sorts of vain exhibitions until it will be with +extreme difficulty that the public will be able to differentiate +between a genuine peacock and an upstart jack-daw, masquerading in a +merry widow hat. Then will come the crowning misdemeanor in men's +clothes which, for want of a better term let us call pants--a pair of +bags sewed together at the top, and designed for no other purpose than +to conceal from the world the character and quality of the wearer's +legs. When that beatific invention arrives your spindle-legged, +knock-kneed imitation of a man will, as far as the public eye is +concerned, find himself on as sure a footing as your very Adonis, and +a person with a comparatively under-developed understanding will be +able to make as good a showing in the world as the man who is really +all there. Like charity, these pants will cover a multitude of shins +that once exposed to the world would at once give warning of the +possessors' fundamental instability. In other words this new style of +dress that our fashionable leaders are now advocating is designed +simply for the purpose of concealing from the world their natural +defects, enabling them to appear for what they are not, and therefore +to deceive, the sure result of which is to be the fostering of vanity, +a love of display, the breeding of snobs, and an impairment of the +average man's purse to such an extent that some day or other tailors' +and dressmakers' bills will become an inevitable item in every +schedule in bankruptcy in the land. Clothes will also breed rags, for +without clothes to grow threadbare and frayed, it is clear that the +raw material of rags and tatters would be lacking, and many a scene of +beggary would be avoided. + +"Wherefore, my son," the old man concluded, "let me warn you to set +your face sternly against these modern innovations, and to return to +the plainer, and yet more beautiful habiliments of your sires. Let the +sturdy oak be your tailor; when you need a vernal gown, seek the +spreading chestnut tree and from its upper branches pluck the clothing +that you need, and when drear winter comes upon the scene hie you to +the mountain top, and from the rich stock of Hemlock, Pine and Co., +Tailors, By Special Appointment To Their Majesties, The Eternal Hills, +gather the sartorial blessings that there await you." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GRANDMOTHER EVE + + +Very different in almost every imaginable respect from Adam was his +attractive lady, Madame Eve. Indeed, so radically different from each +other were this rather ill-assorted pair that it was always difficult +for us to believe that they were related even by marriage, and I +hesitate to say what I think would have been the outcome of their little +romance had there been any competition for the lady's hand when Adam set +out to win it. I have personally always had a feeling that this first of +hymeneal experiments was rather a marriage of convenience than anything +else, and I have heard my great-great-great-grandmother say that in the +old pioneer days there was very little for a woman to choose from in the +matter of men's society. + +"For a long time," she remarked, "Adam was the only man in sight, and +I was a young thing entirely without experience in worldly matters. He +seemed to my girlish fancy to be all that a man should be. His habits +were good. He neither smoked nor drank, cared apparently nothing for +cards, and barring an interest in Discosaurus Racing, had very few +sporting proclivities. We were thrown together a great deal, and +inasmuch as the life in the Garden was a somewhat lonely one, we took +considerable pleasure in each other's society. For myself, I was not +particularly anxious to be married, preferring the free and +independent life of the spinster, but as time went on and we came to +realize that the people of future generations might misunderstand us +and, as people will do, talk about us, we decided that the best way +to avoid all gossip was to announce our engagement, and at the end of +the usual period, settle down together as man and wife. I don't know +that I have ever regretted the step, though I will say that I think it +is undesirable for a young girl to enter too hastily into the +obligations of matrimony, or to marry the first man that comes along, +unless she is absolutely sure that he is the only man she could +possibly endure through three meals a day for the balance of her +life." + +It must not be assumed from this little reminiscence of this first +lady in the land that her marriage was an unhappy one. I think, that +as a matter of fact, it was quite the contrary, for subsequent to the +wedding each was too busy with other matters to get thinking either +morbidly or otherwise on the subject of their individual happiness. +They took it as a matter of course, and in the division of labor which +the social conditions of the day involved, found too much to occupy +them to worry over such unimportant abstractions as mere personal +felicity. + +"We were spared one of the direst afflictions of modern social life," +Madame Eve once remarked to my mother, in talking over the old days, +"in the absence of domestic servants from our family circle. Adam was +head of the house, general provider, hired-man, stable-boy, +head-gardener, coach-man, night-watchman and everything else of the +male persuasion on the place; whilst I was cook, laundress, nurse, +housekeeper, manicure, stenographer, and general housemaid, as well as +the mother of the family--a situation that even though it involved us +in no end of hard work, had its compensations. Living off in suburbs +as we did, you can have no idea of what a comfort it was to us not to +be at the mercy of a cook who would threaten to leave us every time +anything happened to displease her, such as an extra meal to be cooked +in emergency cases, or the failure of the cooking-sherry to come up to +the exalted standards of her taste as a connoisseur in wines, and hard +as the housework was, as I look back upon it now, I realize how much +trouble I was spared in not having to follow a yellow-haired fluffy +ruffles about the house all day long cleaning up after her. If there +is anything of the labor-saving device in that modern invention known +as a chambermaid, I don't know where it comes in. I'd rather sweep +three floors, and make twenty-nine beds, every day of my life than put +in one single week trying to get seven cents worth of efficient work +out of a fourteen-dollar housemaid." + +At this point I ventured to put in the suggestion that I should have +thought some use could have been made of the monkeys in the matter of +Domestic Service, whereupon the dear lady, who was not nearly so +sensitive on the subject of the Simian family as her husband had +always shown himself to be, patted me on the head, and smiled +indulgently, as she cracked her little joke. + +"Monkeys, my dear Methy," she replied, "were always more efficient in +the higher branches. Seriously, however," she went on, "we had that +same idea ourselves, and we tried Simian labor for a while, but it was +far from satisfactory. They were too playfully impetuous, and we had +to give them up as indoor servants. We had a Monkey Butler one season, +and nothing could induce him to serve our dinner in that dignified +fashion in which a dinner should be served. He would pass the soup +with one paw, the fish with the other, while serving the bread with +his tail, and all simultaneously, so that instead of dinner becoming a +peaceful meal, it was at all times, a highly excitable function that +left us all in a state of trembling nervousness when it was over. Try +as we might we could not induce them to do one thing at a time, and +finally when this particular butler, to whom I have referred, instead +of standing as he was instructed to do behind Adam's chair, insisted +on swinging from the chandelier over the center of the table suspended +by his caudal appendage, we decided that we would rather wait on +ourselves." + +Asked once if she had not found the primitive life uncomfortable, she +shook her head in a decided negative. + +[Illustration: Eve's Scrap Book.] + +"There were too many compensations in our freedom from the things that +make your social life of to-day a complex problem," she replied. "In +the first place I never had to worry much over Adam. When he was not +out getting the raw material for our daily meals he was most generally +at home, for the very excellent reason that there was no other place +to go. We hadn't any Clubs to begin with, so that on his way home from +business there was no temptation for him to stop off anywhere and +frivol away his time playing billiards, or squandering his limited +means on rubbers of bridge or other ruinous games. The only Vaudeville +shows we had at the time consisted of the somewhat too continuous +performances of the monkeys and the poll-parrots right there in our +own back-yard, so that that menace to the happy home was entirely +unknown to us, and inasmuch as I was the only cook in all Christendom +at the time, the idea of not coming home to dinner never occurred to +Adam. It is true that at times he criticised my cooking, but in view +of certain ancestral limitations from which he suffered, I never had +to sit quietly and listen to an exasperating disquisition on the Pies +That Mother Used To Make, a line of conversation that in these modern +days has broken up many an otherwise happy home. Socially the time had +its draw-backs, but even in that respect there were advantages. The +fact that we had no next-door neighbors enabled us to live without +ostentation. I have discovered that much of the trouble in the world +to-day arises from a love of showing-off, and of course, if there is +no one about to show-off to, you don't indulge in that sort of +foolishness. Being the only family in the place we were not spurred +into extravagances of living, either because we had to keep up an end +in society, or because we wished to make a better showing than someone +else was making. There was correspondingly no gossip going on all +about us. The absence of society meant that there were no Sewing +Circles anywhere where peoples' reputations were pulled apart while +under-clothes for alleged heathen were put together. Nobody ever +descended upon us at unreasonable hours with unwelcome Surprise +Parties eating us out of house and home and compelling us to stay up +all night dancing the Virginia Reel when we were so sleepy we could +hardly keep our eyes open. We didn't have to give dinners to people we +didn't like, or make calls on persons in whom we took no earthly +interest whatever. There was no question of Woman's Suffrage to make +an everlasting breach between Adam and myself; no church squabbles +over whether the new carpet should be pink or green, and as for +politics, there was not anything even remotely resembling a politic in +the whole broad land. If Adam or I felt the need of a law now and +then, we'd make it, and if it didn't work, we'd repeal it, so that +there were no endless discussions on such subjects, involving hard +feeling, acrimonious correspondence, and an endless chain of Chapters +of the Ananias Club all over creation. And when the children came +along I was permitted to bring them up according to my own ideas, +thanks to the entire absence from the country of inspired old-maids, +and omniscient editors, ceaselessly endeavoring to reduce a natural +maternal function to an arbitrary science. It has been said that I did +not have much to be proud of in the results of my efforts to bring up +my children right, and I suppose that in the case of Cain and Abel I +must admit that I have not; but I am not so sure that things would +have turned out any different if I had reared them after a Fireside +Companion pattern for the making of a panne velvet posterity. I will +go so far as to say that after looking over the comic supplements of +the Sunday Newspapers, I believe Cain would have killed Abel ten years +earlier than he did if he had had the example of the Katzenjammer Kids +and Buster Brown before him in the formative years of his life. So, on +that score, I am comfortable in my mind, much as I regret the +disastrous climax of the lives of those two boys. In connection with +this matter of the bringing up of children I believe, too, that +despite the narrowness of our outlook, the primitive conditions were +better than those which now exist. I never heard of my boys running +loose about town waking up the whole community with their cheers +because their college football team had crippled eleven other boys +from another college for life; and hard to manage as Cain and Abel +were at times, Adam and I never had to put them to bed at five +o'clock in the morning because they had paralyzed their throats at a +college banquet announcing to an exasperated world that they were Sons +of a Gambolier. In fact, the educational problem of those early days +was an educational problem and not a social one. We did not spend our +time teaching boys to speak seventeen languages, without any ideas to +express in any one of them, but went in for the ideas first. We +regarded speech merely as a vehicle for the expression of ideas, and +went at it from that point of view, rather than the other way around +according to modern notions. Cain and Abel didn't have to go to a +military school to learn how to haze each other, and no young man of +that day ever thought of qualifying for his A. B. by compelling +another young man to sip Tabasco sauce through a straw. What they +learned, they learned by experience, and not through the pages of a +book. If we felt it well to teach one of them that water was wet, we +did not subject his young mind to a nine months course of lectures by +a Professor on Hydropathy, but took him out and dropped him in the +duck-pond and let him draw his own conclusions; and when it came to +Botany, we found that either one of them could get a more +comprehensive idea of the habits of growing plants from weeding a +ten-acre lot than he could get out of a four years' course at a +Correspondence School. The result was that when he came to graduate +and go out into the world he was ready for business, and didn't have +to serve as an Office-Boy on a salary of nothing a week for +seventy-five or a hundred years before he was able to earn his own +living." + +It surely was an idyllic picture that the dear old lady drew, and I +have often wished myself amid the rush and roar of modern life, that +we might go back to the simpler methods of those Arcadian days. + +On the subject of dress, Eve was entirely out of accord with her +husband. She viewed Adam's theories on that subject with toleration, +however, and always laughed when they were mentioned. + +"He's just like a man," she smiled. "He really has no objection to +fetching costumes when they are worn by other people. He merely does +not wish to be bothered with such things himself. He has just as much +of an eye for a daintily dressed little bit of femininity as anybody +else, but he is eternally afraid that if I go in for that sort of +thing he will be turned into a lady's maid. The idea of a hook-and-eye +fills him with horror. His eyesight is not as good as it used to be, +and he dreads the notion that if I come out in one of these +new-fangled waists that hook up at the back he will be compelled to +put in an hour or two fastening it up for me every time I put it on, +and I don't blame him. It seems to me that if there is anything in +this world that is unbefitting the glorious manhood of a true +masculine being it is to have to sit down in a chair for an hour +before dinner looking for a half million hooks and eyes, or +cloth-covered buttons and loops, on the back of his wife's gown, and +trying to fasten them up properly without the use of language unsuited +to a lady's ears. When you think that the hand of man was made to +wield the sceptre of imperial power over this magnificent world, it +becomes a gross impropriety to divert it from the path of destiny into +so futile an effort as hooking up a mere bit of fuss, feathers and +fallals. You might just as well hitch up a pair of thoroughbred +elephants to a milk wagon. It will do, as Adam says, for the +Mollycoddle and the meticulous weakling, but never for a real man +worthy of the name. But after all that is no reason why woman should +be shorn of one of her chief glories, and I totally disagree with him +in his condemnation of all clothes just because some of them are +conceived in foolishness. Dresses can be made to button up at the +side, or in front, and when I think of some of the new fall styles +that are coming in I find myself regretting that I am over five +hundred years old, and cannot with strict propriety, go in for them +myself. Take those little chiffon--" + +And so the dear old lady went on into an enthusiastic disquisition on +the glories of dress that was so intimately feminine that I hesitate +to attempt to quote her words in this place, knowing little as I do on +the subject, and hardly able myself to tell the difference between a +gimp and a cafe parfait. I will merely close this chapter by quoting +Eve's last remark on the subject. + +"All I can say is," she observed, "that Adam makes a great mistake in +objecting to woman's thinking so much about her clothes, for I can +tell him that if she didn't think about her own clothes she would +begin to think about his, and if that were to happen it wouldn't be +long before all men in creation would be going about looking as if +somebody had picked them off a Christmas tree. In the matter of +clothes woman is the court of last resort, and it is better for men +that she should concentrate all her attention on herself!" + +Incidentally let me add that when someone once asked Eve if she hadn't +often wished she had been a man, she replied: + +"Lord no! In that case there would have been two of us, and goodness +knows one was enough!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOME NOTES ON CAIN AND ABEL + + +My acquaintance with my great-uncles, Cain and Abel, was not +particularly intimate and in later years they are seldom spoken of by +members of the family for reasons sufficiently obvious to need no +mention here. Every family must sooner or later develop an undesirable +or two, and on the whole I think that we have done tolerably well in +having up to this time only one portrait in our Rogues' Gallery. Just +what has become of Cain no one at this writing is aware, but wherever +he is I hope when these memoirs of mine are published he will read +them far enough to note that one member of the family at least holds +him in pleasant recollection for the fun he has afforded him in the +past. The two first boys of creation were not bad fellows at all, +although as was natural, their bringing up resulted in a general +condition of pure cussedness that at times became appalling to their +parents. The fact that there had never been any other boys in the +world before placed Adam and Eve at a considerable disadvantage in +rearing these two youngsters. There were no precedents to go by, and +as a consequence the lads were permitted to do a good many things that +our modern boys would not dream of doing. There were no schools to +send them to, and no Sunday Newspapers with Woman's Pages to instruct +Eve in the Complete Science of Motherhood, so that when Cain and Abel +came along to bless the world with their presence, neither their +father nor their mother knew what on earth to do with them. Then, +too, Eve's household duties were such that they very nearly absorbed +all her time, and for years the youthful scions of this first family +in the land were left to the tender mercies of a kindly old Gorilla +who, however amiable and willing she may have been, was hardly the +kind of person a modern mother would choose as an influence in the +formative years of her children's development. I am quite aware that +in some sections of the country to-day this oldtime custom of leaving +the young to the care of servants still prevails, and in some cases it +has its distinct advantages considering the moral characteristics of +the parents who so leave them, but as a social custom to be commended +it is an entire failure, and was adopted by Eve not from choice, but +from necessity. It was not through any desire to shine in society as a +constant attendant at the Five O'Clock teas of her time, or, because +she deemed that her duty lay in trying to secure the alleged +Emancipation of her Sex from imaginary shackles at the expense of her +home life and its responsibilities; or, because she believed that the +primary duty of a mother was to provide her offspring with a maternal +relative who could expound the most abstruse philosophies of the age +with her eyes shut, that led Mother Eve into an apparent neglect of +her children. It was simply the inevitable result of the life of her +time. One can hardly be all that she had to be whether she wanted to +be it or not and at the same time fulfill all the functions of +motherhood. The daily labors of a large ranch such as the world +practically was at that time were of enormous proportions, and with +all due respect to Adam it has always been my profound belief that a +good ninety per cent. of them were performed by Eve. It was she who +had to look after the domestic details of the hour, day in and day +out, while he after the fashion of mankind, led the freer life of the +open. Indeed I have never found that in the matter of manual labor +Adam was in any wise noted. The naming of the animals was a purely +intellectual achievement, and while, of course, he was the provider +when it came to getting in the food supply, I have never observed that +any man yet created ever regarded a day on a trout stream with a fly +and a rod, or a chase through the forest after a venison steak, or a +partridge, as in any way even remotely resembling work. On the +contrary Adam lived the life of a Naturalist and a Nimrod, while Eve +faithfully did the chores. It was inevitable then that the children +when they first came along, should be allowed to grow wild, to +associate with their inferiors, and to become confirmed in habits that +were deplorable and reprehensible. I am entering upon no defense of +my Uncle Cain. I do not excuse his misbehavior in the least, but when +a censorious world holds up its hands in holy horror whenever he is +mentioned, and uses his name as a synonym for evil, I would merely beg +it to remember the lad's bringing up, and to ask itself whether under +similar conditions it would do much better itself. Particularly do I +ask that branch of human society, now growing rather larger than I +like to see it, who are themselves allowing their children to grow up, +not only removed but far away from all parental influences whatsoever, +if they realize that they will have only themselves to blame if they +add to the stock of unfortunates who bear the mark of Cain? Of course, +a woman who would rather play Bridge than rock her baby to sleep would +be a bad influence upon a budding soul at any time, and her child is +to be congratulated when its mother's engagement card is full from +Sunday to Sunday, but even a mother of that sort owes it to society to +see that her place is filled not by any old gorilla from the handiest +intelligence office that comes along as poor Eve was forced into +doing, but by some capable person in whom the love of motherhood rules +as strong as does the passion for the grand-slam in her own breast. + +[Illustration: Cain's Inspiration] + +But enough of this moralizing! I had not meant to preach a sermon, and +it is only because I see so many wistful little faces of motherless +youngsters around me day after day--Social Orphans, whose mothers have +not gone to Heaven, but to Mrs. Grundy's; children who with the +qualities of service in their souls are treading dangerously near to +the footsteps of the original scapegrace for lack of attention; that I +have been led into this garrulous homily. It must not be supposed, +either from what I have said that there was never any discipline in +the Home of Adam and Eve. Later on there came to be a lot of it, and I +am not sure that its excesses in later periods were not as evil in +their influence as its utter lack at a time when ten minutes with the +hair-brush would have done Cain more good than ten years in the county +jail. + +To the world at large these two boys are interesting because of the +fact that they introduced humor into the world. Adam never had any, +and Eve, as we have seen, was rather too busy to joke, but not so with +the youngsters, who, doubtless from their constant association with +the monkeys bubbled over with a kind of fun that though necessarily +primitive, was quite appealing. It was Cain who invented that immortal +riddle, "When is a door not a door?" the true answer being, "when it +is a bird." This is as far as I have been able to discover the first +thing in the nature of a joke ever known on this planet, though +whether it was the one that made the original Hyena laugh I have not +been able to ascertain. It is a joke that has appeared in modified +form many times since. Even that illustrious pundit, Senator Chauncey +M. DeMagog uses it as his most effective peroration at this season's +public banquets. I heard him myself get it off at The Egyptian Society +Dinner last month, as well as at the Annual Banquet of The Sons and +Daughters of the Pre-Adamite Evolution, the month before, changing the +answer, however, to "when it's a jar"--which I personally do not +consider an improvement, for when a door becomes a jar I must confess +I cannot see. A jar, as I understand it, is a vessel, a receptacle, a +jug, a sort of demijohn, or decanter that people use to store up +water, or to keep the juice of the grape in, like a pitcher, or an +amphora; and how by any stretch of the imagination a door could become +such a thing is beyond my ken, although I must say that the jest when +told by the Senator in his own inimitable way, was received with +shouts of laughter every time he got it off. For my own part I think +that Cain's version is infinitely more humorous and instructive as +well, because a "door is not a door" when it is a "daw," which is, +indeed, as Cain's answer to the riddle claims it to be, a bird. It is, +of course, a great compliment to Cain that the Senator and a hundred +others I might name like him should go back to him for their humor, +but I think they would do better if they took his jests exactly as +they found them instead of trying to improve them to their +destruction. + +I find also in our family records that it was Abel who first asked the +question, "Why is an elephant like an oyster? Because it cannot climb +a tree," a jest that similarly to Cain's riddle, possesses not only +true humor but is at the same time educational, as the best humor must +always be, in that it teaches the young certain indubitable facts in +the Science of Natural History, viz., that neither the pachyderm nor +the bivalve, in common with several other carnivorous botanical +specimens, is gifted similarly to the squirrel, the ant, or the +grizzly bear. + +Mother Eve, who always took a naive delight in the droll sayings of +her offspring, used to tell with great glee of Cain's persistent habit +of asking questions of his father, some of which used to tax all the +old gentleman's powers of invention to answer intelligently. One of +these that I recall most vividly was as follows: + +"Say, Pa," said Cain, one Saturday afternoon, when the whole family +were off on a picnic together, "did you have any sisters?" + +"No, my son," replied Adam, plucking a bottle of olives from a +neighboring tree, and placing them on the outspread table-cloth on the +grass. + +"Well, did Ma have any sisters?" persisted Cain. + +"No," said Adam. "Your mother had no sisters, either. Why do you ask?" + +"Oh, nothin'," replied the lad with a puzzled expression coming over +his face as he scratched his back. "I was just wonderin' where the +Ants came from." + + * * * * * + +It was Abel on the other hand who asked his father why he had not +named the male ants uncles, a question that to this day has not been +satisfactorily answered. Indeed I have frequently found myself +regretting that there was nobody at hand to ask Adam these very +pertinent questions earlier in his life, and before it was too late +to instil in his mind the idea that a little more consistency would be +desirable in his selection of names for the creatures he was called +upon to christen. Zooelogy might have been a far simpler science in the +matter of nomenclature than it is now ever likely to become, had Adam +been surrounded at the beginning with inquiring minds like those of +Cain and Abel, not necessarily to dispute his conclusions or his +judgments, but to seek explanations. Why, for instance, should a +creature that is found chiefly on the Nile, and never under any +circumstances on the Rhine, be called a Rhinoceros? And why should a +Caribou be called a Caribou entirely irrespective of its sex? There +are Caribou of both sexes, when we might have had Caribou for one and +Billibou for the other, and yet Adam has feminized the whole Bou +family with no apparent thought about the matter at all. Then there +is the animal which he called the Bear. He is not bare at all--on the +contrary he wears the shaggiest coat of all the animals, except +possibly the Buffalo, who, by the way, is not buff, but a rather dirty +dull brownish black in color. The Panther does not wear pants, and the +Monkey far from suggesting the habits of a Monk is a roystering, +philanderous old rounder that would disgrace a heathen temple, much +less adorn a Monastery. And finally if there is anything lower than a +Hyena, or less coy than a Coyote, I don't know what it is. + +There is considerable evidence in Mother Eve's Garden Book, in which +she jotted down now and then little notes of her daily life that most +of these points, or at least similar ones, were brought to Adam's +attention at one time or another by his sons, and not always in a way +that was pleasing to him. Indeed, as we read these notes we observe a +growing tendency on Adam's part to be irritated by the enquiries which +seem to have formed an inevitable part of the family conversation. At +random I select the following: + +_August 3rd_, 5569. Cain spanked and put to bed without his supper for +asking his father why he had not called the male Kangaroo a +Kangarooster. + +_September 5th_, 5567. Cain sentenced to the wood-pile for four hours +for enquiring of Adam why he called the Yak a Yak when everybody knew +he looked more like a Yap. Adam is getting very nervous under this +persistent questioning. + +_January 4th_, 5565. Adam has just retired to the wood-shed with poor +Abel on what he termed a "whaling-expedition," to explain why he had +named the elephant of the sea a whale instead of a sealephant. I +judge from Abel's blubbering that his father is giving him an object +lesson in the place where it is most likely to impress itself forcibly +on his understanding, though I must say I think the child's idea a +rather good one, and I often wish my dear husband would not be so +sensitive on the subject of his possible mistakes. + +_May 25th_, 5563. Adam has forbidden the children to ask any more +questions about the names of the animals, Cain having exasperated him +by asking how much a guinea was worth. + +"About five dollars," said Adam. + +"Gee!" cried Cain. "You must have got stung on the guinea-pigs, then. +They're dear at a dollar a dozen." + + * * * * * + +It may interest modern readers who seem to have created a demand for +what is known as the Mother-in-Law joke that this style of humor +found its origin in an early remark of Abel's, if his mother's Diary +is to be believed. A visitor once interrupted him in the midst of a +ball game that he was playing with Cain and a number of his Simian +friends, to ask him how his grandmother was. + +"Never had one," replied Abel, with a grin. + +"Poor boy," sympathized the visitor. "And don't you wish you had?" + +"Yes," said Abel. "I think a Mother-in-Law around the house would have +done Pa good!" + +I will close my remarks concerning these famous boys with a little +poem which their mother had clipped from an Egyptian paper and pasted +in her book. It seems to me to be a pretty accurate picture of two +very interesting figures in our family history. + + I don't suppose that Cain and Abel + Were very mannerly at table. + From what I've read by those that knew 'em + They'd speak when none had spoken to 'em, + And in a manner unbefittin' + Upon their shoulders they'd be sittin', + And sundry dinosaurs be treating + With scraps the while themselves were eating. + I fear they smacked their lips while pickin' + The bones of tarpon and spring chicken, + And each the other would be hazin' + To see who got the final raisin. + The notion in my brain-pan lingers + They ate their flapjacks with their fingers-- + Not that their mother fair assented, + But knives and forks were not invented. + When there was pie, I fear they grabbed it, + Unless their Pa'd already nabbed it; + And that in fashion most unmoral + O'er cakes and puddings they would quarrel. + I don't believe that either chapkin + E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, + And if one biscuit graced the platter + 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, + Or if they'd beans--no doubt they had 'em-- + They failed to snap a few at Adam. + I fear me as they ate their salade + They hummed some raw primeval ballad, + And when the Serpent came to dinner, + They made remarks about the sinner. + No doubt they criticised the cooking + And hooked the fruit when none was looking, + And when they'd soup--O my! O Deary! + The very notion makes me weary. + About these youngsters let's stop writing + And turn to subjects more inviting! + +I have never been able to ascertain the authorship of this poem, but +if the poet ever sees this I hope he will be glad to know that I +heartily agree with Mother Eve's memorandum written underneath the +clipping in her book, + +"I guess this scribe has had boys of his own!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HE CONFESSES TO BEING A POET + + +I do not know whether it is a part of the programme mapped out for me +that I am to live forever or not, and I realize the danger that a man +runs in writing his memoirs if he put aught down in them which shall +savor of confession. They say that confession is good for the soul, +but I have not yet discovered anybody who was profited by it to any +material extent. On the contrary, even the virtuous have suffered from +it, as witness the case of my dear old Uncle Zekel. In his extreme +youth Zekel went out one summer's day, the call of the wild proving +too much for his boyish spirit, and ere night fell had done a certain +amount of mischief, although intrinsically he came nearer to being a +perfect child than anyone yet known to the history of the human race. +Thoughtlessly the lad had chopped down one of his father's favorite +date trees, the which when his father observed it, caused considerable +consternation. + +"Who did this thing?" he cried angrily, summoning the whole family to +the orchard. + +"Father," said Zekel, stepping forward, pale, but courageous, "I +cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little tomahawk." + +"Very well, my son," said the old gentleman, pulling a switch from the +fallen tree, and seizing Zekel by the collar, "in order to impress +this date more vividly upon your mind, we will retire to the barn and +indulge in a little palmistry." + +Whereupon he withdrew with Zekel from the public gaze and +administered such a rebuke to the boy that forever afterwards the +mere association of ideas made it impossible for Zekel to sit under a +palm tree with any degree of comfort.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Editor's Note: It is very interesting to find this story +in the Memoirs of Methuselah owing to its marked resemblance to an +anecdote related of General Washington, in which the youthful father +of his country is represented as having acted in a like manner upon a +later occasion.] + +I realize, however, that in writing one's memoirs one should not +withhold the truth if there is to be any justification in the eyes of +posterity for their existence, so I am not going to conceal anything +from my readers that has any important bearing upon my character. Let +me therefore admit here and now, apropos of the charming lines with +which my last chapter was brought to a close, that I have myself at +times written poetry. It is the lamentable fact that in this day and +generation poets are not held in that high esteem which is their due. +We have unfortunately had a number of them in this vicinity of late +years who have not been any too particular about paying their board +bills, and whether their troth has been plighted to our confiding +maidens, or to our trustful tailors, the result has been the +same--they have not been conspicuously present at the date of maturity +of their promises. One very distinguished looking old gentleman in +particular, who registered from Greece, came here several centuries +ago and secured five hundred subscriptions to his book of verses, +collected the first instalment, and then faded from the scene and +neither he nor his verses have been heard from since. The consequence +has been that when any of the young of this community show the +slightest signs of poetic genius their parents behave as though the +measles had broken out in the family, and do all they can spiritually +and physically to stamp out the symptoms. My cousin Aminidab indeed +went so far while he was in the Legislature here, to introduce a bill +making the writing of poetry a misdemeanor, and ordering the police +immediately to arrest all persons caught giving way in public or +private to an inspiration. The bill only failed to become a law by the +expiration of the session before it had reached its final reading. It +may be readily imagined, therefore, why until this I have never +acknowledged my own proneness to expressing myself in verse. Only two +or three of my most intimate friends have been aware of the tendency, +and they have been so ashamed of it that as my friends they have +sought rather to suppress than to spread the report. + +I quite remember the consternation with which my first effort was +received in the family. Father Adam had been reminiscing about the +Garden Days, and he had made the remark that when some of the animals +came up to be christened they were such extraordinary looking +creatures he was afraid they were imaginary. + +"Take the Ornithorhyncus, for instance," he said, "and the Discosaurus +Carnegii--why, when they came ambling up for their tickets I could +hardly believe my eyes, and I turned to Eve and asked her with real +anxiety, whether or not she saw anything, and, of course, her answer +reassured me, but for a minute I was afraid that the grape-juice we +had had for lunch was up to its old tricks." + +This anecdote amused me tremendously, for I had myself thought the +Discosaurus about the funniest looking beast except the shad, I had +ever seen, and I promptly constructed a limerick which I handed over +to my father. It ran this way: + + There was an old fellow named Adam, + Who lived in the Garden with Madam. + When the critters they came + All demanding a name + He thought for a minute he "had 'em!" + +I don't think I shall ever forget the result of my father's horrified +reading of the lines. All my grandfathers back to Adam himself were +there, and wrath, fear, and consternation were depicted on every +countenance when the last line was delivered, and then every eye was +turned on me. If there had been any way of disappearing I should have +faded away instantly, but alas, every avenue of escape was closed, and +before I left the room each separate and distinct ancestor had turned +me over his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of +all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to +take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary +served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until +now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, +triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of one kind or another. + +One little piece that I recall had to do with the frequency with which +I was punished for small delinquencies. It was called + + +WHEN FATHER SPANKED ME + + My Father larruped me, and yet + I could but note his eyes were wet, + When lying there across his knee + I got what he had had for me-- + It seemed to fill him with regret. + + "It hurt me worse than you," he said, + When later on I went to bed, + And I--the truth would not be hid-- + Replied, "I'm gug-gug-glad it did!" + +There were other verses written as I grew older that, while I do not +regard them as masterpieces, I nevertheless think compare favorably +with a great deal of the alleged poetry that has crept into print of +late years. A trifle dashed off on a brick with a piece of charcoal +one morning shortly after my hundredth birthday, comes back to me. The +original I regret to say was lost through the careless act of one of +my cousins, who flung it at a pterodactyl as it winged its flight +across our meadows some years after. I reproduce it from memory. + + +THE JUNE-BUG + + The merry, merry June-bug + Now butts at all in sight. + He butts the wall o' mornings, + He rams the ceil at night. + + He caroms from the book-case + Off to the window-pane, + Then bounces from my table + Back to the case again. + + He whacks against the door-jamb + And tumbles on the mat; + Then on the grand-piano + He strikes a strident flat; + + Then to the oaken stair-case + He blindly flops and jumps, + And on the steps for hours + He blithely bumps the bumps. + + They say that he is foolish, + And has no brains. No doubt + 'Tis well for if he had 'em + He'd surely butt them out. + +As I say, this is mere a trifle, but it is none the less beautifully +descriptive of a creature that has always seemed to me to be worthy of +more attention than he has ever received from the poets of our age. I +have been unable to find in the literature of Greece, Egypt or the +Orient, any reference to this wonderful insect who embodies in his +frail physique so much of the truest philosophy of life, and who, +despite the obstacles that seem so persistently to obstruct his path, +buzzes blithely ever onward, singing his lovely song and uttering no +complaints. + +[Illustration: Noah brings disgrace upon the family.] + +In the line of what I may call calendar poetry, which has always been +popular since the art of rhyming began, none of the months escaped my +attention, but of all of my efforts in that direction I never wrote +anything that excelled in descriptive beauty my + + +ODE TO FEBRUARY + + Hail to thee, O Februeer! + It is sweet to have you here, + Lemon-time of all the year! + Making all our noses gay + With the influenziay; + Flinging sneezes here and yon, + Rich and poor alike upon; + Clogging up the bronchial tubes + Of the Urbans and the Roobs; + Opening for all your grip + With its lavish stores of pip; + Scattering along your route + Little gifts of Epizoot; + Time of slush and time of thaw, + Time of hours mild and raw; + Blowing cold and blowing hot; + Stable as a Hottentot; + Coaxing flowers from the close + Just to nip them on the nose; + Calling birdies from their nests + For to freeze their little chests; + Springtime in the morning bright, + With a blizzard on at night; + Chills and fever through the day + Like a sort of pousse cafe; + Time of drift and time of slosh! + Season of the ripe golosh; + Running rivers in the street, + Frozen toes, and soaking feet; + Take this wreath of Poesie + Dedicated unto thee, + Undiluted stream of mush + To the Merry Month of Slush! + +I preferred always, of course, to be original, not only in the matter +of my thought, but in the manner of my expression as well, but like +all the rest of the poetizing tribe, I sooner or later came under the +Greek influence. This is shown most notably in a little bit written +one very warm day in midsummer, back in my 278th year. It was +entitled + + +TO PAN IN AUGUST + + I don't wish to flout you, Pan. + Tried to write about you, Pan. + Tried to tell the story, Pan, + Of your wondrous glory, Pan; + But I can't begin it, Pan, + For this very minute, Pan, + All my thoughts are tumid, Pan, + 'Tis so hot and humid, Pan, + And for all my trying, Pan, + There is no denying, Pan, + I can't think, poor sighing Pan, + Of you save as frying, Pan. + +It was after reading the above, when it dropped out of my coat pocket +during one of our visits to the wood-shed, that Adam expressed the +profound conviction that I was born to be hanged, but as I have +already intimated, neither his sense of justice, nor his sense of +humor was notable. + +Once in awhile I tried a bit of satire, and when my son Noah first +began to show signs of mental aberration on the subject of a probable +flood that would sweep everything before it, and put the whole world +out of business save those who would take shares in his International +Marine and Zoo Flotation Company, I endeavored to dissuade him in +every possible way from so suspicious an enterprise. Failing to +impress my feelings upon him in one way, I fell back upon an +anonymously published poem, which I hoped would bring him to his +senses. The lines were printed in red chalk on the board fence +surrounding his Ship-Yard, and ran as follows: + + +MARINE ADVICES + + O Noah he built himself a boat, + And filled it full of animiles. + He took along a billie-goat, + A pug and two old crocodiles. + + A pair of very handsome yaks + A leopard and hyenas two; + A brace of tender canvas-backs, + A camel and a kangaroo. + + A pair of guinea-pigs were placed + In state-rooms off the main saloon, + Along with several rabbits chaste, + A 'possum and a gray raccoon. + + Now all went well upon that cruise, + And they were happy as could be, + Until one morning came the news + That filled old Noah with misery. + + Those guinea-pigs--O what a tide!-- + Were versed in plain Arithmetic; + The way they upped and multiplied + Made Captain Noah mighty sick. + + And four days out he turned about, + And made back to the pier once more + To rid himself of all that rout, + And put the guinea-pigs ashore. + + And where there were but two of these + When starting on that famous trip, + When they got back from off the seas, + Three hundred thousand left the ship! + +Poor Noah! He took this publication so much to heart that he offered a +reward of a thousand dollars, and a first-class passage on his cruise +to the top of Mount Ararat to any one who could give him the name of +the miscreant who had written the lines, but he has never yet found +out who did them, and until he reads these memoirs after I have +passed away, he will never know from how near home they came. + +Finally let me say that in a more serious vein as a Poet I was not +wanting in success--that is in my own judgment. As a mystic poet +nothing better than the following came from my pen: + + O arching trees that mark the zenith hour, + How great thy reach, how marvellous thy power, + So lavishly outpouring all thy rotund gifts + On mortal ways, in superhuman shifts + That overtax the mind, and vex the soul of man, + As would the details of some awful plan, + Jocund, mysterious, complex, and yet withal + Enmeshed with Joy and Sorrow, as a pall + Envelops all the seas at eventide, and brings + New meaning to the song the Robin sings + When from her nest matutinal she squirms + And hies her forth for adolescent worms + With which her young to feed, yet all the time + With heart and soul laments my dulcet rhyme! + +Of this I was naturally quite proud, and when under the title of +"Maternity" I read it once in secret to my Aunt Jerusha, she burst +into tears as I went on, and three days later read it as a New Thought +gem before the Enochsville Society of Ethical Culture. It was there +pronounced a great piece of symbolic imagery, and prediction was made +that some day in some more advanced age than our own, a Magazine would +be found somewhere that would print it. This may be so, but I fear I +shall not live to see it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE INTERNATIONAL MARINE AND ZOO FLOTATION COMPANY + + +I have never yet been quite able to make up my mind with any degree of +definiteness in regard to the sanity of my son Noah. In many respects +he is a fine fellow. His moral character is beyond reproach, and I +have never caught him in any kind of a wilful deception such as many +parents bewail in their offspring, and I know that he has no bad +habits. He has no liking for cigarette smoking, and he keeps good +company and good hours. His sons Shem, Ham and Japhet, are great +favorites with all of us, and as far as mere respectability goes there +is no family in the land that stands higher than his, but the +complete obsession of his mind by this International Marine and Zoo +Flotation Company of his is entirely beyond my comprehension, and his +attempts to explain it to me are futile, because its utter +impracticability, and the reasons advanced for its use seem so absurd +that I lose my temper before he gets half way through the first page +of his prospectus. From his boyhood up he has been fond of the water, +and when the bath-tub was first invented we did not have to drive him +to it, as most parents have to do with most boys, but on the contrary +we had all we could do to keep him away from it. I don't think any one +in my household for five hundred years was able to take a bath on any +night of the week without first having to clear away from the tub the +evidence of Noah's interest in marine matters. Nothing in the world +seemed to delight his spirit more as a child than to fill the tub +full of water, turn on the shower at its fullest speed, and play what +he called flood in it, with a shingle or a chip, or if he could not +find either of these, with a floating leaf. Many a time I have found +him long after he was supposed to have gone to bed sitting on the +bath-room floor singing a roysterous nautical song like "Rocked in the +Cradle of the Deep," or "A Life On the Ocean Wave," while he pushed a +floating soap dish filled with ants, spiders and lady-bugs up and down +that overflowing tub; and later in his life, when more manly sports +would seem to be more to any one's tastes, while his playmates were +out in the open chasing the Discosaurus over the hills, or trapping +Pterodactyls in the bull-rushes, he would go off by himself into the +woods where he had erected what he called his ship-yard, and whittle +out gondolas, canoes, battle-ships, arks and other marine craft day +in and day out until one could hardly walk in the dark without +stubbing his toe on some kind of a boat. I recall once coming upon him +on the farther slopes of Mount Ararat, putting the finishing touches +to as graceful a cat-boat as any one ever saw--a thing that would have +excited the envy of mariners in all parts of the world, but in spite +of my admiration for his handicraft, it worried me more than I can say +when I thought of all the labor he had expended on such a work miles +away from any kind of a water course. It did not seem to square with +my ideas as to what constituted sense. + +"It is very beautiful, my son," I observed, after inspecting the +vessel carefully for a few moments. "Her lines are perfect, and the +model indicates that she will prove a speedy proposition, but it seems +to me that you have left out one of the most important features of a +permanently successful sailing vessel." + +Noah looked at me patronizingly, and shrugged his shoulders as much as +to inquire what on earth I knew about boat-building. + +"If you refer either to the bowsprit or to the flying balloon-jib," he +replied coldly, and acting generally as if he were very much bored, +"you are entirely wrong. This isn't a sloop, or a catamaran, or a +caravel. Neither is it a government transport, an ocean gray-hound, or +a ram. It's just a cat-boat, nothing more." + +"No," said I. "I refer to nothing of the sort. I don't know much about +boats, but I know enough to be aware without your telling me, that +this affair is not a battle-ship, tug, collier, brig, lugger, barge or +gravy-boat. Neither is it a dhow, gig or skiff. But that does not +affect the validity of my criticism that you have forgotten an +important factor in her successful use as a sailing craft." + +"What is it?" he demanded, curtly. + +"An ocean," said I. "How the dickens do you expect to sail a boat like +that off here in the woods, where there isn't enough water to float a +parlor-match?" + +He laughed quietly as I advanced this objection, and for the first +time in his life gave evidence of the haunting idea that later took +complete possession of his mind. + +"Time enough for that," said he. "There'll be more ocean around here +some day than you can keep off with a million umbrellas, and don't you +forget it." + +Somehow or other his reply irritated me. The idea seemed so +preposterously absurd. How on earth he ever expected to get an ocean +out there, half way up the summit of our highest mountain, no sane +person could imagine, and I turned the vials of my wrathful satire +upon him. + +"You ought to start a Ferry Company from the Desert of Sahara to the +top of Mount Ararat," I observed, as dryly as I knew how. + +"The notion is not new," he replied instantly. "I have already given +the matter some thought, and it isn't impossible that the thing will +be done before I get through. There will be a demand for such a thing +all right some day, but whether it will be a permanent demand is the +question." + +It may interest the public to know that it was at this period that I +invented a term that has since crept into the language as a permanent +figure of speech. Speaking to my wife on the subject of the day's +adventure that very evening, after I had expressed my determination to +apply for the appointment of a Commission De Lunatico Enquirendo on +Noah's behalf, she endeavored to quiet my anxiety on the score of his +good sense by saying: + +"Don't worry, dear. He is very serious in this matter. He has always +had a great storm in his mind ever since he was a baby." + +"I guess it's a brain-storm," I interjected contemptuously, for I +could not then, and I cannot now conceive of any kind of a shower that +will make the boy's habit of building caravels in the middle of +ten-acre lots, and submarines on fifteen-by-twenty fish ponds, and +schooner yachts on mill-dams only three feet deep at high tide a +reasonable bit of procedure. + +Occasionally one of my neighbors would call upon me to remark somewhat +critically on this strange predilection of my son, and several of them +advised me to take the matter seriously in hand before it was too +late. + +"If you lived on the seaboard, it would be a fine thing to have such +a son," they said, "but off here in the lumber district it would be +far more to the point if he went in for the breeding of camels, or +some other useful vehicle of transportation, instead of constructing +ferry-boats that never can be launched, and building arks in a spot +where the nearest approach to an ocean is a leak in the horse-trough." + +I could not but admit that there was justice in these criticisms, but +when it came to the point I never felt that I could justify myself in +interfering with the boy's hobby until it was too late, and the lad +having passed his three hundredth birthday, was no longer subject to +parental discipline. I reasoned it out that after all it was better +that he should be building dories and canal-boats out under the apple +trees, and having what he called "a caulking good time," in an +innocent way, than spending his time running up and down the Great +White Way, between supper-time and breakfast, making night hideous +with riotous songs, as many youths of his own age were doing; and when +our family physician once tried to get him to join a football eleven +at the Enochsville High School in order to get this obsession of a +deluge out of his mind, I was not a little impressed by the +impertinent pertinence of his ready answer. + +"No rush-line for mine, Doctor," he said, firmly. "I'd rather have +water on the brain than on the knee." + +I had hoped that as the years passed on he would outgrow not only his +conviction of the imminence of a disastrous deluge by which the world +would be overwhelmed, and the predilection for nautical construction +that the belief had bred in him, but alas for all human expectation, +it grew upon him, instead of waning, as I had hoped. Our prosperous +farm was given over entirely to the demands of his ship-yard, and +when his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet came along he directed all their +education along lines of seamanship. He fed them even in their tender +years upon hard-tack and grog. Up to the time when they were two +hundred years old he made them sleep in their cradles, which he kept +rocking continuously so that they would get used to the motion, and +would be able to go to sea when the time came without suffering from +sea-sickness. All clocks were thrust bodily out of his house, and if +anybody ever stopped at the farm to inquire the time of day he was +informed that it was "twenty minutes past six bells," or "nineteen +minutes of three bells," or some other unmeaning balderdash according +to the position of the sun. When the farmhouse needed painting, +instead of renewing the soft and lovely white that had made it a +grateful sight to the eye for centuries, Noah had it covered with +pitch from roof to cellar, until the whole neighborhood began to smell +like a tar barrel. And then he began his work upon this precious ark +of his--Noah's Folly, the neighbors called it; placed in the middle of +our old cow-pasture, twenty-five miles from the sea; about as big as a +summer hotel, and filled with stalls instead of state-rooms! He +mortgaged the farm to pay the first instalment on it, and when I asked +him how on earth he ever expected to liquidate the indebtedness he +smilingly replied that the deluge would take care of everything that +stood in need of liquidation when the date of maturity came round. He +was even flippant on the subject. + +"Don't talk about falling dew," he remarked. "There'll be something +dewing around here before many days that will make you landlubbers +wish your rubbers were eight or nine million sizes larger than the +ones you bought last February; and as for liquidation--well, father +dear, you can take my word for it that when this mortgage of mine is +presented at my office for payment by its present holder there will be +liquid enough around to float a new bond issue in case I can't pay in +spot cash. If that is not satisfactory to my creditors, you still need +not worry. I have a definite fund in mind that will take care of +them." + +"That is a relief," said I, innocently. "But may I ask what fund you +refer to?" + +"Certainly, father dear," he replied. "I refer to the Sinking Fund +which will be in full working order the minute the deluge arrives." + +This was about all the satisfaction I was ever able to get out of my +son on the subject of his Ark, and after two or three hundred years I +stopped arguing with him on the futile extravagance of his course. As +we have seen in the last chapter of my memoirs, I did write a bit of +verse on the subject which made him very angry, but beyond that I did +nothing, and then the great scandal came! + +[Illustration: Noah regrets having shipped guinea pigs.] + +It was the blackest hour of my life when it came to be rumored in and +about Enochsville that Noah, now grown to independent estate, had +method in his madness, and was about to embark upon a questionable +financial enterprise. One of the yellow journals of the day--for we +had them even then, although they were not put forth from printing +presses, but displayed on board fences in scare-head letters six or +eight feet high--one of the yellow journals of the day, I say, issued +a muck-raking Extra, exposing what it termed _The International Marine +and Zoo Flotation Company_, and most unfortunately there was just +enough truth in the story in so far as its details went, to lend +color to its sensational accusations. It could not be denied, as was +stated in _The Enochsville Evening Gad_, that Noah had built a large, +unwieldy vessel of his own designing in the old pasture up back of our +Enochsville farm, miles away from tide-level. That it resembled what +_The Gad_ called a cross between a cow-barn and a Lehigh Valley +Coal-Barge, was evident to anybody who had merely glanced at it. But +what was its apparent purpose? asked the reporter of _The Gad_. Stated +to be the housing of a menagerie during a projected cruise of +forty-odd days! "What philanthropy!" ejaculated the editor of _The +Gad_. What a kindly old soul was the projector of this wonderful +enterprise, that he should take a couple of tired old elephants off on +a Mediterranean trip out of the sheer kindness of his heart! Was it +not the acme of generosity for a man who had lately been so hard up +that he had mortgaged his farm to go to the expense of building a +huge floating barge on which the gorillas, giraffes, and rhinoceri of +the land, having lately shown signs of enfeebled health, might take a +winter's trip to the Riviera, or to the recuperative sands of the +Sahara? + +The article was indeed a scathing arraignment, a masterpiece of +ridicule, but as it went on it became even worse, for it now got down +to the making of serious charges against my son's integrity. + +"Such are the alleged purposes of this project," said _The Gad_. "Let +us now consider its real purpose, far more insidious than any one has +hitherto suspected, but which is now seen to be that of _separating +the widows and orphans of this land from their accumulated savings_, +and diverting them into the _pockets of Noah and his family_!" + +I thought I should sink through the floor when this met my eyes, and +I was appalled when I read on and realized how many thousands of +people would believe the plausible tale of villany _The Gad_ had +managed to construct out of a few innocent facts. Noah's plan was in +brief stated to be a scheme for the impoverishment of innocent +investors, by selling them shares of stock, both common and preferred, +in his International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company. According to +the writer of this infamous libel, immediately the vessel was finished +at a cost of about $79.50, it was Noah's intention to incorporate his +enterprise with himself as President and Treasurer, and Shem, Ham and +Japhet as his Board of Directors, the capital being placed at the +enormous sum of $100,000,000. + +"This capitalization," said the exposure, "will be divided into fifty +millions of preferred stock, and fifty millions of common, all of +which will be sold to the public at par; subject to a first mortgage +already existing, and held by Noah and his sons, which it is intended +to foreclose, and the company reorganized, the minute the $100,000,000 +of the public's money has passed into the treasurer's hands. + +"Talk about your _deluge_!" continued the article. "This is indeed the +biggest thing in _deluges_ this little old world has ever known. The +Preadamite Steel Trust is a dewdrop alongside of it. Noah gets the +_salvage_, but the _people_ get the _water_!" + + * * * * * + +Such was the attitude of the public toward my son's great project, and +all I could ever get him to say in reply to these and other equally +nefarious charges was, while he had intended to have quarters for +every kind of beast on board his boat, he had now definitely decided +to leave out Mastodons, Muck-Rakers and Yellow Journalists! + +Verily there seems to be some foundation to the belief that devotion +to the life of a seaman makes a man callous to assaults on his +personal reputation! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE MASTODON + + +The recent visit of King Ptush to our wild districts in search of a +fresh hunting-ground for himself and his son, Prince Ptutt, brought +about a very serious condition of affairs in respect to the mastodon, +or what some persons refer to as the Antediluvians. This most +distinguished personage, wearying of the affairs of state in his own +land, gave over the reins of government for a while to his Grand +Vizier, and on behalf of the Nimrodian Institution, a Museum of +Natural and Unnatural History in his own capital city, came hither to +study the fauna and flora of our district, and incidentally to take +back with him a variety of stuffed specimens of our more conspicuous +wild beasts for exhibition purposes. Entirely unaware of His Majesty's +unerring aim in hitting large surfaces at short range, we welcomed him +cordially to our midst, and rather unwisely presented him with the +freedom of the jungle, a ceremony which carried with it the privilege +of bagging anything he could hit with his slungshot, in season or out +of it. The results of His Majesty's visit were appalling, for he had +not been with us more than six weeks before his enthusiasm getting the +better of his sportsmanship he turned the jungle into a zoological +shambles, from which it is never likely to recover. On his first day's +outing, to our dismay he brought down thirty-seven ring-tailed +ornithorhyncusses, eighteen pterodactyls, three brace of dodo, and a +domesticated diplodocus, and then assured us that he didn't know what +could be the matter with his aim that he had missed so many. The next +day he rose early, and while the rest of his suite were sleeping went +out unattended, returning before breakfast was over with a tally-card +showing a killing of thirteen dinosaurs, twenty-seven megatheriums, +and about six tons of chlamy-dophori, not to mention a mammoth +jack-rabbit that some idiot had told him was the only specimen in the +world of the monodelphian mollycoddle. The situation became very +embarrassing to us because we were on excellent terms with King Ptush +and his subjects, and we did not wish to do anything to offend either +of them, but here was a case where in the interests of our own fauna +something had to be done. Going on at the rate in which he had begun +it was easy to see that unless somebody got out an injunction +restraining him from shooting between meals it would not be many days +before there wasn't a prehistoric beast left in the whole country. It +was a mighty ticklish position for all of us. If we withdrew the +freedom of the jungle His Majesty might go home in a huff and declare +war against us, and with Noah's Ark as the sum total of our navy, and +that built in a ten-acre lot thirty miles from the coast, and no army +of any sort standing or sitting, we could hardly afford a complication +of that kind. Our wisest counsellors were called together to consider +the situation, but they were all men given to many words and lovers of +disputation, so that what with the framing of the original resolution, +and the time consumed in debating the amendments offered thereto, it +was quite three months before any definite conclusion was reached, and +it was then found when the resolution came up to its final vote that +it had nothing whatever to do with the subject the conference was +called to discuss, but had been transformed into an Act providing for +an increased duty on guinea-pigs imported from Sumatra. From that day +to this I have had little belief in that kind of popular government +which provides for the election of public servants whose chief end and +aim seems to be to thwart the public will. + +[Illustration: EXTRA!!] + +It was then that my fellow-citizens, availing themselves of a certain +diplomacy of method which I was said to possess, called upon me to +undertake a personal interview with King Ptush, and to see what could +be done to stay his voracious appetite for the slaying of our +mammalia. Always ready to serve my fellows in their hour of need, I +undertook the mission, and appeared bright and early one morning at +his encampment, unannounced, thinking it better to seem to happen in +upon him in a neighborly fashion than to make a national affair of my +mission by coming formally and with official pomp into his presence. +At the hour of my arrival the great king was standing on the stump of +a red cedar, delivering a lecture to his entourage upon "The Whole +Duty of Man, With a Few Remarks About Everything Else." But even then +he was not neglectful of his opportunities as a Nimrod, for every now +and then he would punctuate his sentences with a shot at a casual bit +of fauna passing by, either on the earth or flying, never pausing in +his lecture, but nevertheless bringing to an untimely end thirty-eight +griffins, seven paralellopipedon, a gumshurhynicus, forty google-eyed +plutocratidae, and a herd of June-bugs grazing in a neighboring +pasture--the latter wholly domesticated, by the way, and used by their +owner as spile-drivers for a dike he was building in apprehension of +Noah's predicted flood. It was then that I began to get some insight +into the character of this wonderful person, for as I sat there +listening to his discourse, delivered at the rate of five hundred +words a minute, and apparently covering seven or eight subjects not +necessarily corollary or collateral to each other, at once, and +watched him simultaneously bringing down with unerring aim this +tremendous bag of game, something of the man's intrinsic nature was +revealed to me. His strength, of which we had heard much from +travelers in his own land, lay in an almost scientific lack of +concentration, backed up by a vocabulary of tremendous scope, and a +condition of optical near-sightedness that enabled him to see but +obscurely further than the end of his nose. These attributes gave him +the power to discuss innumerable subjects coeternally, if not +coherently, using his vocabulary with such skill that his meaning +depended entirely upon the interpretation of his remarks by individual +hearers, while the limitations of vision caused him, on the sudden +appearance of masses of any sort, to shoot at them impulsively, +regardless of such minor details as consequences. As a result of these +gifts he was ever hitting something with either the arrows of speech +or the slungshot, which produced a public impression of ceaseless +activity and of material accomplishment. In addition to this it was +his wont to do all things smiling with an almost boyish manifestation +of pleasure, so that he endeared himself to the people and was +pronounced in some respects likeable even by his enemies. + +When his lecture was over he descended from his improvised platform +and greeted me most cordially. + +"Deeee-lighted!" was the exact word he used as he took my hand and +shook it until my arm worked indifferently well in its socket. + +I was not aware that His Highness had ever heard of me before, but it +was not long before I was more than glad that I had come, for it +transpired that I was the one person in all creation that he had most +wished to meet, though for what particular purpose he did not make +clear. In any event, so cordial was his reception of me that for three +or four weeks I had not the heart to mention the particular object of +my mission, and even then I was not permitted to do so because at any +time when I felt that the psychological moment had been reached he +would talk of other things, his scientific lack of concentration of +which I have already spoken enabling him with much grace to be +reminded of an experience in the Transvaal by a chance allusion of my +own to the peculiar habits of the Antillean Sardine. In the meanwhile +the work of slaughter was going on apace, and whole species were +gradually becoming extinct. Exactly five weeks after my arrival the +last Diplodocus in the world breathed its last. Two days later the +world's visible supply of Pterodactyls passed into the realms of the +annihilated. The Dodo, the largest and sweetest song-bird I have ever +known, the only bird in all the primeval forests possessed of a +diaphragm capable of expressing harmonies of what for want of a better +term I may call a Wagnerian range, quickly followed suit, and in its +train, alas! went the others, Creosauri, Dicosauri, Thracheotomi, +Megacheropodae, Manicuridae, and the Willumjay, the latter a gigantic +parrot with a voice like silver that rang continuously through the +forests like a huge fire bell. At the end of the tenth week of my +mission a message was received from Noah. + + "Dear Grandpa," he wrote: "Can't you do something to stave + off King Ptush? In making up my passenger-list I can't get + hold of enough mammals to fill an inside room. I have been + through the country with a fine-tooth comb, and as far as I + can find out there isn't a prehistoric beast left in + creation. If this thing goes on much longer I shall be + compelled to load up with a cargo of coon-cats, armadillos, + hippopotami and Plymouth rocks. Get a move on! + + "NOAH." + +My first impulse was to hand this letter without a word to His +Majesty, but on second thoughts I decided not to do this, since it +might involve me in a humiliating explanation of my grandson's foolish +obsession about the impending flood. I had too much pride to wish +King Ptush to know that I had a human brain-storm on the list of my +posterity, so I threw the brick upon which the letter was engraved +into a neighboring fish-pond, and resolved to get rid of His Majesty +by strategy. For three nights I pondered over my plan of operations, +and then the great method came to me like the dawning of the sun after +a night of abysmal darkness. I went to the royal tent and discovered +His Majesty hard at work chiseling out an article on "How I Brought +Down My First Proterosaurus" on a slab of granite he had brought with +him. As I approached he smiled broadly, and with a wave of his hand +called my attention to the previous day's bag. It covered a ten-acre +lot. + +"There isn't sawdust enough in creation to stuff half of these +beasts," he remarked proudly. "I hardly know what I shall do about +that." + +"Better bury them in the mud," I suggested, "and let them petrify." + +He seemed pleased with the idea, and later put it into operation. + +"Fossils are not so susceptible to moths," he observed as he gave +orders for their immersion in a Triassic mud-puddle of huge +proportions. "That was a good idea of yours, Methuselah." + +"I have a better one than that," I returned, seeing at last an opening +for my strategic movement. "Why should a man of Your Majesty's prowess +waste his time on such insignificant creatures as these, when the +whole country is ringing with complaints of an animal a thousand times +as large, and that no one hereabouts has ever dared attempt to +pursue?" + +He was on the alert instantly. + +"What animal do you refer to?" he demanded, his interest becoming so +deep that he put four pairs of eyeglasses upon his royal nose, so that +he could see me better. + +"It belongs to the family of Rodents," I replied. "It is without any +exception the biggest rat in the history of our mammals. It is a +combination of the Castoridae, the Chinchillidae, the Dodgastidae, and +the Lagomydian Leporidae, with just a dash of the Dippydoodle on the +maternal side." + +His Majesty gave a sigh of disappointment, and resumed his writing. + +"I haven't come here to shoot rats," he observed coldly, removing the +three extra pairs of spectacles from his nose. "I am a huntsman, not a +trapper." + +"Your Majesty does not understand that this is no ordinary rat," I +returned calmly. "If I may be permitted to continue, what would Your +Highness think of a rat that was several thousand feet higher than +the pyramids, that has lived continuously for thousands of years, and +is as fresh and green in spirit as on the day it was born? Suppose I +were to tell you that so great is its strength that I have myself seen +a whole herd of aboriginal elephants lying asleep upon its broad back? +What would you say if I told you that its epidermis is so thick that +if there were such a thing as a steam-drill in creation six hundred of +them could bore away at it night and day for as many years without +making any visible impression thereon?" + +He again put down his chisel, and laid the hammer aside, as he ranged +the extra eyeglasses along the bridge of his nose. + +"Colonel Methuselah," he said, incisively biting off his words, "if +you told me anything of the kind I should say that you are what +posterity will probably call a nature faker, and one of a +perniciously invidious sort." + +"I can bring affidavits to prove it, Your Majesty," said I. + +"It is strange that I have never heard of it before," he mused. + +"We are not particularly proud of it," I explained. "One may boast of +the number of Discosauri one finds in one's hunting preserves, or the +marvelous fish in one's lakes, or the birds of wondrous plumage that +dwell in one's forests, but none ever ventures to speak of the number +or quality of rats that infest the locality." + +"You say it overtops a pyramid?" he demanded. + +"I do," I replied. "The exact estimate of its height is sixteen +thousand nine hundred and sixty-four feet!" + +"Great Snakes!" he cried. "Why, he must be a perfect mountain!" + +"He is," I replied. "He is so tall that summer and winter the top of +his head is covered with snow." + +This was too much for King Ptush. He rose up immediately from his seat +and summoned his entourage. + +"You will make ready for a strenuous afternoon," he said to them +sharply. "I am going after the biggest game that history records. +Colonel Methuselah has just told me of a quarry alongside of which all +that we have landed in the past months sinks into insignificance." + +"You do well to call it a quarry," I cried. "There never was a +better--and it is only ten miles from here as the griffin flies." + +The king's face flushed with joy at the prospect, but suddenly a look +of perplexity came into his eyes. + +"By the way," he said, "how shall we bring him down--with a slungshot +or a catapult?" + +[Illustration: Gr't. Gr't. Gr't. Grandfather Adam as a +disciplinarian.] + +I laughed. + +"No ordinary ammunition will serve Your Majesty's purpose here," I +said. "The only thing for you to do is to steal quietly up to him +while he sleeps. Surround him in the silence of some black night, and +build a barbed-wire fence around him. Once you succeed in doing this +he will not try to get away, and you can have him removed at Your +Majesty's pleasure." + +"We go at once," cried the king, his enthusiasm aroused to the highest +pitch. "My friends," he added, drawing himself up to the full of his +soldierly height, "we go to capture the--the--the er--by the way, +Colonel, what do you call this creature?" + +"The Ararat," I replied. + +He repeated the word after me, sprang lightly into the saddle of +Griffin we had presented to him upon his arrival, and, followed by +his entourage, was off on the greatest hunt of his life. What happened +subsequently we never knew, for none of the party ever returned; but +what I do know is that my stratagem came too late. + +A subsequent investigation of our preserves showed that all our +treasured mastodons from the Jurassic, Triassic, and other periods of +history, had been killed off, root, stock and branch, by our honored +guest, and poor Noah was reduced to the necessity of drumming up trade +among such commonplace creatures as the Rhinoceri, the Yak, the +Dromedary, and that vain but ornamental combination of fuss and +feathers known as the Hen. + +The Ararat we still have with us, and as for me, I am inclined to +think that it will remain, flood or no flood, for any creature that +has successfully withstood a campaign against it by King Ptush cannot +be removed from the scene by anything short of a convulsion of +Nature. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + (This Chapter of the Autobiography of Methuselah is made up + entirely of fragments. The manuscript of the preceding + chapters was found in fine condition, and entirely + unobliterated by the passage of the centuries since it was + written, but beginning at this point cracks appear, and in + some places such complete fractures as make the continuity of + the narrative impossible. The fragments have been as + carefully deciphered as the complete chapters, however, and + are here presented for what they are worth.) + +AS TO WOMEN + + +The position of woman among us will doubtless prove of interest to +posterity. Our matrimonial laws are not all that they should be, in +my judgment, though there are men who consider them as nearly perfect +as they can be made. The idea that the best way for a young man to +declare his love for a young girl is to hit her on the head with a +wooden club and then run off with her before she regains consciousness +has never received my approval, and never will. Something should be +left for the post-nuptial life, and I cannot see how after it has been +used as an instrument of courtship a club can take its place as it +ought to as an instrument of discipline in the household. My own wives +I have invariably caught in a trap, so that later on in life, when I +have found it desirable to emphasize my authority in my home by means +of a stout stick, that emblem of power has had no glamor about it to +weaken its force as an argument.... Then as to the number of wives +that a man should be permitted to have, I am in distinct disagreement +with the majority of my neighbors, who maintain that it is entirely a +matter of individual choice as to whether a man should have five, ten +or a thousand. I should not advocate the limitation to an arbitrary +number, but I believe that the question of one's actual needs should +rule. If a man's possessions enable him to maintain a large +establishment requiring the services of a cook, a laundress, two +waitresses and four upstairs girls, eight wives would be sufficient; +but on the other hand, for a young man beginning his career who needs +only a general house-worker, one is enough. Individual cases should +regulate the law as applied to the individual, and those who claim +that they may marry any number of women, whether they need them or +not, entirely regardless of whether or not they can keep them +occupied, should be told that no man is entitled to more of the good +things of this life than he can avail himself of in his daily +procedure. Any other course than this will sooner or later result in a +great scarcity of nuptial raw material, and it is not impossible to +conceive of a day when all the women in the land will become the +property of a select, privileged few. A monopoly of this sort would +enable a few men to control posterity and build up a Trust in the +Matrimonial Industry that would engender not only a great deal of +bitter feeling between the masses and the classes, but enforce a +system of compulsory bachelorhood which ... Nevertheless, if woman +wants to vote let her do so. In spite of all that I have just said +about the subtle quality of her intellect, I still say let her vote. +What harm can come from permitting her to go to the polls and drop a +ballot in the box for this or that man, or for this or that measure? +It will please her to be allowed to do this, and by granting her +petition for the suffrage we shall put an end to an otherwise endless +disputation. I am quite sure that as long as her votes are kept +separate from the men's votes, and are _not_ counted, no possible harm +can come from a little complacency in the face of ... Personally I +have no objection to divorce. If a man marries a woman under the +impression that she is a good cook, and after the waning of the +honeymoon finds that she does not know the difference between +sponge-cake and a plain common garden sponge, why should he be forced +forevermore to court dyspepsia on her account? I fail to see either +justice or reason in this, though as to the method of divorce I +cannot agree with those who claim that as the man has married the +woman by hitting her with a club, as I have already shown, the proper +method of divorce is for the woman to return the blow with a +rolling-pin. The proper way to do is for the husband to be permitted +to return the girl to her parents as not up to the specifications, or +if she have no parents to dispose of her at the best bargain possible +to one of his neighbors who may happen to be in need of a girl of that +sort at that particular time.... But these Newport separations, as I +believe they are called, are apt to prove embarrassing, particularly +when the divorcees all happen to be present at the same dinner-table. +A lady whose hostess is the wife of her former husband, finding +herself sitting opposite the divorced wife of her present husband, who +has at one time or another been married to two or three other ladies +at the board, is not likely to be able to comport herself with that +degree of _savoir faire_ that is the ear-mark of the refined.... + +As for the mother-in-law, for certain reasons of a private nature I +was not going to speak of her in these memoirs, but after mature +reflection upon the subject I deem it my duty to posterity to say +that.... + + +SOME LONG-FELT WANTS + +I have often wished that in my youth I had studied science a little +more carefully. It is growing very obvious to me the longer I live +that there are a number of little things that we need in this world to +make life more comfortable. It does not seem to me beyond reason to +think that by the use of a proper mechanism these thunderbolts that +play about the heavens can be made to do errands for us. It angers me +to see so much light going to waste in the heavens from the flash of +the lightning, when it might be stored up for use instead of these +intolerable axle-grease dips that we are forced to use to light us on +our way to bed. I don't see why some one cannot entrap one of these +bolts on a wire, just as we catch a rat in a trap, and keep it running +round and round a loop, giving out its light until it is exhausted.... +It would be pleasant, too, to have a kind of carriage that would go of +its own power. I cannot quite reason the thing out, but I believe that +the time will come when there will be something of the sort. I +remember back in my four-hundred-and-fifty-second year finding one of +my father's farm wagons on the top of the hill back of the cow +pasture. I wheeled it to the edge of the descent, and was much +delighted to see it go speeding down to the base of the hill, +gathering momentum at every turn of the wheels, and ending up by +hitting the back door of Uncle Zibb's cottage with such force that it +came out of the front parlor window before stopping. This seemed to +indicate that under certain circumstances a wheeled vehicle could be +made to go without a horse, but in what precise way it can be brought +about the limitations of my mechanical training prevent me from +determi ... I was watching the heated vapor rising from our tea-kettle +the other night, and was much diverted to notice that it made a +whistling sort of sound as it emerged from the nozzle of the pot. It +ran from B sharp to high C, and was loud enough to be heard on the +other side of the room. It has occurred to me that there may be in +this some hidden principle that will some day enable man to make this +vapor do his work for him, especially along musical lines. Surely if +this misty substance can make a tea-kettle squeak, why should it not, +if multiplied in volume and run through a trombone, afford us a +capable substitute for Bill Watkins, who plays second base on our +Village Band? + + +AS TO PROPHECIES + +If our Prophets would only confine themselves to probabilities I am +inclined to think we should take more stock in the things they +foretell. I am impelled to the making of this reflection by the +presence in our town of an Astrologer who is setting all the women by +the ears by prophesying a day when they will not have to do their own +housework, and will thrive in many lines of endeavor now open solely +to men. He is an interesting old fellow, in spite of the foolishness +of his predictions; but when he tells the women's clubs that in some +far off century women will be found writing novels, and adorning +themselves with rich fabrics, and surrounded by a class of paid +toilers who will do nothing but minister to their ease and comfort, I +lose all patience with him. It is filling their minds with socialistic +notions that are impairing their usefulness, and I have had to +chastise seven of my own fair helpmeets this past week for neglecting +their duties and treating my instructions with contempt. A curious +thing about his prophecies is their confirmation of Adam's fears as to +the ultimate result of these new-fangled ideas as to dress, and, what +interested me more than anything else, he predicted a machine called a +Moh-Thor-Cah, that not only runs along without outside assistance, +but is propelled entirely by the same vapor that I have spoken of +before as striking the high C in the nozzle of my tea-kettle. He goes +too far with this, as well as with his other prophecies, for he says +that there will be a time when ships larger than Noah's Ark will be +forced across great bodies of water by this same power. The idea of +anybody, after Noah's experience, being foolish enough to build a +craft of that kind, to say nothing of working it with a tea-kettle, is +preposterously abs ... In one of his visions he claims to have seen a +gathering of people, called a city, in which there are to be more than +four million souls, and governed not by the virtuous, as in our own +day, but by the most desperate political malefactors that ever banded +together for plunder, and this at the direct request of the people +themselves! I am perfectly aware that human nature is weak, and given +over at times to strange delusions, but that any body of +self-respecting persons should deliberately and of their own free will +turn the management of their affairs over to those who would more +properly grace a jail than a City Hall, surpasses belie ... + + +MISCELLANEOUS FRAGMENTS + +... cannot be denied that a daily newspaper would be an interesting +thing, if it were possible to print it, but I doubt its real value. I +dislike gossip, and I do not see how the newspaper could fill up +without it. What advantage is it to me to know that Hiram +Wigglesworth, of Ararat Corners, who is unknown to me, was arrested on +Thursday evening for beating his wife? Why should I be called upon to +impair the value of my eyes by reading in small type all the +scandalous details of the separation proceedings between two people I +never saw and would not permit to enter my front door if they came to +call? It is nothing to me that Mrs. Zebulon Zebedee, of Enochsville, +has spent thirty thousand clam-shells a year on bottled grape-juice, +and run up bills against her husband's account at the diamond-quarries +for two or three hundred thousand tons of wampum, and if she chooses +to go joy-riding on a Diplodocus with a gentleman from the Circus, it +is Zebulon Zebedee's business, not mine, and a newspaper that insisted +upon dumping this unsavory mess on my breakfast-table every morning +would sooner or later become an unmitigated nuis ... + + * * * * * + +... but he pays no attention to my protestations. I think the oldtime +method of walloping them every Sunday morning, on the principle that +they deserved it for something they had done during the past week, was +a good one. Shem and Japhet are not so bad, but since Ham came back +from the Ararat Academy of Higher Learning he has been about as +useless a member of the community as we have ever had. What he doesn't +know would fill six hundred volumes of the Triassic Cyclopaedia. I +caught him only the other night trying to teach his grandmother to +suck eggs, although my estimable wife was a past-mistress of that art +four hundred years before he was born. He has absolutely no respect +for age, and frequently refers to me as "the old boy," criticizes my +clothes, and remarks apropos of my patriarchal garments that +night-shirts as an article of dress for a five o'clock tea went out a +thousand years ago. Indeed, so disrespectful is he that I sometimes +wonder if he is not a foundling. I note two suspicious things in +respect to him. The first is that he is getting blacker in the face +every day, which suggests that there is in him somewhere a strain of +the AEthiopian, none of which he gets from me or his grandmother, who +was an Albino. And the second is that his father will not allow him to +be spanked, a very strange inhibition, I think, unless that operation +would disclose the boy's possession of the Missing Link. Indeed, I +should not be at all surprised to discover that the lad is either an +AEthiopian, or a direct descendant of Adam's old friend and neighbor, +Col. Darwin J. Simian, of Coacoa-on-Nut. In all of my reflections on +the subject of the training of the young, manual training has always +seemed to me the most efficacious, especially if in applying the hand +you do not restrain its force, and are not loath to use the hair-brush +or a good leathern trunk-strap as an auxiliary. And in order to +ensure their freedom from evil associations, and to keep them from +making the night hideous by their raucous yells, I have never heard of +anything better than the method of Doctor Magog Rodd, of the +Enochsville Military Academy, who kept his students in cages and +corked them up every night before they retir ... + +[Illustration: The Head Nurse of the Adam Family.] + + * * * * * + +... so no more at present. My manuscript already weighs three hundred +and forty tons, and every word of it has been gouged out with my own +hands--a difficult operation for a man of my years. I am painfully +aware of its shortcomings, but such as it is it is, and so it must +remain. There is no time left for its revision, and, indeed, a man +who has just celebrated his nine hundred and sixty-ninth birthday can +hardly be expected ... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH*** + + +******* This file should be named 20766.txt or 20766.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/6/20766 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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