The Autobiography of Methuselah
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Autobiography of Methuselah
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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.
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