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 a