om 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