rough fear that little
Methuselah would eat too many papaws, or drink too much goat's milk.
It is a marvel, we think, that in spite of the indulgence and the
petting in which he was reared, Methuselah grew to be a good, kind man.

Profane historians agree that just about the time he reached the age of
ninety-four Methuselah became deeply enamoured of a comely and
sprightly damsel named Mizpah,--a young thing scarce turned
seventy-six. Up to this period of adolescence his cautious father
Enoch had kept Methuselah out of all love entanglements, and it is
probable that he would not have approved of this affair with Mizpah had
not Jared, the boy's grandfather, counselled Enoch to give the boy a
chance. But alas and alackaday for the instability of youthful
affection! It befell in an evil time that there came over from the
land of Nod a frivolous and gorgeously apparelled beau, who, with
finely wrought phrases, did so fascinate the giddy Mizpah that
incontinently she gave Methuselah the mitten, and went with the dashing
young stranger of 102 as his bride.

This shocking blow so grievously affected Methuselah that for some time
(that is to say, for a period of ninety-one years) he shunned female
society. But having recovered somewhat from the bitterness of that
great disappointment received in the callowness of his ninth decade, he
finally met and fell in love with Adah, a young woman of 148, and her
he married. The issue of this union was a boy whom they named Lamech,
and this child from the very hour of his birth gave his father vast
worriment, which, considering the disparity in their ages, is indeed
most shocking of contemplation. The tableau of a father (aged 187)
vainly coddling a colicky babe certainly does not call for our
enthusiasm. Yet we presume to say that Methuselah bore his trials
meekly, that he cherished and adored the baby, and that he spent weeks
and months playing peek-a-boo and ride-a-cock-horse. In all our
consideration of Methuselah we must remember that the mere matter of
time was of no consequence to him.

Lamech grew to boyhood, involving his father in all those ridiculous
complications which parents nowadays do not heed so much, but which
must have been of vast annoyance to a man of Methuselah's advanced age
and proper notions. Whittling with the old gentleman's razor, hooking
off from school, trampling down the neighbors' rowen, tracking mud into
the front parlor--these were some of Lam