VI

The population of this town on yesterday was seven thousand nine
hundred and twenty; today it is seven thousand, nine hundred and
twenty-_one_. The inhabitants of the globe are enriched by the same
stupendous unit; the solar system must adjust itself to new laws of
equilibrium; the choir of angels is sweetened by the advent of another
musician. During the night Georgiana bore a son--not during the night,
but at dawn, and amid such singing of birds that every tree in the yard
became a dew-hung belfry of chimes, ringing a welcome to the heir of
this old house and of these old trees--to the dispenser of seed during
winters to come--to the proprietor of a whole race of seed-scatterers
as long as nature shall be harsh and seasons shall return.

I had already bought the largest family Bible in the town as a
repository for his name, Adam Cobb Moss, which in clear euphony is most
fit to be enrolled among the sweetly sounding vocables of the Hebrew
children. The page for the registration of later births in my family
is so large and the lines ruled across it are so many that I am deeply
mortified over this solitary entry at the top. But surely Georgiana
and I would have to live far past the ages of Abraham and Sarah to fill
it with the requisite wealth of offspring, beginning as we do, and
being without divine assistance. When the name of our eldest-born is
inscribed in this Bible, not far away will be found a scene in the home
of his first parents, Georgiana and I being only the last of these, and
giving, as it were, merely the finishing Kentucky touch to his Jewish
origin.

But I gambol in spirit like a hawk in the air. Let me hood myself with
parental cares: I have been a sire for half a day.

I am speechless before the stupendous wisdom of my son in view of his
stupendous ignorance. Already he lectures to the old people about the
house on the perfect conduct of life, and the only preparation that he
requires for his lectures is a few drops of milk. By means of these,
and without any knowledge of anatomy, he will show us, for instance,
what it is to be master of the science of vital functions. When he
regards it necessary to do anything, he does it instantly and
perfectly, and the world may take the consequences and the result. He
forthwith addresses himself to fresh comfort and new enterprises for
self-development. Beyond what is vital he refuses to go; things that
do not concern him he lets alone. He has