METHUSELAH’S DIARY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 884, 14 February 1907, Page 22

METHUSELAH’S DIARY.

Year 687 . since opening day at the Garden of Eden. Am thirty years old today ; just cut my last eye-tooth. Ma gave me a piece of Adam’s suspender buckle to chew on while it was coming through. After Pa gave me the bottle I went to sleep. Year 697. —Celebrated my fortieth birthday yes.erday by going to Adam’s funeral. Pa carried me on his shoulder, ’cause there was so many animals present. They buried Adam close to the garden wall in the shade of the old apple tree which Eve loved so well. Pa said Adam locked just as natural as he did four hundred years ago, when Pa and little Cainy ki led snakes together. Most everybody on earth was at the funeral. Ma and Mrs Eve sat together. All the

animals that Adam had named marched in the funeral procession, except the serpent, and-Eve wouldn’t invite him. He was awful mad and sent in a bunch of app-e blossoms, but Eve just turned her back , and said, “Fruit gratefully declined.” . Year 757. —Just seventy years old; went to schoo. for the first time to-day. Little Noah and me sat together. He got licked ’cause he spent all his time making boats out of birch-bark. I don’t like Noah very well, ’cause he keeps saying all the time: “It’s goin’ to rain pitch-forks.” He’s got a regular managerie in his backyard. My teacher is Mrs Abel. She is the first widow ever ed. Once I heard Pa say he wished Ma made. She seems so happy and contentwas a widow, but Ma said : “Cheer up, pa, you’ve only got six hundred more years of it.” Pa only said: “How time flies.” To-day I walked home from school with Eve’s little granddaughter, Serpentina. She is just ten years younger than I be, which makes her sixty, but she don’t look it. She still wears short dresses and her golden hair hangs down her back. Year 987. —I now feel I am old enough to look out for myself. Just celebrated my three hundred and first birthday this morning. I voted for Noah as head of the Department of Animal Industry and Commissioner of the Water Department. His habit of predicting rain grows upon him, so that he now carries an umbrella and a life preserver everywhere he goes. Old man Enoch came to me to-day, and said he wanted to have a little confidential talk with me, so we sat on the banks of the Euphrates, and he said : “Methus, now you have been courting my daughter nearly two hundred years and Ma and I begin to wonder if you really mean biz or just pass’ng the time away. Serpentina will be 281 years old coming next wash-day and we feel we hadn’t orter be supporting her more than another hundred years just to entertain you.” He said : “You- see, Noah has offered her the job of sorting animals and getting the right two together, against the time he’s goin’ on the road with ’em.” Well, I told him I’d been building me a hut for the last forty years, and the architect promised it wou d be done eighteen years ago, but he had gone to his dinner and I had not seen him for three years. I told him I would run over home and shave and would be back in six months and then we would talk business.

Year 1000. —Been down to the Euphrates to bathe; stayed under water four days. I can beat Noah by nine hours; first bath I’ve taken in twelve years. Am going to marry Serpentina early the next century. My heart palpitates so I can scarcely write just at the thought of its close approach. Noah is going to stand

me we can go with him on his voyage for our honeymoon, even if it doe- rain, ’cause he wants another pair of woing doves aboard. He promised , that we could keep our wedding trousseau in the elephant’s trunk.

Year 1487. —I am now’ a grandfather. They have just finished taking a census of my children and grandchildren. As near as we can count and estimate, there are 946 of them. Everybody says Noah has gone clean batty over the indications for the weather, predicts rain every day in the year. He has covered three farms with a boat he calls the ark. Says if I don’t take some stock with him on the deal, I’ll be sorry. Says I can have a rain-check if I don’t want to stay. Don’t believe he’ll ever float it. The bulls and bears are already fighting which’ll get in on the ground floor. Year 1587- —Feel awful lonesome. Every feller who was born anywhere near me has been dead two hundred years. My descendants have been calling upon me all day for the last five years, and I have not seen half of them yet. Wouldn’t know ’em if I did. Guess I won’t leave a will, ’cause if they quarrelled over it, there would be a revo'ution in Asia Minor. Have just sent out invitations to my funeral. Noah says I was wise to get in out of the rain, ’cause it is surely coming. The ark stock has not yet been floated. If I wasn’t so old I’d wait and see him float his manageri e boat, but I guess I have got my money’s worth and won’t wait for any side-shows. Serpentina says I must not die until she finishes telling me for the eight hundred thousandth time how her grandmother Eve was dressed when she and Adam were married. P.S.—As the oldest inhabitant in the village I feel that more respect should be accorded my opinions of Noah and his foolishness. —De Witt C. Wilcox.