Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1878-12-05
BIOGRAPHY OF METHUSELAH.
His Tremendous Boyhood---His Rich
and Rare Experience as Boy.

1llO CllACAlIAOuS 1Uy uUUu---lllc lOlCu
and Rare Experience as Boy.
From the Cincinnati Saturday Night.
What tremendous boyhood old Me-
thuselah had? He died at the rather ad-
vanced age of $50 years, about 900 years
more than mans span of life. At that
rate, when he was 300 years old. he about
equaled an ordinary lad of sixteen. He
was thirty or forty before his parents
bought him rattle to play with, and he
didn't have the measles and other infan-
tile diseases until he was over 100. He
was in no sort of hurry about these things,
as he had 50 far to 60. We imagine that
he was rather delicate child to begin
with, as most people were who lived to a
great age. We can imagine his mothers
anxiety with regard to his delicate con.
stitution, telling Mrs. Bro gn; across the
~, On his nineteenth irthday, that she
n as afaid she snevet uld be able to
raise that child" Generations of men
lived and passed away while he was 60
ing arounn in petticoats, land he was al
most centenarian when ne got his first
he was $50 for robbing neighbours wa
termelon patch.
Young Methuselah was probably. in
the vicinity of a hundred years old when
he was first sent to school. We can i'm
agine him sitting on the low bench learn
ing the a-b-abs, among the great-great-
grand children Of people who began life
when he did. He was miscellaneous, of
course-all boys are, no matter what their
age 1--WE experience mild fiiskiness
ourselves occasionally, and had to be
punished for it.
"William Henry Methuselah, stand up y
says the teacher, catching him in the very
act of placing a bent pin in seat
where schoolmate Yves about to sit down
''What do you mean by such conduct as
th1s?"
Young Mathuselah begins to sniffle
and wipe his eyes on the corner of his
jacket.
zone would think" continues the
teacher, sternly, 'that you wasn't over
seventy-fve or eighty years old by the
lay you behave. Instead of that you
have already celebrated your first centen-
NAL almost young man, in fact. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself"
Then Methuselah is condemned, as an
expiration, to ':sit among the girls" until
recess, and ifyou think that ISL t an agree
| able form of punishment you will have
to ask some one older than Methuselah.
Whenever circus came to town, with
"chldren half price on its bills, young
Methuselah must have experienced diff
| Guilty in making the ticket-seller under.
stand that he was entitled to go in on a
half price ticket, particularly after he
had got along toward his 200th year.
But he probably did it. Boys are enter
prising and persistent where circus is
concerned. And we will bet that Methus-
elah, in his youthful days, could accumu-
late as much old iron as the next boy
and lay it up for the coming show.
When this youngster got in his teens
say from 200 to 800 years old-he prob.
ably did as other young gentlemen Of
tender age do, went around with the
! girls. 1t must have been s little empar
RAISING to him, after beauing a young
lady about spell-taking her to-concerts
parties, balls ctc.-to discover, that sht
was great-great- of. some ole
friend of his fathers, but. these things
are inevitable under the peculiar and ex
cept1onal character of the 'circum stances
They could hardly be otherwise Their.
is no record to show that any woma,
lived in his time to an age that woult
compare with his. And if there had, thu
world would never have known It
! At least, not from her. She wouldn'
have acknowledged to anything owe
4 forty had she lived twice the age o
Methuselah. That1s the kind Of hair
q pin q woman lis. ..rEz.zs. s ss}$:rss
I Employing the proportion Of twenty
one to seventy to Methuselah's years, "
find that he was a minor until he was 81
years old. If+the laws regulating minor
were enforced in his day, young N ethuse
] lab must have been run out Of billiard
!: rooms and shut out from bars for owe
two centuries. And what's sensation mus
have been created when he stepped d
. to deposit his first vote. OF course b
] voted for all the Presidents, from Wash
ington whom he remembers <hakin,
!, hands with down. Ali the old M ntd i,
/. that. And when he got to Be along i
d years, say 900 or such 8 matter, be coul,
& Islt and tell the boys about the hard win
ter of '32, and the panicof 81, and tn
q Hood Of ,39, and the hard cider ca,npaig
! ofs40, and all thst sort Of thing. hi
, ID all we have to- write AT preseflt d
Methuselah, the original oldest inhabi
/ tant."