LYNX-DEV LYNX: too good not to post!

[David Combs]

Article: 346099 of rec.humor
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Subject: garden of eden, twain,  long for some
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 14:59:34 GMT
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                                Adams Diary
        MONDAY. -- This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the
way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this;
I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals....
Cloudy to-day, wind in the east; think we shall have rain. WE? Where did I
get that word? -- I remember now -- the new creature uses it.
 
        TUESDAY. -- Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing
on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls -- why, I
am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a
reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name
anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before
I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered -- it looks
like the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks
at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to
keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no
good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.

        WEDNESDAY. -- Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have
it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it
out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with
the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals
make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always
talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I
do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new
and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these
dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first
on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that are
more or less distant from me.

        FRIDAY. -- The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can
do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty --
GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer
publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and
therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and
does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting
me, it has been new-named -- NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently
high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up:
           KEEP OFF
           THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

        SATURDAY. -- The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run
short, most likely. "We" again -- that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from
hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the
fog myself. The new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps
right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and
quiet here. 

        SUNDAY. -- Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more
trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I had
already six of them per week before. This morning found the new creature
trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

        MONDAY. -- The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I
have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I
said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect;
and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition. It says it is
not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me;
what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk.

        TUESDAY. -- She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and
offensive signs:

   THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL.
   THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.
   CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any custom
for it. Summer resort -- another invention of hers -- just words, without
any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask her, she
has such a rage for explaining.

        FRIDAY. -- She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.
What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have
always done it -- always liked the plunge, and the excitement and the
coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use
that I can see, and they must have been made for something She says they
were only made for scenery -- like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel -- not satisfactory to her. Went over in
a tub -- still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in a
fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about my
extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is change of scene.

        SATURDAY. -- I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and
built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as
well as I could, but she hunted me cut by means of a beast which she has
tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and
shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to
return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers.
She engages herself in many foolish things; among others, to study out why
the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she
says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to
eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each
other, and that would introduce what, as I understand it, is called
"death"; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park.
Which is a pity, on some accounts. 

        SUNDAY. -- Pulled through.

        MONDAY. -- I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to
rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea.... She has been
climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was
looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any
dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved her admiration
and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.

        TUESDAY. -- She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.
This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any
rib. .
...She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with
it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed
flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with what it is provided.
We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

        SATURDAY. -- She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at
herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said it
was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which live in
there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things
that don't need them and don't come when they are called by them, which is
a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a numskull, anyway; so she
got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed
to keep warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day and I don't see
that they are any happier there than they were before, only quieter. When
night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not sleep with them again,
for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't
anything on. 

        SUNDAY. -- Pulled through.

        TUESDAY. -- She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are
glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I
am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.

        FRIDAY. -- She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that
tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I
told her there would be another result, too -- it would introduce death
into the world, That was a mistake -- it had been better to keep the remark
to myself; it only gave her an idea -- she could save the sick buzzard, and
furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to
keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
emigrate.

        WEDNESDAY. -- I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and
rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of
the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin;
but it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through a
flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or
playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they
broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a
frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what
it meant -- Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.
....The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention when I ordered them to
desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed -- which I didn't, but
went away in much haste.... I found this place, out side the Park, and was
fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out. Found me out,
and has named the place Tonawanda -- says it LOOKS like that. In fact I was
not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought
some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was
against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except
when one is well fed.... She came curtained in boughs and bunches of
leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and
snatched them away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had
never seen a person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming
and idiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was
correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten -- certainly the
best one I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season -- and arrayed
myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with
some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a
spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where the
wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her patch
together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are
uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about
clothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be
lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.
Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living
hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend . 

        TEN DAYS LATER. -- She accuses ME of being the cause of our disaster!
She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her
that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was
innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent
informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative term meaning an aged and
moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the
weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort. though I had
honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me if I
had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit
that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I was
thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful it is to see
that vast body of water tumble down there!" Then in an instant a bright
thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal
more wonderful to see it tumble UP there!"  and I was just about to kill
myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in war and death and
I had to flee for my life. "There," she said, with triumph, "that is just
it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut,
and said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame.
Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!

        NEXT YEAR. -- We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up
country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a
couple of miles from our dug-out -- or it might have been four, she isn't
certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is
what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference in
size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal
-- a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and
she plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the
experiment to deter mine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she is
indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I do not
understand this. The coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole
nature and made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more of it
than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able to explain why.
Her mind is disordered - - everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the
fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the
water. At such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she
looks out of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with
her mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred
ways. I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it
troubles me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and play
with them, before we lost our property, but it was only play; she never
took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.

        SUNDAY. -- She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,
and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to
amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have
not seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have
come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.
There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now
they come handy. 

        WEDNESDAY. -- It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It
makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when
it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it
doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for
it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a
chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and
mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do
that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the
word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or
some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its
arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.
 
        THREE MONTHS LATER. -- The perplexity augments instead of diminishing.
I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its
four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals, in that
its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the main part
of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not
attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of traveling shows
that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones
indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of
the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does.
Still it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been cataloged
before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing the credit of
the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have called it
KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS.... It must have been a young one when i
t came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five times as big,
now, as it was then, and when discontented it is able to make from
twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first. Coercion does
not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I
discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it
things which she had previously told it she wouldn't give it. As already
observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found
it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must
be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another
one to add to my collection, and for this one to play with; for surely then
it would be quieter and we could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor
any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the
ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without
leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all
small animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of
curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.

        THREE MONTHS LATER. -- The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is
very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its
growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like
our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of being
black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing
developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch
another one -- but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only
sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in,
thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for company
than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to or get
sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do not know
its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is among friends;
but it was a mistake -- it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo
that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the poor noisy
little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could
tame it -- but that is out of the question; the more I try the worse I seem
to make it. It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of
sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it.
That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. It might be
lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how could IT?

        FIVE MONTHS LATER. -- It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself
by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and
then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail
-- as yet -- and no fur, except on its head. It still keeps on growing --
that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than
this. Bears are dangerous -- since our catastrophe -- and I shall not be
satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer without a
muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one
go, but it did no good -- she is determined to run us into all sorts of
foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she lost her mind.

        A FORTNIGHT LATER. -- I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it
has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it
ever did before -- and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go
over, mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a
mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear
does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.

        FOUR MONTHS LATER. -- I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up
in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is
because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned to
paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa" and "momma."
It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may be purely
accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that
ease it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do.
This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur and
entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of
bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting. Meantime I
will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the north and make an
exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this
one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own species. I will
go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

        THREE MONTHS LATER. -- It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had
no success. In the meantime, without stirring from the home estate, she has
caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these woods
a hundred years; I never would have run across that thing.

        NEXT DAY. -- I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and
it is perfectly plain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff
one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some
reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a
mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get
away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like the
parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much,
and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be
astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not
to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think of
since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly now as
the old one was at first; has the same sulfur-and-raw-meat complexion and
the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.

        TEN YEARS LATER. -- They are BOYS; we found it out long ago. It was
their coming in that small, immature shape that puzzled us; we were not
used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had
stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I see that
I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the
Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked
too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass
out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and
taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her
spirit!