I went to picnics and dances and parties with the
fellows, and tried to carry on and talk nonsense with the girls,
but it wasn't any use; I couldn't take to it--fact is, it was an
awful bore. What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and
something to DO; and when my work was done, I wanted to sit quiet,
and smoke and think--not tear around with a parcel of giddy young
kids. You can't think what I suffered whilst I was young."
"How long was you young?"
"Only two weeks. That was plenty for me. Laws, I was so lonesome!
You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two
years; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only
a-b-c to me. And to hear them argue--oh, my! it would have been
funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the
ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with
the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a
conceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks
was a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head again,
and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock
or a tree."
"Well," says I, "do you mean to say you're going to stand still at
seventy-two, forever?"
"I don't know, and I ain't particular. But I ain't going to drop
back to twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well. I know a
sight more than I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning,
all the time, but I don't seem to get any older.
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