Sketches New and Old, Part 3. Read online

  SOME LEARNED FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

  PART THIRD

  Near the margin of the great river the scientists presently found a huge,shapely stone, with this inscription:

  "In 1847, in the spring, the river overflowed its banks and covered the whole township. The depth was from two to six feet. More than 900 head of cattle were lost, and many homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetuate the event. God spare us the repetition of it!"

  With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse succeeded in making atranslation of this inscription, which was sent home, and straightway anenormous excitement was created about it. It confirmed, in a remarkableway, certain treasured traditions of the ancients. The translation wasslightly marred by one or two untranslatable words, but these did notimpair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here presented:

  "One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, the (fires?) descended and consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others destroyed. The (king?) commanded this stone to be set up to . . . (untranslatable) . . . prevent the repetition of it."

  This was the first successful and satisfactory translation that had beenmade of the mysterious character let behind him by extinct man, and itgave Professor Woodlouse such reputation that at once every seat oflearning in his native land conferred a degree of the most illustriousgrade upon him, and it was believed that if he had been a soldier and hadturned his splendid talents to the extermination of a remote tribe ofreptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich. And this,too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists,whose specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinctbird termed Man. [For it is now decided that Man was a bird and not areptile.] But Professor Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, forit was granted that no translations were ever so free from error as his.Others made mistakes he seemed incapable of it. Many a memorial of thelost race was afterward found, but none ever attained to the renown andveneration achieved by the "Mayoritish Stone" it being so called from theword "Mayor" in it, which, being translated "King," "Mayoritish Stone"was but another way of saying "King Stone."

  Another time the expedition made a great "find." It was a vast roundflattish mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high.Professor Snail put on his spectacles and examined it all around, andthen climbed up and inspected the top. He said:

  "The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetricalprotuberance is a belief at it is one of those rare and wonderfulcreation left by the Mound Builders. The fact that this one islamellibranchiate in its formation, simply adds to its interest as beingpossibly of a different kind from any we read of in the records ofscience, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let themegalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctoryand circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations may be madeand learning gather new treasures."

  Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by aworking party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been agreat disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained thematter. He said:

  "It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of MoundBuilders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in thiscase, as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here,along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life. Is notthis manifest?"

  "True! true!" from everybody.

  "Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery whichgreatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishingit; a discovery which will add luster to the achievements of thisexpedition and win for us the commendations of scholars everywhere.For the absence of the customary relics here means nothing less thanthis: The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage reptile wehave been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation and highintelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements of thegreat and noble of his species, but of commemorating them!Fellow-scholars, this stately Mound is not a sepulcher, it is a monument!"

  A profound impression was produced by this.

  But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter--and the Tumble-Bugappeared.

  "A monument!" quoth he. "A monument setup by a Mound Builder! Aye, soit is! So it is, indeed, to the shrewd keen eye of science; but to an,ignorant poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a Monument,strictly speaking, but is yet a most rich and noble property; and withyour worship's good permission I will proceed to manufacture it intospheres of exceedings grace and--"

  The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draftsmen of theexpedition were set to making views of the Monument from differentstandpoints, while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientific zeal,traveled all over it and all around it hoping to find an inscription.But if there had ever been one, it had decayed or been removed by somevandal as a relic.

  The views having been completed, it was now considered safe to load theprecious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoisesand send it home to the king's museum, which was done; and when itarrived it was received with enormous Mat and escorted to its futureabiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI.himself attending and condescending to sit enthroned upon it throughoutthe progress.

  The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists toclose their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journeyhomeward. But even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit; for oneof the scholars found in an out-of-the-way corner of the Museum or"Burial Place" a most strange and extraordinary thing. It was nothingless than a double Man-Bird lashed together breast to breast by a naturalligament, and labeled with the untranslatable words, "Siamese Twins."The official report concerning this thing closed thus:

  "Wherefore it appears that there were in old times two distinct speciesof this majestic fowl, the one being single and the other double. Naturehas a reason for all things. It is plain to the eye of science that theDouble-Man originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded; hence hewas paired together to the end that while one part slept the other mightwatch; and likewise that, danger being discovered, there might always bea double instead of a single power to oppose it. All honor to themystery-dispelling eye of godlike Science!"

  And near the Double Man-Bird was found what was plainly an ancient recordof his, marked upon numberless sheets of a thin white substance and boundtogether. Almost the first glance that Professor Woodlouse threw into itrevealed this following sentence, which he instantly translated and laidbefore the scientists, in a tremble, and it uplifted every soul therewith exultation and astonishment:

  "In truth it is believed by many that the lower animals reason and talktogether."

  When the great official report of the expedition appeared, the abovesentence bore this comment:

  "Then there are lower animals than Man! This remarkable passage can meannothing else. Man himself is extinct, but they may still exist. Whatcan they be? Where do they inhabit? One's enthusiasm bursts all boundsin the contemplation of the brilliant field of discovery andinvestigation here thrown open to science. We close our labors with thehumble prayer that your Majesty will immediately appoint a commission andcommand it to rest not nor spare expense until the search for thishitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned withsuccess."

  The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long absence and itsfaithful endeavors, and was received with a mighty ovation by the wholegrateful country. There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, asthere always are and always will be; and naturally one of these was theobscene Tumble-Bug. He said that all he had learned by his travels wasthat science only needed a spoonful of supposition to build a mountain ofdemonstrated fact out of; and that for the future he meant to be contentwith the knowled
ge that nature had made free to all creatures and not goprying into the august secrets of the Deity.