Chapter LIII: Another Fern

I've been reading the Bible, to-day, and it strikes me that our foremothers were not very correct old ladies. Who flirted with the old serpent? How came Sampson's hair cut off and his peepers extinguished? Who perforated Jael's head with tenpenny nails? How came Jonah sent on a whale-ing voyage? Who helped Ananias tell fibs? Who put Job up to swearing? Who raised a perfect hurricane in good old Abram's house! Who danced John the Baptist's head off his shoulders, hey? I'd like to have you notice (that's all,) what a stock we all sprung from.

"If _they_ weren't tee-totally depraved, may I never find out which of 'em I descended from! They didn't seem to have the least consideration for future generations 'long since unborn.' Now I don't calculate, myself, to feel responsible for _their_ capers. I've read somewhere, in Byron, I believe, that every washtub must stand on its own pedestal! (or something like that.) I don't believe in saddling my shoulders with their old-fashioned transgressions.

"Curious, though, isn't it? the mischief women make in the world? Great pity Noah hadn't set Mrs. Noah _adrift_ when he 'took one of each kind in the ark." I should rather have stood my chance for a ducking, than to have been shut up with such a 'promiskus' men-agerie. Noah was a worthy old gentleman. No mention made of his getting tipsy but once, I believe."

_Nota Bene._--We cannot help being a little amused at
Fanny's comical want of Scriptural information. Our Bible
represents Jael as a _woman_, not by any means "perforated
with tenpenny nails," though she did try the "perforating"
experiment with excellent success, on the head of Sisera
"the captain of Jabin's army." Oh, wondrous Fanny, those
early Sabbath-school lessons must have been long ago
forgotten!