Thou seest not how thy family is going to destruction.

Oh, the abominations!" Thus warned and put on his mettle, Moses would keep a keen look-out on his hopeful family for the next day, and the seed which the grandmother had sown came up in black and blue bruises or, the family anatomy, especially on that portion of it which belonged to Solomon.

For Moses's crumbling trousers were buckled with a stout strap, and Solomon was a young rogue who did his best to dodge the Almighty, and had never heard of Lowell's warning, You've gut to git up airly, Ef you want to take in God.
Even if he had heard of it, he would probably have retorted that he usually got up early enough to take in his father, who was the more immediately terrible of the two.

Nevertheless, Solomon learned many lessons at his father's knee, or rather, across it.

In earlier days Solomon had had a number of confidential transactions with his father's God, making bargains with Him according to his childish sense of equity.
If, for instance, God would ensure his doing his sums correctly, so that he should be neither caned nor "kept in," he would say his morning prayers without skipping the aggravating _Longe Verachum_, which bulked so largely on Mondays and Thursdays; otherwise he could not be bothered.
By the terms of the contract Solomon threw all the initiative on the Deity, and whenever the Deity undertook his share of the contract, Solomon honorably fulfilled his.