"His great—" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Grandfather," said Susan. "Yes, Mrs. Lathrop, that is how it was, an' Mrs. Macy says it's really so, for she see the tombstones all but the mother's—hers ain't done yet. Seems the idiocy come from the great-grandfather's stoppin' on the train crossin' to pick up a frog 'cause he was runnin' for suthin' in connection with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."
"The frog!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"No, the great-grandfather. Seems he never stopped to consider as what'd kill a frog would be sure to hit him, an' Mrs. Macy says the doctors said as that was one very strong piece o' evidence against the family brains right at the start, but she says he really was smarter than they thought, for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals paid for the funeral an' for the grandmother's, too."
"The grand—" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"—Mother's," said Susan. "Yes, seems the railway track was their back fence an' she'd always begged an' prayed him at the top o' her voice not to go to town that way, but he would n't listen 'cause he was stone-deaf an' then besides like all that kind he always pretended not to hear what he did n't want to. But anyhow she was in the garden an' she see the train an' she tried to get to him, an' whether she broke a blood vessel yellin' or contracted heart disease hoppin' up an' down, anyway she fell over right then an' there an' it would have been copied in all the newspapers all over the country even if the mother—"
"The moth—" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Er," said Susan. "Yes, seems she heard the yell an' run to the window so quick she knocked the stick out as held it up an' it come down on her head. So, you see the idiocy come right straight down in the family of the idiot for three generations afore him."
"I ain't sure," said Mrs. Lathrop, thoughtfully.
"I ain't either," said Susan; "Mrs. Macy says, she was n't either. No one in Meadville never was."