"Her?"
"Well, him or her. All their names are nice and non-committal. They can be boys or girls, whichever they like."
"I should think they were committed to a great deal, in either event."
"Well, children," Grandmother appeared behind a platter heaped high with crisp, hot doughnuts, "have you got a good appetite for your breakfast?"
"It seems so funny to think of your being Grandmas child," Elizabeth said.
"But I am."
"Well, it's hard to believe it."
Grandfather, who had followed on his wife's heels, took his place at the head of the table, and shook out his napkin.
"I've heard tell of a feller that went driving down Chatham way one day," he said, "and he come to an old house in the woods, and there he found a little old man sitting on the doorstep that was so old and palsied and shaky, he could hardly make out to speak at all. Well, this feller he wanted to find out how the old man happened to be left alone at his great age, with no care nor companionship nor nothing, so he asked him; he says 'Do you live all alone here?' he says. The little old man he was so deaf he couldn't hardly hear nothing, but this feller he asked him again, and he put his hand up to his ears and just made out to catch the question. 'No,' he says in his high-pitched, quavering voice, 'No, I don't live here all alone, I live here with my father.'—'Your father?' this feller says, all taken aback, 'Your father? Have you got a father? Where is he?' The little old man he hardly made out to get this question at all, but after a long time, when it had been repeated to him over and over again, he managed to understand it. 'Where's Father?' he says. 'You ask me where my father is? Well, where should he be, 'cepting upstairs, putting Grandfather to bed.'"
Mr. Swift laughed immoderately.