"Good morning, Grandfather."
The hired girl, who was sixteen and the daughter of a neighbour, wiped her immaculate pink hands on a more immaculate and pinker apron, and took her seat opposite Elizabeth. She was an enormously fat blonde, who never spoke without blushing. Grandmother was bustling about with plates of biscuit and coffee cups.
"The reason we don't have more help around the place is that Mother wears herself all out waitin' on them," Grandfather observed. "Judidy, ain't you got no control over Mis' Swift? Can't you make her set down to the table when breakfast is ready?"
"No, sir," Judidy blushed. "She told me to set down, so I set."
"Well, whenever she tells me to set down—I set, but I thought maybe you had more independence of spirit."
"No, sir."
"Elizabeth, here—she don't pay much attention to what anybody says. She sets all the time, so's to be on the safe side. Well, I guess we're in for a spell o' bad weather. I see old Samuel Swift out bright and early this morning, and when Samuel comes out of his hiding that means rain sure enough."
Elizabeth shuddered. Samuel Swift was an unbelievably unkempt individual who lived in a hermit's shack in the woods, and was locally known as a "weather breeder." Whenever he harnessed his ancient mare to his antiquated buggy and emerged into the light of day the wind changed, according to neighbourhood tradition, and the fog and rain swept in. She quoted:
"There was an old man with a beard, Who said, 'it is just as I feared, Three rats and a hen, An owl and a wren Have all made their nests in my beard!'"