"I thought I'd run up once and see Mr. Bradley," he said, sitting down at the table. "I wanted to talk over some business with him, about the motel association, but he was too upset to even think about that."
David made a remark, which we ignored, about Grant's split "infilitive."
Mrs. Bradley, it seemed, had at last become so bad that they had had to take her to an asylum. Someone had substituted a fertile, ready-to-hatch egg for the china egg Mr. Bradley had provided for her to amuse herself with, and after a few days of basking in the warmth under the layers and layers of her garments, the egg had hatched--not into the human baby Mrs. Bradley had wanted, but, understandably enough, into a fluffy yellow baby chicken. The shock and disappointment had pushed her tottering reason completely into the abyss.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Grant said. "Mr. Bradley says he knew, himself, that he wouldn't be able to keep her home with him much longer."
"Who substituted the real egg?" I asked finally.
Grant buttered a slice of bread grimly.
"Moejy," he said.
Two weeks after Grandma and Hellwig visited us, I got an airmail letter from Grandma. Before I opened it I knew it must contain exciting news, because Grandma wouldn't have sent the letter airmail if she had been completely calm and in full possession of her faculties. Airmail takes about twice as long in getting from Los Angeles to Banning as regular mail does. It is such a short distance between the two cities that the time gained by the speedier flight of the plane is more than lost in the transportation to and from the airports.
Grandma's letter began with a burst of enthusiasm. "I'm going to be married! I'm going to be a bride!" it gurgled. "Wagonseller proposed to me. I never see anything like the way he carried on. He had a big diamond ring with him, he said it was his mother's and he said he wanted it to be mine if I'd accept him along with it, 'he did, all right'!"
I was a little disappointed in Grandma. After twenty-five years of going with Hellwig, I hadn't thought that a wad of money, a beautiful car and a big diamond could influence her so strongly. I resumed reading the letter.