"Momma and Hilda come in all the time, and you don't say so." Oley stood firm on what he figured were legal grounds. "What makes shorts?"
Sven relented a little. This brother had been something of a surprise to him, coming along when Sven was a full ten years old. But, he reflected, after a few years maybe I should get used to the idea. Actually, he sort of liked the youngster.
"Shorts," he said, speaking from the superior eminence of his fourteen years to the four-year-old, "is when electricity finds a way to get back where it came from without doing a lot of hard work getting there. But you see, electricity like to work; so, even when it has an easy way, it just works harder and uses itself up."
This confused explanation of shorts was, of course, taken verbatim, despite the fact that Oley couldn't define half the words and probably couldn't even pronounce them.
"I don't like shorts. I don't like these pink shorts Momma put on me this morning. Is they electrics, Sven?"
Sven glanced around at the accidentally-dyed-in-the-laundry, formerly white shorts.
"Um-m-m. Yeah. You could call 'em electric."
With this Oley let out whoop and dashed out of the room, trailing a small voice behind him. "Momma, Momma. Sven says my shorts is electric!"
"I'll short Sven's electrics for him, if he makes fun of your shorts!" Oley heard his mother's comforting reply.