Page:The Family Album.pdf/76

68 tor asked him what a moopus was, and grandpop told him it was a man who whistled at funerals.

Then the pastor asked him what that had to do with grandpop coming to church, and grandpop said that question made the pastor a gimber.

The minster was scared to ask him what that meant, but grandpop told him it was a man who talked to himself with ear muffs on.

Then he walked away, leaving everybody very much startled, because we all thought he was starting a rival dictionary to Webster's and intended to revolutionize science, education and ignorance.

Grandpop walked away with his Adam's apple chuckling to itself, because he was a man who didn't care if anybody understood him or not, because he always had plenty of explanations for the same questions. He was something like a United States Senator who clears up muddy situations by stirring them with a stick.

Grandpop came home and told us that he wouldn't stand for no doodlums, alive or dead. Grandmom wanted to know what a doodlum was, and grandpop said that it was a man who stood up in the bow of an excursion steamer and allowed the breeze to blow