Page:The Family Album.pdf/78

70 Then he would stop talking and call them all lummoxes. That meant folks who had "Welcome" on their doormats and were never home. Grandpop said you were welcome just as long as you stood on the doormat and the nearest those people came to issuing invitations was when the Board of Health put up a quarantine sign on their doors.

Naturally, all our neighbors got to dislike grandpa very much. Fortunately, he lived up in the hills and only came down when he had some new words to explain about people.

A swimp was a person whose false teeth projected over into public property and who wore his napkin under his chin when he was eating and looked like he was being shaved by a barber instead of dining.

Grandpop never laughed unless he thought he was alone and then he would chuckle in his throat like defective plumbing. Some day, I'll tell you some more of his explanations if I can remember them.

I guess that make me a dabber. That's grandpop's name for a girl who is so vain and silly that she should be educated by guillotining.

Well, good-by, and don't forget to write.