For a long time Father brooded in one spot. He wouldn’t answer us or Mother.
Finally, she became overquivered. We had grown so big and boisterous and sassy that she was one continual shudder. And she must have thought that as long as we were around to communicate with him, she had no chance to get him to rip up her spot.
So, out we went.
Before we passed forever from her shell, she warned, “Beware the olfway.”
My sisters ignored her, but I was impressed. Father had described the beast and its terrible ways. Indeed, he used to dwell so much on it that we young, and Mother, had dropped the old term for it and used Father’s. It began when he reprimanded her for threatening us too often with the beast when we misbehaved.
“Don’t ‘cry wolf.’”
He then beamed me the story of the origin of th
