his father said gravely

“Great heavens, Jay! Do you mean that?” He just nodded, and kept his eyes on the road. “Just imagine that, Rufus, she said. “Just think of that!” “She’s an old, old lady,” his father said gravely; and Ralph gravely and proudly concurred. “The things she must have seen!” Mary said, quietly. “Indians. Wild animals.” Jay laughed. “I mean man—eaters, Jay. Bears, and wildcats—terrible things.” “There were cats back in these mountains, Mary—we called em painters, that’s the same as a panther—they were around here still when I was a boy. And there is still bear, they claim.” “Gracious Jay, did you ever see one? A panther?” “Saw one’d been shot.” “Goodness,” Mary said. “A mean-lookin varmint.” “I know,” she said. “I mean, I bet he was. I just can’t get over—why she’s almost as old as the country, Jay.” “Oh, no,” he laughed. “Ain’t nobody that old. Why I read somewhere, that just these mountains here are the oldest ...” “Dear, I meant the nation,” she said. “The United States, I mean. Why let me see, why it was hardly as old as I am when she was born.” They all calculated for a moment. “Not even as old,” she said triumphantly. “By golly,” his father said. “I never thought of it like that.” He shook his head. “By golly,” he said, “that’s a fact.”