"Hmmm?" Miss Sarah purred absently as she sipped her coffee.

"Now isn't this the most absurd thing!"

"What are you on about, husband?"

"Oh, well, now!" Robert Andrew fluffed the paper with a jerk. "A body just can't believe what's to be read here in the Somerset County Sound and Flurry anymore! And if'n one can't believe in the black and white right here on the page, well, I just don't know what this country's a comin' too, that's all."

"What in thunder are you on about, Robert Andrew?" Miss Sarah said in a slightly sharper tone. "You know as well as I do that the press is an independent estate of the constitution. Sometimes I wonder about you, husband."

"Oh, do you, now? Well, this ridiculous newspaper of ours reports that your Cousin Herald's just gone plum off his rocker."

"Now husband," Miss Sarah said, setting down her coffee cup in a slow, careful motion. "Cousin Herald is one of the world's exceptional people. I know you've never been right able to accept that at all, at all."

"Well, I've never been able to accept that the two of you is related one to the other at all, at all."

"I'll not listen to this, husband," Miss Sarah said coolly. "One of these days you'll be apologizing to me about Herald. You'll get excited about one of his discoveries, and you'll come to see him as the exceptional person he is. Yessir. You'll jump right up and say what an honor it is to have him in the family. The day will come!"

"I mean," Robert Andrew said, "for Heaven's sake! It says here the single most ridiculous thing I ever did hear. It says, in black and white, that he discovered a live, living mastodon down in the hills south of here."

"A what?"

"A mastodon."

"Well, what on earth is that?"

"It's a big sort of hairy elephant, I guess. At least that's the way it looks from the picture."

"Well, I'm sure if Herald said he went and discovered something, hairy, bald or woolly, then that is just what he did."

"Oh, it's woolly all right," Robert Andrew said, "as big and woolly as Herald's brain!"

"Robert Andrew!"

"Here, I'll read the article to you: 'Mr. Harold Glendenning brings a rare find to Somerset County today-an exceptional find for both for the student of biology and all excitable elephant lovers the world over. He has discovered a mastodon, or hairy elephant, previously thought to be extinct for eight to ten thousand years.'"

"Now, don't that beat all?"

Miss Sarah came over to Robert Andrew. She looked over his shoulder and saw a blurry picture of her cousin standing next to a hair-covered elephant.

"Well, my word!" she exclaimed.

"That's what I say," her husband enthusiastically agreed.

"My word," Sarah said again, "wouldn't Grandma be proud! One of our family a findin' a thing like that."

Robert Andrew looked at his wife a long moment and slowly shock his head. "Maybe I can believe you two is related," he muttered at last. "Here," he said, handing her the paper. "I suspect you'll be a-wantin' to read all of it thoroughly."

Miss Sarah took the paper and went back to her place at the table. One of the dogs out in the yard began to bark as she started reading aloud, "Mr. Glendenning, who sent us a polaroid of himself and the beast, contacted the Sound and Flurry by telephone from Wilson City Junction today. 'The whole County of Somerset will be glorying in my discovery,' he told editor Seth Carsdale."

"Sarah," Robert Andrew said in a plaintive tone, "I heard enough of that story to last me a lifetime."

But his wife read on, "'This will put us on the maps.' Mr. Glendenning affirmed, 'Somerset is the home of a herd of mastodons. Yessir.'"

The other dogs started barking. "That ain't the whole story now, husband," Sarah said. "It's continued on page six."

"Oh, I can't hear you at all, ma'am," he said. "Them dogs is like to go nuts. I'd better go 'n' see what its all about. Bet it's that durned polecat again."

As he got up to leave, Miss Sarah found the rest of the article. "This is a significant scientific revelation, husband. I don't know what you're so upset about and all. Cousin Herald is bringing fame to our family."

Robert Andrew felt a strange sensation, almost as if the house was shaking. He scratched his head and looked about while Miss Sarah read aloud:

"Editor Carsdale asked Mr. Glendenning what he would be doing with such a beast. 'Well, no mastodon of mine will be in a side show or circus, no sir,' Mr. Glendenning said. 'But I don't know about breakin' her to the plow. A harness collar to fit her would have to be as big as the door to Charlie Sutton's drive thru. Anyways, in the meantime, I will have to put her up somewheres.'"

"Ah…Sarah," Robert Andrew said, "Do you notice the house...ah...shakin' some?"

Miss Sarah read on, "Mr. Glendenning, questioned on lodging his mastodon, said, Well, I've got to find a place to keep her. And considerin' she eats quite a bit of hay, the only place that comes to mind at the moment is my cousin Sarah's farm. And I know the deep filial and paternal regard in which Sarah and her husband hold me is right considerable. They also had a considerable fine hay crop this year.'"

"My word, husband!" Sarah said, looking up. "Now ain't that the honor of a lifetime, to be a hostin' a discovery like..."

Miss Sarah saw that Robert Andrew was not listening to her. He was staring out the screen door. She also realized that her house was, indeed, shaking and that the dogs were barking like they were confronting a whole posse of polecats.

But before she could utter another iota,--either about her cousin or the earthquake, if that was what it was--she heard a mighty trumpeting roar. The noise of it drowned out the dogs.

Indeed, it shut them up. Robert Andrew jumped straight up. Sarah tried to speak, but the deafening trumpeting erupted again.

"That lame-brained, hog-tailed, squirrel-chatterin' nincompoop of a human bein'!" Robert Andrew shouted. "That low-down, outrageous, two-bit... Hey! He's a headin' it tight toward the barn!" The angry man bolted out the door.

"Well don't that beat all!" Sarah shouted. "The man has finally gotten excited about my cousin's achievements! I told him. he'd come to appreciate Cousin Herald. Yessir! I said so, I did!"