way one can.

The brown, snaky lamp cord was the end of this experiment. Oley bit it,
viciously, with his new tooth, and had only barely observed that it had
penetrated completely through when there was a loud splat, and all the
lights in the room went out.

In the darkness and confusion, of course, Oley moved away, seeking other
new experiences. So the cause of the short that Momma and Poppa yakked
so loudly about was never attributed to Oley's actions, but only to "How
could a needle have gotten from your sewing machine into this lamp cord,
Alice?"

But the sum of information had increased. Neatles stuck into lamp cords
had something to do with shorts.

More time passed. And this time the file on shorts was stimulated by
Poppa. The big, rough, booming voice had always scared Oley a bit when
it sounded mad, like now.

"Alice, I've just got to have some more shorts!"

Poppa was rummaging in a drawer far above Oley's head, so he couldn't
see the object under discussion. But all he already knew about
shorts--the information passed in review before him.

Shorts are useful. They help electrics to work harder.

Shorts you wear, and they are electrics.

Wires are electrics.

Shorts can be made by juice.

Shorts can be made by neatles, that bite like teeth.

Poppa needs more shorts.

But Oley wasn't motivated to act at the moment. Just sorting out
information and connecting it with other information files in the
necessarily haphazard manner that might eventually result in something
called intelligence, although he didn't know that yet.

It was a week later in the kitchen, when Momma dropped a giant version
of the neatle on the floor, that his information file in this area
increased again.

"Is that a neatle?" Oley asked.

His mother laughed quietly and looked fondly at her son as she put the
ice pick back on the table.

"I guess you could call it a needle, Oley," she told him. "An ice
needle."

Oley instinctively waited until Momma's back was turned before taking
the nice neatle to try its biting powers; and instinctively took it out
of the kitchen before starting his experiments.

As he passed the cellar door he heard a soft gurgling and promptly
changed course. Pulling open the door with difficulty, he seated himself
on the cellar stairs to watch a delightful new spectacle--frothing,
gurgling water making its way across the floor towards the stairs. It
looked wonderfully dirty and brown, and to Ole