s
getting the better of them in some doubtful business transaction.

For a long time his meanness and sharp dealings were reserved for
outsiders and he was generous with his family. And my sweet, simple, old
grandmother belonged to all the societies, charitable and otherwise, in
town ... but she was not, never could be "smart." She was always saying
and doing naive things from the heart. And soon she began to disapprove
of my grandfather's slick business ways.

I don't know just what tricks he put over ... but he became _persona non
grata_ in local business circles ... and he took to running about the
country, putting through various projects here and there ... this
little, dressy, hard-faced man ... like a cross between a weasel and a
bird!

He dropped into Mornington, and out again, each time with a wild,
restless story of fortunes to be made or in the making!

Once he came home and stayed for a longer time than usual. During this
stay he received many letters. My grandmother noticed a furtiveness in
his manner when he received them. My grandmother noticed that her
husband always repaired immediately to the outhouse when he received a
letter.

She followed after him one day, and found fragments of a torn letter
cast below ... she performed the disagreeable task of retrieving the
fragments, of laboriously piecing them together and spelling them out.
She procured a divorce as quietly as possible. Then my grandfather made
his final disappearance. I did not see him again till I was quite grown
up.

All support of his numerous family ceased. His sons and daughters had to
go to work while still children, or marry.

My Aunt Alice married a country doctor whom I came to know as "Uncle
Beck." My Uncle Joe, who inherited my grandfather's business-sense, with
none of his crookedness, started out as a newsboy, worked his way up to
half-proprietorship in a Mornington paper ... the last I heard of him he
had money invested in nearly every enterprise in town, and had become a
substantial citizen.

My father still pursued his nomadic way of living, sending, very seldom,
driblets of money to my grandmother for my support ... my uncle Jim went
East to work ... of my uncle Landon I shall tell you later on.

* * * * *

The big house in which my grandmother, my Aunt Millie, and I lived was
looking rather seedy by this time. The receding tide of fashion and
wealth had withdrawn far off to another