UNCLE TRUEFITT
By George Munson
The scandal rang all through the
village. Although there was no- rea
son why it should he a scandal, ex
cept that nobody had ever expected
such a thing of Cousin Letty. Cousin
1 Letty was married married at 38 to
heaven knew whom!
To explain the sensation which
this event created in town it is nec
essary to go back a little. Cousin
Letty was a Bradley. The Bradleys,
the Forsters, the Truefitts and the
Slows had ruled the town for gener
ations. Uncle Eph Truefitt was head of the
clans. He was 69 and had been a
widower for 15 years. He had not
gotten along well with his wife. She
had died after three years of mar
ried life and it was said that it had
been a marriage of propinquity. In
other words, they had met, known
each other, and some unaccountable
whim impelled Uncle Truefitt to ask
her to marry him. As she was not
of the clan, no more need be said of
her.
After his renewed bachelorhood,
Uncle Truefitt developed a streak of
eccentricity. He was strongly against
matrimony, except in the case of cer
tain people. That is to say, he tol
erated the married Bradleys, For
sters, Truefiitts and Slows, but it was
understood that Uncle Truefitt's wid
owerhood had altered the aspect of
the universe. There was to be no
more marrying on pain of being cut
out of Uncle Truefitt's will.
As Uncle Truefitt was worth a cool
hundred thousand it will be" seen.
that the younger generation was lit
erally up against it.
Cousin Letty Bradley was a poor
member of the family. She was a
stenographer for Stone, the hard
ware merchant. The other Bradleys
looked down on her, and the Slows,
Forsters and Truefitts despised her
utterly. All the same, it was sup
posed that she would come in for a
share of Uncle Truefitt's money. The
old man seemed a little taken with
her, perhaps because she never ran
to him with tittle tattle about the
family.
This is how the scandal arose.
During Uncle Truefitt's absence in
town upon business Letty asked for
three days' holiday, a thing, as Mat
ty Truefitt caustically remarked, she
" '
Everybody Came to Reason With
Letty.
would never have dared to do if
there 'had been anv one to incmire
into the family's action. To go away
for three days without obtaining Un
cle Truefitt's permission was some
thing unheard of. Even James Slow.
who would some day become head
or the clan, never took anv momen
tous step without consulting Uncle
Truefitt
Letty came back smiling, and Cou
sin Anne Bradley,, who boarded Her,
wondere'd. Some extraordinary
im