.. 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 .
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