"Well, as I was saying, your uncle he eat till he got over his grouches, and like enough he'd be here eating yet, if he hadn't got a telegraph to hit the line for home, some big business deal, he said, and I guess it was a great deal, for he licked his chops and smacked his lips over it, and he give me a ten dollar bill to get a new dress and each of Them Three one dollar fer candy." "The old tightwad!" I exclaimed. "It was your cooking, sure, that made him loosen up that way." "Tightwad nothing!" she declared indignantly. "You won't think he was tight-wadded when you read this here letter he left for you. He told me what was in it, and I've just been busting to tell it to Beth, but I waited for you to know it first." With great excitement Silvia opened the letter, read it, gasped, re-read it, and then in consternation handed it to me. "Read it aloud, Lucien," she bade. "Maybe I can believe it then." This was the letter. "My dear Niece: "I was sorry not to see you, but glad to learn that, as every wise and good woman should do, you are raising a fine family--a family of _sons_, which is what our country most needs. Your son Pythagoras informed me that you had taken your oldest child, Ptolemy, and your youngest, Diogenes, with you, I am glad you left three such promising samples for me to see. "As you have five sons, I have, agreeable to my promise, placed in your name in the First National Bank of your city the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. "Your affectionate uncle, "Issachar Innes." "Huldah," I asked, "did you tell him the Polydores were our children?" "Me?" she repeated indignantly. "Me tell a lie like that! No; I didn't get no chance to tell him anything about them. 'Them Three' done the telling. The first thing that one"--pointing to Pythagoras--"said was, 'Mudder went away and took the baby, Diogenes, with her.' And then that next one"--indicating Emerald--"said: 'Yes, and our oldest brother, Ptolemy, went on with Beth to see them.' "The old gent asked them all their names and ages and he was so pleased and said he thought it was just fine for you to raise five sons, so I didn't have no heart to tell him no different. 'Twan't none of my business anyhow. Then 'Them Three' kept talking about stepdaddy, and your Uncle Issachar asks 'Who the devil is he? Did my niece marry again?' And I told him as how Mr. Wade was all the husband you ever had, and that stepdaddy was nothing but a sort of pet-name the kids had give Mr. Wade." "I told him," said Demetrius, "that stepdaddy was cross to us sometimes and not as nice as mudder, and he said--" "You shut up," commanded Huldah quickly, "and let me talk." "No," I intercepted, "I'd really be interested in hearing what he told Uncle Issachar. What was it, Demetrius, that your great-uncle said to you?"