"Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Grange. It's all right. You see, Uncle Averill wasn't a young man. He must have been in his eighties."
"Were you very close to him, Danny?"
"No, not for a long time. When I was a kid—"
Mrs. Grange smiled.
"Well, when I was eight or nine, I used to see him all the time. We stayed at his place on the coast near St. Augustine, Florida, for a year. I—I feel sorry about Uncle Averill, Mrs. Grange, but I feel better about something that happened in class today. I—I think Uncle Averill would have approved of how I acted."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Well, it's just he always said never to take any so-called fact for granted, especially in history. I can almost remember his voice now, the way he used to say, 'if ever there's an argument in history, sonny, all you ever get is the propaganda report of the side which won.' You know, Mrs. Grange, I think he was right. Of course, a lot of folks thought old Uncle Averill was a little queer. Touched in the head is what they said."
"They oughtn't to say such things."
"Always tinkering around in his basement. Funny, nobody ever knew on what. He wouldn't let anybody near the place. He had a time lock and everything. What nobody could figure out is if he was trying so hard to guard something that was in the basement, why did he sometimes disappear for weeks on end without even telling anybody where he went. And I remember," Danny went on musing, "every time he came back he went into that harangue about history, as if somehow he had confirmed his suspicions. He was a funny old guy but I liked him."
"You remembering him so vividly after all these years will be the best epitaph your uncle could have, Danny. But what are you going to do? About what he left you, I mean."