Beckett's Cinderella. Dixie Browning

be. General Sherman’s not going to be taking Atlanta tonight, no siree. Score’s one to one, the South’s winning.”

      Liza closed her eyes and groaned. If he could talk baseball, she would never get rid of him. Uncle Fred would see to that. She might as well read his damned papers and be done with it.

      Three

      “Bring Mr. Beckett a glass of iced tea, Liza-girl. Have some potato chips, son.” Suddenly Uncle Fred leaned forward, glaring at the screen. “What do you mean, strike? That pitch was outside by a gol-darn mile!”

      Liza left them to their game and headed down the hall to her bedroom. She would skim whatever it was he insisted she read, hand it back to him and show him the door, and that would be the end of that. If he did happen to be peddling some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, he’d come knocking on the wrong door this time. Any junk mail that even hinted that she was a big winner got tossed without ever getting opened. She didn’t want one red cent unless she knew exactly where it had come from.

      The papers slid out in a clump. For a moment she only stared at them lying there on her white cotton bedspread. They looked as if they’d been soaked in tea. The top sheet appeared to be a letter, so she started with that.

      “My Dear Eli…”

      Liza made out that much before the ink faded. The ornate script was difficult to read, even without the faded ink and the work of generations of silverfish. She squinted at the date on the barely legible heading. September…was that 1900? Mercy! Someone should have taken better care of it, whether or not it was valuable. Maybe the writer was someone important. If it had been a baseball card from that era—if they’d even had baseball cards back then—her uncle would have done backflips, arthritis or not.