Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay“Hey, Uncle Major!”To the Trent children, Uncle Major was Maj. Thomas Stepforth Jr., elder brother to Mrs. Trent, but to the Trents' little cousin nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth, Uncle Major was Maj. J.P.P. Dubois, by virtue of Vertran at eight-and-three-quarters-years-old having proposed to Major Dubois's nine-year-old niece Louisa Dubois Chennault, and Louisa having accepted. This was hilarious to both the Duboises and the Stepforths, but both Louisa and Vertran were living with their grandparents and had become so much like them that they were just modeling what they saw.