Where'd you get that Yankee school-marm--hey?
Why don't she get a husband and a baby and settle down? Ten babies,
twenty babies if necessary--hey?"
"You are entirely mistaken as to the plans that Jane and Aunt Augusta
have for the League they are forming this morning, Uncle Peter." I began
to say with delight as to what was likely to ensue. "If you would only
listen to Jane while she--"
"Don't want to hear a word she has to say! All 'as the crackling of
thorns under a pot'--all the talk of fools."
"But surely you are not afraid to listen to her, Uncle Peter," I dared
to say, and then stood away.
"Afraid, afraid--never was afraid of anybody in my life, Augusta not
excepted!" he exclaimed, as he rose in his wrath. "The men of this town
will show the uprising hussies what we think of 'em, and put 'em back to
the heels of men, where they belong--belong--hey?"
And before I could remonstrate with him he was marching down the street
like a whole regiment out on a charge that was to be one of
extermination, or complete surrender.
The Crag told me that evening that the Mayor's office of Glendale had
reeked of brimstone, for hours, and the next Sunday Aunt Augusta sat in
their pew at church, militantly alone, while he occupied a seat in the
farthest limits of the amen corner, with equal militancy.
But Uncle Peter's attitude during the time of Jane's campaign for
general Equality in Glendale was pathetically like that of an old log,
that has been drifting comfortably down the stream of life with the tide
that bore its comrades, and suddenly got its end stuck in the mud so
that it was forced to stem alone the very tide it had been floating on.
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