he had martialed her forces into
rocking-chairs, though she had Jasper bring her the stiffest and
straightest-backed one in the house, "I have collected as many women as
I had time to, and have come up here to tell you, and them, that the men
in Glendale are so lacking in sense and judgment that the time has come
for women to stand forth and assume the responsibility of them and
Glendale in general. As the wife of the poor decrepit Mayor, I appoint
myself chairman of the meeting pro tem and ask you to take the first
minutes. If disgrace is threatening us we must at least face it in an
orderly and parliamentary way. And I--"

"Oh, Mrs. Shelby, is it--is it smallpox?" and as Sallie spoke she hugged
up the Puppy baby, who happened to be the twin in her arms, so that she
bubbled and giggled, mistaking her embraces for those of frolicsome
affection.

Mamie turned pale and held her baby tight and I could see that she was
having light spasms of alarm, one for each one of the children and one
for Ned.

"Smallpox, fiddlesticks--I said disgrace, Sallie Carruthers, and the
worst kind of disgrace--municipal disgrace." And as Aunt Augusta named
the plague that was to come upon us, she looked as if she expected it to
wilt us all into sear and dried leaves. And in point of fact, we all did
rustle.

"Tell us about it," said Nell, with sparkling eyes and sitting up in her
low rocker as straight as Aunt Augusta did in her uncompromising seat.
The rest of them just looked helpless and undecided as to whether to be
relieved or not.

"Yes, municipal disgrace threatens the town, and the women must rise in
their strength and avert it," she declaimed majestically with her dark
eyes snapping.

"Yesterday afternoon James Hardin, who is the only patriotic male in
Glendale, put before the Town Council a most reasonable and
pride-bestirring proposition originated by Evelina Shelby, one of
Glendale's leading citizens, though a woman. She wants to offer the
far-famed hospitality of Glendale--which is the oldest and most
aristocratic town in the Harpeth Valley, except perhaps Hillsboro, and
which is not in the class with a vulgarly rich, modern place like
Bolivar, that has a soap-factory and streetcars, and was a mud-hole in
the landscape when the first Shelby built this very house,--to the
Commission of magnates who are to come down about the railroad lines
that are to be laid near us. James agrees with her and urges that it is
fitting and d