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.

Jane didn't throw any rocks at anybody's opinions or break the windows
of anybody's prejudices. She had the most lovely heart to heart talks
with the women separately, collectively, and in both small and large
bunches. I had them in to tea in the combinations that she wanted them,
and I must say that she was the loveliest thing with them that could be
imagined. She was just her stiff, ugly self, starchily clad in the most
beautifully tailored white linen, and they all went mad about her. The
Pup and the Kit clutched at her skirts until anybody else would have
been a mass of wrinkles, and the left breast of her linen blouse did
always bear a slight impress of little Ned's head. The congeniality of
Jane and that baby was a revelation to me and his colic ceased after the
first time she kneaded it out of his fat little stomach with her long,
slim, powerful hands according to a first-aid method she had learned in
her settlement work, with Mamie looking on in fear and adoration. It may
have been bl