I agreed with his question—­but I didn’t say so.

“Glad your money is safe in Public Town Bonds and City Securities,
Evelina.  If James could, he might lose it, and you’d have to move over. 
It would then be nip and tuck between you and Sallie which got
James—­nip and tuck—­hey?”

“Oh, Uncle Peter!” I exclaimed with positive horror that was flavored with a large dash of indignation.

“Well, yes, a race between a widow and a girl for a man is about like one between a young duck and a spring chicken, across a mill-pond—­girl and chicken lose—­hey?  But let Sallie have him, since you don’t need him.  I’ve got to go home and listen to Augusta talk about my business, that she knows nothing in the world about, or I won’t be ready for town meeting this afternoon.  Women are all fools,—­hey?”

“Will you come again, Uncle Peter?” I asked eagerly.  I had set out to offer Uncle Peter a cup of niecely affection, and I had got a good, stiff bracer to arouse me in return.

“I will, whenever I can escape Augusta,” he answered, and there was such a kindly crackle in his voice that I felt that he had wanted and needed what I had offered him.  “I’ll drop in often and analyze the annals of the town with you.  Glad to have you home, child, good young blood to stir me up—­hey?”

And as I sat and watched the Mayor go saunteringly down the street, with his crustiness carried like a child on his shoulder, which it delighted him to have knocked off, so that he could philosophize in the restoring of it to its position, suddenly a realization of the relation of Glendale to the world in general was forced upon me—­and I quailed.

Glendale is like a dozen other small towns in the Harpeth Valley; they are all drowsy princesses who have just waked up enough to be wondering what did it.  The tentative kiss has not yet disclosed the presence of the Prince of Revolution, and they are likely to doze for another century or two.  I think I had better go back into the wide world and let them sleep on.  One live member is likely to irritate the repose of the whole body.

Their faint stirrings of progress are pathetic.

They have an electric plant, but, as I have noted before, the lights therefrom show a strong trace of their pine-knot heredity, and go out on all important occasions, whether of festivity or tragedy.  Kerosene lamps have to be kept filled and cleaned if a baby or a revival or a lawn festival is expected.

They have a lovely, wide concrete pavement in front of six of the stores around the public square, but no two stretches of the improvement join each other, and it makes a shopping progression around the town somewhat dangerous, on account of the sudden change of grade of the sidewalk, about every sixty feet.  Aunt Augusta wanted Uncle Peter to introduce a bill in the City Council forcing all of the property owners on the Square to put down the pavement in front of their houses, at small payments per annum, the town assuming the contract at six per cent.  Uncle Peter refused, because he said that he felt a smooth walk around the Square would call out what he called “a dimity parade” every afternoon.