As to the rally, they have stood aside with their hands in their pockets and their noses in the air, and if it hadn’t been for Aunt Augusta and Nell and Jane being natural-born carpenters and draymen, we might have had to give it up and let them go on with it to their own glory.

When Nell and Jane went to see Mr. Dodd about building the long tables to serve the barbecue dinner on, he said he was too busy to do it and hadn’t even any lumber to sell.

Then things happened in my back yard that it sounds like a romance to write about.  Jane sent me over to borrow the Crag’s team and wagon and Henrietta and Cousin Martha and any of the rest of his woman-impedimenta that I could get.  He was out of town, trying a case over at Bolivar, and wouldn’t get back until Monday night.

I am glad he wasn’t here, for it would have gone hard with me to treat him in the manner that Jane decided it was best for all the women in Glendale to treat all the men in this crisis.  It sounded sweet and cold as molasses dispenses itself to you in midwinter, and I could see it was a strain on Mamie and Caroline and Mrs. Kirkland, Nell’s mother, and young Mrs. Dodd, the carpenter’s wife,—­the Boston girl that married him before she realized him,—­to keep it up from day to day.

Besides that I’m going to be a politician’s wife—­though he doesn’t know it yet—­and I want the Crag to be away from the necessity of taking any sides in this civilized warfare.  That’s one reason I am such a go-between for Uncle Peter and the League, I am making votes for my man, so I consider it all right for me never to deliver any of their messages to each other as they are given to me, but to twist them into agreeability to suit myself.

Sallie said the Dominie was entirely on our side and that was why she went walking with him Sunday afternoon.  All the other men were cool to him and he is so sensitive.

But to get back to the back yard.  I glory in writing it and want the Five to consider it as almost sacred data, though I hope they will never have to do likewise.

Jane and Nell and Aunt Augusta took the two axes and one large hammer and tore down my back fence while I and the others loaded the planks on the wagon.  Jane appointed Henrietta to sit and hold the slow old horses in case they should have got demoralized by the militant atmosphere pervading Glendale and try to bolt.  I never saw any human being enjoy herself as Henrietta did, and it was worth it all just to look into her radiant countenance.

Jane took all the hard top blows to do herself and left the unloosening of the lower nails to Aunt Augusta while Nell ripped off the planks that stuck.  I could almost hear Nell’s long, polished finger nails go with a rip every time she jerked a particularly tough old plank into subjection, and Aunt Augusta dispensed encouraging axioms about pioneer work as she banged along behind Jane.  Jane herself looked as cool as a cucumber, didn’t get the least bit ruffled, and had the expression on her face that the truly normal woman has while she is hemming a baby’s flannel petticoat.