Summer is for society what winter is to war; the forces lie all in quarters, and beyond caring for their arms or practicing a drill against the campaign day to dawn, there arises nothing to be called a movement. Indeed, as I've explained, the women—who, as Peg would have it, are the fighting line—for the most part were fled to beach and hill. The town was in its sleep, and society would awaken it only with the advent of the snows.
In the last there were still our three cabinet wives, that is, the ladies Berrien, Branch, and Ingham, to be left about us. These would soon depart; but by this claim or that, they had been brought to lag behind when the great covey of their flounced fellows went whirring away to be cool. Peg never had visited these folk, nor they her, and on those few occasions when official exigency threw them together, the cabinet three, who, like the General's fleeting niece, were utterly beneath the sway of the Vice-President's wife—herself a woman of unquestioned place and breeding, and a natural queen, besides,—took heed to hold aloof from Peg. On her side, Peg passed them by or looked them through as though they had not been, and, if I am to judge, came off from these tiltings with prestige all undimmed.
It would have been as good as the play, were I not prey and spoil to so much soreness in the business, to have watched those tacit joustings of Peg with our old mailed warriors of the drawing rooms. The dauntless Peg crossed glances with the most seasoned of her bad-wishers, and left them ever the worse for those thrustings. If she were wounded, no one learned the bleeding fact; and not even I should know. From the laugh to ring true, and the fine spirit of her, I was fain to conclude that Peg, so far from shrinking, joyed in such silken combats to take place among the flowers and with the music of orchestras stirring the blood; and in the last I am sure she did.
Berrien and Branch, and for that matter the clumsy Ingham, would with an invariable politeness, nicely measured to a hair, greet Peg whenever they met with her; and she would accept their courtesy in a cold way of elevation and as though our cabinet gentlemen came of the general press about whose very names she did not know and never would. On such lofty terms a fair peace was maintained, and nothing to rancorously rise above the majesty of a ripple to beat upon any one's shore.
The General might have preferred a better cordiality, but he could make no interference.
“If to step between a man and his enemy,” he would say, “is to invoke a risk, how much more is he in danger who tampers with the feuds of women?”
For one, I much agreed with him, and we both looked on, idle of hand and tongue, while Peg met and foiled the “Redsticks,” as the General named them.
Nor would Peg need our aid. I've seen no prouder, braver woman walk across a room, or one of a more nimble faculty or fortitude more broadly planted, than our Peg. My admiration spent its days to weave new wreaths for her.
It was the doting Ingham—he of our Treasury—to be witless enough to broach this business of feminine ice with Eaton. Ingham was a girthy person, and one's briefest consideration disclosed him for the vulgar Pennsylvania paper-maker he was. Short and thick of body, with thick legs, thick neck; even his tongue was thick, and his slow wits thickest of all. Of Ingham I shall not forget Jim's estimate.
“It aint for Jim,” said that worthy, “to go talkin' sassy about no white gentleman; but as for dish yere Mr. Ingham, thar's a notion ag'in him which goes gropin' about through Jim like d'grace of heaven through a camp meetin'. That Mr. Ingham is mean; he's that mean if he owned a lake he wouldn't give a duck a drink. He's jes' about as pop'lar with Jim as a wet dawg; an' that's d'mortual fac'.”