Uncle Peter

“ There is nothing in the world that I ever met that I enjoy any more than one of Uncle Peter's rages, and I always try to be meekly inflammatory.
"They're never satisfied with using them to run church societies and children's internal organs, but they want to use 'em on men and civilization in general. Where'd you get that Yankee school-marm—hey? Why don't she get a husband and a baby and settle down? Ten babies, twenty babies if necessary—hey?"
"You are entirely mistaken as to the plans that Jane and Aunt Augusta have for the League they are forming this morning, Uncle Peter." ”

“ Uncle Peter was more than willing. He liked the Oldakers.
"They're the only sane folks I've met among your friends," he had told his grandson. He had dined there frequently during the winter, and professed to be enamoured of the hostess. That fragile but sprightly bit of antiquity professed in turn to find Uncle Peter a very dangerous man among the ladies. They flirted outrageously at every opportunity, and Uncle Peter sent her more violets than many a popular débutante received that winter. ”

“ It takes a great deal of patience," said our Uncle Peter, "to bring up a little boy.—Unless every time he's naughty you can say to yourself 'Well, even so—think what a good man his Father grew to be!'——Or every time he's good you're fair enough to admit that 'Even his naughty Father was once as nice as this!'"——All the twinkle went suddenly out of our Uncle Peter's eyes. It left them looking narrow. He made a quick glance at Carol. ”

“ Stevie stuck up for Carlo as if he was really something to be proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts feel that way about me, I don’t know. I don’t even know if I feel that way about them. I certainly criticize them in my soul at times, and feel tired of being dragged around from pillar to post. I don’t feel that way about Uncle Peter, but there is nobody else that I am certain, positive sure that I love better than life itself. If there is only one in the world that you feel that way about, I might not be Uncle Peter’s one. ”

“ Uncle Peter is a very stout old gentleman. When he squeezes into our little flat the walls act as if they were bow-legged.
Uncle Peter always goes through the folding doors sideways and every time he sits down the man in the apartment below us kicks because we move the piano so often.
Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife and she weighs more and breathes oftener.
When the two of them visit our bird-cage at the same time the janitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with a view to catching it if it falls. ”

“ When, therefore, his uncle wound up with, "I'll tell you, Nephew, it's a mighty comforting thing for a man to have some one of his own blood and name close to his hand to carry on his work and fulfil his plans," Peter came to his senses with a shock as of ice-water poured down his backbone. He knew it wasn't in him to carry out any business schemes his uncle might have in mind. ”

“ It is not every brother-in-law that would do as much as that for you."
"Nor yet every uncle," said Kate, shaking her head, from which Harry could see that this quarrel with his uncle had been freely discussed in the family circle.
"Uncles are very different," said the mother; "uncles can't be expected to do everything as though they were in love."
"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. ”

“ I haven't in the flesh. 'Uncle Peter' is generic—a polite lumping together of my chronic fault-finders within the family and without. You know him. Both masculine and feminine, he's eternally an old woman. Everybody knows Uncle Peter, the first to censure and the last to praise. ”

“ Uncle Peter always intersperses his remarks on current topics with bits of parboiled philosophy that make one want to get up and drive him through the carpet with a tack hammer. When it comes to wise saws and proverbial stunts Uncle Peter has Solomon backed up in the corner.
"John," he said, "this country life is great. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man's stomach digest mince pies—how's that? Notice the air out here? How pure and fresh and bracing! You ought to go out and run a mile, John!" ”

“ Suddenly Emma stopped, flushed and breathless. "I cannot walk farther," declared she; "I am getting too tired. But let us go and make Uncle Peter a Christmas present of Ada and the pup!"
"No, I am afraid of that," answered John; "Uncle Peter is so queer, says mama; he can't bear to see any one around." ”

“ To be just, I suppose Aunt Augusta's adamant disposition accounts, to some extent, for Uncle Peter's explosive way of thinking and speaking. A husband would have to knock Aunt Augusta's nature down to make any impression whatever on it. Uncle Peter always has the air of firing an idea and then ducking his head to avoid the return shot. ”

“ So Uncle went aside a little way and blew such a resounding whistle through his fingers that he awoke a responsive echo among the rocks far overhead. He had not to wait many minutes before Peter came running down in answer, for he knew the sound of Uncle’s whistle. Peter arrived, looking as white as a ghost, for he quite thought Uncle was sending for him to give him up. But as it was he only had a written paper given him with instructions to take it down at once to the post-office at Dörfli; Uncle would settle for the payment later, as it was not safe to give Peter too much to look after. ”

“ Don't mention it, Uncle Peter, for what I tell you is confidential, but do you know that my little bunch of remarks, which cost me nothing anyway because I was invited to the banquet, have given me more widespread advertisement than Andy Carnegie can get for eighteen public libraries?
You know, Uncle Peter, there is nothing in the world so easy to make stand up on its hind legs as the general public if you just go after it right. ”

“ It is not every day that your nephew gets married and in all decency you must attend the wedding and the reception. I don't wish you to be inconvenienced too greatly, but—"
Uncle Peter's mind had gone off on another track. He stopped me with a wave of his hand and said, "Homer, are you still running around with those bums from the wrong side of town?"
These words from anyone but Uncle Peter would have been insulting. But Uncle Peter is the most impersonal man I have known. He never bothers insulting people for any personal satisfaction. ”

“ You can always be right sure that when Uncle Peter says a thing, he ain't trying to fool you, Buddy. No, sir! You can just believe what Uncle Peter says, with all your might. I might lie to grown folks now and then, but I wouldn't lie to a little boy. ”

“ When their Uncle Peter came in the evening they took him aside and complained to him of their father who wanted to throw the kittens into the slop-barrel.
“Uncle Peter,” they begged. “Tell mamma to have the kittens brought into the nursery! Do tell her!”
“All right, all right!” their uncle consented to get rid of them.
Uncle Peter seldom came alone. There generally appeared with him Nero, a big black Dane with flapping ears and a tail as hard as a stick. He was a silent and gloomy dog, full of the consciousness of his own dignity. ”

“ How I would love to read of a Bines standin' up, all in purty velvet pants, most likely, to receive at one of them bow-wow functions;—functions, I believe, is the name of it?" he ended in polite inquiry.
"There, there, Uncle Peter!" the young man broke in, soothingly; "you mustn't take those Sunday newspapers as gospel truth; those stories are printed for just such rampant old tenderfoots as you are; and even if there is one foolish freak, he doesn't represent all society in the better sense of the term." ”

“ He’s the worst of the Indian blood; once you rouse him, there’s nothing he’ll stop at! Get him away, Uncle Peter! It isn’t brave, to stay and be killed. It’s the worst kind of cowardice; the kind that is afraid to show itself. Uncle Peter!”
“We’re going, Nevada. I know Young Jess. A rattlesnake’s a prince alongside him when he’s mad. Son, you should have left him to me. I can handle him pretty well, no matter how mad he gets. Come along; he’ll not be above potting you from ambush, Injun style.”
He left the porch at the farther end, pulling Rawley after him ”

“ There are two reasons why we must carry out the wish Uncle Peter has expressed in this letter. One is, because he has asked it. He thought he would have time to give the letter to us himself—perhaps tell us more about it; he did not dream that it would lie for two years in that Bible. The other reason is that it is the honorable thing to do—and it not only involves the honor of Uncle Peter's name but your father's honor and mine—your mother's, yours, Graham's—even little Tibby's. We would do it if it took our last cent. ”

“ I guess one funny cat like that is enough in one family. Uncle Peter has to keep his eye out to watch if the ice is going to move this morning. He can't make cats.”
“Make a funny dog,” said Buddy promptly. “Well, Buddy, if I make you a funny dog,” said Peter, “will you be a good boy and play with it and let Uncle Peter get some stove wood aboard the boat?”
“Yes, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy. He had the smile of a cherub and the splendid mendacity of youth. He would promise anything. Only the most unreasonable expect a boy to keep such promises, but it does the heart good to hear them. ”

“ With him "Westy" meant that you were as good as any one else "and a shade better than a whole lot if it came to a show-down." He was not a little mortified to find how easy it was for him to fall back upon that old cushion of provincial arrogance. It was all right for Uncle Peter, but for himself,—well, it proved that he was less finely Eastern than he had imagined.
As the cage came down for another ascent, he let the two solemn young men go up with Shepler and Pangburn, and went to search for Uncle Peter.
"There, thank God, is a man!" ”

“ Peter said suddenly, staring at the candle that was guttering in the breeze that came from behind the heavy blinds.
“Oh, dear,” said his aunt, “I'm sure Uncle Jeremy will be kind if you have to leave here, you know.”
“Why should I have to leave here?” asked Peter.
His aunt sunk her voice very low indeed—so low that it seemed to come from the heart of the cactus plant by the window.
“He hasn't got your mother now, you know. He'll want to have somebody....” ”

“ I tell you, what some folks need is a breed of chances that'll stand without hitchin'."
Percival braced himself and began on his soup.
"Never you mind, Uncle Peter. You remember what I told you."
"That takes a different man from what you are. If your pa was alive now—"
"But what are we going to do?" cried Psyche.
"First thing you'll do," said Uncle Peter, promptly, "you go write a letter to that beau of your'n, tellin' him it's all off. You don't want to let him be the one to break it because you lost your money, do you? ”

“ Yet when Consolidated suddenly rallied three points just at the close of the day's trading, he took much comfort in it as an omen of the morrow. That night, however, he took but little satisfaction in Uncle Peter's renewed assurances of trust in his acumen. Uncle Peter, he decided all at once, was a fatuous, doddering old man, unable to realise that the whole fortune was gravely endangered. And with the gambler's inveterate hope that luck must change he forbore to undeceive the old man. ”

“ He’s an ignorant old negro. He might get the papers into his hands, and the will might be lost forever.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Ruth, earnestly, “I don’t think Uncle Rufus is at all dishonest. I asked him about Uncle Peter’s hiding away things. He knows what folks say about uncle’s being a miser.”
“Well?” said Mr. Howbridge, questioningly.
“Uncle Rufus says he knows his old master was that way. Aunt Sarah says Uncle Peter was just like a magpie—that he hid away things without any real reason for it.”
“Ha! Miss Maltby was not fond of Mr. Peter Stower. They did not get along well together.” ”

“ My young readers will be fortunate if they find as worthy a man as my old Uncle Peter. He died July 17, 1869. He married in 1801 Sally, daughter of Lazarus Harlow, and had five sons, one of whom was our late townsman, Peter Holmes, who lived in the house now occupied by Dr. Brown on North street, and six daughters, two of whom married our venerable townsman, William Rider Drew.
There was another uncle, Uncle Lem, sailmaker by trade, whose soul was as white as the canvas on which he worked. He was the son of Lemuel and Abigail (Pierce) Simmons, and was born in 1790. ”

“ JOHN HENEY ON GREAT MEN Uncle Peter is one of the gamest little chunks of humanity that ever looked the world in the eye, but when he heard the edict put forth by Doctor Osler the old man went overboard with a splash. ”

“ Uncle Peter is wealthy. He doesn't need Hands' money. Come here, baby."
"Wait, Joy," I cut in hastily. "The young lady may be telling the truth. Uncle Peter is always short of funds. You see, Aunt Gretchen holds the purse strings in our family and Uncle Peter is always overdrawn on his allowance."
"Then let's get to that tavern and find out what's going on."
It took ten minutes to reach the tavern; a standard gin mill with a red neon sign proclaiming its presence. We quitted the car and I entered first, Joy bringing Cora along with a certain amount of force, and Bag Ears bringing up the rear. ”

“ I have not thought it necessary.”
“It is a man altogether singular, my Uncle Peter,” I went on, “and truly I think that you will do better to rest here at New York a few days, in attending a response to the letter which I counsel you to send him. He loves not the surprises, my Uncle Peter.”
“I shall do all as thou desirest, my good Gregory,” said Uncle Florimond; and he dispatched a letter to his nephew, Peter Brace, that very evening, setting forth the state of his affairs, and declaring his intention to go to Norwich.
That night and the next he slept in Mr. Finkelstein's spare bedroom. ”