She had a pension of six dollars a month, but over and
above that sum her living was precarious. She made coats, and she
had never known want, for she was a master hand at dealing with
the opposite sex. Deacon Baxter, according to common report, had
ten or fifteen thousand dollars stowed away in the banks, so the
situation would be as simple as possible under ordinary
circumstances; it was as easy to turn out one man's pockets as
all-other's when he was a normal human being; but Deacon Baxter
was a different proposition.
"I wonder how long he's likely to live," she thought, glancing at
him covertly, out of the tail of her eye. "His evil temper must
have driven more than one nail in his coffin. I wonder, if l
refuse to housekeep, whether I '11 get--a better offer. I wonder
if I could manage him if I got him! I'd rather like to sit in the
Baxter pew at the Orthodox meeting-house after the way some of
the Baptist sisters have snubbed me since I come here."
Not a vestige of these incendiary thoughts showed in her comely
countenance, and her soul might have been as white as the
high-bibbed apron that covered it, to judge by her genial smile.
"I'd make the wages fair," urged the Deacon, looking round the
clean kitchen, with the break-fast-table sitting near the sunny
window and the odor of corned beef and cabbage issuing temptingly
from a boiling pot on the fire.
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