"Well, to
tell the truth, I don't quite fancy the idea of taking wages.
Judge Dickinson wants me to go to Alfred and housekeep for him,
and I'd named twelve dollars a month. It's good pay, and I
haven't said 'No'; but my rent is small here, I'm my own
mistress, and I don't feel like giving up my privileges."
"Twelve dollars a month!" He had never thought of approaching
that sum; and he saw the heap of unwashed dishes growing day by
day, and the cream souring on the milk-pans. Suddenly an idea
sprang full-born into the Deacon's mind (Jed Morrill's "Old
Driver" must have been close at hand!). Would Jane Tillman marry
him? No woman in the three villages would be more obnoxious to
his daughters; that in itself was a distinct gain. She was a
fine, robust figure of a woman in her early forties, and he
thought, after all, that the hollow-chested, spindle-shanked kind
were more ex-pensive to feed, on the whole, than their
better-padded sisters. He had never had any difficulty in
managing wives, and thought himself quite equal to one more bout,
even at sixty-five, though he had just the faintest suspicion
that the high color on Mrs. Tillman's prominent cheek-bones, the
vigor shown in the coarse black hair and handsome eyebrows, might
make this task a little more difficult than his previous ones.
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