HOUSE CLEANING AND BACHELORHOOD
Apart from Mrs. Burke, there was no one in the town who so completely
surrendered to Mrs. Maxwell's charms as Jonathan Jackson, the Junior
Warden. Betty had penetration enough to see, beneath the man's rough
exterior, all that was fine and lovable, and she treated him with a
jolly, friendly manner that warmed his heart.
One day she and Mrs. Burke went over to call on Jonathan, and found
him sitting in the woodshed on a tub turned bottom upwards, looking
very forlorn and disconsolate.
"What's the matter, Jonathan? You look as if you had committed the
unpardonable sin," Hepsey greeted him.
"No, it 'aint me," Jonathan replied; "it's Mary McGuire that's the
confounded sinner this time."
"Well, what's Mary been up to now?"
"Mary McGuire's got one of her attacks of house-cleanin' on, and I
tell you it's a bad one. Drat the nuisance."
"Why Jonathan! Don't swear like that."
"Well, I be hanged if I can stand this sort of thing much longer.
Mary, she's the deuce and all, when she once gets started
house-cleanin'."
"Oh dear," Mrs. Betty sympathized. "It's a bother, isnt it? But it
doesn't take so long, and it will soon be over, won't it?"
"Well, I don't know as to that," replied Jonathan disconsolately.
"Mary McGuire seems to think that the whole house must be turned wrong
side out, and every bit of furniture I've got deposited in the front
yard. Now, Mrs. Betty, you just look over there once. There's yards
and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains
I've been ordered to clean. It's somethin' beyond words. The whole
place looks as if there was goin' to be an auction, or a rummage sale,
or as if we had moved out 'cause the house was afire. Then she falls
to with tubs of boilin' hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and
drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and smells like
goodness knows what."
"Jonathan!" Hepsey reproved.
"Are you exaggerating just the least bit?" echoed Betty.
"No ma'am, I'm not. Words can't begin to tell the tale when Mary gets
the fever on. I thought I noticed symptoms of house-cleanin' last
week. Mary was eyein' things round the house, and givin' me less and
less to eat, and lookin' at me with that cold-storage stare of hers
that means death or house-cleanin'."
"But, Mr. Jackson," Betty pleaded, "your house has to be cleaned
sometimes, you know."
"Sure thing," Jonathan replied. "But there's altogether too much of
this house-cleanin' business goin' on to suit me. I don't see any dirt
anywheres."
"That's because you are a man," Hepsey retorted. "Men never see dirt
until they have to take a shovel to it."
Jonathan sighed hopelessly. "What's the use of bein' a widower," he
continued, "if you can't even have your own way in your own house,
I'd just like to know? I have to eat odds and ends of cold victuals
out here in the woodshed, or anywhere Mary McGuire happens to drop
'em."
"That's tough luck, Mr. Jackson. You just come over to dinner with
Donald and me and have a square meal."
"I'd like to awful well, Mrs. Maxwell, but I dasn't: if I didn't camp
out and eat her cold victuals she'd laid out for me, it'd spoil the
pleasure of house-cleanin' for her. 'Taint as though it was done with
when she's finished, neither. After it's all over, and things are set
to rights, they're all wrong. Some shades won't roll up. Some won't
roll down; why, I've undressed in the dark before now, since one of
'em suddenly started rollin' up on me before I'd got into bed, and
scared the wits out of me. She'll be askin' me to let her give the
furnace a sponge bath next. I believe she'd use tooth-powder on the
inside of a boiled egg, if she only knew how. This house-cleanin'
racket is all dum nonsense, anyhow."
"Why Jonathan! Don't swear like that," Betty exclaimed laughing; "Mr.
Maxwell's coming."
"I said _d-u-m_, Mrs. Betty; I never say nothin' worse than
that--'cept when I lose my temper," he added, safely, examining first
the hone and then the edge of the scythe, as if intending to sharpen
it.
[Illustration: "I AIN'T A CHICKEN NO MORE, MRS. BETTY, AND I'VE 'MOST
FORGOT HOW TO DO A BIT OF COURTIN'"]
Hepsey had gone into the house to inspect for herself the thoroughness
of Mary McGuire's operations; Betty thought the opportunity favorable
for certain counsels.
"The trouble with you is you shouldn't be living alone, like this,
Jonathan. You have all the disadvantages of a house, and none of the
pleasures of a home."
"Yes," he responded, yawning, "it's true enough; but I 'aint a chicken
no more, Mrs. Betty, and I've 'most forgot how to do a bit of
courtin'. What with cleanin' up, and puttin' on your Sunday clothes,
and goin' to the barber's, and gettin' a good ready, it's a
considerable effort for an old man like me."
"People don't want to see your clothes; they want to see you. If you
feel obliged to, you can send your Sunday clothes around some day and
let her look at them once for all. Keeping young is largely a matter
of looking after your digestion and getting plenty of sleep. Its all
foolishness for you to talk about growing old. Why, you are in the
prime of life."
"Hm! Yes. And why don't you tell me that I look real handsome, and
that the girls are all crazy for me. You're an awful jollier, Mrs.
Betty, though I'll admit that a little jollyin' does me a powerful
lot of good now and then. I sometimes like to believe things I know
to a certainty 'aint true, if they make me feel good."
For a moment Betty kept silent, gazing into the kindly face, and then
the instinct of match-making asserted itself too strongly to be
resisted.
"There's no sense in your being a lonesome widower. Why don't you get
married? I mean it."
For a moment Jonathan was too astounded at the audacity of the serious
suggestion to reply; but when he recovered his breath he exclaimed:
"Well, I swan to man! What will you ask me to be doin' next?"
"Oh, I mean it, all right," persisted Mrs. Betty. "Here you've got a
nice home for a wife, and I tell you you need the happiness of a real
home. You will live a whole lot longer if you have somebody to love
and look after; and if you want to know what you will be asking me to
do next, I will wager a box of candy it will be to come to your
wedding."
"Make it cigars, Mrs. Betty; I'm not much on candy. Maybe you're up to
tellin' me who'll have me. I haven't noticed any females makin'
advances towards me in some time now. The only woman I see every day
is Mary McGuire, and she'd make a pan-cake griddle have the blues if
she looked at it."
Mrs. Betty grasped her elbow with one hand, and putting the first
finger of the other hand along the side of her little nose,
whispered:
"What's the matter with Mrs. Burke?"
Jonathan deliberately pulled a hair from his small remaining crop and
cut it with the scythe, as if he had not heard Betty's impertinent
suggestion. But finally he replied:
"There's nothin' the matter with Mrs. Burke that I know of; but that's
no reason why she should be wantin' to marry me."
"She thinks a great deal of you; I know she does."
"How do you know she does?"
"Well, I heard her say something very nice about you yesterday."
"Hm! Did you? What was it?"
"She said that you were the most--the most economical man she ever
met."
"Sure she didn't say I was tighter than the bark on a tree? I guess I
'aint buyin' no weddin' ring on the strength of that. Now, Mrs. Betty,
you just try again. I guess you're fooling me!"
"Oh no, really I'm not. I never was more serious in my life. I mean
just what I say. I know Mrs. Burke really thinks a very great deal of
you, and if you like her, you ought to propose to her. Every moment a
man remains single is an outrageous waste of time."
Jonathan grinned as he retorted:
"Well, no man would waste any time if all the girls were like you.
They'd all be comin' early to avoid the rush. Is Mrs. Burke employin'
your services as a matrimonial agent? Maybe you won't mind tellin' me
what you're to get if the deal pulls off. Is there a rake-off
anywheres?"
Betty laughed, and Jonathan was silent for a while, squinting at the
scythe-edge, first from one angle, then from another, and tentatively
raising the hone as if to start sharpening.
"Well, Mrs. Betty," he said presently, "seein' I can't possibly marry
you, I don't mind tellin' you that I think the next best thing would
be to marry Hepsey Burke. She's been a mighty good friend and neighbor
ever since my wife died; but she wouldn't look at the likes of me.
'Twouldn't be the least use of proposin' to her."
"How do you know it wouldn't? You are not afraid of proposing, are
you?"
"No, of course not; but I can't run over and propose, as I would ask
her to lend me some clothes-line. That'd be too sudden; and courtin'
takes a lot of time and trouble. I guess I 'most forgot how by this
time; and then, to tell you the truth, I always was a bit shy. It took
me near onto five years to work myself up to the sticking point when I
proposed to my first wife."
"Well, now that's easy enough; Mrs. Burke usually sits on the side
porch after supper with her knitting. Why don't you drop over
occasionally, and approach the matter gradually? It wouldn't take long
to work up to the point."
"But how shall I begin? I guess you'll have to give me lessons."
"Oh, make her think you are very lonely. Pity is akin to love, you
know."
"But she knows well enough I'm mighty lonely at times. That won't
do."
"Then make her think that you are a regular daredevil, and are going
to the bad. Maybe she'll marry you to save you."
"Me, goin' to the bad at my age, and the Junior Warden of the church,
too. What are you thinkin' of?"
"It is never too late to mend, you know. You might try being a little
frisky, and see what happens."
"Oh, I know what would happen all right. She'd be over here in two
jerks of a lamb's tail, and read the riot act, and scare me out of a
year's growth. Hepsey's not a little thing to be playin' with."
"Well, you just make a start. Anything to make a start, and the rest
will come easy."
"My, how the neighbors'd talk!"
"Talk is cheap; and besides, in a quiet place like this it's a
positive duty to afford your neighbors some diversion; you ought to be
thankful. You'll become a public benefactor. Now will you go ahead?"
"Mrs. Betty, worry's bad for the nerves, and's apt to produce insomny
and neurastheny. But I'll think it over--yes, I will--I'll think it
over."
Whereupon he suddenly began to whet his scythe with such vim as
positively startled Betty.
[Illustration]