"I always kept hopin', Hanna, I could get you to take more to the home."
"The home—you mean the tomb!"
"Why, with the right attention, we got as fine an old place here as there is in this part of town, Hanna. If only you felt like giving it a few more touches that kinda would make a woman-place out of it! It 'ain't changed a whit from the way me and my old father run it together. A little touch here and there, Hanna, would help to keep you occupied and happier if—"
"I know. I know what's comin'."
"The pergola I had built. I used to think maybe you'd get to putter out there in the side-yard with it, trailin' vines; the china-paintin' outfit I had sent down from Cincinnati when I seen it advertised in the Up-State Gazette; a spaniel or two from Old Cocker's new litter, barkin' around; all them things, I used to think, would give our little place here a feelin' that would change both of us for the better. With a more home-like feelin' things might have been different between us, Hanna."
"Keepin" a menagerie of mangy spaniels ain't my idea of livin'."
"Aw, now, Hanna, what's the use puttin' it that way? Take, for instance, it's been a plan of mine to paint the house, with the shutters green and a band of green shingles runnin' up under the eaves. A little encouragement from you and we could perk the place up right smart. All these years it's kinda gone down—even more than when I was a bachelor in it. Sunk in, kinda, like them iron jardinières I had put in the front yard for you to keep evergreen in. It's them little things, Hanna. Then that—that old idea of mine to take a little one from the orphanage—a young 'un around the—"
"O Lord!"
"I ain't goin' to mention it if it aggravates you, but—but makin' a home out of this gray old place would help us both, Hanna. There's no denyin' that. It's what I hoped for when I brought you home a bride here. Just had it kinda planned. You putterin' around the place in some kind of a pink apron like you women can rig yourselves up in and—"
"There ain't a girl in Adalia has dropped out of things the way I have, I had a singin' voice that everybody in this town said—"