"You certainly have."
"Is there some boy in the village I could hire to do the first heavy work and the mowing, and pull up the weeds from time to time if they get ahead of me?"
Howard Gray leaned on his hoe. "You don't need to hire a boy," he said gravely; "we'll be only too glad to help you all you need."
"Thank you. But, you see, you've got too much to do already, and I can't add to your burdens, or feel free to ask favors, unless you'll let me do it in a business way."
Mr. Gray turned his hoe over, and began to hack at the ground. "I see how you feel," he began, "but—"
"If Thomas could do it evenings, at whatever the rate is around here by the hour, I should be very glad. If not, please find me a boy."
"She has a way of saying things," explained Howard Gray, who had faltered along in a state of dreary indecision for nearly sixty years, in telling his wife about it afterwards,—"as if they were all settled already. What could I say, but 'Yes, Mrs. Cary'? And then she went on, as cool as a cucumber, 'As long as you've got an extra stall, may I send for one of my horses? The usual board around here is five dollars a week, isn't it?' And what could I say again but 'Yes, Mrs. Cary'? though you may believe I fairly itched to ask, 'Send where?' and, 'For the love of Heaven, how many horses have you?'"
"I could stand her actin' as if things was all settled," replied his wife; "I like to see folks up an' comin', even if I ain't made that way myself, an' it's a satisfaction to me to see the poor child kinder pickin' up an' takin' notice again; but what beats me is, she acts as if all these things were special favors to her! The garden an' the horse is all very well, but what do you think she lit into me to-day for? 'You'll let me stay all summer, won't you, Mrs. Gray?' she said, comin' into the kitchen, where I was ironin' away for dear life, liftin' a pile of sheets off a chair, an' settlin' down, comfortable-like. 'Bless your heart, you can stay forever, as far as I'm concerned,' says I. 'Well, perhaps I will,' says she, leanin' back an' laughin'—she's got a sweet-pretty laugh, hev you noticed, Howard?—'and so you won't think I'm fault-findin' or discontented if I suggest a few little changes I'd like to make around, will you? I know it's awfully bold, in another person's house—an' such a lovely house, too, but—'"
"Well?" demanded her husband, as she paused for breath.
"Well, Howard Gray, the first of them little changes is to be a great big piazza, to go across the whole front of the house! 'The kitchen porch is so small an' crowded,' says she, 'an' you can't see the river from there; I want a place to sit out evenings. Can't I have the fireplaces in my rooms unbricked,' she went on, 'an' the rooms re-papered an' painted? An', oh,—I've never lived in a house where there wasn't a bathroom before, an' I want to make that big closet with a window off my bedroom into one. We'll have a door cut through it into the hall, too,' says she, 'an' isn't there a closet just like it overhead? If we can get a plumber here—they're such slippery customers—he might as well put in two bathrooms as one, while he's about it, an' you shan't do my great washin's any more without some good set-tubs. An' Mrs. Gray, kerosene lamps do heat up the rooms so in summer,—if there's an electrician anywhere around here—' 'Mrs. Cary,' says I, 'you're an angel right out of Heaven, but we can't accept all this from you. It means two thousand dollars, straight.' 'About what I should pay in two months for my living expenses anywhere else,' says she. 'Favors! It's you who are kind to let me stay here, an' not mind my tearin' your house all to pieces. Thomas is goin' to drive me up to Wallacetown this evenin' to see if we can find some mechanics'; an' she got up, an' kissed me, an' strolled off."