This, indeed, was not a pleasant prospect, but Jane Tillman had faced worse ones in her time.
“I'm no hand at any work outside the house,” she observed, as if reflecting. “I can truthfully say I'm a good cook, and have a great faculty for making a little go a long ways.” (She considered this a master-stroke, and in fact it was; for the Deacon's mouth absolutely watered at this apparently unconscious comprehension of his disposition.) “But I'm no hand at any chores in the barn or shed,” she continued. “My first husband would never allow me to do that kind of work.”
“Perhaps I could git a boy to help out; I've been kind o' thinkin' o' that lately. What wages would you expect if I paid a boy for the rough work?” asked the Deacon tremulously. “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. But this fear vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, for he kept saying to himself: “A judge of the County Court wants her at twelve dollars a month; hadn't I better bid high an' git settled?
“If you'd like to have a home o' your own 'thout payin' rent, you've only got to say the word an' I'll make you Mis' Baxter,” said the Deacon. “There'll be nobody to interfere with you, an' a handsome legacy if I die first; for none o' my few savin's is goin' to my daughters, I can promise you that!”
The Deacon threw out this tempting bait advisedly, for at this moment he would have poured his hoard into the lap of any woman who would help him to avenge his fancied wrongs.
This was information, indeed! The “few savings” alluded to amounted to some thousands, Jane Tillman knew. Had she not better burn her ships behind her, take the risks, and have faith in her own powers? She was getting along in ears, and her charms of person were lessening with every day that passed over her head. If the Deacon's queer ways grew too queer, she thought an appeal to the doctor and the minister might provide a way of escape and a neat little income to boot; so, on the whole, the marriage, though much against her natural inclinations, seemed to be providentially arranged.
The interview that succeeded, had it been reported verbatim, deserved to be recorded in local history. Deacon Baxter had met in Jane Tillman a foeman more than worthy of his steel. She was just as crafty as he, and in generalship as much superior to him as Napoleon Bonaparte to Cephas Cole. Her knowledge of and her experiences with men, all very humble, it is true, but decidedly varied, enabled her to play on every weakness of this particular one she had in hand, and at the same time skilfully to avoided alarming him.
Heretofore, the women with whom the Deacon had come in contact had timidly steered away from the rocks and reefs in his nature, and had been too ignorant or too proud to look among them for certain softer places that were likely to be there—since man is man, after all, even when he is made on a very small pattern.
If Jane Tillman became Mrs. Baxter, she intended to get the whip hand and keep it; but nothing was further from her intention than to make the Deacon miserable if she could help it. That was not her disposition; and so, when the deluded man left her house, he had made more concessions in a single hour than in all the former years of his life.