“Yes, without.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, Mr. Hopkins.”
“Why, without a gurrl—a kitchen gurrl.”
“We have no cook at present. Do you know where I can get one?”
“No, I can’t say as I do. Gurrls are pretty scarce in kitchens, nowadays, though there seems to be plenty of them in parlors. Maybe my Libbie would come in and help you out, though she ain’t never worked out, regular.”
“Oh, would she?” exclaimed Barbara.
“Can’t say fer sure. I’ll ast her when I go home. She’s got steady company, now,—he’s a brakeman on the Southern Limited,—an’ he always gits back fer Sunday night. I dunno as she’d like to engage herself fer Sunday nights. But I’ll ast her. You ain’t got that waist sprinkled enough; it’s too dry to iron well.”
Barbara only thumped her iron a little harder.
“Don’t like to be told, do ye? Guess you must be a little like my wife,—set in your ways. I know a good deal about ironin’; seen the women-folks do it fer thirty years.”
“You must have had a good deal of time to sit and watch.”