"Don't you never doubt it," sez I. "All you need to do is to issue the orders, an' if I don't carry 'em out, why, just tell the folks not to send flowers. I ain't long on talk, but I'll agree to carry out any plan you've got, from ditchin' a limited to shootin' up a Methodist Church. That's me," sez I, "an' now let's have the news."
Talk about bein' surprised! I thought she had a fence war on her hands at the least; but what she wanted me to do was to take care of a gentle old pair o' hosses, milk a cow, tend a garden, cut the grass, an' help around the house. By the time she finished the program, I felt like a fightin' bulldog when a week-old kitten spits at him. Here I was, willin' to leave my hide tacked up on her barn, an' all she wanted was a kind of lady-gardener. I just sort o' wilted down on the steps, an' I must 'a' turned pale, 'cause she said to me, "Why, you must be hungry. Haven't you had your breakfast?"
"Oh, yes," sez I, "day before yesterday."
Then she begun to rustle about an' fix me up a snack, an' I was glad I had followed the finger o' Fate. The bill o' fare seemed altogether adapted to my disposition.
While I was fillin' up the chinks an' crevices, she dealt out a varigated assortment of facts. It seemed they lived there on account o' the health o' the baby. Her husband had had to go East, an' would be there some six weeks longer. When he had left, she had an Irish cook, an' a Chinaman as polite as an insurance agent; but as soon as he was gone, the Chink began to take liberties, the cook packed up her brogue an' headed for an inhabited community, an' then the Chink concluded that all he saw was his'n. She finally took a brace a' told him to hit the trail, an' he had gone off, vowin' to come back an' burn down the whole place. This was her first year there, an' the closest neighbor was seven miles across country, an' not well acquainted.
She expected her cousin in a week or so, but as it was, she was beginnin' to have trouble with her nerves. Then I was glad that I had made her my little openin' address, 'cause she had joyfulled up like a desert poney when he smells water.
Well, I put in a rich an' useful day, as the preacher sez. First, I rode one o' the veterans over to the station about ten miles away, an telegraphed the other man not to bother; then I came back an' wed the onions, washed the dishes, ran the washin' machine—say, I was bein' entertained all right, but every minute I felt like reachin' to see if my back hair wasn't comin' down.
Me an' the cow had the time of our life that night. She had missed a couple o' milkin's, an' didn't seem to care much about resumin' payment; so I finally had to rope an' tie her, an' milk up hill into a fruit-jar. Talk about bein' handy? I didn't know but what next day I'd be doin' some plain sewin', or tuckin' the crust around a vinegar pie.
That night after supper she put the kid to bed an' then came down, an' we went around nailin' the house up. Finally she showed me where to flop. It was in her husband's cave, I believe she called it—a little room full o' books an' pipes an' resty-lookin' furniture. The' was a big leather bunk, an' that was where I was to get mine. Her room was at the head of the stairs, an' she had a rope goin' over the transom with a bell hangin' to it, close in front of my door. The bell was to be my signal if she heard the Chink attack before I did. Just before she went upstairs she reached into the bosom of her dress an' fished out a real revolver, about the size of a watch-charm. She held it in her hand and looked into my eyes with her lips tight set.
"Are the mosquitoes as bad as that?" sez I.