"Well, of course sewin' 'aint just a man's business, anyway; and when
he has just got to do it----"

"Why don't you let Mary McGuire do it for you? You pay her enough,
certainly, to keep you from becomin' a buttonless orphan."

Mary McGuire, be it said, was the woman who came in by the day, and
cooked for Jonathan, and intermittently cleaned him out of house and
home.

"She don't know much about such things," replied Jonathan
confidentially. "I did let her do it for a while; but when my
buttonholes got tore larger, instead of sewin' 'em up, she just put on
a larger button; and I'd be buttonin' my pants with the covers of
saucepans by now, if I'd let her go on."

"It is curious what helpless critters men are, specially widowers. Now
Jonathan, why don't you lay aside your sewin', and invite me into your
parlor? You aren't a bit polite."

"Well, come along then, Hepsey; but the parlor aint just in apple-pie
order, as you might say. Things are mussed up a bit." He looked at her
suspiciously.

When they entered the parlor Mrs. Burke gazed about in a critical sort
of way.

"Jonathan Jackson, if you don't get married again before long I don't
know what'll become of you," she remarked, as she wrote her name with
the end of her finger in the dust on the center-table. "Why don't you
open the parlor occasionally and let the air in? It smells that musty
in here I feel as if I was attendin' your wife's funeral all over
again."

"Well, of course you know we never did use the parlor much, 'cept
there was a funeral in the family, or you called, or things like
that."

"Thank _you_; but even so, you might put things away occasionally, and
not leave them scattered all over the place."

"What's the use? I never can find anything when it's where it belongs;
but if it's left just where I drop it, I know right where it is when I
want it."

"That's a man's argument. Sakes alive! The least you could do would be
to shut your bureau drawers."

"What's the use shuttin' bureau drawers when you've got to open 'em
again 'fore long?" Jonathan asked. "It just makes so much more
trouble; and there's trouble enough in this world, anyway."

"You wouldn't dare let things go like this when Sarah was livin'."

"No," Jonathan replied sadly, "but there's some advantages in bein' a
widower. Of course I don't mean no disrespect to Sarah, but opinions
will differ about some things. She'd never let me go up the front
stairs without takin' m