"No ma'am, I'm not. Words can't begin to tell the tale when Mary gets the fever on. I thought I noticed symptoms of house-cleanin' last week. Mary was eyein' things round the house, and givin' me less and less to eat, and lookin' at me with that cold-storage stare of hers that means death or house-cleanin'." "But, Mr. Jackson," Betty pleaded, "your house has to be cleaned sometimes, you know." "Sure thing," Jonathan replied. "But there's altogether too much of this house-cleanin' business goin' on to suit me. I don't see any dirt anywheres." "That's because you are a man," Hepsey retorted. "Men never see dirt until they have to take a shovel to it." Jonathan sighed hopelessly. "What's the use of bein' a widower," he continued, "if you can't even have your own way in your own house, I'd just like to know? I have to eat odds and ends of cold victuals out here in the woodshed, or anywhere Mary McGuire happens to drop 'em." "That's tough luck, Mr. Jackson. You just come over to dinner with Donald and me and have a square meal." "I'd like to awful well, Mrs. Maxwell, but I dasn't: if I didn't camp out and eat her cold victuals she'd laid out for me, it'd spoil the pleasure of house-cleanin' for her. 'Taint as though it was done with when she's finished, neither. After it's all over, and things are set to rights, they're all wrong. Some shades won't roll up. Some won't roll down; why, I've undressed in the dark before now, since one of 'em suddenly started rollin' up on me before I'd got into bed, and scared the wits out of me. She'll be askin' me to let her give the furnace a sponge bath next. I believe she'd use tooth-powder on the inside of a boiled egg, if she only knew how. This house-cleanin' racket is all dum nonsense, anyhow." "Why Jonathan! Don't swear like that," Betty exclaimed laughing; "Mr. Maxwell's coming." "I said _d-u-m_, Mrs. Betty; I never say nothin' worse than that--'cept when I lose my temper," he added, safely, examining first the hone and then the edge of the scythe, as if intending to sharpen it. [Illustration: "I AIN'T A CHICKEN NO MORE, MRS. BETTY, AND I'VE 'MOST FORGOT HOW TO DO A BIT OF COURTIN'"] Hepsey had gone into the house to inspect for herself the thoroughness of Mary McGuire's operations; Betty thought the opportunity favorable for certain counsels. "The trouble with you is you shouldn't be living alone, like this, Jonathan. You have all the disadvantages of a house, and none of the pleasures of a home." "Yes," he responded, yawning, "it's true enough; but I 'aint a chicken no more, Mrs. Betty, and I've 'most forgot how to do a bit of courtin'. What with cleanin' up, and puttin' on your Sunday clothes, and goin' to the barber's, and gettin' a good ready, it's a considerable effort for an old man like me."