“She’d never have another happy moment,” interrupted Jack, pushing back his coffee-cup. “Well, to work, to work! My, it looks hot out there in the sunshine!” An hour later, Barbara raised a flushed face from the ironing-board to greet the Vegetable Man. The Vegetable Man was fat and red, and wheezed as he walked. He was an old patient of the doctor’s, and his bi-weekly trips to the Grafton house were partially of a social nature. His face wore the blank expression of a sheet of sticky fly-paper, and he was equally hard to get rid of. He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and fanned himself with his hat. “This is a scorcher!” he remarked. No one appreciated the truth of this statement more strongly than Barbara. But she feared the result of an enthusiastic response to the Vegetable Man. “Yes,” she assented. “It is.” “Ninety-three, accordin’ to the official thermometer on the weather bureau’s porch. My thermometer’s three degrees higher, an’ when I’m out in the sun, I believe mine’s right. Even the guv’ment’s likely to make mistakes on a day like this.” Barbara nodded. “Want any vegetables this morning?” “No, I have already ordered my meals to-day.” “Got some nice corn out there in my wagon. An’ some prime cauliflower.” “I don’t want either, to-day.” “All right; only you know you save money by buyin’ from me instead of the grocery-store. Your ma would tell you that, if she wuz here. How _is_ your ma?” “Getting better, slowly.” “That’s good; give her my respects when you write. Leander Hopkins’s respects, an’ hopes you will soon be in your accustomed health again. How are you gettin’ on while she’s gone? Are you just helpin’ in the kitchen, or are you without?” “Without?” “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.”