Father used to say she was the most
unreasonable woman in the world--for when she hired a gall she
expected perfection, for two dollars and a half a month.
Mr Jackson! didn't that make him feel good all over? Why shouldn't he
be called Mr, as well as that selfish conceited M'Clure, Captain? Yes,
there is a great charm in that are word, "Mr." It was a wrinkle I
picked up by accident, very early in life. We had to our farm to
Slickville, an Irish servant, called Paddy Monaghan--as hard-working a
critter as ever I see, but none of the boys could get him to do a
blessed thing for them. He'd do his plowin' or reapin', or whatever it
was, but the deuce a bit would he leave it to oblige Sally or the
boys, or any one else, but father; he had to mind him, in course, or
put his three great coats on, the way he came, one atop of the other,
to cover the holes of the inner ones, and walk. But, as for me, he'd
do anythin' I wanted. He'd drop his spade, and help me catch a horse,
or he'd do my chores for me, and let me go and attend my mink and
musquash traps, or he'd throw down his hoe and go and fetch the cows
from pasture, that I might slick up for a party--in short, he'd do
anything in the world for me.
"Well, they all wondered how under the sun Paddy had taken such a
shindy to me, when nobody else could get him to budge an inch for
them. At last, one day, mother asked me how on airth it was--for
nothin' strange goes on long, but a woman likes to get at the bottom
of it.
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