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Mr. Rooper now shifted himself a little on the bench and crossed one leg over the other. “Now look here, Asaph,” he said, with a little more animation than he had yet shown, “supposin’ all you say is true, have you got any reason to think that Mrs. Himes ain’t satisfied with things as they are?”

“Yes, I have,” said Asaph. “And I don’t mind tellin’ you that the thing she’s least satisfied with is me. She wants a man in the house; that is nateral. She wouldn’t be Marietta Himes if she didn’t. When I come to live with her I thought the whole business was settled; but it isn’t. I don’t suit her. I don’t say she’s lookin’ for another man, but if another man was to come along, and if he was the right kind of a man, it’s my opinion she’s ready for him. I wouldn’t say this to everybody, but I say it to you, Thomas Rooper, ’cause I know what kind of a man you are.”

Mr. Rooper did not return the compliment. “I don’t wonder your sister ain’t satisfied with you,” he said, “for you go ahead of all the lazy men I ever saw yet. They was sayin’ down at the tavern yesterday–only yesterday–that you could do less work in more time than anybody they ever saw before.”

“There’s two ways of workin’,” said Asaph. “Some people work with their hands and some with their heads.”

Thomas grimly smiled. “It strikes me,” said he, “that the most head-work you do is with your jaws.”

Asaph was not the man to take offence readily, especially when he considered it against his interest to do so, and he showed no resentment at this remark. “‘Tain’t so much my not makin’ myself more generally useful,” he said, “that Marietta objects to; though, of course, it could not be expected that a man that hasn’t got any interest in property would keep workin’ at it like a man that has got an interest in it, such as Marietta’s husband would have; but it’s my general appearance that she don’t like. She’s told me more than once she didn’t so much mind my bein’ lazy as lookin’ lazy.”

“I don’t wonder she thinks that way,” said Thomas. “But look here, Asaph, do you suppose that if Marietta Himes was to marry a man, he would really come into her property?”

“There ain’t nobody that knows my sister better than I know her, and I can say, without any fear of bein’ contradicted, that when she gives herself to a man the good-will and fixtures will be included.”

Thomas Rooper now leaned forward with his elbows on his knees without smoking, and Asaph Scantle leaned forward with his elbows on his knees without smoking. And thus they remained, saying nothing to each other, for the space of some ten minutes.

Asaph was a man who truly used his head a great deal more than he used his hands. He had always been a shiftless fellow, but he was no fool, and this his sister found out soon after she asked him to come and make his home with her. She had not done this because she wanted a man in the house, for she had lived two or three years without that convenience and had not felt the need of it. But she heard that Asaph was in very uncomfortable circumstances, and she had sent for him solely for his own good. The arrangement proved to be a very good one for her brother, but not a good one for her. She had always known that Asaph’s head was his main dependence, but she was just beginning to discover that he liked to use his head so that other people’s hands should work for him.

“There ain’t nobody comin’ to see your sister, is there?” asked Thomas, suddenly.

“Not a livin’ soul,” said Asaph, “except women, married folk, and children. But it has always surprised me that nobody did come; but just at this minute the field’s clear and the gate’s open.”