“No, I ain’t,” said Squire Hadley bluntly; “I should be perfectly willing to have all my good deeds known if it was not for Mrs. Hadley. And that reminds me, I would willingly paint the house for you if she did not object.”
“That is not of so much consequence; but the roof does leak badly, and troubles my wife a good deal.”
That ought to be fixed,” said the Squire. “How shall I manage it?”
He reflected a moment, and his face brightened with a new idea.
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Wilson, we must use a little strategy. You shall see a carpenter, and have the roof repaired at your own expense.”
“Mr. Wilson’s countenance fell. “I fear — — ” he commenced.
“But I will repay you whatever it costs. How will that do?”
“How kind you are, Squire Hadley!”
“It is only what I ought to do, and would have done before if I had thought how to manage it. As Mrs. Hadley will wonder how you raised the money, I will say you had a gift from a friend, and that I told you to repair the house at your own expense.”
A few days later Mrs. Hadley came home in some excitement.
“Mr. Hadley,” said she, severely, “I find that the minister’s house is being new shingled.”
“Is it?” asked her husband indifferently.
“This is the way you waste your money, is it?”
“What have I to do with it? If Mr. Wilson chooses to shingle the house at his own expense, I am perfectly willing.”
“Didn’t you order it done?” inquired his wife, in amazement.
“Certainly not. The minister spoke of it when he paid the rent, and I told him he could do it at his own expense if he chose to.”
“That’s just what you ought to have said. But I don’t understand where the minister finds the money, if he is so poor as you say he is.”
“I understand that he has received a gift of money from a friend,” said the diplomatic Squire.
“I didn’t know he had any friend likely to give him money. Do you know who it is?”
“He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t inquire,” answered the Squire, pluming himself on his strategy.
“Was it a large sum?”
“I don’t think it was.”
“I wish his friend had given him enough to pay for painting the house, too.”
“Why? The house wouldn’t be any warmer for painting,” said the Squire slyly.
“It would look better.”
“And so minister to his vanity.”
“You seem to be very stupid this morning,” said Mrs. Hadley, provoked.
“I am only repeating your own observations, my dear.”
“If Mr. Wilson can afford to paint the house, I am in favor of his doing it; but I don’t think you have any call to pay for it. The house will be better property if it is newly painted.”
“Then don’t you think I ought to do it, Lucretia?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Hadley sharply.
“I think myself,” said the wily Squire, “considering the low rate at which the minister gets the house, he could afford to put on one coat of paint at his own expense. I have a great mind to hint it to him.”
“You’d better do it, Mr. Hadley,” said his wife approvingly.
“I will; but perhaps he won’t look at it in the same light.”
Within a week the painters were at work on the parsonage. The coat of paint improved its appearance very much. I suspect the bill was paid in the same way as the shingling; but this is a secret between the minister and Squire Hadley, whose strategy quite baffled his wife’s penetration.