He was obliged to wear his good clothes, a great part of the time, for he was continually going on errands to the village, and these errands were so important that they took precedence of everything else.

It gave me a melancholy sort of pleasure, sometimes, to do Jonas's work when he was thus sent away.
I asked him, one day, how he liked it all?
"Well," said he, reflectively, "I can't say as I understand it, exactly.
It does seem queer to me that such a little thing should take up pretty nigh all the time of three people.

I suppose, after a while," this he said with a grave smile, "that you may be wanting to turn in and help." I did not make any answer to this, for Jonas was, at that moment, summoned to the house, but it gave me an idea.

In fact, it gave me two ideas.
The first was that Jonas's remark was not entirely respectful.

He was my hired man, but he was a very respectable man, and an American man, and therefore might sometimes be expected to say things which a foreigner, not known to be respectable, would not think of saying, if he wished to keep his place.