I split off another log and stretched my neck. "Hey," came a voice from behind me, "what's a pretty thing like you doing chopping wood?" I rested the axe head on the ground and turned. He was a big one. At least six feet tall, broad as a horse, smug as a donkey. Outside my cabin on the hill overlooking town, the open sky framed him dramatically. "What else should I be doing?"

"Making dinner, mending clothes, needlepoint." He shrugged. "You'll callous your sweet hands doing this work. They'd be too rough to rub your husband's back after he comes in from work." His leer made me nauseous.

"Don't got a husband." I turned back to the wood. "So no worries there."

"No husband? I can see you need someone to take you in hand." The proposed hand fell on my shoulder, not in a tight grip, but not lightly either.

I turned and smiled. "It would have to be someone who has hands."

He looked perplexed. "I have hands."

I lifted my axe. "No, you don't." Thirty seconds later I was chopping wood again. It's good that he left so quickly. Blood is such a pain to clean up.