Goodbye stumps?

For the past ten months, this has been the view of our front yard. I am sure that all of the neighbors and passers by will be glad when I finally plant something here. First things first though, I need to get rid of the 6 stumps that so gracefully decorate the front yard. With any luck, that will occur tomorrow.

Yesterday, I saw this gentleman walking around in our front yard. I came out and asked him if I could help him. He took out his card, for a landscape service, and wrote a very small number on the back of it. "I'll take them out", he said. "Each?", I asked. He sad, "no, all of them". Not wanting to get in trouble with someone that gave a bad price for work, I then proceeded to explain to him how deep the roots were and how much work I thought it would be and that I wanted it done by hand and didn't want him to damage the house, etc. (I am sure the OP would not appreciate a guy driving across the parkway, yanking stumps out with chains). He said, "no problem, I have a big axe." A big axe? Unless he had several big axes and a herd of big blue oxen, I am sure he won't take these things out so quick.

The gentleman stood there a little longer, thinking, and then wrote another number on the card. Still too low. I started thinking I was in the twilight zone. Who in the world haggles for a HIGHER price??? I then showed him another stump in the back yard and said it would be great to get that removed too. He wrote a final number. It is still too low, I think, but I agreed to it. He is supposed to show up tomorrow with his "team" to remove everything.

I can't help but have a sinking feeling about this. Will the guy even show??? Will he see the error of his ways and bag the whole thing or worse, will he get half-way through it and then walk away? Let's hope that on Monday morning, I am posting a photo of our perfectly cleaned front yard and my wallet won't be the smaller for it. Call me crazy, but something makes me think that this won't be the situation.