"Is breakfast ready?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"It's most ready. Get right up, for it's time to go to work."

"I 'spose we'll have breakfast first," said Sam.

"If it's ready."

Under these circ.u.mstances, Sam did not hurry. He did not care to work before breakfast, nor, for that matter, afterwards, if he could help it. So he made a leisurely, though not an elaborate toilet, and did not come down till Mrs. Hopkins called sharply up the attic stairs, "Come down, you Sam!"

"All right, ma'am, I'm comin'," said Sam, who judged rightly that breakfast was ready.

"We shan't often let you sleep so late," said Mrs. Hopkins, who sat behind the waiter. "We were broken of our rest through your cutting up last night, and so we overslept ourselves."

"It's pretty early," said Sam.

"We'd ought to have been at work in the field an hour ago," said the deacon.

At the table Sam found work that suited him better.

"You've got a good appet.i.te," said Mrs. Hopkins, as Sam took the seventh slice of bread.

"I most generally have," said Sam, with his mouth full.

"That's encouraging, I'm sure," said Mrs. Hopkins, drily.

There was no pie on the table, as Sam noticed, to his regret. However, he was pretty full when he rose from the table.

"Now, Samuel, you may come along with me," said the deacon, putting on his hat.

Sam followed him out to the barn, where, in one corner, were kept the hoes, rakes, and other farming implements in use.

"Here's a hoe for you," said the deacon.

"What are we going to do?" asked Sam.

"The potatoes need hoeing. Did you ever hoe potatoes?"

"No."

"You'll l'arn. It aint hard."

The field was some, little distance from the house,--a two-acre lot wholly devoted to potatoes.

"I guess we'll begin at the further corner," said the deacon. "Come along."

When they had reached the part of the field specified, the deacon stopped.

"Now," said he, "just see how I do it;" and he carefully hoed around one of the hills.

"There, you see it's easy."

"I guess I can do it. Are you goin to stay here?"

"No, I've got to go to the village, to the blacksmith's. I'll be back in about two hours. Jest hoe right along that row, and then come back again on the next. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Sam.

"I want you to work as spry as you can, so's to make up for lost time."

"What time do you have dinner?" asked our hero.

"You aint hungry so quick, be you?"

"No, but I shall be bimeby. I thought I'd like to know when to quit work, and go to dinner."

"I'll be back before that. You needn't worry about that."

The deacon turned, and directed his steps homeward.

As long as he was in sight Sam worked with tolerable speed. But when the tall and stooping figure had disappeared from view he rested, and looked around him.

"It'll be a sight of work to hoe all them potatoes," he said to himself. "I wonder if the old man expects me to do the whole. It'll be a tough job."

Sam leisurely hoed another hill.

"It's gettin' hot," he said. "Why don't they have trees to give shade?

Then it would be more comfortable."

He hoed another hill, taking a little longer time.

"I guess there must be a million hills," he reflected, looking around him thoughtfully. "It'll take me from now till next winter to hoe 'em all."

At the rate Sam was working, his calculation of the time it would take him was not far out probably.

He finished another hill.

Just then a cat, out on a morning walk, chanced to pa.s.s through the field a few rods away. Now Sam could never see a cat without wanting to chase it,--a fact which would have led the cat, had she been aware of it, to give him a wide berth. But, unluckily, Sam saw her.

"Scat!" he exclaimed, and, grasping his hoe, he ran after puss.

The cat took alarm, and, climbing the wall which separated the potato-field from the next, sped over it in terror. Sam followed with whoops and yells, which served to accelerate her speed. Occasionally he picked up a stone, and threw at her, and once he threw the hoe in the excitement of his chase. But four legs proved more than a match for two, and finally he was obliged to give it up, but not till he had run more than quarter of a mile. He sat down to rest on a rock, and soon another boy came up, with a fishing-pole over his shoulder.

"What are you doing, Sam?" he asked.

"I've been chasin' a cat," said Sam.

"Didn't catch her, did you?"

"No, hang it."