The Young Outlaw: or, Adrift in the Streets

It was full time. The deacon was there before him, surveying with angry look the half-dozen hills, which were all that his young assistant had thus far hoed.

"Now there'll be a fuss," thought Sam, and he was not far out in that calculation.

CHAPTER VI.

SAM'S SUDDEN SICKNESS

"Where have you been, you young scamp?" demanded the deacon, wrathfully.

"I just went away a minute or two," said Sam, abashed.

"A minute or two!" ejaculated the deacon.

"It may have been more," said Sam. "You see I aint got no watch to tell time by."

"How comes it that you have only got through six hills all the morning?" said the deacon, sternly.

"Well, you see, a cat came along – " Sam began to explain.

"What if she did?" interrupted the deacon. "She didn't stop your work, did she?"

"Why, I thought I'd chase her out of the field."

"What for?"

"I thought she might scratch up some of the potatoes," said Sam, a brilliant excuse dawning upon him.

"How long did it take you to chase her out of the field, where she wasn't doing any harm?"

"I was afraid she'd come back, so I chased her a good ways."

"Did you catch her?"

"No, but I drove her away. I guess she won't come round here again," said Sam, in the tone of one who had performed a virtuous action.

"Did you come right back?"

"I sat down to rest. You see I was pretty tired with running so fast."

"If you didn't run any faster than you have worked, a snail would catch you in half a minute," said the old man, with justifiable sarcasm. "Samuel, your excuse is good for nothing. I must punish you."

Sam stood on his guard, prepared to run if the deacon should make hostile demonstrations. But his guardian was not a man of violence, and did not propose to inflict blows. He had another punishment in view suited to Sam's particular case.

"I'll go right to work," said Sam, seeing that no violence was intended, and hoping to escape the punishment threatened, whatever it might be.

"You'd better," said the deacon.

Our hero (I am afraid he has not manifested any heroic qualities as yet) went to work with remarkable energy, to the imminent danger of the potato-tops, which he came near uprooting in several instances.

"Is this fast enough?" he asked.

"It'll do. I'll take the next row, and we'll work along together. Take care, – I don't want the potatoes dug up."

They kept it up for an hour or more, Sam working more steadily, probably, than he had ever done before in his life. He began to think it was no joke, as he walked from hill to hill, keeping up with the deacon's steady progress.

"There aint much fun about this," he thought. "I don't like workin' on a farm. It's awful tiresome."

"What's the use of hoein' potatoes?" he asked, after a while. "Won't they grow just as well without it?"

"No," said the deacon.

"I don't see why not."

"They need to have the earth loosened around them, and heaped up where it's fallen away."

"It's a lot of trouble," said Sam.

"We must all work," said the deacon, sententiously.

"I wish potatoes growed on trees like apples," said Sam. "They wouldn't be no trouble then."

"You mustn't question the Almighty's doin's, Samuel," said the deacon, seriously. "Whatever he does is right."

"I was only wonderin', that was all," said Sam.

"Human wisdom is prone to err," said the old man, indulging in a scrap of proverbial philosophy.

"What does that mean?" thought Sam, carelessly hitting the deacon's foot with his descending hoe. Unfortunately, the deacon had corns on that foot, and the blow cost him a sharp twinge.

"You careless blockhead!" he shrieked, raising the injured foot from the ground, while a spasm of anguish contracted his features. "Did you take my foot for a potato-hill?"

"Did I hurt you?" asked Sam, innocently.

"You hurt me like thunder," gasped the deacon, using, in his excitement, words which in calmer moments he would have avoided.

"I didn't think it was your foot," said Sam.

"I hope you'll be more careful next time; you most killed me."

"I will," said Sam.

"I wonder if it isn't time for dinner," he began to think presently, but, under the circumstances, thought it best not to refer to the matter. But at last the welcome sound of the dinner-bell was heard, as it was vigorously rung at the back door by Mrs. Hopkins.

"That's for dinner, Samuel," said the deacon. "We will go to the house."

"All right!" said Sam, with alacrity, throwing down the hoe in the furrow.

"Pick up that hoe, and carry it with you," said the deacon.