inished another hill.

Just then a cat, out on a morning walk, chanced to pass 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."

"Where'd you get that hoe?"

"I'm to work for Deacon Hopkins. He's took me. Where are you goin?"

"A-fishing."

"I wish I could go."

"So do I. I'd like company."

"Where are you goin to fish?"

"In a brook close by, down at the bottom of this field."

"I'll go and look on a minute or two. I guess there isn't any hurry
about them potatoes."

The minute or two lengthened to an hour and a half, when Sam roused
himself from his idle mood, and shouldering his hoe started for the
field where he had been set to work.

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