“Aw, what do you want me to do, Maw? Work all the time? Ain’t this my vacation?”
“But your father says you are to work enough in the summer to keep from forgetting what work is. And look how grubby you are. Faugh!”
“What do you want me to do, Maw?”
“You might do a little weeding in our garden, you know, Sammy.”
“Weeding!” groaned the boy, fairly horrified by the suggestion after what he had been through that afternoon.
“You know very well that our onions and carrots need cleaning out. And I don’t believe you could even find our beets.”
“Beets!” Sammy’s voice rose to a shriek. He never was really a bad boy; but this was too much. “Beets!” cried Sammy again. “I wouldn’t weed a beet if nobody ever ate another of ’em. No, I wouldn’t.”
He darted by his mother into the house and ran up to his room. Her reiterated command that he return and explain his disgraceful speech and violent conduct did not recall Sammy to the lower floor.
“Very well, young man. Don’t you come down to supper, either. And we’ll see what your father has to say about your conduct when he comes home.”
This threat boded ill for Sammy, lying sobbing and sore upon his bed. He was too desperate to care much what his father did to him. But to face the ridicule of the neighborhood—above all to face the prospect of weeding another bed of beets!—was more than the boy could contemplate.