The old keeper did not spend any more time in the kitchen than was absolutely necessary; but hurried up-stairs even before his breakfast was really at an end, for he took a cup of coffee with him, saying as he did so:
"I don't feel jest right about leavin' Sammy alone so long, an' I'll drink this 'ere in his room."
"Why don't you try to get a little sleep, Sonny?" Uncle Zenas asked when he was alone with the lad, and the latter replied:
"I don't feel sleepy now, sir. Let me do what I can down here, so you'll be ready to take a turn at watching, and the minute my eyes grow heavy, I'll go to bed."
"It's astonishin' what a difference there is in boys," the cook said half to himself when Sidney began to sweep the floor. "I allers allowed that I'd never rest easy with one under foot, an' yet this little shaver does his share of the work like a man. I reckon, Sonny," he added, raising his voice a trifle, "that I may as well make a batch of doughnuts while I've got the chance, for there's no tellin' when I'll have so much time on my hands. If it so be you're willin', s'posen you wash the dishes?"
Sidney was not only willing, but eager, to do a full share of the work, and Uncle Zenas began his task by putting on the stove a kettle in which was a goodly quantity of lard, after which he set about mixing the dough.
The two worked in silence until the cook suddenly exclaimed, as if his mind had been wandering to other subjects than that of the task on hand:
"I declare if that fat ain't boilin', an' I'm not half ready to use it."
Rising to his feet after his own clumsy fashion, he lifted the kettle of hot lard, intending to take it off the stove, when Captain Eph shouted from the head of the stairs in a voice somewhat resembling distant thunder:
"Glory be to God! Glory be to God! Sammy is sittin' up as pert as a chicken!"