“I don’t know,” replied Tim, bashfully, “’cept that Aunt Betsey always made me help her in the kitchen, an’ I s’pose it comes handy for a feller to do what he must do.”
By the time Sam came down-stairs the kitchen presented its usual neat appearance, and he was disposed to make light of his mother’s fright; but she soon changed his joy to grief by telling him to go to the spring for a pail of water.
Now, if there was one thing more than another which Sam disliked to do, it was to bring water from the spring. The distance was long, and he believed it was unhealthy for him to lift as much weight as that contained in a ten-quart pail of water. As usual, he began to make a variety of excuses, chief among which was the one that the water brought the night before was as cool and fresh as any that could be found in the spring.
Tim, anxious to make himself useful in any way, offered to go, and then Sam was perfectly willing to point out the spring, and to generally superintend the job.
“Tim may go to help you,” said Mrs. Simpson, “but you are not to let him do all the work.”
Sam muttered something which his mother understood to mean that he would obey her, and the boys left the house, going through the grove of pine-trees that bordered a little pond, at one side of which, sunk deep in the earth, was a hogshead, into which the water bubbled and flowed from its bed under the ground.
But Sam was far more interested in pointing out objects of interest to himself than in leading the way to the spring. He showed Tim the very hole where he had captured a woodchuck alive, called his attention to a tree in which he was morally certain a family of squirrels had their home, and enlarged upon the merits of certain kinds of traps best calculated to deceive the bushy-tailed beauties.
Tim did not fancy this idea of idling when there was work to be done; and as soon as he saw the spring he hurried off, in the middle of a story Sam was telling about a rabbit he caught the previous winter.
“What’s the use of bein’ in such a rush?” asked Sam, as, obliged to end his story, he ran after Tim. “Mother don’t want the water till breakfast’s ready, an’ that won’t be for a good while yet. Jest come over on this side the pond, an’ I’ll show you the biggest frog you ever saw in your life; that is, if he’s got out of bed yet.”
“Let’s get the water first, an’ then we can come back an’ see everything,” said Tim, as he hurried on.