sleep; but once
is enough. Hereafter I'll lock your door on the outside. I can't be
waked up every night, nor I can't have my plates broken."

"S'pose the house should catch fire," suggested Sam, who didn't fancy
being locked up in his room.

"If it does, I'll come and let you out. The house is safer when you're
safe in bed."

"My wife is right, Samuel," said the deacon, recovering his dignity
now that his fears were removed. "You must be locked in after
to-night."

Sam did not reply. On the whole, he felt glad to get off so well,
after alarming the house so seriously.

"Do you mean to stay downstairs all night, Deacon Hopkins?" demanded
his wife, with uncalled-for asperity. "If so, I shall leave you to
yourself."

"I'm ready to go up when you are," said her husband. "I thought you
mightn't feel like stayin' down here alone."

"Much protection you'd be in time of danger, Mr. Hopkins,--you that
locked the door on your wife, because you was afraid!"

"I wasn't thinkin'," stammered the deacon.

"Probably not," said his wife, in an incredulous tone. "Now go up.
It's high time we were all in bed again."

Sam was not called at as early an hour as the deacon intended. The
worthy man, in consequence of his slumbers being interrupted,
overslept himself, and it was seven o'clock when he called Sam.

"Get up, Samuel," he said; "it's dreadful late, and you must be spry,
or you won't catch up with the work."

Work, however, was not prominent in Sam's mind, as his answer showed.

"Is breakfast ready?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"It's most ready. Get right up, for it's time to go to work."

"I 'spose we'll have breakfast first," said Sam.

"If it's ready."

Under these circumstances, Sam did not hurry. He did not care to work
before breakfast, nor, for that matter, afterwards, if he could help
it. So he made a leisurely, though not an elaborate toilet, and did
not come down till Mrs. Hopkins called sharply up the attic stairs,
"Come down, you Sam!"

"All right, ma'am, I'm comin'," said Sam, who judged rightly that
breakfast was ready.

"We shan't often let you sleep so late," said Mrs. Hopkins, who sat
behind the waiter. "We were broken of our rest through your cutting up
last night, and so we overslept ourselves."

"It's pretty early," said Sam.

"We'd ought to have been at work in the field an hour ago," said the
deacon.

At the table Sam found work that suited him better.

"You've got a good appet