Notes

Arthur was a ..... farmer, and Maria was a nice lady. But they were poor. They ..... the town ..... money for their land. One summer, their farm ..... One .... caught fire, and most of the animals ran away. Only the cats stayed. So Arthur and Maria had to bring in their ..... without an animal’s help.

On a fall day, the lord .... his money. Arthur asked if the lord could wait until he brought in his crops.

The lord was angry. He .... his hands high and yelled, “Pay me by the end of the week. If you don’t, I will increase the money you have to pay. I might put you in a jail ....”

So Arthur and Maria worked until there was .... on their hands. They finished four lines of .... and went to bed.

But the next morning, eight lines were finished! “Maria, didn’t we stop in this ..... here?” Arthur asked.

“Yes, that is correct. And the tools were in a different ....., too,” Maria said. They were surprised and happy. That day, they worked hard and finished five lines.

But in the morning, ten lines were done! Each day they did a lot of work. Each night, someone else did an .... amount of work. In a week, the whole field was finished. “Tomorrow I will sell the crops and pay the lord,” Arthur said. But that morning, the crops were gone. A bag was in the middle of the field. It .... money.

“Maria, let’s see who has helped us work.” Through a .... in the wall, they saw a funny ..... The cats were dancing in the field and eating corn! Now Arthur knew what had happened. The cats had worked at night! After that, Arthur was very nice to his cats and fed them lots of corn.