We did not sit very long over our tea, for there was the cart to load up
with flowers for the morning's market, and soon after I was watching Ike
carefully packing in the great baskets along the bottom of the cart, and
then right over the shafts upon the broad projecting ladder, and also
upon that which was fitted in at the back.
"You keep account, Grant," said Old Brownsmith to me, and I entered the
number of baskets and their contents upon my slate, the old gentleman
going away and leaving me to transact this part of the business myself,
as I believe now, to give me confidence, for he carefully counted all
the baskets and checked them off when he came back.
Ike squinted at me fiercely several times as he helped to hoist in
several baskets, and for some time he did not speak, but at last he
stopped, took off his hat, drew a piece of cabbage leaf from the crown,
and carefully wiped his bald head with it, looking comically at me the
while.
"Green silk," he said gruffly, as he replaced the leaf. "Nature's own
growth. Never send 'em to the wash. Throw 'em away and use another."
I laughed at the idea, and this pleased Ike, who looked at me from top
to toe.
"You couldn't load a cart," he said at last.
"Couldn't I?" I replied. "Why not? It seems easy enough."
"Seems easy! of course it does, youngster. Seems easy to take a spade
and dig all day, but you try, and I'm sorry for your back and jyntes."
"But you've only got to put the baskets in the cart," I argued.
"Only got to put the baskets in the cart!" grumbled Ike. "Hark at him!"
"That's what you've been doing," I continued.
"What I've been doing!" he said. "I'm sorry for the poor horse if you
had the loading up. A cart ain't a wagon."
"Well, I know that," I said, "a wagon has four wheels, and a cart two."
"Send I may live," cried Ike. "Why, he is a clever boy. He knows a
cart's got two wheels and a wagon four."
He said this in a low serious voice, as if talking to himself, and
admiring my wisdom; but of course I could see that it was his way of
laughing at me, and I hastened to add:
"Oh, you know what I mean!"
"Yes, I know what you mean, but you don't know what I mean, and if
you're so offle clever you'd best teach me, for I can't teach you."
"But I want you to teach me," I cried. "I've come here to learn. What
is there in particular in loading a cart?"
"Oh, you're ever so much more clever than I am," he grumbled. "Here,
len's a hand with that barge."
This was to the man who was helping him, and who now seized hold of
another basket, which was hoisted into its place.
Then more baskets were piled up, the light flower barges being put at
the top, till the cart began to look like a mountain as it stood there
with the shafts and hind portion supported by pieces of wood.
"Look ye here," said Ike, waving his arms about from the top of the pile
of baskets, and addressing me as if from a rostrum. "When you loads a
cart, reck'lect as all your weight's to come on your axle-tree. Your
load's to be all ballancy ballancy, you see, so as you could move it up
or down with a finger."
"Oh yes, I see!" I cried.
"Oh yes, you see--now I've telled you," said Ike. "People as don't know
how to load a cart spyles their hosses by loading for'ard, and getting
all the weight on the hoss's back, or loading back'ards, and getting all
the pull on the hoss's belly-band."
"Yes, I see clearly now," I said.
"Of course you do! Now you see my load here's so reg'lated that when I
take them props away after the horse is in, all that weight'll swing on
the axle-tree, and won't hurt the horse at all. That's what I call
loading up to rights."
"You've got too much weight behind, Ike," said Old Brownsmith, who came
up just then, and was looking on from opposite one wheel of the cart.
"No, no, she's 'bout right," growled Ike to himself.
"You had better put another barge on in front. Lay it flat," cried Old
Brownsmith, whose eye was educated by years of experience, and I stood
back behind the cart, listening curiously to the conversation. "Yes,
you're too heavy behind."
"No, no, she's 'bout right, master," growled Ike, "right as can be.
Just you look here."
He took a step back over the baskets, and I heard the prop that
supported the cart fall, as Ike yelled out--"Run, boy, run!"
I did not run, for two reasons. Firstly, I was too much confused to
understand my danger. Secondly, I had not time, for in spite of Ike's
insistence that the balance was correct the shafts flew up; Ike threw
himself down on the baskets, and the top layer of flat round sieves that
had not yet been tied like the barges, came gliding off like a landslip,
and before I knew where I was, I felt myself stricken down, half buried
by the wicker avalanche, and all was blank.