Brownsmith's Boy Part 20

"But it wouldn't be true," I said.

"Wouldn't it?" he replied, with a queer look. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't; but I'll tell him all the same."

"No," I cried, after a fight with a very cowardly feeling within me that seemed to be pulling me towards the creep-hole of escape, "I shall tell him myself."

Ike turned off sharply, and walked straight to where the broken pear bough lay, jumped up and pulled down the place where it had snapped off, opened his knife, and trimmed the ragged place off clean, and then went back to his work.

"Now he's offended," I said to myself with a sigh; and I went on picking apples in terribly low spirits.

CHAPTER TEN.

MY FIRST APPLE.

I had been working for about half an hour longer when I found I could get no more, and this time I went a little way and called Ike from where he was at work to move the ladder for me.

He came in a surly way, and then stared at me.

"Want me to move the ladder? Why can't yer move it yerself?" he grumbled.

"You know I'm not strong enough," I said.

"Ho! that's it, is it? I thought you were such a great big c.o.c.k-a-hoop sort of a chap that you could do anything. Well, where's it to be?"

"Round the other side, I think," I said.

"No; this here's best," he cried, and whisking up the ladder I stood admiring his great brown arms and the play of the muscles as he carried the ladder as if it had been a straw, and planted it, after thrusting the intervening boughs aside with the top to get it against a stout limb.

"There you are, my lad," he said. "Now, are you satisfied?"

"Yes; and thank you, Ike," I said quickly. "And I'm very much obliged to you about wanting to take the blame upon yourself about the broken ladder and--"

"Here, I can't stand listening to speeches with my plants a-shrivelling up in the sun. Call me if you wants me agen."

He gave me a curious look and went away, leaving me with the impression that I had thoroughly offended him now, and that I was a most unlucky boy.

I climbed the ladder again, picking as fast as I could to make up for lost time; and as the sun shone so hotly and I kept on picking the beautiful fruit with the bough giving and swaying so easily, I began to feel more at ease once more. While I picked and filled and emptied my basket I began to reason with myself and to think that after all Mr Brownsmith would not be so very angry with me if I went to him boldly and told the truth.

This thought cheered me wonderfully, and I was busily working away when I heard the whistling and scratching noise made by somebody walking sharply through the gooseberry bushes, and, looking round, there was Ike carrying another ladder, and Shock coming along loaded with baskets, evidently to go on picking apples from one of the neighbouring trees.

They neither of them spoke. Ike planted the ladder ready, and Shock took a basket and ran up, and was hard at work by the time Ike was out of sight.

I had hardly spoken to the boy since I had found him eating snails; and as I went on picking with my back to him, and thinking of the poor child being found crawling in the road and brought in a basket, and of his always running away from the workhouse, I felt a kind of pity for him, and determined to try if I could not help him, when all at once I felt a sharp pain accompanying a severe blow on the leg, as if some one had thrown a stone at me.

I turned sharply round, holding tightly with one hand; but Shock's back was turned to me, and he was picking apples most diligently.

I looked about, and there was no one else near, the trees being too small for anyone to hide behind their trunks. Shock did not look in my direction, but worked away, and I at last, as the sting grew less, went on with mine.

"I know it was him," I said to myself angrily. "If I catch him at it--"

I made some kind of mental vow about what I would do, finished filling my basket, went down and emptied it, and ascended the ladder again just as he was doing the same, but I might have been a hundred miles away for all the notice he took of me.

I had just begun picking again, and was glancing over my shoulder to see if he was going to play any antics, when he began to ascend his ladder, and I went on.

_Thump_!

A big lump of earth struck me right in the back, and as I looked angrily round I saw Shock fall from the top to the bottom of his ladder, and I felt that horrible sensation that people call your heart in your mouth.

He rose to a sitting position, put his hand to his head, and shouted out:

"Who's that throwing lumps?"

n.o.body answered; and as I saw him run up the ladder again it occurred to me that it was more a slip down than a fall from the ladder, and I had just come to this conclusion when, seeing that I was watching him, he made me start and cling tightly, for he suddenly fell again.

It was like lightning almost. One moment he was high up on the ladder, the next he was at the foot; but this time I was able to make out that he guided himself with his arms and his legs, and that it was really more a slide down than a fall.

I turned from him in disgust, annoyed with myself for letting him cheat me into the belief that he had met with an accident, and went on picking apples.

"He's no better than a monkey," I said to myself.

_Whiz_!

An apple came so close to my ear, thrown with great violence, that I felt it almost brush me, and I turned so sharply round that I swung myself off the ladder, and had I not clung tightly by my hands I must have fallen.

As it was, the ladder turned right round, in spite of its broadly set foot, and I hung beneath it, while my half-filled basket was in my place at the top.

The distance was not great, but I felt startled as I hung there, when, to my utter astonishment, Shock threw himself round, twisted his ladder, and hung beneath just as I did, and then went down by his hands from round to round of the ladder, turned it back, ran up again, and went on picking apples as if nothing was wrong.

I could not do as he did; I had not muscle enough in my arms, but I threw my legs round the tottering ladder, and slid down, turned it back to its old place, went up quickly, and again picked away.

For the next quarter of an hour all was very quiet, and I had just finished getting all I could when Ike came along.

I started guiltily, for I thought it was Old Brownsmith, but the voice rea.s.sured me, and I felt reprieved for the moment as Ike said:

"Want the ladder moved?"

I carried my basket down, and emptied it while Ike changed the position of the ladder.

"There you are," he said. "There's plenty for you up yonder. Come, you're getting on. Yes; and clean picked, too," he continued, giving the basket a shake. "Now you, Shock, come down, and I'll move yourn."

The boy got down sullenly, and turned his back to me while the ladder was moved, so that this time we were working at different trees, but nearly facing each other.

Ike gave me a nod, and went off again to his work; and as I turned my head to gaze after him, _whack_ came a little apple, and struck me on the side of the ear.

I was so much annoyed that I picked a big one out of my basket and threw it at Shock with all my might, disturbing my balance so that I had to hold on tightly with one hand.

My shot did not go anywhere near the boy, but he fell from the ladder, hanging by one leg in a horrible way, his head down, and his hands feeling about and stretching here and there, as if to get hold of something to draw him up. He swung about and uttered a low animal-like moan of distress that horrified me, and sliding down my ladder, unwilling to call for aid, I ran to help him myself.