"No," I said; "I've often wished we had a microscope."
"A what, Grant?"
"Microscope, sir, to look at the blight and the veins in the plants'
leaves."
"No, no; I mean greenhouses and forcing-houses, where fruit and
vegetables and flowers are brought on early: but wait a bit."
I did wait a bit, and went on learning, getting imperceptibly to know a
good deal about gardening, and so a couple of years slipped away, when
one day I was superintending the loading of the cart after seeing that
it was properly supported with trestles. Ike was seated astride one of
the large baskets as if it were a saddle, and taking off his old hat he
began to indulge in a good scratch at his head.
"Lookye here," he exclaimed suddenly, "why don't you go to market?"
"Too young," I said, with a feeling of eagerness flashing through me.
"Not you," he said slowly, as he looked down at me and seemed to measure
me with his eye as one of my uncles did. "There's a much littler boy
than you goes with one of the carts, and I see him cutting about the
market with a book under his arm, looking as chuff as a pea on a shovel.
He ain't nothing to you. Come along o' me. I'll take an old coat for
wrapper, and you'll be as right as the mail. You ask him. He'll let
you come."
Ike was wrong, for when I asked Old Brownsmith's leave he shook his
head.
"No, no, boy. You're too young yet. Best in bed."
"Too partickler by half," Ike growled when I let him know the result of
my asking. "He's jealous, that's what he is. Wants to keep you all to
hisself. Not as I wants you. 'Tain't to please me. You're young and
wants eddicating; well, you wants night eddication as well as day
eddication. What do you know about the road to London of a night?"
"Nothing at all, Ike?" I said with a sigh.
"Scholard as you are too," growled Ike. "Why, my figgering and writing
ain't even worth talking about with a pen, though I am good with chalk,
but even I know the road to London."
"He'll let me go some day," I said.
"Some day!" cried Ike in a tone of disgust. "Any one could go by day.
It's some night's the time. Ah! it is a pity, much as you've got to
learn too. There's the riding up with the stars over your heads, and
the bumping of the cart, and the bumping and rattle of other carts, as
you can hear a mile away on a still night before and behind you, and
then the getting on to the stones."
"On to the stones, Ike?" I said.