It was nothing more than an
old barrel suspended by a rope from the middle of a stout oar. Quite
an ingenious contrivance of the Yankee's; and his proposed
arrangement with regard to mine and the doctor's shoulders was
equally so.
"There now!" said he, when everything was ready, "there's no
back-breaking about this; you can stand right up under it, you see:
jist try it once"; and he politely rested the blade of the oar on my
comrade's right shoulder, and the other end on mine, leaving the
barrel between us.
"Jist the thing!" he added, standing off admiringly, while we remained
in this interesting attitude.
There was no help for us; with broken hearts and backs we trudged back
to the field; the doctor all the while saying masses.
Upon starting with the loaded barrel, for a few paces we got along
pretty well, and were constrained to think the idea not a bad one.
But we did not long think so. In less than five minutes we came to a
dead halt, the springing and buckling of the clumsy oar being almost
unendurable.
"Let's shift ends," cried the doctor, who did not relish the blade of
the stick, which was cutting into the blade of his shoulder.
At last, by stages short and frequent, we managed to shamble down the
beach, where we again dumped our cargo, in something of a pet.
