We turned into one shop more. The pavement in front was heaped with crates packed with oranges, and bound around the centre and the ends with iron bands. Three high they stood on end, and four and five in a row along the curb, while backed up against them were two empty trucks with slats sloping capaciously at the sides.
There was confusion within the shop. A dealer and two drivers were swearing loudly, each on a line of independent grievance. Two or three shopmen were bustling about in zealous execution of orders. Men who may have been customers were waiting impatiently for attention, and clerks added to the confusion as with papers in hand they passed quickly in and out of offices at the rear. It appeared the most unpromising place for us that we had entered, and we were prepared for a refusal more than commonly emphatic, when to our almost overwhelming surprise the dealer hailed us:
“Say, you men, do you want a job? Go out and load them oranges, and I’ll give you fifty cents apiece.”
We did not stagger nor clasp each other’s hands in an ecstasy of relief; we simply turned without a word, and hurrying to the street, we began to lift the heavy crates into the box of an empty truck.
“Fifty cents, partner, fifty cents!” he kept repeating in an awed undertone. He seemed to be trying to get firm hold of the fact of our almost incredible good fortune, and then, in a voice that was thick with a heaving sob, he said:
[Illustration: “WE’LL FEED, PARTNER, WE’LL FEED.”]
But we did not “feed” at once when the money was actually in our possession. The first load had gone fairly well, for the certain prospect of food nerved us to such a degree that, weakened though we were, we scarcely felt the effort of loading, and we were quite unaware that our bare hands were being scratched by the sharp ends of iron bands about the boxes until we felt the flow of blood. But before the second load was half on, our nerve began to fail us. Each succeeding crate went on board with a greater effort. And the task itself grew harder, as the tiers of boxes rose higher in the truck. It seemed as though the driver would never be satisfied with the load; but at last he called a halt, and, mounting his seat, drove off in the direction in which the other truck had gone.