Description

THE OLD MARKET-CART
 BY Mrs. F. B. SMITH
Excerpt from book:
 IT stood with its thills upon the low stone wall that separated the barn-yard from the house-yard. There were wedges behind the wheels to keep the cart from rolling back, for it was little Sally Reed's baby-house just now. She had brought an armful of hay from the barn and spread it upon the floor of her little oblong room, and had put the three-legged milking-stool in one corner, and there she sat nursing her great rag-baby. She felt very grand indeed, up there,—the mistress of a house in the air, and the mother of so precious a child as her black-eyed, black-haired Jessie. How she loved that little bundle of rags, which seemed to her warm heart a living thing and beautiful! and how she loved the old cart, and enjoyed the hours when it was resting!
 	Whatever has done good service, is entitled to rest, and the old market-cart was no idler. Its strong wheels had often been in swift motion, and many a bundle had it borne safely to the desired destination.
 	Gill looked upon it with a sort of affection. He was Mr. Reed's farmer, a Scotchman by birth, and a good-natured, honest, kind-hearted man. His figure was tall and lank and awkward; but such a genial face shone out from under bushy, yellow locks, that little Benjamin and Sally Reed thought him almost handsome. His hair seemed to them quite like the glory which artists put around the heads of their saints, and they never dreamed of criticising Gill's aspect. To them he was simply "Our Gill;" and when children say this, their heart is in the expression. The Scotchman had been with Mr. Reed ever since Ben and Sally were born, and their world would have been very strange and imperfect without him. Their father was away at business all day in the city, three miles distant, and Gill managed the land—only twelve acres—and made it bring forth enough for family use, and a surplus for the market. He was such a good steward that he took the same interest in the place as if it were his own; and he would have cut off his right hand rather than have proved unworthy of the trust reposed in him.