Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/67

Rh truckmen stood behind and shoved, after putting a couple of ropes, one round each end of the hogshead, while two men standing in the depot steadily pulled at the ropes. The first man was the lecturer, the others were the audience. It is the duty of the lecturer to team his hogshead of sweets to the depot or Lyceum, place the horse, arrange the ropes, and shove, and it is the duty of the audience to take hold of the ropes and pull with all their might. The lecturer who has to read his essay without being abetted by a good hearing is in the predicament of a teamster who is engaged in the Sisyphean labor of rolling a molasses hogshead up an inclined plane alone, while the freight-master and his men stand indifferent with their hands in their pockets. I have seen many such a hogshead which had rolled off the horse and gone to smash with all the sweets wasted on the ground between the truckmen and the freight-house, and the freight-masters thought the loss was not theirs. Read well! Did you ever know a full well that did not yield of its refreshing waters to those who put their hands to the windlass or the well-sweep? Did you ever suck cider through a straw? Did you ever know the cider to push out of the straw when you were not sucking, unless it chanced to be in a complete ferment? An audience will draw out