"Yes, the small garden-roller; but Father said"—
"Oh, I know!" said Tom impatiently. "Let us fetch it."
Allan said no more. It was clear that Tom did not intend to listen to anything he had to say.
"Do you know how to use the roller?" asked Allan.
"I should hope so! Any one must know that," said Tom; and away they went to fetch it.
Now, there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and a garden-roller should be pulled and not pushed, but this Tom did not understand; therefore, he set to work with Allan to push the roller through the garden towards the field, while Twinkle, the fox-terrier, followed at their heels.
A garden-roller is an awkward thing to manage if you don't understand it. The iron handle is heavily weighted, and if pressed down and then released it springs up with great force, owing to the weight with which it is balanced.
Tom knew nothing of this; and Allan had never been allowed to touch the roller, so he was as ignorant as Tom. They had paused to draw breath, when Twinkle's bark of delight made Allan exclaim, "There's Father!"
At that moment Tom took his arms off the iron handle on which they had been resting, and the handle sprang up. There was a cry from Allan, and Tom saw to his horror that one end of the iron bar had struck the boy just above the eye. It was a painful blow, and the bruise began at once to discolor and swell, so that by the time his father came up poor Allan was a piteous object.
It was a most unfortunate beginning to Tom's visit. Of course his uncle was angry, for the garden-roller was quite useless for the purpose of rolling the field, and the ground was so hard and dry that no rolling, even with the heaviest horse-roller, would have done any good. Allan was very sorry for Tom, and took more than a fair share of the blame, saying he ought to have been more careful; but he was rather distressed when he found that he had a black eye, and that it could not be well before the cricket match, when the boys would be sure to chaff him.