"Come on back here!" called my companion. "Gen and I need you with our cart."
Gen and I!... Our cart, indeed! Who first thought of helping Gen with her cart, I should like to know!
Without enthusiasm I returned and took hold of the shaft again. The cart was getting heavier. He and Gen weren't pulling as they should. They were too busy talking—that was the trouble with them!
"Say, how far is it to this town where these people live?" I demanded of him.
"I guess it's not very much farther," my friend interrupted his conversation with Gen to reply.
"I should hope not! We've pulled this infernal cart about five miles already."
"If you don't like it," he answered, "why don't you get back in the basha?"
"How am I going to do that, when that old woman is in my place?"
"Tell her you want to ride. Tell her to come back here and get on the job again."
I looked up at her. It was quite out of the question to do such a thing. Much as I should have enjoyed my seat in the basha, she was enjoying it more. She and the younger woman were having a magnificent time, chattering, giggling, hailing every acquaintance they passed. And when other peasants who knew them gazed, astonished, they would burst into roars of mirth. All of which gave our progress more than ever the aspect of a circus parade in which, it began to seem to me, I figured as the clown.