The pay was small, less than five dollars a week, but Jack did not let that cause him to refuse the opportunity. He needed the money, for his folks were in poor circumstances, and he went about his work with a stout heart.
He quickly proved an adept workman, observing, rapid to learn and always diligent, so much so that the foreman took a strong liking to him.
Several days passed and it became evident to Jack that if he had left one enemy outside the shop, he had another within, who was ready to improve every opportunity to trouble him. This was a small, thinfaced man who worked with him, and whose name was Mires. Besides being physically unable to carry an even end with him, this workman was prone to shirk every part of his work that he could, this portion falling largely on Jack to do in addition to his own.
Jack paid no heed to this, however, but kept about his work as if everything was all right, until a little incident occurred which completely changed the aspect of affairs.
Unknown to our hero, there had been a practice of long standing among the workmen of “testing” every new hand that came in, by playing what was believed to be a smart trick upon him. The joke consisted in sending the new hand in company with a fellow workman to bring from a distant part of the shop a pair of wheels, one of which was of iron and weighed over four hundred pounds, while its mate was made of wood and finished off to look exactly like its companion. The workman in the secret always looked out and got hold of the wooden wheel, which he could carry off with ease, while his duped associate would struggle over the other to the unbounded amusement of the lookers-on.
It heightened the effect by selecting a small, weak man to help in the deception, and Henshaw, liking this joke no less than his men, on the third day of Jack’s apprenticeship, said:
“North, you and Mires bring along them wheels at the lower end. Don’t be all day about it either,” speaking with unusual sharpness.
“Yes, sir.”
In a moment every one present was watching the scene, beginning to smile as they saw Mires start with suspicious alacrity toward the wheels. Some of the men, in order to get as good a view as possible of the expected exhibition, stationed themselves near at hand, having hard work to suppress their merriment in advance.
“Purty stout, air ye?” asked Mires, as he and Jack stood by the wheels.