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They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently intending to show me how
to do it. I made no comment; I only waited. With the exception of
George, Harris is the worst packer in this world; and I looked at the piles
of plates and cups, and kettles, and bottles, and jars, and pies, and
stoves, and cakes, and tomatoes, etc., and felt that the thing would soon
become exciting.

Light-hearted spirit: to be cheerful
Evidently: clearly, obviously
Exception: a person or thing that does not follow the general rule

George and Harris started packing the hampers in a happy mood. They
wanted to show Jerome that they could pack well. Jerome waited for
them to create a mess because he considered Harris to be the worst
packer in the world. Jerome looked at the piles of plates, cups, kettles
and bottles, the jars, pies, cakes and tomatoes that had to be packed
into the hampers. He thought that as the boys would mess up, it would
be an interesting thing to watch.

It did. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did.
They did that just to
show you what they could do, and to get you interested.

The scene became interesting as they broke a cup at the start. Jerome
says that they broke the cup to indicate that they could do that too and to
make things interesting.

Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed
it, and they had to pick out the tomato with a teaspoon.