I think I have said that Uncle Abe knew everything there was to be known
about farming, but he was content with his knowledge and never put it to
practical use, unless it was in the growing of water-melons. His melons
were the biggest and the sweetest, with the reddest hearts and the
smoothest rinds in the district. His patch was on the sunny side of the
slope, and when the big glistening globes were coming to fruition, the
old chap would sit on the worn sod bank above them and watch them
"drinking in the sunshine," as he said. I went over one morning to
collect six melons, previously selected, in exchange for a sack of meal,
and found him seated on a bank, the picture of misery.
"What's the matter, Uncle?"
"A go-hoppin' ghost's been around here eating my melons."
"A what?"
"A spook, and he's walked off with the very six melons you set your mark
against."
I dismounted, and walked into the melon patch, the old man silently
pointing out to me, with the stem of his pipe, the severed stems of my
melons.
"They're gone--you see."
"Yes," I answered dryly, "and the man who gathered them used a very
clean-cutting knife."
"What man?"
"Come, Uncle, you have parted with my melons to someone else, and I
consider you have behaved shabbily."
"That's it--go on. It isn't enough that my hair should turn white in
the loneliness of the dark at the dog-hopping terror that came out of
the deep pool down below there, 'midst a fearful groaning in the air and
a splashing in the water, but you must turn on me."
"What became of those melons, you old shuffler?"
"I ain't had a smoke for six days, and, on top of that, each morning I
woke up with an empty pipe to find a melon missing."