“I don’t know as it would be,” Bobby admitted, musingly. “I should like that old big fellow! Uncle Ben says that’s a mountain-sweet. But it would almost be stealing to take that one, sure! and Uncle Ben would miss it the first thing, too.”
“I s’pose he would,” said James, “and then there’d be a row. It won’t do to take that one. I tell you what, Bobby, we won’t take any of ’em now, but we’ll come to-night, after dark, and then there won’t be any danger of anybody’s seeing us. Of course it won’t be stealing; but Uncle Ben’s just mean enough to make a row about it, I s’pose, if he should happen to find it out.”
“I guess he would,” said Bobby. “I shouldn’t want to have him see us, anyhow.”
And so, not to run any risk, they concluded to wait.
When it was night they came again, and sat together upon the same fence, listening for a time for sounds of any others who might be approaching, before they got down to select their melons. All was still, and, feeling secure from detection, they got down and began to search among the vines. They could tell by rapping upon the melons which the ripe ones were, and it was not long till they had made their selection, and were scudding away, each with a melon almost as large as he could carry, along the fence towards Uncle Ben’s corn-field, which was still farther from his house.
When they got to the corn-field they felt safe, and, as the melons were heavy, they concluded to eat one before going further. So they sat down in a nook of the fence—a Virginia rail-fence, as we used to call that kind—and Bobby took out a knife that he thought a great deal of—because his Aunt Hannah had given it him, and it had his initials on a little silver plate set in the handle—and in a moment more they were eating and praising the delicious melon.
“Of course ’tain’t stealing,” said James Scott, as Bobby again brought up that question. “Uncle Ben always does have better water-melons than anybody else, and he can’t expect to have ’em all to himself. What’s the use of living in a free country, if you can’t have a water-melon once in a while? Help yourself. Bobby—but don’t eat too near the rind.”
Bobby helped himself,—though he could not help thinking all the time that it was to Uncle Ben’s water-melon,—and the boys filled up, gradually, till they could hold no more. Then each had a great shell that would have almost floated him, had he felt like going to sea in it, and the question was, what to do with them.
“Let’s tuck ’em under the bottom rail,” said James; “they won’t be noticed there.”
So they tucked them under the lower rail—a broad, flat rail that seemed to have been made on purpose to cover them—and then they both got straight up on their feet to stretch themselves. In the same instant they both started suddenly, and took to their heels.