“S-h-h!” said the red-headed boy, as Uncle Ike thumped the melon with his hard old middle finger, to see if it was ripe. “Don't say a word. Let's get it inside the house, quick, and you carve it, Uncle,” and they brought it in and laid it on the table, and the boys looked down the street as though they were expecting some one.
“We never used to ask any questions when I was a boy, when a melon suddenly showed up, and nobody knew from whence it came,” said Uncle Ike, as he put both hands on the melon and pressed down upon it, and listened to it crack. “Do you know, if a person takes potatoes, or baled hay, that does not belong to him, it is stealing, but if a melon elopes with a boy, or several boys, the melon is always considered guilty of contributory negligence,” and the old man laughed and winked at the boys. “But a house is no place to eat a melon in, and a knife is not good enough to cut a melon. Now, you fetch that melon out in the garden, by the cucumber vines, and I will show you the conditions that should surround a melon barbecue,” and the old man led the way to the garden, followed by the boys, and he got them seated around in the dirt, with the growing corn on one side, a patch of sunflowers on another, a crabapple tree on one side, giving a little shade where they sat, and the alley fence on the other. The boys were anxious to begin, and each produced a toad-stabber, but Uncle Ike told them to put away the knives, and said:
“The only way to eat a melon is to break it by putting your knee on it, and taking the chunks and running your face right down into it. A nigger is the only natural melon eater. There,” said he, as he crushed the brittle melon rind into a dozen pieces, and spread it open, red, and juicy, and glorious. “Now 'fall in,' as we used to say in the army,” and the boys each grabbed a piece and began to eat and drink out of the rind, the juice smearing their faces and running down on their shirt bosoms, and Uncle Ike taking a piece of the core in his hands and trying to eat as fast as the boys did, the red and sticky juice trickling through his fingers, and the pulp painting pictures around his dear old mouth, and up his cheeks to his ears, while he tried to tell them of a day during the war when he was on the skirmish line going through a melon patch, and how the order came to lie down, and every last soldier dropped beside a melon, broke it with his bayonet, and filled himself, while the bullets whistled, and how they were all sick afterwards, and had to go to the rear because the people who owned the melons had put croton oil in them.
“Gosh, but this is great!” said the red-headed boy, as he stopped eating long enough to loosen his belt.
“You bet!” said one of the other boys; “Uncle Ike is a James dandy,” and he looked up and bowed to a boy with an apron on, who came into the garden with a piece of paper in his hand, which he handed to Uncle Ike.
“What is this, a telegram?” says Uncle Ike, as he takes it with his sticky fingers and feels for his glasses.
“No, it is the bill for the melon——50 cents,” said the grocer's boy.
“Bunkoed, by gosh!” says Uncle Ike, as he looks around at the laughing boys who have played it on him.
“Don't ever ask where a melon comes from,” said the red-headed boy.
“Sawed a gold brick on me, you young bunko-steerers,” says Uncle Ike, as he wipes his hands on some mustard and feels in his pocket for the change; “but it was worth it, by ginger,” and he pays for the melon, they all go in the house and wash the melon off their hands and faces, the old man lights his pipe and says: “Boys, come around here to-morrow and play this trick on Aunt Almira, and I'll set up the root beer.”